"This is the last one. I can feel two people underneath." Pyrrha opened her eyes, rubbing them and stifling a yawn. Long gashes ran along the side of the building in front of her, right below where the wall gave in. A pair of bodies, one adult and one child, were in the basement. What used to consume all of her focus was as effortless as breathing.
She couldn't help thinking about how easily Ruby had learned astrology, going further than Pyrrha could within months. She flexed her hand, sparks dancing between her fingers that she could both see and feel with her mind's eye.
"I'll get them out," Yang stepped into the building. Green light flashed from the door as she added even more ash to the cloud rotating around her.
Pyrrha shivered because she didn't stop paying attention quickly enough. It felt as wrong as it had the first time, like a diseased flame consuming everything near it. Something about her new senses did not like when Yang did this, but there was no reason for her to bring it up. Not before it was safe.
'Help however you can. But, whatever you do, make sure that it doesn't make Ruby more stressed without very good reason.' Weiss' command for all four of them was still at the front of her mind. There were not many ways to help Ruby directly. The least she could do was wait for a good time and deal with a bit of discomfort until then.
Yang returned with a body over each shoulder. They'd also been torn up by the insect Grimm. One was unconscious and the other had a swollen leg that was not bending the right direction. "They're in bad shape. I'll be back in five. Meet you at..." She drew out the last word.
"The intersection between Barret and Grinn?" Emerald asked and Yang grinned.
Pyrrha double checked her own scroll and confirmed that it was correct.
"Hehehe, I still can't believe they actually renamed it," Yang shook her head and kicked off into the air. With three beats of her wings, she vanished from sight.
"I don't understand the reference." Penny said from behind.
Pyrrha took a breath and looked at the rest of her group. "Shall we?"
"Sure." Emerald shrugged.
"Absolutely." Penny saluted.
Pyrrha had Emerald walk a short distance in front of her, with Penny by her side. They were heading back through an area that had been searched and running to the next section would simply exhaust them. This sort of search and rescue was a mission of endurance, not speed, and her focus was being challenged.
Technically, she was supposed to have slept for a full eight hours in preparation for their second day of searching. In actuality, she'd only gotten around five.
Pyrrha took a large swig of a foul tasting energy drink and double-checked the route back.
Most buildings were old, the sort that wouldn't be out of place in Mistral proper, but with an obvious Valish influence. The buildings which were still present resembled home, in any case. New dirt paths had been created by destroying countless buildings, which still reeked of Yang's fire. In other areas, what had been a road now had houses erected in the middle of it. The unnaturally smooth stone and blackened brass was another sign of Yang's influence. There was no wood anywhere in the construction, just metal and stone that twisted together in the most bizarre way possible. No normal person would be able to do something like that because it had been grown from ground to its final form. Worse were the gigantic iron pillars which, from a distance, looked like unsettling trees clawing at the sky with leafless branches. Each branch had electricity sparking between its end, far above everyone's heads.
At the foot of each tower were four shrines, one for each member of team RWBY. These four were still intact, neither Grimm nor Nora's hammer having noticed them.
Yang's was the most prominent and placed to the East, befitting the image that her people had of their Queen and goddess. Most of her shrines had settled on the black-winged, black-haired form she favored in battle.
Blake's was only slightly smaller and to the South, which Pyrrha imagined would be more than a little uncomfortable if Blake knew about the spiritual associations with it. It was a dual-faced shrine, with books on one side and blades on the other.
Weiss' was the newest, roughest, and placed to the West ,the only association that Pyrrha actually agreed with. It was also unornamented, merely being a statue of Weiss with the Schnee symbol juxtaposed on the moon.
Ruby took the North. Not only was hers the only shrine to lack a face, it was decidedly more war-like than the others with spear heads and spent bullet casings decorating the backdrop.
Emerald stepped to Ruby's and looked down at it. After a bit of time staring at it, she pulled some Lien out of her pocket. "So… how are you supposed to do this...?"
"What?" Pyrrha narrowed her eyes and stared.
"Well, the four of them're doing better than other gods and Salem spends stupid amounts of time trying to get people to worship her. If I have to pay my divine tax to someone, might as well be someone who cares." Emerald shrugged and looked at it again. "I've seen what Salem's cults do and I'm pretty sure burning things while dancing around in Grimm masks wouldn't work here."
Pyrrha stared at her, trying to find the words to explain just how wrong everything Emerald had just said was.
"I do not think that is a good idea." Penny stepped past Pyrrha.
"Thank you," Pyrrha released the breath she'd been holding. Those were good first words.
"Supporting cults is bad and we are not supposed to do things which make Ruby stressed. I have forty-three messages referencing how much she dislikes its existence." Penny did not follow through with a good point. While Pyrrha knew that Ruby once held similar feelings to Ren and Nora, the existence of such a shrine meant that she must have changed her mind.
"I-" Pyrrha hesitated, keeping close watch on Penny. "I don't think that there would be any harm in making an offering." Penny frowned, but didn't interrupt. "However, without actual belief behind it, I doubt it would help."
"Hmm," Emerald looked at the shrine for a while, then placed a pair of bills on Ruby's shrine. "Not like it's doing any good right now… Do I burn it?"
"I don't-" Penny began saying something. "You don't need to..
"Burning is traditional, but you shouldn't need to." Pyrrha pointed at the small numbers of items left on the other shrines. "We can ask Ruby how she'd prefer to receive offerings once everyone is safe."
"She is not going to want any…" Penny grumbled quietly.
Yang stepped through the side door of the warehouse they'd turned into a makeshift hospital. It was a block away from the city's only clinic, which was more than full already. Rows of beds and tables stretched from wall to wall with just enough space for two people to walk by in between them. The very few doctors they had were focused on the side she'd come in on.
"Two critical inbound, blood loss and dehydration. Mother and daughter, I think." Yang announced as she slid the first of her pair onto a table with a thin blanket. Her leg had been crushed by the rubble, not an injury that Ruby could help with. One of their doctors and a pair of teenagers ran over with half of a blood bag and an IV tube that had been recently patched. "Did we run out again?"
"Yes, Lady Yang." Doctor Char bowed his head to her, hand briefly making a sign of grasped fire over his heart before 'flinging it into the air' like a fireball that would then explode into a pretty green flare. She'd done that once or twice to show off, but it still stuck with her entire cult. "Needles and tubing."
"Give me a moment." Yang placed the other patient down and drew upon the cloud of debris orbiting her. She pictured a proper IV in her mind while the compressed particles moved next to an empty stone table. Thin needles of shiny titanium began forming with all of the holes from the design she'd looked at. Next came a long line of plastic tubing that would fit the needles. Her gathered cloud of material was devoured so much faster by anything besides metal, but this needed to be flexible. It was almost gone by the time she had about forty yards. The very last bit went to more bags. "That should get you going."
"Thank you," He bowed again and got to work.
"Do you know where Ruby- Er, I mean, Doctor Rose is?" Yang glanced around, her sister was nowhere to be seen.
"I believe she was meeting with Lady Weiss." Char nodded towards the offices as he set up the IV.
"Gotcha, take good care of them." Yang waved as she walked past. He bowed his head, hands too busy to sign.
Their beds were covered with people awaiting Ruby's attention. Yang checked a few of their mid-priorities as she made her way back. She stopped by one bed that had a pool of blood forming underneath. It was in the "stable" section. An older man had pulled his stitches open despite the tendons in his arms and legs being severed. According to the paper at the end of the bed, this was the second time.
"Hey," Yang snapped her fingers in front of his face. "You with me?"
No response, but he was still breathing.
"Marigold! Get over here with a burn kit!" Yang shouted at one of the nearest people running around. She was a Pharos Academy graduate who'd failed to get into a Hunter Academy, but merely having taken classes on basic wound care made her one of the best that they had. It took just long enough for Yang to pull the man's gown to the side and start cleaning up around the wound for her to arrive. "If he's pulled them this much, I'm going to cauterize it closed. Move him up to high-priority for Ruby to fix."
That was the only 'good' thing they'd found. Ruby could heal any damage Yang did, even if it was damage meant for healing. She could close wounds reliably and then both what she did and what the Grimm did to open the person up was removed. With a burst of green flames, she permanently sealed the wound until he could receive her sister's attention.
"Thanks, you handling everything alright?." Yang smiled at Marigold.
The woman sighed, bags under her eyes clearly visible. "I'll be fine, Lady Yang."
Yang nodded and headed for the back with a bottle of rubbing alcohol in hand and a small package in the other. No one else needed her direct attention and that was a godsend. She held the bottle under her nose.
Drink it.
"Shut up," Yang muttered as she opened the door to… something.
Weiss had a Faunus man with torn off ears on the table and she was… running her fingers along his chest. Where they pressed his body shifted unnaturally. She drew them from belly to his head, making his cheeks swell, then finally to the ruined ears. With careful movements, she drew more skin from the stumps and pulled the clump of flesh up to reform them.
Ruby had her eyes closed, head leaning against the wall in the corner of the room. "That fixed some of it, but the deep damage is still there."
"What deep damage? Nerves? His eardrums?" Weiss got to work on the second ear.
"Probably? I'm not sure."
Weiss snapped her fingers in front of her patient's eyes and spoke louder. "Can you hear that?"
The man's ears flattened and raised, but he shook his head.
"Drat," Weiss looked up from her work and smiled at Yang's wave. "Hey there. He's all yours Ruby."
"Got it." With a wave of her hand, Ruby undid every injury on the man.
"I can hear now!" He shouted, hands touching his ears. "But, something feels different."
"I can't undo the work Weiss did." Ruby blinked several times, her head nodding forward during the last one. "But all of your wounds from the Grimm should be healed."
"I don't know what to say." He stood up tentatively, then immediately dropped to his knees. "Thank you for this blessing. Lady Weiss, Lady Ruby... I'll… I don't know how to..."
"If you have the energy, go to the front of this building and ask about which search and rescue team to join," Weiss said. "That's the only gratitude we need."
"Of course, thank you." He hurried out of the room after bowing to Yang as well.
"Sooo, that was a... something." Yang placed a pair of Atlas 'Field Meals' on the table. "Also, I'm betting you two haven't eaten since… eight? When did we get up."
Ruby tentatively looked at the silver package. From what Yang had heard, overly salted bland was the best option for those.
"Yours has cookies?"
Ruby squinted at the package. "They call those things cookies, but that's a lie."
"I could zap you and let you eat rocks." Yang popped one of her favorite berries into her mouth.
After a moment, both of them nodded. "Please."
Yang snapped her fingers and gave them her blessing through small green flames wafting over them. It wasn't something they could use on the entire city, but two people would be fine. "So, what was that?"
Weiss took a breath. "I was attempting to heal him. If I had succeeded, then we'd be able to heal everyone at least twice as quickly."
Both of them looked back to Ruby. She'd leaned on the table, eyelids fluttering open and closed. There were no bags under her eyes… or any of team RWBY's… but none of them had as much weight on their shoulders as the only person who could fix all of the injuries.
Yang took a long breath, exhaling slowly. "So, what now?"
Ruby dropped her head to the table. "Weiss has some… ideas."
"Some is an understatement." Weiss pulled her scroll out and showed Yang a lot of numbers. "I've run rough ideas for a variety of solutions to the current problem."
"And why didn't you lead with them?" Yang could practically hear the other shoe dropping.
'Blake, are you in range?' Weiss' voice rang out in Yang's head, already confirming that Blake was back.
'Just got back. Two more boxes of antibiotics.' Blake replied.
'We're showing Yang my plans.'
'This isn't making me less concerned.' Yang thought. If she knew how to mentally roll her eyes, she would've.
The first column shown had 'Ask Atlas for help' as a title. It dramatically lowered the number of people in the dead column. A couple of letters and numbers were peeking in from the next, but Yang couldn't make it out.
'So… Why is asking Atlas first on the list?' Yang wasn't necessarily opposed to that, but they did just try to kill her.
'Our worst problem is lack of manpower. Even with the number of people we've already gotten up, we won't find everyone before deaths by dehydration begin. Even if I had been able to heal people too, we would be doubling the number of active bodies at best.' Weiss pointed to a cell marked 'rescue workers'. 'Asking Atlas should give us enough to get over that particular hump.'
Yang frowned. 'They just tried to kill us in the middle of a Grimm attack. We're just going to let them waltz in?'
"The attack was one Huntress jumping at the chance, but I already told her that," Ruby grumbled under her breath. 'I don't think it's all of Atlas who's mad at us, just most of them.'
'You really think they'll help after everything we've done to them?' Blake sent a series of images to them: broken Atlas transports, injured specialists, crates labeled "Atlas Military" stacked up in their warehouse.
'We'll need to talk to them and clear the air regarding all of that eventually.' Weiss sighed in the room. 'There will be… challenges, but we need more people finding survivors. If we don't get help, we're doomed.'
Yang frowned at Weiss. Wasn't saying that exactly the sort of thing that would make Ruby feel worse. Also, Atlas… really? There had to be someone else who could he-
"Please!" Emiran, now an old man who she had not seen for the better part of two decades, begged from his knees. "While we debate going to war, the Wasting is still ravaging the eastern provinces. We must find something to take care of them fir-."
"The Wasting is obviously Four Faced Raven's work." Ivory Tsunami, her finest commander, cut him off. "While he is a vile, duplicitous beast, he is no fool. He would not unleash a plague like this without a countermeasure."
"Majester Viridian cou-"
"Viridian will still remember how I gutted him in his own ballroom." Tialeth spat. "What aid would he possibly provide?"
"You Eminence... Grandmother… please." Emiran bowed his head down to the floor, almost falling in the process. Mortal bodies grew so feeble with age. "While I do not doubt that he remembers, he is still a man of great compassion and that happened when I was just a boy. He has also been an enemy of Four Faced Raven for much longer."
Tialeth spun the wine in her cup while she considered her fellow Solars. Who else had Viridian's skills... Who else could she ask to make sure he didn't make matters worse.
Yang blinked several times, then looked back up. 'If we're going to ask Atlas, we should ask Vale too.'
Weiss squinted at her, pursing her lips. 'Why Vale? They are, if anything, the only Kingdom with more reason to hate us.'
'Weiss, I love you, but you're in deep with Atlas.' Yang kicked her feet up onto the table and stared at the ceiling. 'Look, Vale's never liked how Atlas does things and even though Atlas is fighting us right now, we're still a short airship ride from Vale's borders. If we need to make peace with Atlas, why not add Vale to the list?'
'Vale's… better… but I still don't think they'd actually help. The Menagerie would be… not quite happy to help us, but enough of them would chip in if they could.' Blake added before anyone else could respond. 'Even if we're Anathema, we've also been rejected by the same people.'
'Even if they'd be happy to help. They're too far away for our timescale and have fewer resources.' Weiss responded.
Yang mostly ignored Weiss there. 'Sure, we can talk to them too. Though we'd probably want Mistral first since they're closer.' Yang thought back. Then slapped her forehead a moment later, once she realized some of what Blake meant. If anyone would be willing to help them, it would be the Faunus, who were persecuted as monsters because of how the Silver Anathema worked. 'Crap, right. We really should've talked to them sooner.'
'We were busy preparing to fight Atlas.' Blake verbally shrugged.
'Do they have any of their own airships? Because that would be news to me and if not then we would need one of the kingdoms to fly them in,and Atlas to not shoot them down.' Weiss put the scroll down in front of Yang. 'Without their approval, we won't get anywhere.'
'Plan "talk to everyone", should include Vacuo even if I don't think they'd get here in time, but we should still include them?' Ruby asked.
'Sure.' The others responded.
Weiss tapped her scroll again. 'Which brings me to our second problem. Despite my best efforts, I'm not able to fix people like Ruby can. Even if we get them to safety, it will still be weeks, if not months, before they're all healed.'
She took a moment to look at Ruby. 'Are you certain you want to be here for this?'
'I already know what's going to happen.' Ruby lowered her head, then pointed at the scroll. 'It's important that I'm here.'
The next column on Weiss' spreadsheet began with "Sum". Yang touched the screen and tried swiping, but Weiss' finger stopped her from revealing what the next plan was. 'Weiss.'
Weiss lifted her finger up and placed her hand on top of Yang's. 'Yang, I want you to know that this is the result of considering every possible option we have available and my best guess on their relative effectiveness.'
'I really don't like the sound of that.'
'You shouldn't,' Blake thought.
Ruby groaned, but didn't say anything.
'The rest of you already know what this idea is.' Yang pressed down harder.
'Punch her.'
'Shut up!' Yang mentally shouted. 'Oops, sorry.'
Weiss slowly lifted her hand. 'I asked Ruby and Blake about it first because I knew you would react to it-'
Yang swiped to the side and saw red. The title of the next column was "Summon Demons with Magical Healing Abilities".
'-badly.'
"What the actual fuck!" Yang's heart pounded in her neck. "Why would you even consider-"
Weiss' glare pierced into the depths of her soul. A frigid wasteland with neither compassion nor remorse reflected in her eyes, so cold it quelled some of her flame… even if it wasn't doused completely. "Because we have thousands of lives at stake and I had to consider every possible option. I have not done this yet, just estimated the impact if I did."
'What happened?' Blake asked.
'Yang looked at the plan.' Ruby sounded so small.
'It's a bad plan.' Blake continued.
'No shit! It's the worst idea I've ever heard!' Yang shouted loudly enough that Ruby winced.
'It isn't… the worst plan.' Yang's traitor sister responded.
'In what possible world could that ever be a good idea?!'
'The world where we live, where people were maimed by the Grimm so badly that they can't function and only one of us can heal them.' Weiss's tone was just as cold as always.
'So you let them live, but corrupt them? Steal their souls? How is that better?'
'One, there is some amount of compulsion that I can enforce on them due to how the spell func-. Weiss began.
'Doesn't help.'
'Two, I am certain that either you or Ruby could easily kill any demon that stepped out of line. Even without a magical compulsion, I assume that they have some sense of self-preservation.'
Yang crossed her arms and glared at Weiss. 'Blake?'
'She's telling the truth, as far as she knows it.' Blake tentatively thought. 'I still don't like it and will only consider it if you approve, Yang. This would mean confirming every stereotype about us and Anathema myths.'
Weiss took a deep breath. 'Blake, I'm not capable of saying this nicely, but the three of you are already doing that. If someone reported that these injuries were your fault, very few would question it and of those who did, they would only question your involvement, not Ruby or Yang's. You three took over a city, rebuilt it in your image, and have everyone left in it worshiping you as gods.'
The silence was palpable.
'Is that why Ren and Nora are mad at me again… more?' Ruby asked.
'It's primarily the third. The two of them thought you might be better, then they saw all of the cult statues.' Weiss held a finger up when Ruby was about to interrupt. 'I know that you don't like it, because you've told me, but someone who looked at how your people are acting wouldn't believe you for a second. The only reason I even remotely expect Atlas will be willing to help is that their upper leadership knows that Salem exists.'
Ruby dropped her head to the table.
'If we wind up going with any of these plans, I'm going to ask Ren and Nora, along with Penny and Pytrrha, for approval as well and will try to convince them of Ruby's feelings.'
'Why?' Yang raised an eyebrow. 'I mean, yeah, they're our friends, but I'm pretty sure they'll take my side on this, so why would you?'
'There are numerous issues with us doing everything without consulting others. Optics are obvious, but the least concerning in all honesty. I also promised to bring them in on any major decisions, which all of this counts as.'
'I'm actually all for getting their input.' Blake thought.
'I'm still not okay with any plan that involves summoning demons.' Yang grumbled.
'Yang? Ruby looked at her, eyes glistening slightly. I think we have to. At least, if we want to save more people… Umm Isn't one of us being able to kill the demons if they do bad things enough? Anyone can call me and I can just sic the Grimm on them.'
Yang frowned at her.
'I mean, I think killing demons is what the Grimm bugs do normally anyway…' Ruby lowered her head. 'I also looked into the future a while ago and… I've known that we were going to have to do this, summon demons, at some point. This feels like a time where it can do good.'
Yang waited for a moment, grinding her teeth. If Ruby really saw that they were going to summon demons… then that was going to happen at some point. And Blake wasn't saying anything about that being a lie. Fuck. According to her memories, Weiss was right about demons being bound to follow specific commands and also being easy to kill. Bringing them into the world was… evil, terrible, exactly what Anathema always did and they were better than that…
Fuck, they were stuck between a rock and a hard place.
'How many people?' Yang held her eyes shut.
'What?' Ruby looked up.
'How many people would doing this save?'
Weiss moved her scroll to the next column. It was labeled "Do Both". A zero was missing from the end of the death tally. Over ten times as many people would be saved.
'I hate this.' Yang turned away and opened the door. 'Talk to Ren and Nora. If they -and also both Atlas and Vale!- are fine with it… Then I'll...' It felt like she was going to be sick. 'I won't immediately kill whatever you summon.'
You're sure?' Blake asked.
'If Weiss is right about how many people we'll save… yeah.' Yang slammed the door behind her. 'I'm gonna go back out.'
A/N: This was a tough chapter thanks to everything going on in the world right now. Hoping that the next few will be easier to get out.
