Ch. 52 Amity found
The walk through the forest was strange from that point on. Not only did the foliage move in strange ways, guiding them in the correct direction but they both walked in silence.
Jaune still rubbed his palm, where the thin rapidly healing cut reminded him of the reason Ruby gave him the silent treatment. Having had time to think about it, for once Jaune was pretty certain he knew what he did wrong.
While Jaune was eager to get the deal sealed and over with, Ruby nearly had a heart attack when she saw him suddenly cut into his palm. It didn't help that he didn't think to translate for her before paying the price in blood.
It was an eye opening moment for Jaune. Sure he was aware that recent events took a toll on all of them, but seeing Ruby panic over a small cut he inflicted on himself made him reconsider just how big of an impact it all had on Ruby.
As they walked Jaune considered many things. Doing something for Ruby was amongst them, but stemming from that came the realisation that what Jaune did with Crescent Rose was as much for him as it was for Ruby. It was a way for Jaune to deal with things he saw in the Beacon exclusion zone. And while it was a step in the right direction for Ruby, her healing had only just begun and it was up to Jaune to figure out what to do about it.
He silently cursed himself for pulling Ruby along to Atlas, away from her home. At the same time though, Signal wouldn't be a safe haven for Ruby either. Of course now that avenue was well and truly closed for her as her… friends… got beat up by him, solidifying in their mind that Ruby is no longer one of them.
Ruby belonged in Beacon. It was just a shame that Beacon was gone.
Jaune nearly bumped into Ruby as she stopped abruptly.
"What is it…? Oh."
"Yeah, oh is right…"
The ruins were obvious. It would be a difficult task to truly hide something the size of the mobile coliseum. The surprising thing was just how overgrown it had become in just around two months. Roots the size of Ruby's arms crawled along the metal walls, infiltrating every crack and seam.
"It's literally rooted down…"
Ruby groaned at Jaunes poor attempt at a pun.
Regardless of the poor wording though, the more Ruby looked at the wonder of machinery, the more she realised that Amity will likely never take flight again. The roots were the most striking as they covered everything, however on a closer look there was a good amount of trees visible beyond the exterior.
"So, do we head in?" asked Jaune.
"We should signal the others, do you have the smoke grenades on hand?"
"Oh, give me a second."
Jaune set his bag on the ground and started rummaging.
"So good news, I have some. Bad news, I only have two."
"Should be enough. Let's get higher up the structure before we pop one. Give me a boost?"
"Sure, wait for me up there."
Jaune linked his hands and bent his knees as Ruby clipped the smoke grenade onto one of her many belts. With a heave and a flex of his aura Ruby was sent flying in a storm of rose petals, landing safely on a ledge some fifteen metres up from the ground. As soon as Ruby disappeared from his sight, Jaune donned his bag once more and started scaling the roots.
=O=O=O=
"Maam, we have the location."
Winter turned around to face the soldier. The mobile command centre they established in the forest was quiet for now, but Winter felt uneasy sitting around with nothing to do. At least the weather was forgiving for now. Last thing they needed was to get snowed in.
"Good work, soldier. Do we know which team found it?"
"None of ours. It seems it was the two Beacon kids."
Winter frowned. The pair of huntsmen in training were far from full fledged huntsmen, but to call them kids after going through the fall felt disingenuous.
"Of course… Those two have a penchant to get involved in everything… How are communications looking?" she changed the topic away from those two.
"Poor. We have the rough location of the teams but no direct communication at this time."
Winter of course already knew this information, but it was somewhat comforting that there were no abrupt changes in their situation.
"Are they converging on the position? What's their eta?"
"Team Echo has yet to change direction, other than them we're looking at three hours for the furthest team."
Echo would likely notice eventually, and if not they'd have to get picked up later.
"Prepare the transport and search for the closest landing spot. I want to survey Amity personally." Winter had enough of sitting around doing nothing. It was time to retrieve Penny.
"Yes, specialist Schnee."
=O=O=O=
When Jaune finally caught up with Ruby he found her sitting on the inner ledge of the coliseum. The arena was askew, but still mostly vertical. Massive trees grew from both the viewer stands and the arena itself, covering the open sky with a canopy of red leaves.
"Wow…"
"It looks pretty doesn't it? Almost unreal." Ruby said in a sad tone of voice.
"It does, I wonder if it is real, you know? Seems a bit too fantastical."
"I know… I worry sometimes. That I never really did wake up… that this is just some dream…"
Jaune sighed and sat his ass down next to her. They shared a moment of silence as he contemplated if maybe he was the one dreaming. If all the bad things that happened were just another promotion.
Then he smiled and booped Ruby on the nose. "Nope!"
He snaked his arm around her waist and continued "Do I wish all the bad things that happened would go away? Sure I do. But all the good that has happened to us since then? Us? It's all real. And maybe I'm broken, maybe we both are. But we'll move forward and maybe… maybe helping people will help us figure it out, you know?"
Ruby remained silent except for the occasional sniffle as the two of them sat there enjoying the seemingly perpetual fall weather and watching the clear blue sky slowly turn red as the sun began to set.
"We should take a picture. The others will never believe it otherwise."
Ruby nodded and took out her scroll, taking a few shots of the panorama, while Jaune stood up to take a few photos of his own.
At first he thought to capture the layout of the overgrown ruins for when they go down there, but then an idea struck him and he set the scroll on the ground, set to take a set of photos on a timer. He counted in his head and gave Ruby a kiss on the cheek when the first set started.
=O=O=O=
It took the Atlas soldiers a while to arrive, no doubt in part thanks to the command transport relocating to a closer location and signalling their own position with signal smoke.
It seemed several teams met up at the command transport and were making their way to them slowly. Only then did Jaune start appreciating just how much easier their own journey was since Keel made the forest guide them.
By the time the other teams gathered by the crashed Amity, the sun had already mostly set, leaving the broken moon to illuminate the night. Jaune had a camping lantern in his bag alongside his other camping supplies. And so the two broke camp. It amounted to them sitting around the lamp and snacking. Their makeshift camp now acting as a light beacon for the teams that converged on their location now that the signal smoke went out.
Sure enough both their scrolls crackled to life with short range comms, indicating one of the other teams had a relay with them.
"Romeo, come in… Team Romeo, is that you up there?"
"We hear you loud and clear. About time you showed up." Ruby donned her leader persona and replied.
"Sorry about the delay, we had to pick up team Echo on our way. Anything we should be aware of on approach?"
"The place is overgrown. Looks like years of natural plant growth to be honest. I wouldn't recommend attempting to locate original entrances. Oh and there is a lot of loose dust once you get inside so please don't blow us all up. We'd recommend just climbing the roots to get up."
"We'll trust your judgement on that Romeo. Meet you up there. Command out."
Jaune looked over at the slowly approaching light while Ruby started packing up their temporary camp.
=O=O=O=
Author's note:
I'll be honest this chapter is shorter than I'd like, but I've burned through the chapter's I wrote in advance and simply ran out of time for this one. It feels like another interlude with nothing much happening, but I believe it was necessary for the both of them to have a quiet moment together to reflect on everything that has happened since the fall. Consider this a cliffhanger of sorts I guess.
Hopefully I'll be able to remedy how short this one is with the next chapter and write a longer one to compensate for how short this one was. I should have more free time in the upcoming few weeks and hopefully will be able to rebuild a buffer of a few chapters for the next exam period.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed and are looking forward to the next chapter: Ch.53 A peaceful sleep