AN: Hey, everyone! This chapter actually turned out shorter than I expected. But I would like to shout out my first two Patrons!
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Thank you so much for your support! And they got to read this chapter already over on my ! If you want to pledge go to dot com slash TPoynt, and just type it like a normal URL.
Anyway, Onwards!
Chapter 140
Ruby stood over the bloodied body of Adam Taurus. She breathed heavily, holding both of her Keyblades in shaking hands. Suddenly, Adam's head turned and looked her right in the eyes.
"Monster," he said. "Murderer."
Ruby backed away from the body in fright, dropping her weapons. "No. No, I'm not."
"Look around you," Adam said. "You bring death wherever you go."
Ruby hesitated, but slowly turned around. She gasped loudly and held her hands to her mouth in shock.
All around her were the bodies of men and women wearing White Fang uniforms covered in blood.
"You did this," Adam said. "You killed us."
Ruby screamed.
Ruby rubbed the sleep from her eyes as Team RWBL entered General Ironwood's office. A good night's sleep was becoming harder and harder to come by lately, ever since…
She shook her head to try to expel the thoughts.
Ironwood's office was oddly devoid of the man himself despite him having told them to gather there. Instead, the spacious room had a single occupant standing in front of the large desk. She was a young woman with a slender build and slightly darker skin, with short black hair and a sleeveless uniform.
"Team RWBL, I presume," the woman said.
"Um, are you Lieutenant Colonel Harper?" Ruby asked. "Bram Thornmane told us to meet with you."
"That's correct," Harper said. "I'm Olive Harper. Good to meet you, Team RWBL." The girls took a moment for introductions. "It's a good thing you took Bram's advice and came to see me. Carrying military technology with you would be a very reckless thing to do. Who knows if it could detonate…" she trailed off in thought, making the team grateful that they had ditched the orb. None of them had even considered that holding on to it could have been so dangerous.
"You wouldn't happen to know where the orb came from, would you?" Tifa asked.
"No, it all sounds very unusual to me," Harper said. "It's probably nothing worth losing sleep over."
"Really?" Ruby asked. "We found it after we finished fighting off an onslaught of Grimm, so we assumed it was important."
"Sounds like you made quite the scene," Harper said.
"With this group, that's a safe bet," Tifa said with a chuckle.
"If it's military tech, isn't it strange that it would be there without General Ironwood's knowledge in the first place?" Blake asked.
Harper sighed. "Tell you what. If it'll ease your mind, I'll put some feelers out and research this for you. Just follow up with me later. By then, I'm certain I'll have found a lead."
"That would be nice," Ruby said.
"Of course!" Harper said. "Anything for our brave Huntresses. It'll take a bit, but in the meantime, the Ace Ops will soon be arriving to speak with you about your next mission." They could hear footsteps and a loud voice out in the hallway. "Ah… I do believe that's Clover I'm hearing right now."
"Thanks again," Ruby said, as she and the others turned to leave. They were greeted by the Ace Ops' leader almost as soon as they left the office.
"Team RWBL!" Clover said. "Your timing is impeccable. We're about to have our daily Ace Ops assembly. I'd like you to join us today."
"Uh… sure," Ruby said.
"Excellent. The other members of the team are arriving momentarily."
"So, that was the third time I got banned for life from the Atlas Cafeteria," they heard Marrow say as he and the other Ace Ops approached them. The others were clearly trying their best to ignore him. "Now, the fourth time was the craziest because—"
"That's enough chatter," Clover interrupted. "Let's settle in, everyone!" The Ace Ops all stood at attention.
"I was just getting to the good part…" Marrow said in disappointment.
"We have some special guests for today's assembly," Clover said, gesturing to Team RWBL.
"Hey, everyone," Ruby said, giving a small wave.
"Team RWBL here has just successfully taken down a Grimm Goliath on their prior mission."
"It was, uh, it was nothing," Ruby said. "We've fought worse. Like giant mechs, or a guy with one wing and a giant sword."
"Congratulations, Team RWBL!" Elm cheered. "We're glad you could join."
"Today, as you know, all of the Ace Ops will be embarking on our individually assigned solo missions," Clover explained.
"'By strengthening oneself, united we grow strong'," Marrow recited, as if he was sick of hearing it. "Yeah, yeah, we know the drill."
"Precisely! However, today is a bit different. We won't be entirely on our own," Clover said before turning to the other team of newly-minted Huntresses. "Team RWBL, now that you have Huntress responsibilities, I'd like the Ace Ops to be able to lean on you for our missions today."
"Okay," Ruby said.
"Are we sure about this?" Harriet asked.
"Ironwood told us to keep an eye on them," Vine said.
"I'm sure he did," Weiss said, glaring at them.
"That was a poor choice of words," Vine said. "I merely meant we were to look out for you."
"Mm-hm," Blake said.
"Regardless, it's time to prove that you're all licensed Huntresses now," Clover said. "One more thing… keep a positive energy out there, team. Remember, negative emotions are the very thing that attracts Grimm. Panic, sadness, and anger have no place in our missions. Stay focused, and stay vigilant." Ruby couldn't help but feel like it was some thinly-veiled attempt by Clover to get them to drop the issue. "You fight not for yourselves, or even the ones you love… but for all of Remnant." A hushed silence fell over the group. Regardless of their feelings about Ironwood, or how much Ruby felt they could trust the Ace Ops, Clover wasn't wrong about that. "All right. You're dismissed. Let's make it happen, people!"
After Clover's proclamation, the Ace Ops all dispersed, though Elm remained.
"Did you need something?" Tifa asked.
Elm chuckled. "I just wanted to say how nice it is to have new Huntresses of your caliber here assisting us." She laughed much more heartily this time. "Play your cards right, girls, and you can be Ace Ops-level skill some day!"
"Actually, I was wondering," Ruby said. "Have you ever heard of a Team BRIR? This dynamic squad whose Semblances perfectly complement each other. Blowing fire, swimming underground, portals that bend physical space, the type of team that could take down a Goliath in a matter of seconds?"
Elm laughed again. "You sure about that? If a team like that was around, they'd surely be on the Ace Ops' radar."
"It's just as Ruby describes," Blake said. "We did encounter such a team. Briefly. But we don't know much about them."
Elm's smile faded. "…Wow, you really did, huh? I'll take you on your word."
"By the way, Elm, did you need help with your mission today?" Tifa asked.
"Oh, that was easy peasy stuff," Elm said. "Already done."
"Did you do it before the briefing?"
"What can I say? I'm an enterprising gal!" Elm laughed again. "But what I would love is to celebrate today's success with a nice cold grape soda. If you're headed to Atlas Main Street, would ya pick me up one?"
"What do we look like, the Atlas catering service?" Weiss asked.
"Oh, it's easy to find grape soda on main street. While you grab me one, I'll look into if anyone else has heard of that Team BRIR for you."
Blake sighed. "I guess we can't refuse now."
"I think you're really gonna love seeing Jaune with those kids," Nora said, as she and Pyrrha walked the streets of Mantle together, the latter holding a bundled-up Achilles in her arms. "It's kind of adorable."
"Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it," Pyrrha said, gently rocking Achilles in a way that made the baby giggle. "He was saying last night how rewarding helping the children was. I'm sure that this is giving him a lot of practice, too." Achilles let out a little laugh, prompting Pyrrha to smile brightly at him. "It makes me happy to hear that Jaune is good with kids."
"Oh, wait…" Nora said. "I, uh, forgot about…"
"Forgot about what?" Pyrrha asked.
"Single file line, you know the drill," they heard Jaune's voice say. The girls turned and saw Jaune holding up a stop sign while five small children crossed the street. Pyrrha was about to gush over how adorable he was, until she finally took in the whole situation.
She could see the kids' mothers posing flirtatiously and winking at him, with one of them walking forward and trying to give him a casserole.
Those… those…
Those hussies!
"Oh, another casserole," Jaune said awkwardly. "That's… that's too kind."
Pyrrha had to step in before one of these… these… MILFs tried to steal him from her!
"Oh, Jaune!" She called out turning up the charm as she approached him, making sure the women could clearly see Achilles. "There you are!" She could feel the glares of the other mothers burning into her flesh.
She would be lying to herself if she said it didn't feel good.
Jaune turned to her in surprise. "Oh, hey, Pyrrha!" he said happily. "What are you doing here?"
"I wanted to pay you a visit while you were working," she said, walking up to him and giving him a quick kiss on the lips.
Jaune smiled. "Oh, you brought Achilles, too!"
"Yup, I figured you'd want a little pick-me-up, and I figure OUR SON would be perfect," Pyrrha said, making sure to shout loud enough that the other mothers could hear her. She gently passed Achilles over so Jaune could hold him, and turned to give a satisfied smirk to the women, but to her horror, they were somehow swooning even more than they were before!
"Poor, poor Pyrrha," Nora said, walking up to her while Jaune obliviously played with Achilles. "You forgot the most basic rule of the single mother."
"And what's that?" Pyrrha asked through grit teeth.
Nora shook her head disapprovingly.
"Dads are hot."
Ren looked on silently as a small group of teenagers threw rocks at a patrolling squad of Atlesian Knights, only to be chased by them down an alley. A part of him wanted to stop the Knights, but there was no denying that the teenagers had started it.
The longer they were in Atlas, the more confused he found himself. He shared his friends' concerns about General Ironwood's treatment of Mantle and anger over how he treated Aqua, but at the same time, for all their complaints, he was the only one that had a real plan. Restoring global communications was unquestionably a good thing, why couldn't they just—
"Oof!"
His thoughts were interrupted when he bumped into someone, knocking the other person to the ground. White boxes fell to the ground that the person had been carrying, spilling medical supplies all over the ground.
"I'm sorry," he said, finally getting a good look at the person he knocked over. He recognized the black-haired girl as Doctor Polendina's assistant, Iris, if he remembered her name correctly. "I wasn't watching where I was going."
"No, it's my fault," Iris said as she rubbed the spot on her behind where she fell. "I shouldn't have stacked the boxes so high." She finally looked up at who had bumped into her. "Oh, you were with that group at Doc's place the other day. Um, what was your name?"
"I'm Ren," he said, extending his right hand to help her up. He noticed her gaze linger on the missing pinkie finger on that hand, and he quickly switched to extending his left.
"…Sorry," she said sheepishly as she took his hand and he pulled her to her feet.
"Don't worry about it," he said. "Iris, right?"
"Yup," she said, giving him a friendly smile. "Doctor Polendina's apprentice." She looked down and saw all the spilled supplies. "Oh, no!" She bent down to start picking them up and putting them back in their boxes, and Ren wordlessly joined her.
A few minutes later, the two of them finished gathering all of the spilled supplies and returning them to their corresponding boxes. Iris stacked them up and lifted them. Ren saw that she had stacked the boxes so high that she couldn't see. No wonder she bumped into him. Wordlessly, he picked up the top half of the stack, removing the boxes that were obstructing her view.
"Oh, thank you," she said.
"It's the least I could do," he said. "I bumped into you and made you spill these boxes. Besides, if you can't see, you're just going to end up bumping into someone else."
"But still, it's nice of you to help," Iris said with a smile. "Most people around here wouldn't even do that much."
"I assume you're heading back to Doctor Polendina's pharmacy," Ren said, adjusting his grip on the boxes.
"You got it in one," she said. "You know how to get there?"
"Lead the way."
Like I said, there are two scenes I actually cut because they would have been redundant, so this chapter ended up a little shorter than I had planned for it, but these things happen.
I was particularly excited to write that scene with Pyrrha.
One more time, you can join my to get exclusive early access to rough drafts of chapters as I write them. dot com slash tpoynt.
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As always, thank you very much for reading, and I'll see you all next time!