Sleep comes easy to Yang that night, easier than it has in a while. Pre-fight jitters haven't come to her in years, and with a whole army between her cot and any Grimm, there's no need for shifts or alertness. Kicking off her boots, pulling off her armor, and sinking under scratchy sheets has never felt so good. She dreams, but never wakes, black and gold replacing the blood red that sometimes has her bolting upright in the middle of the night, a scream barely stifled in her throat. It's the greatest mercy the universe has ever granted her, on the eve of her return to the land that had once cost her nearly everyone she'd loved, but she figures such mercies are long overdue, in the grand scheme of it all. She will take this one night without looking back, and not feel guilty for the gift she's been given.
If there is a cost, it's only in the form of Ruby, staring suspiciously at her as they strap into their gear in the low light of dawn. Around them, the base is in a panic, the sounds of last minute preparations and the terror of first time soldiers flooding the air around them, but all of it spills off them, rain on sealskin, a thick coat of experience dulling the natural fright into something manageable.
"You were asleep when I got back last night," Ruby says, slow and careful, like she's found a Grimm napping belly-up in the sunlight and isn't quite sure how to proceed.
"Yup." They'd gotten replacements for the more battered pieces of their gear — the bits of it that weren't custom made — and Yang dons it all now; armor is worthless against the piercing tentacles of the Mimics, which only aura could deflect, but it could keep the standard Grimm from tearing out something vital while focusing on the biggest threats.
"You just — " Ruby's lips twist in interesting ways, an undulating line of pink as she tries to work her way through her thoughts. "You don't normally do that. Especially not since — well. You know. I thought you'd be… different."
"Are you complaining because I'm not a wreck?" Yang lifts her brow as she straightens, stretches out to test the mobility of the new pieces.
"No! No. Of course not." This time, Ruby actually leans in, peering at Yang with narrowed eyes. "I'm just worried you've suddenly gotten a whole lot better at that whole thing you do where you pretend you're fine for my benefit but really aren't fine. I don't like it when you do that, but at least I can always tell when you're doing it." She stares a second longer. "Promise me you haven't suddenly gotten better at it. Or been like… abducted."
"Are those the only two options?"
Ruby throws her arms up. "Well! Maybe! I don't know! You never go to bed early!"
In the midst of her concern, Ruby hasn't put on anything more than her basic clothing (simple red combat skirt and black undershirt) and boots (knee-high, steel-toed, and made of the thickest, black leather). Yang steps forward to help her along, grabbing the thin combat vest off Ruby's cot and dropping it over her shoulders, pulling the straps tight while Ruby sputters in protest.
"Guess all your optimism finally sunk in," she says simply. "Thinking about what happened last time doesn't help anyone. You've been saying so all along, right? That we owe it to the people we lost to focus on the people we can still save, until we have the luxury to do otherwise?"
She takes the armored gloves — heavy and durable but still fingerless — from Ruby's hands and helps her slide them on, one at a time. Ruby continues to stare as she does, eyelashes fluttering with as much speed as she typically does everything, but Yang just smiles, finishing the task with a level of care that serves as a sharp juxtaposition to the rush around them.
"Yeah," Ruby says eventually. "I just didn't think you were listening. Or that one day you'd just like, I don't know, wake up and be all for it! Especially today! It's weird, Yang! I'm weirded out! I'm afraid you've gone into some kind of premature shock or something!"
Yang laughs, just a little, and takes the last item of clothing from Ruby's bed, a battered cloak that her sister would never replace, no matter what fancy new tech might spring into being, no matter how many tears might mar the bright red. Ruby's throat bobs as Yang shakes it out around her shoulders, flipping the fabric out in a dramatic twirl before it settles in place; it's with utmost gentleness that she clasps it into place, fingers resting a moment too long on the pin, thumb brushing too gently against the ridges of the silver rose.
"I'm always listening," she murmurs, too soft for the world around them, but just right for the bubble they find themselves in. "And you're usually right. Isn't that enough?"
She holds onto that feeling as they finish suiting up, when Flynt and Ivori join them wearing full Combat Jackets, excitement breaking through their muted demeanors as they show Ruby how they'd managed to spray paint 'FIRY' in bright red letters on the side of each metal exoskeleton. It's optimism — plain and simple — when Team CFVY slides into place beside them, in mid-debate about Coco's need for a new beret (two for, two against), when she laughs at a cheesy joke about kleptomaniacs one of the soldiers tells as soon as their assigned ship launches out over the sea. She feels good, basically, confident in her abilities and those of her team. She can keep eight people alive, she thinks, and then strengthens the thought into a vow. This time, things would go differently. This time, they would win.
She feels that way right up until the moment a squadron of Lancers rips through the hull of their airship, killing half of them instantly.
-
Yang should have known, really. Three years ago, when their forces had been decimated in this exact spot, they'd all gone in with a similar attitude (this would be it, they could win, they wouldn't lose anyone else). The Grimm had been waiting for them then, too, and they'd learned — too quickly, with far too high a cost — that as bad as the Mimics were, the addition of aura wasn't nearly as dangerous as their new ability of the Grimm (both original flavor and new-and-improved) to coordinate with each other.
This is why the Lancers move as a unit, this is why they're able to lie in wait — disguised by the rocky shores of the Land of Darkness — until the exact moment the airships pass overhead. This is why Yang finds herself with her aura already nearly depleted, leather jacket burned away by the explosion, wiping smoke and sweat from her eyes and trying to make sense of the chaos. A group of winged Beringels descend on the beach where a platoon (half-strength at best) has washed up, an airship crashes into a grouping of purple crystals and catches flame, a grenade tears into the flank of Goliath and sends the soldiers battling around it diving for cover. A thousand places she might help, but her priority remains the same, and she searches (keeping her panic under a firm hand, controlled by only just) until she spots green armor, the man wearing it two-heads taller than those around him, a welcome and distinct beacon.
She takes out Grimm as she goes, smashing through a Griffon with the propulsion of her gauntlets and a well timed roll that places her beneath its vulnerable underside, to which she deploys three charges, rapid-fire. The explosion she leaves behind only helps her move faster, riding the momentum of the strike, but not fast enough. Velvet's on the floor by the time she arrives, though Yatsu's standing guard, blood dripping from underneath his torn armor in a way that will most certainly kill him, but won't slow him down until then. His sword, swung in broad arcs, catches Grimm after Grimm, but the Mimic that Team CVFY has surrounded is smarter, doesn't go in for the direct attack. It's aura absorbs the hail of Coco's bullets, deflects the sharp blades strapped to Fox's arms, and it's movement — inhuman, sporadic jerks of its thick limbs, each one a twisting bundle of black tentacles — only makes injuring it more difficult. There's no sign of Ruby in the mess, and Yang knows she won't get an answer if she asks now; Yatsu hasn't stopped screaming since she arrived, a constant, throat-shattering shout born from rage rather than pain, and Coco and Fox don't once look in her direction.
The next time one of the Mimic's limbs flail out, she darts in between, before it can reach its intended target (Fox's already heavily scarred face); the sharp bone-point deflects off her right arm, but she grabs the whole of it before it can retract, wrapping the slimy mass around her wrist and pulling, tugging the center mass off-balance, firing round after round into the appendage until a black mist appears and then crumbles, dissolving with a hiss. With the loss of its aura, the limb comes off with a few more expended shells and a tug that gains force with the recoil of her gauntlets. Coco and Fox finish the job fairly quickly after that, the center mass of the Mimic's body shredded with bullets enhanced by Coco's semblance, head severed by Fox's blade.
It's insensitive, but Yang doesn't wait; she rushes up to Coco before she can follow Fox in checking on the other two members of their team and grabs the frayed seam at the shoulder of her jacket, fingers curling underneath the light ballistic plating and holding tight.
"Where's Ruby?"
Coco spits on the ground next to her, and when she sneers, her teeth are covered in blood.
"Went towards the Alpha further in. Dunno if she made it. Get off me and go."
Yang doesn't need to be told twice, and doesn't look back to see Yatsu collapse, though she hears his body hit the ground (and Coco's yell — hopeless and pointless — for a medic). She can't worry about it, can't bring herself to care now, not when her concern is so solely focused, not when her sister is all she has left. A rocket flies overhead, smashes into a Nevermore overhead and sends it flying towards the ground. Yang has to dive to escape being crushed, and barely manages it even then; the impact shifts her path, sending her into an outcropping of rocks embedded with purple gems. It hurts. Her aura shudders and she's slow to get up. Nearly too slow to avoid being crushed by the foot of a Goliath, though she rolls and the beast explodes in a shower of ash. A short-lived cheer from the platoon that'd managed the feat lifts her up and she's back on her feet, running again.
It's impossible to hear anything in the cacophony of sound from any kind of distance, but she tries it anyways, yelling Ruby's name into the chaos. She gets nothing in return and keeps pushing inwards, bodies of soldiers as much of a hazard as the uneven ground, each electing the same, bored reaction, both falling into the category of obstacle. (She'll feel it later, she promises herself, and tries to focus on the notion of after that's slipping further and further away with every step.) She makes it a hundred feet further before a hand catches her shoulder, though in her momentum, only the stretch of his Jacket manages to stop her. It's Mateo, the young Faunus they'd shared breakfast with the morning before, and there's blood matted into his hair, his helmet clearly long gone and exposing his horns. He's only able to point — mouth open, but no words yet emerging — before the tentacle of a Mimic tears through the back of his skull, shattering through his face and spraying blood over Yang's. She falls back, catches herself with a blast of her gauntlet, and pushes back in, dodging the first swing of the Mimic's limb with a recoil-assisted twist, and landing a flurry of punches along its side before being ripped away, another Mimic slithering up behind her to assist its fellow, writhing mass of black wrapping around her waist and throwing her across the field. She hits the ground hard, too discombobulated to right herself in time, and her aura quivers again, sharp pinpricks scraping over her skin, like she's rolling along a bed of nails.
Her head throbs as she attempts to stumble upright, and she has to blink several times before she understands the sight that greets her when she manages it.
"Ice, Blake! Moveset forty-two!"
It's an Alpha that they're battling, that much is clear.
Across Remnant, the stories had spread about the Battle at Haven, the sole engagement throughout the entirety of the war where someone had fought an Alpha and survived (and more than that, won). Tales about the woman who'd managed it had become legend, of course, but the stories of the Grimm itself was what other Huntsmen spoke of most. Standing before one now, it's just as Yang had always heard. It looks much like a typical Grimm Mimic: individual strands of inky black coiling tight together in a braid, those braids — each of a unique size and thickness — joining to form limbs, to form the core of its body, to form the extra appendages that could surge around the beast in a deadly wave of sharpened tentacles. It's face is similar, mostly featureless outside of a gaping maw with points of bone and two glowing eyes just above. But the Alpha is larger by double, the ropey strands of shimmering black that comprise its body at least twice as thick, and underneath it all, steady and glowing, a blood-red light shines, a pulsing heart of the monster that had laid waste to so many over the past three years. And taking it on — once again — are the same two women that'd somehow found success in their last attempt, despite it all.
Blake — most of her lightweight armor destroyed, leaving simple fatigues underneath, partially shredded and burned — wields a cleaver-like sword in both her hands, but her movements are almost too fluid for the bulk of the weapon. Yang can barely keep up with her through sight alone, shimming glyphs of white and the smoke of shadow the only signs she was once in a place where she no longer is. Closer to Yang, out of the reach of their opponent, the Atleasian Specialist (Weiss, Yang remembers vaguely) directs the glyphs, clear strain on her face as she conducts the fight and powers the pure-white being next to her, a ten foot tall Arma Gigas that slices down at the Grimm that stream towards its summoner. The woman directs a stream of ice out of the tip of her thin sword, freezing the Alpha in place, a situation Blake takes advantage of (nearly before it's started), sliding underneath the thick legs of the Grimm and slicing a line down its underside in a move that would split in two any Grimm without a aura. In this case, the alpha only grows more furious, digging its claws into the ground and pulling out a chunk of rock as large as a car and hurling it at Weiss. She's forced to dodge — flinging herself to the side with yet another glyph — and it leaves Blake unguarded; with another tentacle, the Alpha rips her out from underneath and tosses her aside, follows it with a strike that's meant to sever the spine, but catches only Blake's shadow clone instead.
With the second hit, she isn't so lucky.
There's no amount of skill that would have allowed her to avoid it; she disappears and reappears in a blink with no discernible way to track her movements, but still, the sharp tentacle of the alpha moves with her, piercing her shoulder as soon as her form solidifies. Blake's aura must have already been low, because the strike tears through her flesh, bone point erupting all the way through, tearing the muscle underneath, spattering blood on the ground underneath her and down her back. The continued force of the impact pushes her to the ground, her knees buckling. She doesn't scream, though Weiss does it for her, the woman's name ripped from the back of her throat before she's swarmed by Grimm again, her summoned knight bracing against the onslaught.
Yang doesn't think.
Her semblance ignites, flames spreading through her hair and licking her cheeks, and she plunges in, a blur of yellow and orange and red. She crosses the distance between her and Blake in a flash, shatters through the tentacle that's still stuck through Blake's shoulder in a single punch. The Alpha's aura cracks, sparks red and then fizzles out, leaving only ash in the area it had once been. It floats down into Blake's hair — dissolving into a similar blackness — and floats down onto her face, speckling the dark brown like freckles. It's not the time for it (there's never the time for it), but Yang looks down and winks, her grin likely a bit too manic in the midst of her semblance to be reassuring.
"It's okay," she says, full of bravado though even then she already knows. "Catch your breath for a second. I can hold it off."
Blake sucks in a loud breath, palm pressing to the gaping hole in her shoulder, face too pale.
"Wait, you — "
Yang doesn't wait.
Her blood burns, boiling under her skin. There's a clock in play here, and it's ticking down too quickly. She darts around the Grimm, firing shot after shot, punch after punch, into its side, skull, legs, arms, underbelly, dodging through waving appendages, razor-ends flying all around her. Even without its aura, the alpha is too big, too strong to take on all at once; Yang is alight, but right now she's alone, and the alpha's claw finds her as soon as her semblance runs out, gold light flickering around her and fading completely as the talons rip a hole through her stomach, puncturing all the way through.
It doesn't stop her, not right away, even as the Alpha pulls her close, lifts her up in front of its mouth — sharp teeth, blood red glow, gleaming black ropes of muscles connecting each half of the jaw to the other — and roars. It's an open invitation to fire a few more shells, right into its mouth, and Yang does just that, until the Grimm clamps down around her right arm, teeth gnashing against the metal, grinding but not snapping (not yet).
There isn't as much pain as she expects. There's a hole in her stomach and the edges of the world are blurring, fading, dimming, but the pain is distant, almost abstract. And there's ash in her mouth or maybe blood or probably both and she knows she's dying, but isn't afraid. The jaws of the alpha have clamped down hard on her arm in victory (maybe even in boast) but when she looks up — meets glowing red eyes — there's an awareness there.
She can tell the exact moment when it realizes: if Yang's to die, she's taking it down with her. It roars, tries to pull back, but Yang grips on by the tentacle that's plunged through her chest, and she grins.
The charges — every single one she has left, dozens and dozens now lining its throat — go off. Her mouth is dry, she's choking, there's a shout, she feels heat and she —
—
— wakes, and it's a Monday.
"Wake up, sleepyhead! We've got to make it to base camp before the briefing starts!"
They've pitched a tent just outside the main control hub for the United Forces of Remnant, right along the northern shores of Vacuo. The sand is rocky there, sharp pebbles digging into the mats they'd laid out the night before, and if Yang had gotten more than four or five hours of sleep a night for the past five years, she might have —
But. No. That's not quite right. She'd slept fine the night before, stretched out on a cot in the middle of the UFR base, taste of vanilla lingering on her lips long after she'd left Blake's mouth behind, a steady stream of optimism filling her veins until —
Or.
No.
They haven't made it to the base yet, though they're not far. It's a two hour walk at most, no Grimm to be found so close to base. They'll play games and make it to the base without incident, walk through the razed field full of soldiers practicing in their Jackets, and eat a breakfast of plain oatmeal. Most likely. Yang can't know for sure. There's no way she could know for sure.
"Hey." She looks up, finds Ruby watching with concern. It makes sense she'd worry, what with Yang staring into the side of the tent, unseeing, brows pinched together as she works through the odd thoughts cluttering her head. "You alright?"
"Um. Yeah." Yang shakes her head again, trying to clear the fog. "Yeah. Sorry. Just —had some weird dreams, I guess. Something about the clear ocean air and the army full of murderous Grimm awaiting us."
"Just another day in p-p-paradise," Ruby sings, tapping out a rhythm on the tarp (which matches no known song in Remnant, Yang's pretty sure, but is still recognizable, a distant memory). "At least it was a quiet night! Maybe that's a sign!"
She sits up, finds her gear, starts strapping it on without thought. Her hands brush over the hole in her stoma — no, the flat of her stomach, covered by a simple, torn tank. Ruby's still staring, mouth slightly open as Yang fails, yet again, to continue the conversation like a normal, sentient being.
"Uh — yeah. I mean. A sign that fifty billion Grimm are — " (She stumbles over her line, remembering and ruining the joke.) "— Are waiting for us as soon as we hit the red shores."
Ruby allows it, though her chipper tone is a little forced, maybe. Not quite as natural as Yang remembers (from her dream — definitely a dream). "But before that… hot rations! And a full night's sleep in beds!" Ruby claps her hands together, the light armor of her gloves muffling the sound. "I don't care what you say; those messengers we met in the last outpost were telling the truth about how good the fish stew would be."
Yang knows now that they hadn't been, but only smiles, pushing the odd thoughts behind her, finishing up putting on her gear and breaking down the tent. Ruby watches her carefully, more attuned to Yang's moods than anyone else on Remnant, but Yang's just as adept at hiding them. She cracks a few jokes (new ones, ones she hadn't dreamt of before, and that calms her, in some way) until they're well on their way, traveling through the rocky outcroppings of the Vacuo shores. And they play a game, just as they had before, just as they always do.
"One day," Ruby begins, as always, "little Suzy Shoeman decided she would go to the store for cookies.
"Unfortunately," Yang continues, like she's supposed to, "on her way there, she was stopped by a giant bear, reared up on its hindlegs in the middle of main street."
"Fortunately," Ruby drawls, the long emphasis on the ending syllable, like it always is, "the bear was only asking for directions. His name was Bartholomew."
"Unfortunately, Bartholomew was asking for direction to a place that didn't exist. And when little Suzy Shoeman couldn't help him find it, he got agitated, letting out a long, horrible growl."
She's reciting the words of someone else — a past self — and the result is the same, a call and response she's memorized in her sleep. The fog of a dream still hangs over her, and that's the easiest explanation as they hold the same conversation, see the same people as they approach the base, and run into the same rude Atlesian (Weiss, Yang knows, but ignores her own thought). It's the only thing that makes sense when — before Ruby can wander off — Yang leads her to the mess without a single false turn. Curious, really, that Mateo still finds them even without the need for directions, bumping into Ruby's chair as she tilts onto the back legs in excitement as Yang pours her sugar packet into Ruby's bowl.
The conversation starts with apologies, but ends up going the same way and Yang spends the duration of it wondering how to wake herself up. She tries digging a spoon into hand, but it feels as it normally does. Her hands look as they normally do. Her stare is so intense that it makes her eyes water, and she has to blink several times to draw herself out of it. (She tries to remember if she's ever blinked in a dream before, but can't recall.)
" — care if it makes me a coward," Mateo is saying (again). " I never want to see one of those things."
"Not everyone has to kill a Mimic," Ruby says, and Yang can picture the kind expression on her face, without having to look up. "Sometimes it isn't the big actions that matter. Not everyone is the Hero of Haven, but everyone plays a part."
"Are you sure?"
It's not her intention to speak. It's not her intention to do anything at all. But then she looks up and Mateo is there, tan skin smooth and untorn (not split open like a jack-in-the-box, tentacle piercing through with confetti made of blood and bone and viscera), grin stretching his mouth (not sagging open in shock), eyes lit up by Ruby's spirit (not cold, not dead), and the words burst forth.
"Yang?"
She ignores Ruby's look, shifts away from the hand that reaches out to her.
"I mean, yeah, everyone has a part to play. But sometimes that part is being fodder for the Grimm and it's just a waste, isn't it? Not everyone is meant for this. Some people will just die. And maybe you should run. Run far away so you don't have to see any of it. Because you deserve better than to end up — "
"Yang!"
It's rare to see Ruby mad. And even now, her concern overshadows it, a thick cloth dropped over the raw surface. If Yang hadn't regretted her outburst instantly, this look would have done the trick, but she had, and so it only adds to the remorse.
"I'm — fuck." Yang sighs, shakes her head and presses her index and middle finger into the center of her brow. "I'm sorry. Don't mind me. I'm just — " She forces a smile. "Ruby's right. Ignore me."
It's not her most convincing work.
Ruby steps in, a flurry of excuses and gentle reassurances, and the boy's shell-shocked expression fades away, at least mostly. He leaves earlier than Yang remembers though (than she dreamt) and with far less cheer. Yang knows what's coming, and rushes through cleaning up her breakfast (mostly untouched) and hurrying them towards the briefing room, stubbornly ignoring Ruby's silver eyes throughout the whole of it. And it almost works. Almost. But then Ruby reaches out — the lightest pinch of the back of Yang's shirt — before Yang can escape, and it's over, just like that.
"Yang," she begins, far too softly. "What's going on?"
They're just outside the briefing, off to the side of the main door, and Yang backs further away, feet scuffing the dry sand and leaving a trail of clear hesitancy. In the seconds of spare time the movement adds, she considers all the ways she might respond (claims of poor sleep, prophetic visions, insanity, and things far crazier), but settles on the truth.
"I don't know." She rubs at her face, gloves scraping against the skin. "I'm sick of watching people die. I don't want to go through that again."
Ruby assumes she means the battle from three years ago; Yang's not entirely sure what she means at all. It doesn't really matter, in the end, because Ruby's hand on her arm, her soft squeeze of her bicep, is enough to make her feel better, regardless.
"I know. And we won't." It's not blind optimism, not any more; Ruby had been like that once, but the years burned it out of her, each death and loss cleaving away the naivety. What's left in its place is something even more impressive: a staunch hope that somehow maintained its strength despite the heavy weight of reality. "We know what we're up against this time and everyone has been preparing for it for years. Not everyone is going to make it, I know. But I refuse to believe anyone is meaningless. I know everyone will help us win. And you know that too." Her shoulders slump at the end, just a little, but she puts on a brave face when she looks back up and offers another comforting squeeze. "Usually."
From inside the building, the sparse chatter cuts off, no longer drifting through the doors each time they're opened (which isn't particularly common in the first place, few willing to risk Ironwood's penchant and preference for timeliness). Ironwood's taken the stage, Yang thinks vaguely, which is exactly the sort of thinking she needs to rid herself of entirely.
"You're right. I know." She places her hand over Ruby's briefly, and drops it with a half smile. "Ever since I had those dreams last night, I've just been — I don't know. Out of it. But you're right. I just lost myself for a second." She forces herself not to rush to the next part, to stay calm and let the smile spread with apparent earnestness. "You don't have to worry, Rubes. I mean, it happens to everyone, right?"
It does, but never to her. Ruby doesn't say this, but might as well, her expression rendering her thoughts transparent. Yang's slipped up too much to reassure so easily and Ruby will be watching her closely now, too closely for someone who needs to be focused on their own wellbeing. This, if nothing else, will be enough to push Yang's thoughts of dreams and premonitions out of her mind; today (and every other). Distracting Ruby is too high a cost and so she won't dwell.
The resolution holds for another thirty seconds, enough time for her to smile again, to muse Ruby's hair until she squirms away. But then Blake Belladonna steps into her field of view and she's lost again, pulled back to a quiet rooftop and a sudden puncture through the shoulder, to soft words and the violent spatter of blood. Her sharp inhale halts her breathing and her heart. Blake looks her way and holds (one second, two seconds, three seconds) before turning away, resuming her walk into the briefing room, keeping pace with the white-haired woman at her side. When Yang's breath returns and her heartbeat resumes, they're both off-kilter, skipping every other mark they're meant to hit.
"Wasn't expecting to see the Hero of Haven at a common meeting with the rest of us," Yang says, before Ruby can question her again. And then, to distract and because it's true, she adds, "She's hotter than I expected her to be."
She's lucky; it works. Ruby rolls her eyes and launches into a familiar, teasing lecture about not objectifying women, and Yang grins and pokes her in the side, and it's fine. Yang sits through the lecture and doesn't wonder why she knows Ironwood speech, carefully avoids the corner of the room where she knows Blake and Weiss stand, acts surprised when Flynt and Ivori are assigned as their temporary partners, and expresses the exact right amount of unexpected pleasure when Team CFVY joins them in training. She's on point for the rest of the day, never once deviating from script, never showing anything that might get her in trouble. Sometimes, she even manages to forget about the things she's locked away.
Except.
Except.
The party starts and Yang doesn't wait, doesn't allow herself to float through the motions without input. She skips the beginning, skips the middle, and fast forwards to the good part, climbing up the side of the command center with a thick bubble of anticipation in her throat.
It bursts when she reaches the top. The roof is empty, no magic in the landscape spread out beneath her, though it's not the view that's changed. It's relief she should feel, rather than disappointment, but the logic doesn't pierce her, no matter how sound it is. Her dreams have been disproven and she should be happy, but she's left with half-memories of a woman she doesn't really know, and feels the loss as she sits down on the ledge, feet dangling downwards.
Except.
Except.
"What are you doing here?"
If her smile is too big when she turns — eyes too bright, posture too buoyant — Blake doesn't comment and Yang doesn't care. She ignores the implications and lets herself sink into the warm feeling that doesn't make any sense, but exists regardless.
"I was just… pulling on a thread."
Blake's nose scrunches in confusion. She looks just as she had earlier — plain canvas pants, basic tactical vest, boots that are a bit too high to be regulation — but there are new things too. Before, Yang hadn't noticed the small, purple emblem stitched into the lower right corner of her vest, or the small nick out of one of her ears, or the barest hint of a scar — far less prominent than the others — running along her elbow. The observation is too thorough, the response too odd, and she half-expects Blake to leave. But instead of dropping back off the roof, she asks the same question she had before:
"Of what?"
"Oh, I don't know." Yang shrugs, but can't keep herself from grinning. "The universe. Sometimes a bit of it unwinds and you have to follow it. Every chance you get."
There's something lovely about the tilt of Blake's head, the question held within, the hint of amusement underneath the surface. This time, Yang waits, catalogues the expression in a growing memory bank, a section of her consciousness devoted to beauty, steadily filling up with Blake.
Improbable, impossible, but here she is again.
"Isn't that cause of alarm? The very fabric of the universe unraveling?"
Her eyebrows twitch, up and then down, so fast Yang might have missed it had she not been so intently focused.
"Nah." Yang leans back, her grin growing lopsided. "It's just fate reaching out, hoping someone will notice."
The indent at the corner of Blake's lips lifts, less than an inch, but to Yang it feels like moving mountains. "And if no one does?"
"I figure it keeps trying."
And maybe that's true. Maybe that's the answer. Maybe sometimes the universe keeps trying until everyone gets it right, breaking the very laws of time to make it so. Blake laughs without much humor, like Yang's told a joke that isn't particularly funny, but she relaxes too, her shoulders dropping enough that the change in posture is noticeable.
"It keeps trying," Blake repeats. "And how does it do that?"
"Well," Yang begins slowly, drawing out the word as she thinks through it. "Don't you ever get that feeling of déjà vu?"
The light from the moon glints off Blake's eyes in a way that makes them look a little too bright.
Maybe Yang is dreaming now. Maybe she's already dead. Maybe she's never been alive at all. Anything might be true, in the odd light of the moon. In the strange space they find themselves in, where time and space seem to sputter and freeze and flex, at random intervals.
"I'm familiar with the sensation," Blake says slowly. "Though I can't say I thought it was the universe steering me along."
Yang shrugs again, unbothered by the dissent. "It's a nice way to look at it though, don't you think? Better a universe that gives you a few chances to make the right choice. Better that than one that doesn't care at all."
With a low hum, Blake finally moves closer, drifting towards the side of the roof where Yang sits. "And if you continue to make the same choice? What if the universe decides it's the wrong one and keeps forcing you to choose? That sounds like a punishment rather than a kindness." Blake looks out at the water, unblinking. "I think I prefer one that's impartial, should it come to that."
"Oh, I think the universe would give up on you, long before that," Yang teases, and gets half a smile.
"Let's hope."
She watches for another second (maybe two), Blake's sharp profile, a pretty picture against the night sky. She wants to tell her that it's easier to forget the false starts if the after works out, but they haven't had that conversation yet.
"You can join me." She nods to the spot next to her, a half tilt of her head to the side. "I promise I won't be a distraction."
They haven't had that one either, but Yang thinks it's okay to cheat, just this once, especially when Blake's forehead pinches again, giving away her curiosity (and her doubt).
"I'm not sure I believe that."
"Only one way to find out."
She pats the spot this time, and Blake acquiesces, her hesitation slight enough that it almost seems for show. She's graceful with her movements, even here, dropping to the ground without a sound, legs folding and then dropping out over the ledge in one fluid movement. Yang watches, entranced, but says nothing, only smiles when caught. Now that she knows to look for it, Blake's once over of her own form is more obvious, and this time, she's aware enough to wink once her eyes return to Yang's. (The blush is hard to spot in the dark, but Yang knows to look for this too.)
"Do you think it's true," Blake begins softly, "that ninety-four percent of all life lives down there, under the water?"
Yang — who can vividly imagine what's to come next — smiles.
-
Yang can't quite manage to sleep, though she makes it back early.
It's not just vanilla, the taste of Blake's lips, and she runs her tongue over her own, trying to sort it out as she lies in her cot. It might be honey or perhaps salt or maybe it's nothing at all and Yang's brain — full of self-preservation — has concocted a mystery where there is none, if only to keep her from looking further into the obvious enigma before her. She's grateful if that's the case, because a preoccupation with Blake's mouth is far more pleasant than considering the state of her sanity and whether or not she's suddenly developed the ability to see the future (or, more accurately, live it). She sleeps, but only briefly, and when she wakes, she spends most of her time debating (with herself) the nature of dreams, and whether it's possible for her to still be dreaming if she'd fallen asleep within it. The mental gymnastics make her head throb until she pushes these thoughts away with physical activity, losing herself in endless sets of pushups that she only stops once Ruby wakes.
"You were asleep when I got back last night," Ruby says, tone cautions as she swings her legs over her cot and levels her full attention on Yang. "Are you feeling any better?"
She debates, too, the level of honesty she should provide, but in the end, she's a bit too tired to argue with herself anymore, and ends up defaulting to what's always the easiest course of action when it comes to Ruby: the truth.
"What would you say if I told you I have a bad feeling about today? That I've had one since yesterday morning?"
Ruby doesn't answer right away, not as she would have done as a child. Instead, she chews on the inside of her cheek, eyes flitting up and down and around Yang's form, as though checking for damages already.
"I would say," she begins slowly, "that you don't usually have bad feelings, unless it's for a good reason. So that means we should probably be careful. Really careful."
She climbs to her feet, brushing the dirt off her palms, and debates again, the same topic revisited.
"On the airship today, make sure you jump when I do, okay? Don't — " (Pain in her shoulder and neck, the explosion tears through the exoskeleton of the soldier across from her, collapses part of his face. The tear of metal rings in her ears after she lands, sand caked in her hair, the taste of salt water on her lips.) "Don't wait until they give the all clear." Ruby doesn't answer right away, and so she asks again. "Alright?"
This time, Ruby nods straight away. "Alright." She smiles, all reassurance. "You know I'm with you, Yang."
And she is, right at her side as they get dressed, join with Flynt and Ivori, and head towards the open field outside the base (the number of airships taking off far too many to fit in the hanger).
"Hey, check it." Flynt flexes and his Combat Jacket follows the motion, showing off the bright red lettering along the shoulder.
"Team FIRY, ready for action!" Ruby shouts, her customary fist pump resulting in laughs all around. "I can't wait to try out some of our new moves. We're going to be incredible!"
She nudges Yang's shoulder, breaking her out of her light trance, brought on by words and conversations she's heard before.
"Right." A weak smile is the best she can do. "Stick together and we'll be fine. Let's… focus on that. Staying together."
"Always an ideal tactic for a team of Huntsmen." Ivori's words are slow and calm; Yang finds she appreciates it more than before, even if he's cut off before he can say more.
"It is too worn," Yatsu says, his voice announcing the presence of Team CFVY before they swing around the corner. "It needs to be replaced."
"It's battleworn," Velvet disagrees, reaching up to brush her fingers along the object in question, the beret sitting artfully crooked atop Coco's head, now a dark grey rather than the black Yang remembers. "It's practically a sign of rank at this point. It would be a travesty to replace it!"
"I'm keeping it." Clearly, this isn't the first time Coco's made her opinion on the matter known, as she spends only a single breath on the argument, instead nodding towards Ruby, Yang, Flynt, and Ivori, waiting outside their assigned airship as their platoons file in.
"There is a hole in it," is all Fox has to say, though the addition of a rude gesture demonstrating his thoughts on holes only leads to Coco raising a brow.
"Is that supposed to discourage me? Do you know me at all, Fox?" Her grin turns wicked. "Though really you should use two fingers there, if you're going for accuracy. Velvet prefers at leas — "
Yatsu turns a bright red, nearly stumbling over his own two feet. "Perhaps we should discuss other matters in polite company."
"Who's polite?" Coco asks, throwing Yang a wink. (She'd replied with a two-finger salute last time — a gesture of solidarity — but finds she can't bear it now, staring at ghosts.)
"Let's go, let's go, let's go!" It's the platoon leader, clearly used to a bit more militaristic order than is on display amongst the Huntsmen before him, but the two groups of four load in quickly enough, jumping or sliding or stepping into the airship, depending on the level of style each feels up to displaying.
Yang's learned that it's best to cover her arms in battles, to take the light armor offered and don her jacket and protect all of her skin from stray scratches or grazing bites, but she feels the goosebumps underneath. Each repeated line sets her further on edge, and by the time they make it to the point in time where the soldier to her right tells her joke about kleptomaniacs and puns and taking things literally, her heart is pounding far too fast to allow for rational thought.
"The platoons are going to jump too late."
She has the presence of mind to address Coco, at least (even as her hand starts to shake), and it goes just about as well as she might have expected.
"What the fresh hell are you talking about, Xiao Long?"
"Yang and I were talking earlier," Ruby cuts in, the start of her lie so smooth, Yang can't anticipate that it'll be a lie at all. "And we're afraid the Grimm will abush us before we hit the DZ. There are way too many rock formations along the shore; they could hide a whole nest of Lancers in there and we'd never see them coming until they were right under us."
Which is, of course, exactly what Yang remembers happening, though she hadn't confessed to Ruby as such. Stupid, really, to not mention all of it from the start, no matter how unsure she is (no matter how crazy it sounds). Her sister understands the shift and pull of battles more than most, enough that she can guess at potential hazards now, even without the same foresight Yang now finds she possesses.
"We should jump before that," Yang continues, on steadier ground once again (if only for a moment). "All of us can cover the distance. What did we learn at Beacon if not to fall, right?"
The airship isn't especially large, and despite the noise spurred by nerves, all of CFVY seems to be paying attention to the situation. Fox tilts his head and Yatsu nods and Velvet presses her fingers to the fabric just above Coco's knee.
"We'll follow your lead," Coco says simply, matter settled in less than three minutes.
It's calming, in a way. She's spent so much time over the past twenty-four hours worried about the state of her sanity (the state of the world, the notion of timelines or dreams or visions) that she somehow hadn't considered the difference she might make, using the knowledge she'd been given. Of course, it's just as likely she'll do more harm than good, that the events she'd seen wouldn't come to pass and she'd be responsible for the death of eight Huntsmen before the battle starts in earnest, but… too late for that now. So much time and still, she finds her decisions to be made at the last minute, spur of the moment choices that could have far reaching effects. Or not. Maybe not. If she knew she would live through the upcoming fight, she'd almost be excited, to be the person who discovers just how concrete fate is, to find just how much wiggle room mortal beings were offered.
These are Yang's thoughts as she hangs out the airship, staring at the distant (but steadily approaching shore), as she tries to remember the timing, as she readies herself for the jump. Ruby presses her palm to the back of Yang's shoulder and that helps, but only for the ten seconds between the gesture and the moment Yang's falling through the air. And then the Lancers are rocketing upwards and she'd been a little too late — just a few beats off — because it takes longer for Ivori and Flynt to release from the clamping mechanisms attached to their Jackets and the explosion that wrecks the airship catches them and —
It's chaos. Still.
The airships she hadn't warned — the ones carrying all the lives outside of the eight she'd taken in hand — erupt in unison, the perfect and horrible timing of the ambush all the more evident without any obstructions; an impressive firework show, if not for the rampant death and the fact that Yang's still in the air among the flaming debris. It rains around her, impossible to dodge, giant chunks of metal that clip her side, send her flying in directions she hadn't intended, and draining her aura in one. It leaves her in only slightly better shape than in her previous attempt (life? dream? she doesn't want to be sure even though she nearly is), but her chances are vastly improved by the collection of Huntsmen at her side, all in condition to stand, at least.
"Ruby?" she asks and reaches, pushing aside the red of her cloak to make sure none of the color has bled into other places.
"My aura's low," Ruby gasps, clearly winded, clutching a stitch in her side. "Had to use my semblance a lot to get out of the mess."
"To get me out too," Yatsu says, placing a gloved hand on Ruby's shoulder. "Thank you."
It's just like Ruby, of course, and it earns her more of the same respect she's gained in every battle they've stumbled into. Ruby will always place others before herself, which means Yang has to place Ruby before anyone else. It's instinct, lifting her gauntlets and stepping between Ruby and any potential threat, and she does it now as they regroup, taking stock of the carnage around her.
"Any other thoughts, Yang?" Coco asks, a new hole in her beret, still glowing red around the rim from the projectile that'd pierced it. "Because the one about jumping early sure paid off."
It's a fair question; none of them are willing to overlook instincts, good sense, or gut feelings at this stage. But nothing looks familiar, not yet. She's on a different part of the beach, at a different point in time, and more than anything else, it's unsettling, like every picture in a familiar room being moved an inch to the right. Next time, she thinks, she'll make smaller changes within the battle itself and work from there. It's a nice resolution until she realizes that this line of thinking involves her dying and magically coming back to life again, which really isn't something a person ought to rely on.
"I don't know," she says. "Stick together. Try not to die."
Coco laughs without humor, but also without blame or bitterness. Her machine gun has already unfolded, and she fires a few rounds into a group of approaching Grimm.
"Seems a good plan. Let's get to it!"
Yang suspects they would have done well, had the crashed airship they'd been hiding behind not been carrying a case of explosives, which catches fire not a second later. The blast drains the rest of her aura and sends her flying a good ten feet, a beautiful trajectory that flings her up and down, right onto a crystal that impales her neatly through the chest.
Die and learn, she figures, will be a very good motto if she wakes up again.
—
She does.
It's a Monday.
(Again.)
It's a Monday again.
"Wake up, sleepyhead! We've got to make it to base camp before the briefing starts!"
Yang rises from her sleeping bag slowly, running a hand down her front with a slow, steady hand, evening out her breathing. Everything's in place, everything's the same, and there's no denying it now; she's rewinding time, repeating a solid twenty-eight hours of her life, over and over. She dresses quietly, the crush of thoughts ruining the early morning banter she's now heard twice over. She's running through the days and cataloguing the information she needs, and it leads to her brushing off Ruby's concerns.
("Just a headache," she says, which is true.)
They pack up quickly, Ruby's eyes on her all the while, and Yang tests herself against her memories. (Ruby will put on her cloak next or we'll hear a branch snap in the distance in a few seconds or Ruby will look out towards the sea and take a deep breath.) It's further proof she doesn't need, but it calms her nevertheless; the inevitability soothes, rather than traps, now that it's crystalized.
"Fortunately, unfortunately?" Ruby asks, like she never has, and this is interesting too, the small differences that even silence can make.
Differences, but no change in the end result, because Yang smiles and nods, and Ruby begins the game as she always does, walking along the seaside, boots crunching against the sand.
"One day, little Suzy Shoeman decided she would go to the store for cookies."
Branches of time itself spread out from the moment, strong limbs of convergence and thin twigs of improbabilities. Yang feels herself at the center of it all and notes the forks, considers the paths she might take, the growth she might cultivate. It's an odd moment to realize the power of infinite possibility, but it cuts her breath short anyways. Here, she might traverse a familiar offshoot, or pass down a new bough, and life itself would have to adapt, move in the direction she dictates.
"Unfortunately," Yang says, her words the same as always, but softer, tentative, a precursor to something new, "on her way there, she was stopped by a giant bear, reared up on its hindlegs in the middle of main street."
And then, flexing her muscles, bending the universe around her, Yang continues, words exactly in time with Ruby's.
"Fortunately, the bear was only asking for directions. His name was Bartholomew."
Ruby trails off towards the end, and Yang finishes alone, voice ringing out louder than it should, challenging the waves for dominance in the arena of sound.
"Yang." It's unnatural to see Ruby go still, but she freezes now. "How did you — "
"Unfortunately," Yang pushes forward, shaking her head. "Bartholomew was asking for direction to a place that didn't exist. And when little Suzy Shoeman couldn't help him find it, he got agitated, letting out a long, horrible growl."
Still standing in her own footprints, tops of her boots covered in sand, Ruby only stares.
"Keep going." Yang swallows. "Just keep going."
Her hesitation is clear, but Ruby eventually does, words slow. "Fortunately, little Suzy knew just what to do and — "
Ruby's voice once more dies out, but Yang finishes for her again. " — gave Bartholomew the Bear a big, friendly hug."
"I was going to say that she freaked the fuck out," Ruby says, not quite hyterical, but higher pitched than normal. "Yang, what's going on?"
"Sometimes things change, if I do things differently the next time around." It's not an explanation, but it's a good precursor, and she sucks in a breath before diving in. "Ruby, something really weird is happening to me."
-
An hour later, Ruby's sped through her 'most pressing' questions, though she promises more, shortly incoming. Yang's already exhausted; explaining the whole of it takes more out of her than she might have thought, mainly because it involves her thinking far too closely about questions like why? and how? and what the fuck? (It boils down to the same answer for all of them: no fucking clue.)
"I mean, you've never died before, so maybe this was always going to happen," Ruby muses at some point, like that's not an absolutely terrifying concept. "Maybe you have like, nine lives. Or something."
"Let's hope for more than that," Yang grumbles. "I've already used up two and based on the state of the beach, I'm gonna need a bunch more before we make any progress."
Which is another terrifying concept. But one that Ruby lets pass without question, a true act of mercy.
"We're just going to have to figure out how to make the most of each life. There have to be big things we can change! Like!" Ruby brightens, eyes widening in her excitement. "If we can convince Ironwood, he can change the attack formation of the entire army! We could avoid the ambush you talked about! Go a different direction on our approach with the airships or even delay the attack to another time. They somehow know we're coming, clearly, which actually makes me think that — " She looks away as she trails off, eyes losing their focus as she stares out at the ocean. It takes her a few seconds to come back to it, but when she does, she only shakes her head. "I don't know. It's not really important. But telling Ironwood could be. We can only do so much with just the two of us."
Yang's thought about this as well, which is why she knows it's a bad idea.
"Okay, I'm not saying I don't trust Ironwood, but…" She bites at the inside of her cheek. "Actually, no, that's exactly what I'm saying; I really don't actually trust Ironwood."
Ruby groans, just a little. "Yang."
"Look, I'm not saying I think he's like, trying to get us all killed by the Grimm, or something. But you know the news that came out of Atlas two years ago wasn't great. What happened to Mantle in that battle… you've said it yourself: he could have done more. They were decimated, but the city of Atlas managed to carry on pretty well."
"I don't think he's some perfect person," Ruby agrees, voice hardening a little. "But he's still the person most equipped to save the most people. I mean, what do you think he's going to do?"
Kicking up a bit of sand with the toe of her boot as they continue to walk through the dunes, Yang offers a shrug. "Not believe me, most likely. But okay, even if he did. Even if he totally, one hundred percent believed that I could turn back time and restart a battle, what do you think is more likely, him letting me — a random Huntress that he has absolutely no control over — keep carrying on directing the flow of battle from memories no one else in the world can confirm? Or that he'd lock me away in some secret military compound and run endless experiments on me until he and Atlas scientists figured out a way to take that ability and place it some sad sap who would follow his every command?"
Ruby's silence says enough, and her doubtful tone when she responds says the same, though her words are less certain. "He wouldn't."
"You really think Ironwood wouldn't do whatever it took to win? On his terms?"
For another few minutes, Ruby chews on her bottom lip, but eventually, she nods, looking upset over things Yang never liked making her contemplate. Ruby knew the state of things as well as she did, but she'd always been more likely to give people the benefit of the doubt, until the cold facts were in. Yang, not so much. Not any more.
"So we do it on our own," she says, slowly at first, but with picking up confidence and speed. "Just the two of us."
"Like always," Yang agrees, and wishes the statement held the same burst of pride it'd had when they were kids, before they'd lost the people they'd let in.
"Like always." Her shoulders lift, her smile brightens, and Yang feels a little spark of hope, somewhere deep in her chest. "We've got this!"
—
(They don't.)
—
"Wake up, sleepyhead! We've got to make it to base camp before the briefing starts!"
(She tells Ruby, she takes her straight to the mess, she skips the briefing, they develop new movesets based on what she remembers, she finds Blake on the roof of the command center, they jump out of the dropship before it explodes, they fight together, they take down four mimics and ninety-one Grimm, Velvet lives, Flynt dies, Ivori dies, Mateo dies, she dies.)
-
"What if there's a whole civilization down there? Like, little blue dudes sipping on pure oxygen and getting high and like, laughing at how fucking stupid we are for not just getting out of the way of all these Grimm."
She's switching it up today, exhausted by discussions of fate and missing Blake's laugh. She gets both when Blake responds, the flash of her teeth starting a spark that catches and burns a trail through Yang's veins.
"Little blue dudes?" Blake repeats, and the phrase sounds so ridiculous coming from her lips, that Yang joins in the laughter.
"Or maybe super intelligent turtles!"
One of Blake's eyebrows lifts, on the same side of the curl of her smirk. "Super intelligent turtles and little blue men? Really?"
Yang tsks, and leans back, waving a hand down her front. "Blake, look at me. Do you really need me to have a degree in some kind of science shit on top of this?"
She switches it up, but the end result is the same; ten minutes later, Blake's mouth is on hers, burning away all the rest.
-
"Wake up, sleepyhead! We've got to make it to base camp before — "
(She doesn't tell Ruby, she sticks to the script, she finds Blake on the roof of the command center, they jump out of the dropship before it explodes, they fight together, they take down two mimics and forty-seven Grimm, Velvet dies, Flynt dies, Ivori dies, Mateo dies, she dies.)
-
"Not everyone has to kill a Mimic," Ruby is saying to the boy across from her, his wide eyes reminding Yang of the moment she'd seen him die. "Sometimes it isn't the big actions that matter. Not everyone is the Hero of Haven, but everyone plays a part."
She's supposed to stick to the script, but she never manages it; Mateo is doomed, she knows, but she has to try. Sometimes it isn't the big actions that matter, and so she has to try.
"But if you see one, don't turn your back on it." (He'd looked away for only a moment, and it'd torn a hole in his skull.) "Keep your eye on it. Don't look away."
-
"Wake up, sleepyhead! We've got to — "
(She tells Ruby, they don't go to the base until that night, they develop new movesets based on what she remembers, she finds Blake on the roof of the command center, they jump out of the dropship before it explodes, they fight together, they take down four mimics and one hundred and two Grimm, Velvet dies, Flynt dies, Ivori dies, Mateo dies, she dies.)
-
"Thirty-two seconds and then run," she reminds Ruby. "Two Grimm pass, but if we go out to fight them, we die. Twenty-eight seconds."
"I've got it." There's blood on Ruby's face. There's always blood on her face. "Slide under that overhang and then wait. I remember."
Yang hadn't gotten the timing quite right last time — just a couple seconds off — but today they'll go further. She counts off, careful and steady and sure. Today, they'll save more.
-
"Wake up, sleepy — "
(She tells Ruby, she takes her straight to the mess, she goes to the briefing, they develop new movesets based on what she remembers and incorporate Flynt and Ivori into the mix, she finds Blake on the roof of the command center, they jump out of the dropship before it explodes, they fight together, they take down seven mimics and one hundred and seventy-nine Grimm, Velvet lives, Flynt lives, Ivori dies, Mateo dies, she dies.)
-
When she's removed from Team CFVY, Velvet is quieter than Yang remembers, which is saying a great deal, given how quiet Yang remembers her being. But today she speaks, right before boarding the airship, stepping away from the teasing of the rest of her team.
"It feels like we've been here before," she whispers. "Doesn't it? Only three years ago?"
She seems startled when Yang replies, as though she'd been posing the question to only herself.
"You could say that." She's too tired for her voice to hold all the irony the statement deserves, and so she just sounds sad. It takes her another moment to realize this is something new, and she straightens up from the slump she hadn't noticed she'd fallen into, curiosity taking hold. "But why did you?"
Velvet shakes her head, and Yang doesn't push. She doesn't need to, either, it turns out, because she looks back after only a step towards her team, waiting on the airship.
"You looked how I felt," she explains, voice still so soft. "And it's lonely, thinking you're the only one that remembers."
I am, Yang nearly says, but watches her walk away instead.
-
"Wake u— "
(She dies, she dies, she dies.)