Chapter Five
Surge
"Milady, why are you doing this?" Zoe asked her mistress as she beckoned the team of three women she found over to a clearing a safe distance away from their camp. Very rarely did her lady ever personally interfere with mortals and demigods directly, more often than not morphing the stray male that happened upon them into a jackalope for a duration based on what they saw or blasting a helicopter that dared fly too close. Though she did often spar with her Huntresses, herself being the most frequent punching bag for the goddess, a duty that came with the Lieutenant job, she did it for her benefit and not her detriment. She never displayed her full speed or strength, keeping to the same levels her blessing gave to her Huntresses.
Against the legacies she brought to her attention, even with their marvelous powers, she stood little chance even if her lady kept to sparring levels. Anything beyond that would break her partner and she only ever witnessed her fully release the limits of her physical form once against a spar with Apollo. If it wasn't for both of their promises to keep their divine forms tightly shackled and her continued existence, she'd have thought they had gone ahead and shed their bodies to ascend. Even then, she could only make out the few blurry patches of air she assumed were them clashing momentarily before disengaging in loud clangs of metal and pockets of wind washing over her. "Surely you don't think they stand a chance?"
"Zoe, how many have ever directly challenged me to a spar without arrogance tainting them?" Artemis poised the question to her older Huntress and watched the blonde acquiesce to her request, dropping the virulent yellow fractal pattern that separated her and her team from her and her Huntresses, though the string of them around her wrist never disappeared. In all her four millennia, she'd yet to see anything close to the shields she could flex on command. Magical shields, cast from either an enchanted object or ritual, were fairly basic in shape and shimmered in one monotonous color, quickly running out of energy when subjected to an overwhelming attack unless constantly fed and bolstered. She knew that much from her sparse meetings with Hecate whenever she needed something to ward off her brother, but this type of shield was new. Initially, she thought that the half dome shield was polygonal in shape, yet the flexible pieces floating and rotating around her wrist told a different story of pieces made to fit together based on her whim.
Her Lieutenant shook her head. Other than Apollo, who dropped by unannounced every time much to the younger camp's ire, the Gods and Goddesses of War in Ares, Athena, and Bellona rarely dropped by to challenge her, and every time they left rebuked. Woman or not, Athena dripped with hubris, assured in her knowledge she was superior to her lady despite never taking an active stance in any conflict since the Titanomachy. Hera's little insurrection against Zeus barely ruffled her with how quick the fight ended. And the less said about the bullish Ares and the Roman goddess of war, Bellona, the better, both of them favoring brute strength. She did, however, have to give Mars the upper hand in greater battle strategy but since Lady Artemis never spent time in her other form save for their trips to Camp Jupiter, he never visited.
"She spoke with confidence, assured in her abilities." Her lady continued, keeping a distant awareness of the trio following them. "Besides, her challenge wasn't for her own arrogance to prove herself better than me, but to decide how and if her team joins us in which capacity. I would love to add them as they are with the trickle of recruits already but I'm curious to the extent she can command those shields of hers."
"Are you sure it's not because of the blatant flirting?" Zoe deadpanned at her mistress, keeping her voice low enough to avoid the attention of her following sisters, though she greatly suspected Blake heard her with how her top ears swiveled in her direction almost immediately. From her short flight in their plane, all of them were exceptionally built and muscled, with Weiss just slightly more waifish than her teammates due to her suspected fighting style. Objectively, and after millennia of figuring out she had a healthy respect for the female form rather than an attraction to it, all of them possessed an unearthly beauty Aphrodite's children would struggle to replicate with the best of makeup and charmspeak.
"It's… refreshing..." Artemis swallowed a thick wad of spit she practically heard and she quickly blinked to clear her head when a faint gold dusted across her cheeks, "to get complimented without getting leered at like a piece of meat, even in a friendly manner." Apollo did it in his brotherly way just to tweak her nose because he knew it irritated her and the rest of the Olympian Council knew better than to invite her wrath. The mortals, demigods, and nature spirits that fell under her trance, or believed her toothless, quickly met her ire and reinforced her stereotypes and beliefs.
She pinched her nose to stave away the headache she thought she banished earlier, silently wishing the poor team all the luck in the world. A light punch to her shoulder shook her from her melancholy and she peered over to her mistress only to meet her knowing gaze, blushing when she realized she had heard her wish over their passive connection through her oath. She didn't want to know and she silenced any return quip with a swipe of her hand, catching a small smirk gracing her companion's face from the corner of her eye. It wasn't her fault she had happened to bring in a woman that initially flirted without any bite and genuinely appreciated her lady's form. The follow up whisper from Weiss told her the entire team would have similar quirks after what, she could only guess, was years of working together.
Not her fault at all.
Artemis practically pranced over to the far side of the clearing while she gestured her sisters over to the side, all of them moving without complaint and eagerly awaiting the match. The duo of Weiss and Blake kept a small distance from the younger girls, and rather than join the latter, she went over to the pair and bridged the gap between the two groups. The albino frowned at something she saw from the direction of Yang and she caught the tail end of a hand sign she couldn't make out, realizing they had a completely silent way of communication she hadn't noticed before. Weiss huffed as a response to whatever Yang told her and sat down heavily on the grass, Blake standing behind her and laughing in a raspy and broken stutter that barely produced any sound beyond a wheeze. She didn't blink when Weiss leaned back against her leg and she gently ran her fingers through her short hair without any prompt, the two of them sinking into a natural rhythm. She smiled and enjoyed the companionship the two of them shared, stepping to Blake's side, and awaited the upcoming match.
Yang didn't immediately summon her weapons unlike her opponent, keeping her gauntlets concealed in their bangle form while Artemis materialized a silver bow from nothing. She raised an eyebrow, resolving to ask her how she hid her weapon when not in use, and sank into an opening stance, raising her fists to cover her face. A glance over to their audience made her hesitant and she ordered Weiss to stand down, much to her amusement, raising a wall of shimmering glyphs to protect all of them from any stray attack or collateral that made its way over to them. Artemis nodded gratefully and she nodded in turn, both of them staring each other down with the goddess nocking an arrow.
The call of a bird pierced the night sky and an arrow sailed from Artemis's bow the next moment, her movement barely perceptible to the human eye as the entire pullback and release happened seamlessly. She almost, ALMOST, froze when the blonde didn't move, much less react, to the attack as it sailed towards her head and she was ready to teleport to her side in an attempt to save her with a prayer to her brother ready when her arrow BOUNCED off her forehead. She jerked back in shock, fingers freezing around the next arrow she instinctively summoned when her opponent stepped forward and simply appeared in her face in the blink of an eye, glaring down at her with an impressive force leaking through her crimson eyes as a trail of yellow petals gently floated to the grass. It was a ludicrous level of speed and movement that Hermes couldn't accomplish and she did it without batting an eyelash!
"I expected a spar with a goddess, not archery practice from a toddler." The switch from her authoritative tone to a scathing one barely registered as she disappeared again and returned to her original position as if she hadn't moved at all, a second stream of petals marking her trail.
"Your name?" She prodded, only just now realized she had never introduced herself and Zoe had failed to give her a name. "I will have it." She demanded, the silver of her eyes sharpening into a finely honed weapon. Her earlier blip with the harmless flirting slipped away from her mind, this human screaming danger with every muscle twitch. If she wanted to, she could massacre her Huntresses before they noticed they were under threat, much less able to send a prayer to her for help. Her two teammates didn't react to her stupendously fast movement and she bumped them up a notch in skill, releasing a segment of divine power she kept shackled away.
"Yang Xiao-Long." The blonde replied and suddenly disappeared in a loud crack, giving her less than a few milliseconds to block the incoming punch to her head with her crossed forearms. A punch from a mortal, Hades, even a demigod would sting more than hurt but this one felt like Typhon smacked into her with a fury, rattling her bones and forcing her back a couple feet, digging trenches into the dirt. She unleashed another smidgen of power to counteract the blow, a thin silvery Aura appearing around her form with a grunt of effort.
Zoe didn't expect this spar to open so shockingly violent. Usually, the spars with her lady started slowly with a warm-up before they ramped it up into more intense engagements, always ending with her in the ground with sweat caking her hair and skin. Yang didn't seem to care for this style, skipping all the steps and forcing Artemis to raise the stakes to where she would normally end the spar, her blessing unable to keep up with its source. To her further shock, her teammates only kept observing the spar without so much as saying a word of exclamation or support, studying their every move. To contrast that, her Huntresses devolved into a gaggle of giggles and gossip that would shame the Aphrodite cabin, eliciting a facepalm in response.
Artemis blasted Yang off with a shockwave of energy that only just managed to dislodge her and she blinked away before she could retaliate. She appeared behind the woman, knives appearing in her hands as she thrust into her unprotected back, taking care to avoid any vital areas where, much to her consternation, she twisted her wrist when her dagger dared glance off her skin without leaving a scratch. A blast of divine energy healed the injury with a thought, but it gave Yang more than enough time to drive an elbow into her stomach and knock the air loose from her lungs. The shock of her injury and her missed attack allowed her to twist around and drive a knee into her face, a distinct crack echoing around the clearing and sending her careening into the dirt with a trail of golden ichor leaking from her broken nose.
Zoe winced at the sound through the disbelief of witnessing her mistress lose against this newcomer. At this level, she could barely see them move and she didn't dare blink or she'd miss half the action, and still, Weiss and Blake didn't react, as if seeing their leader move and attack like this was nothing new to them! The audacity would sting Artemis's pride terribly once she shook off the decisive blow and moved to the offense, Yang's next words sealing her fate as she deliberately taunted her goddess.
"This is what passes for a goddess?" She mused, going so far as to relax her defensive position and stand completely open as Artemis wiped the ichor from her lips and snarled viciously, clambering to a stand. "You're disappointing."
She didn't know what happened after that, an enormous snap of a sonic boom resulting in Artemis slamming into Yang with tremendous force and knocking her straight from her feet, her stupidly thick skin failing to keep her grounded and sending her flying into a tree. She half expected the tree to break under the impact, but as with all television and movie physics, trees were pretty sturdy objects and didn't break under a love tap. She expected Artemis to slow down after landing the hit but she blinked above the downed Yang and punched hard with a grunt of frustration, sending a cloud of dirt and grass everywhere.
Weiss rolled her eyes, releasing a sigh of exasperation when the sound of clapping came from the treeline on the other side of the clearing. To everyone's confusion, Yang stalked from the dark shadows of the canopy, her claps painfully slow and mocking with a wicked smile stretching her face and showing a full set of brilliant white teeth. The crimson eyes she first presented with started flickering with ghostly purple, illuminating and dancing like fireflies, steadily growing in intensity until her original red faded under the glow.
"Finished the warm-up?" Yang clenched her fists and several pops sounded from her fingers. The full moon peeked from the cloud cover and cast its radiant beams on the clearing, matching the molten pool of silver boiling in the goddess's eye. Artemis matched the smile with her own, a thick fog of dread and anticipation settling between them. She nodded eagerly, adjusting her grip on her knives before the night filled with the constant din of clashing flesh and metal. None of them, not even Weiss and Blake, followed the movement and blows traded between the two, imperceptible shimmers of bodies appearing for less time than it took to blink before another afterimage appeared somewhere else on the field. The horde of gossiping fangirls quieted down to stilted breaths as they struggled to comprehend what was happening in front of them, a mortal matching their goddess blow for blow.
Both Blake and Weiss closed their eyes by that point, the mass illusion of the clashing titans of combat overwhelming their sight, relying on the constant drone of sounds too quick to accurately and perceptibly separate where one started and another ended. The pitch changed depending on whether Artemis struck her body shield, a glyph, or her gauntlets, the same going for anything Yang traded. They carefully kept the shock at Yang's exponential growth hidden from their potential allies. While they knew she had nigh a century on them at the awkward displacement of their relative timelines, neither of them expected her to ever reach this level of Ruby's Semblance mastery, a Semblance she could keep permanently active with her first Semblance tanking the blows Artemis kept throwing, leeching her strength for her own. There was a specific reason why Ruby kept her Semblance to just under the sound barrier as each additional push beyond that demanded more Aura to keep the effects of physics from drastically and catastrophically imploding on her. It took all of a second to expand her reserves if she pushed it straight to Mach 10, matching Neo on the field for a scant moment to bring them to a tie after they arrived in their second dimension.
To have Yang push the boundary of Ruby's Semblance while keeping the defensive glyph wall up to protect them from harm, while maintaining her shields against an opponent that could match her ridiculous strength, and having clones ready just under her skin to tank any fatal or crippling blow, frankly terrified them. They didn't even know how much her original pool of Aura had grown over a century and they feared the answer if she already eclipsed every single Commander, save for Kaldwin, after just five years of intense training. A shudder of fear, excitement, and arousal coursed down their spines at the realization that Yang was beyond a titan of combat at that point, matching what passed for a goddess in this dimension, and would've continued to grow her Aura pool, strength, and abilities if it wasn't for her body failing and crumbling due to age.
After what felt like minutes of waiting on bated breath, the skirmishing pair disengaged from their ludicrous speeds and retreated to their corners of the clearing, the same ravenous smiles still present as adrenaline and endorphins raced through their systems. To the duo's surprise, Yang sported a decent amount of thin and elongated slashes across her limbs that managed to hack through her shields, yet none of them seemed to inhibit her. Artemis also seemed to sport some injuries, hers coming through in the form of black and gold bruises peppered everywhere.
Yang, after taking a couple of seconds to slow her breathing, raised her arms in the universal sign of surrender, finding no need to continue her barrage when neither of them seemed or wanted to push it beyond this level of combat. She received a nod of acceptance and the two of them relaxed just slightly, Yang walking up to the shorter woman and extending a hand. Artemis curled an eyebrow at that, internally debating and commending her on not just bowing, instead asking for equality with her. She shoved down the pride warring with accepting this human and shook her hand tightly, recoiling on instinct when Yang yanked her forward with just enough strength to grab her broken nose and set it in place with a quick and practiced push. She blinked through the surprise, blew out a globule of ichor, and glared at the offender, getting a shrug of indifference.
They turned in unison, the goddess's annoyance dissipating at the clapping from Weiss and Blake, Zoe joining in after a few seconds of hesitation, vastly unsure of what she just witnessed and more so reacting to their actions without conscious effort. The peanut gallery next to them couldn't form any words, jaws hanging agape at the utter spectacle of Yang holding her own against their mistress. Artemis punched the blonde for the audacity of fighting her to a standstill, commiserating on the limits her semi-divine form bestowed on her physical body. If she dared push into her ascendancy, she risked incinerating her sisters for a short-lived victory her errant pride demanded when she could potentially gain three new Huntresses with one of them forcing her down in her mortal form. The other two on her team, even if they couldn't match her intensity or speed, were two more Huntresses to bolster her ranks and train if they needed. None of them immediately shot down the idea of rejecting males and embracing eternal maidenhood so she felt confident enough to offer up places in their ranks and perhaps negotiate a working agreement with them.
Even the sting of the tie didn't grate on her as she thought, Yang free of the Ancient Laws to protect the Hunt where and when she couldn't. If she could foster some relationship, alliance or assimilation, her Hunt could take on any danger that came prowling upon their camp. A freed mortal of goddess strength promised a greater haven for those girls that needed it and also gave her younger ones another figure to look up to as an adult figure in their lives.
Yang stretched her arms above her shoulders and released the tension from slipping into Ruby's Semblance. The notes her late leader left in her office greatly underestimated the mental fortitude and endurance her Semblance demanded to reverse movement and prevent her joints from grinding cartilage into dust. Her original Semblance helped and even alleviated the stress it extolled, built to withstand the pressure of thousands of kilos and dispersing it across her muscles, bones, ligaments, and networks. She turned to her audience in excitement, bouncing on her feet with the first syllable of Pyrrha's name on her tongue, and promptly found ash in her mouth. Instead of brilliant faded red hair framing a pair of jade orbs burning with a tired smolder, she found her old Monochrome team pair with their jaws hanging ajar.
She froze, utter despair slamming into her that she might never again get to see the woman she reforged a life with after the Invasion so cruelly took her team away from her. Blake, faint distant memories from Beacon and the Second Great War, immediately noticed the hesitation to greet them after the spar and allow them to run her through a basic check-up for any damages that occurred, her ears flicking up into attack position. Weiss was a tad slower on reading her, reacting more to Blake's subtle shift in footing to understand where the sudden pain in her eyes came from simply glancing over to them.
Empathy could truly be a bitch when it wanted to.
How did anyone react to knowing they weren't who someone else wanted them to be after they had left her in the first place? From Weiss's view, she didn't expect her Railgun to exact a toll heavy enough to destroy her body from the inside, just as Blake didn't expect to have to activate her Supernova to put an end to Adam and his corrupted White Fang, but neither of that changed the outcome, the good or bad intentions forgotten at the devastating effects it had on the remaining survivor who had to pick up the pieces of her shattered life and rebuild it with almost nothing.
It didn't help that Yang utterly eclipsed them in skill after the century hiatus that led them into their miraculous rebirth. Blake held no foolish reservations that she could crush them without much effort after matching Ruby for speed, ejecting from a clone, maintaining a glyph defense, and trading blows with a goddess. Her Supernova automatically placed her into the SS-rank, but she truly embodied and deserved her ranking after her long career.
The pair of them didn't move to greet her or even speak to her, reverting to their last known relationship of subordinates to their team leader. Artemis wanted to say something to her, making her intentions known with a word of attention. Yang acknowledged her request, notifying her she would handle their negotiations in the morning. The goddess's eyebrow twitched at the flippant dismissal until she released an exhausted sigh, unwilling to challenge the strange mortal after their spar. Her underlings needed their rest and she waved them away back to their tents to await answers tomorrow, and Yang cared more for her own than she did for hers. She could set aside her needs for one night to interrogate her with a coherent audience and Apollo on call to get the truth from her.
Yang took one look at them and winced at the amount of stress they placed on their spines from their rigid posture and form, dismissing them twice after the first one glossed over them, barely ruffling a strand of hair. She hesitated for a moment, Weiss stepping away shyly after she tried to gently push the smaller woman, her late wife for Neo's sake, towards their ship. Blake slapped her aside with an incredible amount of hate drifting through her narrowed eyes, picking up the heiress and hoisting her into her arms, marching away from her towards the Ruby with nary a glance behind her to see if she was following. She sighed heavily, realizing the grievous mistake she made, and trudged at a slow pace, making enough noise for Blake to hear her and doing her best to ignore the questioning glances from the supremely confused Artemis.
She moved up the ramp and slid into the connecting room to the cockpit where she designed and built their sleeping quarters, catching Blake settling Weiss onto a lower bunk. She tried to get the first word in, an apology for mistaking them for Pyrrha ready and ran into an incensed hand wave. Blake stepped away to the small container by their beds and rummaged around for a short while, eventually finding a nutrition bar of Weiss's favorite variety and forcing her fingers around it. She stood and returned her attention to her leader after making sure she took a bite, tapping her foot impatiently.
"I'm sorry!" Yang blurted out and Blake stilled. Even after spending nearly a century with Pyrrha, she still couldn't always figure out why she sometimes felt like she did something wrong and quickly learned that an apology often diffused any tense situation, even if she wasn't at fault.
Why are you apologizing? Blake waved her apology off, the earlier hate transforming and disappearing from her eyes. You didn't do anything wrong.
"Then why are you two angry with me?" Yang asked, taking a seat next to Weiss who flinched and attempted to escape to the other end of the bed, only to run into a tight hug. The tension didn't leave her body, cranking up a notch and turning her into a statue. The food bar fell from her fingers and Yang set it aside, taking her hands in her own and caressing them softly, old memories trickling up to the forefront of her mind: of time spent resting between missions with only themselves for company; soft little moments that reminded them why they were still fighting. She glanced back over to Blake when she snapped her fingers, getting her attention.
I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at myself. She stomped petulantly and sat on the other bunk. I'm mad at Ruby and I'm mad at Beacon. I could never be mad at you. I'm mad 'cause I didn't expect you to move on like Ruby taught us. You didn't dwell on Weiss's and my deaths. A good soldier, soldiers on.
Yang sighed wearily, realizing the problem. The hate in Blake's eyes wasn't directed at her, not at all.
"I'm starting to think Ruby did too good of a job when she trained us instead of the other way around," Yang remarked, Blake's ear collapsing forward until they disappeared into her hair. She refused to meet her eyes, looking everywhere except at her. Yang analyzed her sulking partner, scratching her head in confusion. She never bothered delving into the great and confusing world of psychology, throwing her Hunters at Monty Hospital more often than necessary to keep them fighting fit.
She placed a kiss on Weiss's temple and moved to sit between the two of them on the floor, keeping a hold on Weiss and extending her second hand to grasp one of Blake's. The Faunus wiped a tear streaking down her cheek, moving her hair to shadow her face, and Yang realized Blake was ashamed of letting her see her emotions, that she wasn't the perfect machine Ruby inadvertently attempted to make.
"Hey." She prodded, tugging at her hand and gaining enough of her attention to provoke a sad smile that fell apart instantly. "I'm not Neo and I'm not Ruby. I don't have the miraculous ability to revive and throw us into new dimensions, but do you know what I do have?" Blake shook her head, throwing her hair around wildly. Yang tugged at Weiss's hand, still getting a blank look lost in deep memories. "I have you two. Two people I never expected to see again and that makes me happy, okay?"
"But what about Pyrrha?" A voice she almost thought was Blake's from its raspy tone had her caressing Weiss's hand again to shake away her doubt.
"I move on." She smirked knowingly, verbalizing Blake's mentality and causing her to huff loudly after a dry chuckle failed to echo about. "Moving on doesn't mean I'm going to forget the century I spent with Pyrrha, not after she and Monty spent a good decade helping me through the absolute clusterfuck the War left me with. I certainly never forgot the five years we spent together. Hell of a kisser, the both of you." She paused, gathering her wits together and taking a deep breath, finally getting a pair of sad smiles. "We had to slow down. Less fighting, more time to think, very dangerous, and that messes with anyone's mental health. You two are already struggling but hey, I'll be here."
"Blake, you're allowed to have emotions, my little killing machine. To love and hate and cry and fear; that's only human after all." Yang lifted her chin, forcing her to meet her gaze, and got a sign of resigned acceptance as if she rationally understood her words but couldn't get past the mental block keeping her stuck in her war mindset. Beacon and Ruby never let her stop, sending her on kill and reconnaissance mission after mission, stopping her from falling into a peaceful and sedate state. "And my Weiss, my lovely snowflake, Pyrrha never replaced you. It wasn't your fault you died or that I moved on, okay? You're still mine and I love you."
The blank look from her eyes faded slightly with a glint daring to peek through her lowered eyelids. Much like Blake, this Weiss never had to deal with issues of inferiority and self-doubt, not when she could destroy civilizations with a snap of her fingers. Fighting in the war demanded equality, ranks and titles forgotten between them. Her words were hollow reassurances for the much younger girl after learning Yang had moved on and replaced her with another, even if it wasn't her fault the Railgun killed her or Yang's for moving on. Companionship was a human desire and Yang found someone after her, not to spite her or her memory, but because to move on, to not remain stuck in place, she had to.
Yang could only hope Weiss eventually saw that in that deep dark place she was stuck in right now.
She wrapped her arms around her in her hug, Weiss clinging to her automatically like a limpet and settling her head in the crook of her neck. Weiss didn't cry nor did she say a word, eyes closed as she took in the world she lived in around her. Yang let her overload her senses, whispering sweet nothings into her ear and stroking her hair. She wasn't weak for her collapse, no. Every person dealt with their trauma differently and if this was how she needed to cope with it, she wasn't going anywhere.
Blake threw her mattress onto the ground and gestured for them to move aside, doing the same with theirs until a rough bed filled the area between the two bunks. She anticipated their needs well, tossing the sheets and duvets on top, slumping down once she stripped everything bare. She wasn't expecting Blake to take care of them but maybe this was how she coped with everything: hiding her anxiety by masking it with utmost care and service. Yang scratched her head, taking special care to touch her ears to elicit a content purr. She sat down next to her and finagled the covers over them, settling in for the night and bringing Blake into her other side.
She snuggled in, clinging to her just a tad tighter than she remembered. The lights from above dimmed entirely, leaving the emergency lighting pulsing softly. The darkness made the two shell shocked Hunters shrink into themselves, Yang pulling them in closer. She let her head fall back onto the pillow after kissing them both.
They had their issues but she was going to be right there to help them, every step of the way.