A Long Way Home
Chapter 3
Day One: Morning
An hour later, freshly supplied and their stomachs full, they made their way to the academy landing pads. They saw their pilot doing exterior checks on the Manta.
"Miss Schnee and Miss Rose?" she asked, pulling herself away from the engine, quickly glancing at the pre-flight checklist in her hand.
"That's us!" Ruby replied brightly with a friendly smile.
The pilot nodded crisply, "I'm Lynn. I've just got a few more checks to make; The two of you can go ahead and find seats in the hold, we'll be underway shortly."
The two girls nodded and went up the cargo ramp. The vast majority of the hold was taken up by their snowmobile. It was standard, white military issue, with room for two to ride on it. Hitched to the back was a large sled, stacked high with crates and boxes of supplies, all secured in industrial netting. It barely left enough room in the Manta for them to sit on the seats near the cockpit. The two girls scooted past their cargo, sat, and strapped in.
"Oh darn." Ruby said disappointedly, "I just realized, we won't be able to go stargazing with Penny tonight…I'll shoot her a text and let her know." she said, pulling out her scroll.
Weiss nodded, equally disappointed, "That's a shame, I like Penny. Oh, I'll let Yang and Blake know that they'll have the dorm all to themselves tonight." Weiss chuckled to herself as she typed, "You think they'll use the opportunity to finally tell each other how they feel?"
Ruby snorted with amusement, "Doubt it. BOTH of them are almost as useless as you are at picking up subtle hints." she said, playfully sticking her tongue out at the older girl.
"Hey!" Weiss said indignantly, "As I recall, I was the one who confessed to YOU."
Ruby made a show of thinking for a moment, "Did you? The way I recall it, it was more of a mutual agreement that we had feelings for each other and should date."
"Oh shush." Weiss retorted, "I was the one who initiated the conversation because you were being a scaredy-pants."
"Touché." Ruby conceded with a soft smile, settling into her seat, happy to let Weiss have her 'victory'.
The pilot slipped into the craft, "The flight time will be about thirty minutes so you two can go ahead and get comfortable." She headed for the cockpit and fully powered up the craft. A few minutes later it lifted off for it's destination on the tundra, passing over Atlas and then Mantle on its way out.
Weiss slipped her hand into Ruby's and gave her a warm smile, which was gladly returned with a squeeze of her hand. The white-haired girl rested her head on her partner's shoulder and closed her eyes. Ruby softly kissed her forehead before settling in and closing her own eyes as well.
Sometime later, the two girls were woken from their light doze by their comms crackling in their ears. "Miss Schnee, Miss Rose, we're about two minutes out from the base, and preparing to do our flyover. I've noticed…" the pilot paused, "It's just a hunch, would the two of you come up here please?"
Weiss raised an eyebrow at Ruby who shrugged in response. They shimmied past the snowmobile and entered the cockpit, peering at the controls and the tundra outside the window.
"The amount of Grimm the base reported would leave signs of them being there, even if they'd already moved on." the pilot explained, she gestured out the window, "But the snowpack out there is undisturbed, and there hasn't been any snowfall for days."
Ruby frowned, "So what are you saying?"
"I'm saying that this is a waste of time for all of us," the pilot replied, an edge of annoyance in her voice. "This could have been an airdrop, which is not my department, and now there's no Grimm for you lovely Huntresses to kill. Just the usual case of bad intel." she shook her head exasperatedly.
Weiss frowned, things didn't add up here, "Where's the base?"
"Coming into visual range now," the pilot replied, "the morning flurries made visibility very low." A worried tone snuck into her voice, "Is that smoke?"
A column of black smoke rose from the plain. As they flew over it, they could see that the outpost was little more than a smoldering crater with debris scattered around it in all directions.
"That's no Grimm attack." Weiss said quietly.
Suddenly the three women were thrown to the side as the Manta lurched; the control yoke jerking itself out of the pilot's hands, as the craft was sent into a spin.
Ruby and Weiss braced themselves against the seats as the craft veered wildly. Looking down, Ruby saw a weird static flow across the holographic HUD, the ship's systems clearly compromised. The pilot managed to grab a hold of the stick, but the craft seemed to actively resist her efforts to get it back under control.
"Get to your seats." the pilot managed to grunt out, "And strap in."
Ruby and Weiss quickly moved to do so, but the craft again lurched violently, sending them crashing to the deck. The spin of the Manta intensified, sending them sliding to the back of the craft. They crashed into the rear cargo hatch in a tangle of limbs.
Their comms came to life again, "Brace yoursel-" there was a massive jolt and their world went black.
Ruby woke with a start, an acrid stench filling her nostrils and her head pounding. She blearily stared around the cargo hold, shaking her head and trying to get her bearings. The crash had scattered the contents of the cargo sled all around the hold, with some of the bigger crates blocking access to the cockpit. The snowmobile itself was tipped on its side, it's skids bent and armor dented. Much of the cargo was gathered against the left side door, a lot of it smashed and damaged, indicating to her slowly recovering mind that the craft was on an angle, the left side embedded in the snow.
She heard a soft groan right next to her, quickly looking, she spotted the crumpled form of her partner. "Weiss!" she said loudly, gently shaking her, "You ok?"
"Ugh." Weiss groaned, "Definitely not, this is going to hurt for a while." She rubbed her shoulder.
Ruby glanced around, finally locating the source of the smell invading her nostrils: a sparking electrical panel had caused a small fire. A small puddle of liquid was moving from the crashed snowmobile, creeping slowly towards the fire. Not waiting to find out whether the liquid was flammable or not, Ruby leapt up and found the nearest fire extinguisher.
Ruby sprayed down the panel and the fire as Weiss sat up, pressing her hands against her temples, "Ohh gods, my head." she moaned, "What happened?"
Ruby's frown deepened, "I'm pretty sure the Manta was hacked, Weiss." she said, "The controls and the dials freaked out right before we crashed, the pilot was fighting it the whole way down!" Ruby saw another fire across the hold and made her way towards it. "Speaking of, can you go check on her please, she might be hurt. And see if we can call for help with the radio." Ruby said, looking at the blocked off cockpit.
Weiss nodded, shakily getting to her feet and making her way to the pile of debris blocking off the cockpit. She staggered a bit, still off kilter from the blow to the head she had sustained but she knew her aura would take care of it momentarily. The view was blocked, so she moved a few crates till there was a hole large enough to look through.
"Lynn?" she called, receiving no response. The area was too dark for her to see through, so she shone the light on her scroll into the hole and what she saw made her gasp. The entire front of the plane was crushed in, the metal and glass intruding into where the pilot's seat would have been. The equipment, including the radio, was smashed beyond all repair or recognition. What little else Weiss could see was splattered with blood. From the sheer amount of it, Weiss was glad she couldn't see the woman's body, no one could lose that much blood and survive. She climbed back down, trying to hide her reaction to what she just saw, but Ruby must have seen the haunted look on her face.
"Is...is she ok?" the younger girl asked hesitantly.
Weiss shook her head sadly, "Lynn didn't make it. Also the radio is completely totaled."
Ruby's face fell as she realized their predicament. Weiss also took stock of the situation: They were all alone on the tundra, who knows how far from their target, with no way to call for help, and their ride home not coming until sometime the next day. It was a bleak situation no matter what way you looked at it.
"This…" Ruby said, staring at the ground, "This was a trap, wasn't it?" She looked at her partner, apprehension on her face.
Weiss' eyes got wide. The bad Grimm intel, the exploded base, their Manta crashing under mysterious circumstances; it was all too much. She nodded, "I don't know if it was for us specifically, but yes, I believe it was…"
The younger girl fidgeted a moment, looking so sad that Weiss was just about to go and comfort her. Before she could, the red-cloaked girl's head snapped up, a determined look in her eyes.
"Well...we can mourn her later," Ruby said, "there still may be soldiers out there who desperately need our help." she sighed a little, "After that, I guess we just stick tight and just wait for rescue. Not like we can walk home!" She noticed the worried look still on Weiss' face. She set the fire extinguisher down and came over, "We'll get through this together Weiss, I promise." she said emphatically, giving her a warm smile.
Weiss returned the smile, glad to have a partner who was able to pull a little light out of the darkness of this situation.
Suddenly a thump sounded from the right door, as someone began to walk on the exposed hull. The two girls whirled toward the sound, as the steps moved across the hatch, starting to search for something.
"A rescue party already?" Weiss asked, cocking an eyebrow, "That was awfully fast."
Ruby frowned, something didn't feel quite right, "I'll see who's out there." she peered through the small window in the hull, her eyes bulged and she gasped as she saw who it was..
"Tyrian!" Ruby hissed at Weiss. The older girl's eyes bulged and she drew her rapier from her belt. Looking back outside, the madman was clearly searching for the hatch's emergency release handle. Ruby's mind went into overdrive; Tyrian was a master of close quarters combat, trying to fight him in here would be a death sentence for both of them.
"Ah ha!" she heard the man exclaim.
"Weiss! I got an idea," she said, forming a desperate plan; she looked back at her partner, seeing the fear in her eyes, "relax your muscles and trust me!" she saw Weiss take a deep breath and her shoulders dropped a little. she gave Ruby an affirmative nod. Ruby heard the handle pulled and the explosive bolts on the door blow, she triggered her semblance and her body went fuzzy, she zoomed across the hold directly towards Weiss, wrapping her aura and semblance around her partner. Weiss' body too became fuzzy, their auras and bodies swirling around each other, their individual essences mixing as if they were one single person. Ruby always thought this was strangely intimate, with the physical representations of their souls touching and interacting.
Turning back towards the door, she could see it flying off into the distance, and Tyrian beginning to poke his head through the hole, kicking her semblance into high gear, she zoomed herself and Wiess out the door, noting a shocked expression on Tyrian's face as she passed by, and onto the tundra off the left side of the Manta; purposeful using its tilted bulk to hide their retreat for a few moments. She put several hundred feet between them and Tyrian, before cutting her semblance and skidding to a stop. Weiss' essence untangled from hers and they became two people once again, the bright pink petals settling around them. They dropped into combat stances facing their attacker, waiting for him to poke his head over the wing.
"I've almost gotten used to that." Weiss said, ready to bring glyphs into being at a moment's notice, "It always feels weird…"
"Weird?" Ruby asked, pulling the bolt on her scythe back, chambering a round.
"Well yeah," Weiss replied, spinning the cylinder on Myrtenaster to the ice-dust chamber, "feeling like you're getting pulled apart and put back together is definitely weird. But…" she said, playfully bumping Ruby with her hip, not dropping her blade for an instant, "it's kind of nice when we're like that; it's like I can feel your soul, if that makes any sense."
Ruby nodded, a big grin on her face, "I know exactly what you mean. I can feel yours too."
"Oh good!" Tyrian said, finally spotting them, cutting their cute moment short. "There you are!" He jumped off the crashed Manta, a manic smile spreading across his face, "I was beginning to think you died on impact." he began to saunter towards them, his arms held out to the sides, "It wouldn't be any fun if you were already dead!"
With a loud CRACK, Ruby fired Crescent Rose, launching herself through the air at the Faunus, taking advantage of his seemingly distracted bragging. Ruby knew she had to keep him off balance if they wanted to win this fight.
Weiss had never fought Tyrian, but if the stories the others had told her about him were true then this would be a very tough fight. The second Ruby had moved, Weiss was already calling glyphs into the air, preparing to pelt him with ice spikes.
"Now, Now…" a voice with an Atlesian accent drawled from behind Weiss. A hard light wall sprung up in front of Ruby as she neared Tyrian, preparing to swing her scythe at the Faunus, "None of that." she skidded to a stop just missing getting a nasty burn by centimeters.
Weiss whirled around to face the new threat, she saw a dark haired man with a moustache and a yellow trimmed jacket, he was leveling a fancy looking revolver at her. "Tyrian, don't play with them, we have a job to do."
Weiss was certain she recognized this man, but couldn't put a name to his face. Ruby saw the new threat and beat a hasty retreat, appearing at Weiss' side in a burst of petals. They both resumed combat stances, standing back to back; Ruby facing Tyrian as he slowly approached them, and Weiss staring down the new threat.
A name suddenly came to her, "Watts!" she said almost excitedly, "Arthur Watts! You visited my father once or twice when I was a child." Another memory surfaced, and her brow furrowed in a confused frown, "And now you're alive again…"
The man smirked, his moustache twitching, "It turns out faking your own death is fairly easy when when everyone you're fooling is very stupid."
"Weiss, who is this guy?" Ruby hissed.
"Disgraced Atlesian scientist, everyone thought he died in an explosion when developing the Paladins." she whispered back, then directing her attention back to Watts, "And apparently he's now working for Salem. You never struck me as the mass murdering type."
He smiled, "Let's just say that our interests align…"
Tryian slowed as he drew close, Ruby aimed down her sights at him, "So what's this trap for?" she asked loudly, "Capture us and take us to Salem?"
The mustached man snorted, "Definitely not the Schnee," he said smirking, "She's much more valuable to us dead. Now you," he said gesturing at Ruby with his revolver, "I'll take whatever's left of you to her after Tyrian has his revenge."
"Left of me?" Ruby asked, "I thought she wanted me al-"
Weiss saw the doctor's fingers twitch, and she felt a sudden heat on her back, the two girl's sprang apart as a hard light wall formed between them, forcing them to jump apart or be burned.
With a sadistic sneer, the disgraced scientist aimed his revolver at the former Heiress, cocking the hammer back.
The mad Faunus let out a gleeful cackle and threw himself at the scythe wielder, murder flashing in his eyes.
Here's the third chapter as promised! I'm hoping to try to update again in two weeks, but as of posting this chapter, I don't have anything typed yet (have plenty handwritten though!), and I'm going on vacation next week, which will limit my typing time as well. I hope you're enjoying the story so far, let me know what you think by leaving a review! Thanks for reading!