Time flies when life happens. There shouldn't be another break that long in this fic's future, brain integrity permitting.
Wilt and Scatter
"And the bullheads?"
"Ready except for this one." The engineer rapped his knuckles on the curved exterior of the machine. "Engine casing is cracked, but we don't have time to do repairs."
"Spread its crew out across the other ships. See if you—" Adam stopped, a chill down his spine scattering his thoughts. It wasn't a sixth sense but a combination of the rest: a rush of unusual quiet stifling the camp's usual hubbub, surreptitious glances thrown his way, a faint scent of ash on the wind. He turned.
Cinder Fall strode towards him, looking for all the world like she was strolling down a market street and not through a fully militarized White Fang encampment deep in the Emerald Forest. Gone was her usual attire; she wore a simple brown vest supporting a simple pauldron, white tank top, and blue pants.
"Go," he told the engineer, who was all too happy to disappear along with everyone else nearby.
"Adam, it's so good to see you again. Catching you has been so difficult lately," she stopped a few steps away and leaned her weight to one side, "I can't imagine how those vigilantes kept managing it."
"I'll be sure to ask them before I kill them. What do you want?"
She cast an eye over the camp, over the fleet of airships, cars, and handful of paladins forming the bulk of the White Fang's firepower. Between this main camp and the four satellite camps spread out around Vale's perimeter, plus the smaller and lesser-armed cells hidden within, they were all but poised for an invasion. "Merely checking in. Are your preparations complete?"
"Hard to say when you won't tell me when and where the attack is meant to be."
She chuckled. "I keep telling you, Adam: you'll know what you need to know when you need to know it." He drew breath but she continued before he could speak. "Although, I suppose that time is now. I do so appreciate your cooperation these last months. I had such high expectations at the start and you exceeded nearly all of them."
He scowled. "I don't care about your expectations. We're ready for your plan, that is unless you've come here to call it off."
"Why would I do that? You've put in so much time and effort." She rested a palm on the bullhead and glanced back at him with a smile that set him even more on edge. "I wouldn't want it to go to waste."
Snake, he hissed in his head. His mask, fortunately, hid his glare quite effectively.
"Quite the contrary, in fact," she continued. "The festival has begun. Your time to act draws near. As such, I will be introducing you to the remainder of your forces. Do tell your men to stand down, I wouldn't want them to waste their bullets."
She paused and he realized she was serious. That chill was back, stronger than before. Dread—it was dread.
Who was the other force? Torchwick's goons? Junior's? No, the former had no significant manpower of his own and the latter had made it clear he wouldn't put his own people on the line. As an information broker, he was too valuable and too dangerous to strongarm into cooperating. Another force…he was drawing a blank. Another kingdom? Mercenaries? Atlas would've noticed any significant numbers of armed huntsmen or soldiers coming in even with the Vytal Festival drawing crowds from all over Remnant.
Vaguely, he was aware of his own arm fishing his scroll out of his pocket and opening the line that transmitted to all scrolls within the camp's signal tower's range. "This is Adam," he heard himself say. "All members, stand down. Do not attack the approaching force."
He lowered his scroll. "Who are they?" He'd have to warn Ruby. There was an unknown card in play, unless…
Whispers became shouts became cries of alarm. A few gunshots echoed across the forest, but that was all. The chill became stronger still. His own words to Ruby echoed back in his mind: she also has some kind of influence over Grimm.
"A better reaction than I expected," Cinder mused with a glance toward where the rounds had been fired. "Your time in Mountain Glenn prepared your people well for this."
His glare turned molten. She knew damn well most of the people in Mountain Glenn had never made it out, much less returned in a capacity that would land them here and now in this camp. He leashed his rage before it could take his tongue and ground out, "You can control them."
"Well enough." The flippant wave of her hand as a nevermore larger than two bullheads put together flew overhead left him twitching with the urge to draw his sword. There were humans, there were monsters, and there were monsters in human skin. She needed to be killed. She simply had to be. It would be an act more righteous than any he'd ever committed. The world would thank him."Fit as many as you can into your airships. The rest will attack when the time is right."
But he couldn't kill her now, just like he couldn't kill her before. "You want my people to ride in the same ships as those things?"
"I trust you've trained them to behave themselves." That teasing light in her eyes scalded. He couldn't do anything about the insult and she knew it. "I will signal you when the time is right." She turned to leave but paused as though struck by a thought. "And Adam?"
"What."
She smiled. "I hope you enjoy the festival."
"I've got the popcorn!" Yang squeezed past Weiss and Blake to settle into her stadium seat between Blake and Ruby, handing out boxes of the buttery snack as she went. Weiss wrinkled her nose.
"I asked for no butter."
"Live a little, Ice Queen." She shoved a handful into her own mouth and spoke around it. "Any word from the sponsors?"
"I don't think we'll be hearing from them until the, um, commercial break," Ruby said, trying valiantly to keep her response light over the muted but ever-present roar of Amity Arena's crowd. 'Sponsors' was the term they'd come up with for describing Ozpin and the other players in the plan—the plan that wouldn't come into play until after this next match. The festival tournament was only just getting started, after all. Rather than fret about the chaos to come, she tried to keep her mind on the here and now. I won't be paralyzed by what might happen. "So, who do you think's gonna win?"
"After the sponsors insisted on moving things around, this could really end up as a blowout," Yang mused. "I mean, that team from Vacuo is probably good—"
"I doubt they're as good as Neptune's team," Weiss put in.
"—but like, it's team CFVY. I ran into the big guy in the gym once. Yak…Yam…"
"Yatsuhashi."
"Anyway, he was benching nearly a hundred pounds above my max."
The teams had assembled on the central octagonal panel. Holographic screens appeared above the panels ringing the center and began to flip at nauseating speed through the topographical options. Professors Port and Oobleck were chatting over the loudspeakers, but their voices were indistinct noise to Ruby's ears.
"Weiss?" Blake prodded for info on the Vacuo competitors.
"Do you think I know every little thing about every single team? Can you even tell me any of those girls' names?"
Unimpressed, Blake stared at her while scooping up some popcorn with the hand not busy keeping the box stable. The heiress huffed and sat a little straighter in her seat.
"Fine. It's team CNMN, and they were fifth-ranked in Vacuo's records. None of them have placed in any inter-kingdom competitions."
"Fifth rank in what, exactly?" Yang asked around a mouthful of popcorn. "Classes, fighting, or?"
"I don't know. Vacuo doesn't keep very good public records." Seeing their faces, she scowled. "Look, they're perfectly competent students."
On the arena floor, the teams were sinking into ready stances. The flat gray panels had pulled away to be replaced with a selection of different biomes: two seas, one gravity, and one forest. That put the Vacuoans at a disadvantage unless they'd done some kind of training elsewhere. Ruby chewed her thumbnail. Signal hadn't really had exchange student opportunities, and Vacuo was pretty isolated by comparison, so probably not?
Yang raised an eyebrow at Weiss. "So are we."
"We are so much more than that. Why, my personal tutoring alone puts—"
"Oh," Ruby interrupted by accident in the same moment Coco let loose a barrage of bullets, "it's starting."
Weiss, cheeks flushed red, fished out a fistful of popcorn and shoved it in the general direction of her mouth. Down in the arena, the eight combatants erupted into a flurry of motion. Coco swept her minigun down the ranks of the Vacuoans, but each of them flipped and dove out of the way, seeking cover in the solid walls of the gravity section when Coco's bullets simply ripped through the forest's trees.
Utterly enraptured, Ruby was deaf to her teammates' comments as the fight played out. Two of the Vacuoans were knocked out by a single swing of Yatsuhashi's blade, which ripped through the floating wall they'd been using as a shield like it was nothing. Then it became a game of cat and mouse. Coco nearly got taken out by an effort from the remaining two, who used a creative combination of Dust and some kind of wind semblance to raise the seas and flood the rest of the arena. Fox saved her at the cost of getting washed over the side and out of bounds. After that, it was over quickly; the effort left the Vacuoans open to a swift counter from Violet, who froze them solid before they could get out of the sodden seabed. Another grand slam from Yatsuhashi put them out of the fight.
Ruby sat back in her chair. Her fingers scraped the bottom of her popcorn box once, twice, before she realized it was empty. She glanced around. At some point during the fight, Weiss had pulled out her scroll and begun taking notes. Yang and Blake, meanwhile, had started up a game: Blake would flick a piece of popcorn into the air and Yang would try to catch it in her mouth. Judging by the number of kernels on the ground and in Yang's hair, they weren't having much luck. Or they'd been at it for a while.
Still, the match was over; the KO'd combatants had been ferried to first-aid stations in the arena's depths while CFVY had waved their way into an opposite tunnel and presumably to a changing room. Unlike RWBY, who had to watch their matches in full gear minus their weapons in preparation for their upcoming fight, CFVY was done for the day.
The next match would start as soon as the arena was prepped. In fact, they were already putting up the holographic displays of the next teams to step in the ring. Trying to stop her heart from fluttering at the sight of her own portrait displayed for all to see, Ruby focused on nudging her team.
"We're up."
"Good." Yang snatched the last kernel out of the air with her teeth and crunched down while she tossed her hair and consequently dumped popcorn on a couple unlucky bystanders. Blake and Weiss also stood, but they both shot Ruby curious looks when she didn't lead the way out of their row.
"Something's wrong." Ruby couldn't put her finger on how she knew, but there was something—some sixth sense, some wave of dread, that had her on edge. She sought Cinder in the crowd and found the woman already looking straight at her. Her blood ran cold. As she watched, Cinder snapped her fingers to get her teammates' attention, said something Ruby couldn't catch just by reading lips, and stood. "She knows."
"What? How?" Yang demanded.
Blake tensed, eyes flicking to where Cinder and her teams' portraits flickered above the arena. "If she leaves—"
If she left, the whole plan was as good as gone. If she left, they had no way of knowing if they'd ever get another chance. If she left, all those weeks of planning would be for nothing. Ruby set her jaw. The huntsmen and huntresses wouldn't be set up below the arena yet but the shield was in place. If she could just get through it…
"I'm getting her into the ring," she said. "Weiss, I need you to make a hole in the shield."
"H—"
Whatever's Weiss's protest, it was lost when Ruby threw herself into her semblance. Nearby students' and spectators' shouts of confusion and surprise turned into an indistinct roar while her surroundings smeared into blurry impressions of themselves. She coalesced just long enough to snare Cinder in a tackle, the woman managing a surprised grunt. Something hard collided with Ruby's back but, as Cinder's aura washed over her in a searing wave, Ruby hurled herself once more into her semblance.
Carrying someone who did not want to be carried was way, way different than carrying someone willing—even if that willing person was prone to nausea. Cinder's presence burned like a miniature sun that got hotter with each passing moment. Ruby held on for as long as she could, aiming for the part of the arena barrier that felt least solid to her warped senses, and then broke away from Cinder. They split in the air and both landed badly. Ruby, because she was singed and smoking while burning petals fell around her; Cinder, because she was too busy battling nausea to focus on anything else.
Yang, Blake, and Weiss landed next to Ruby a second later, weapons at the ready. Just outside the barrier, four rocket lockers that had landed badly finally tipped over with a chorus of bangs. Yang spared one hand to help Ruby up and shoved Crescent Rose into her grip with the other. Weiss flicked her left wrist and the four bright blue glyphs creating a square hole in the arena barrier flickered out. The barrier closed before Mercury or Emerald could reach it, and they were swiftly intercepted by a team of huntsmen who'd been scattered amid the audience.
Cinder pushed herself to her feet and took a moment to dust off her outfit. She seemed amused by the attempts of Port and Oobleck to distract the crowd, though the speakers' output was slightly muffled by the hard light barrier. "Most people would be offended by a sudden attack like that."
Ruby hefted Crescent Rose. "We know what you're planning." The scythe unfolded and she spun it to adjust her grip until its comforting weight settled firmly into her hands, the blade lightly kissing the ground between them. The barrel, level with Cinder's chest, gleamed. "You won't get away with it."
Cinder's expression cooled while the air warmed. Alarms abruptly blared all across the arena; orders to evacuate in a calm and orderly manner echoed over the loudspeakers. In the din, Cinder's words were for them and them alone. "So, you really are the new pawns. He's even more uncreative than I thought." Her gaze flicked past them to her allies still on the other side. Ruby chanced a glance over her shoulder: professors Port and Oobleck, supported by a handful of other faculty and students, were fighting to contain the two while Professor Goodwitch kept the fight from getting out of hand or spectators from getting too close. Stray shots thudded into the barrier, but without concentrated fire, nothing was getting through. Cinder was on her own.
"Fine." Cinder straightened her shoulders and tipped up her chin. Golden light flared in and around her eyes—the latter for only a moment—and curved swords of midnight-black glass appeared in her hands from nowhere. "Let's see what that knowledge gets you."
Ruby drew breath to order her team forward but stuttered when panicked screams erupted around the arena.
"GRIMM!" someone yelled, a cry picked up by tens and then hundreds of others. Students and civilians alike swarmed in desperate stampedes for the exits while Amity Arena's outer hard light shield hummed to life. Cinder's two allies took advantage of the confusion to escape their attackers. The arena floor shook from thousands of feet swarming the exits.
"Grimm?" Blake shouted. "How?"
They felt it before they heard it: an electric charge in the air, an ache in their teeth, a squeeze on their ears. Then a crack like an instantaneous thunderclap and a shockwave that slammed into Amity hard enough to tilt it by nearly a full degree.
"That was one of the flagships firing," Weiss said, eyes wide and face pale as she turned to look up at the sky—a sky rapidly filling with black blots. "What is going on out there?"
An answer hurtled down from the sky a second later: a massive nevermore crashed into the outermost barrier, claws scrabbling for purchase and balance on the curved dome. Its beak shone in the harsh blue light while malicious intelligence gleamed in its beady eyes. When that beak came down on the barrier, it brought the hexagonal hard light panels into stark relief.
"Oh?" Cinder's voice pulled all their attention back to her. She twirled one of her swords, an indulgent smile on her face while she looked down her nose at them. "But you knew my plan, didn't you?"
Yang scowled and shifted her foot forward. Cinder's smile turned vicious and Ruby's shout of warning came too late: her thrust caught Yang in the stomach, the blade slipping clean between her belated guard. Yang flew back into the barrier. Ruby fired Crescent Rose and the recoil wrapped the blade around Cinder's waist, but Cinder deflected it high and kicked out a leg behind her to catch Weiss in the ankle.
Staggering, Weiss still managed an off-balance stab into Cinder's shoulder. Cinder let it push her out of the way of Blake's lunge, then kept backing up while Blake pressed the attack with her dual-wielded sheath and blade. Ruby fired twice more, but not at Cinder: once to get out wide, and again to come at Cinder from the side. At the same time, Yang rejoined the fight with the aid of a white glyph giving her a platform to kick off from above. Her flaming fist, Crescent Rose's blade, and Blake's gun-whip converged on Cinder's position with an explosion of debris and dust.
They jumped back to get level with Weiss, who spun Myrtenaster's cylinder and cleared the haze with a wind-Dust-infused flick of the blade. Ruby, heart pounding, scanned the arena and the craters and scorch marks their attacks had created. Where—
"Up!" Blake cried, firing. Her bullets shattered two of the arrows flying down. Yang punched away the other two aimed for her while Weiss merely tilted her head to avoid the last. But while their attention was aimed high, Cinder sprung a trap below: swirling red pools spawned below each of them. Only Ruby was fast enough to throw herself out of the way; Blake avoided the worst of it with a shadow, but both Weiss and Yang took the explosions head-on.
"Yang, Weiss!" cried Ruby, but Cinder intercepted her before she could take more than a single step toward her teammates.
"You really thought you were doing something, didn't you?" Her twin swords rang like bells with each blow against Crescent Rose. "He has such a knack for finding your type, you know."
"What's"—she grunted when Cinder shoulder-checked her—"that supposed to mean?"
All she got for an answer was another smirk and a dizzying blitz of bladework. Crescent Rose blurred in her hands but the larger weapon, as fast as Ruby could wield it, simply couldn't keep up and her aura paid the price. When the rest of her team caught up, Cinder switched to a defensive style, constantly giving ground. Despite the evacuation, the arena was still preparing itself for the next match. As the old biome segments sank down and the standard floor slid out to cover the gaps, the whole space rumbled and shook under their feet.
If the plan had actually gone according to plan, there would've been huntsmen converging down below, ready to ride the next match's biomes up to ambush Cinder and her team while Ruby and her team stayed comfortably out of Cinder's reach—that last detail having been something insisted on by both Qrow and, when he heard about it, Adam. But the plan hadn't gone to plan, and now Ruby was blinking stars out of her eyes caused by a glass pommel to the temple.
While she was recovering, Cinder kicked Blake into one of the drained sea sections as its ceiling trundled closed.
"Blake!" Yang cried. Blake hurled Gambol Shroud up, but Cinder blasted it away from all of them with a fireball. Weiss flicked Myrtenaster and locked the pistol in place with a white glyph. Ruby and Yang dashed over to cover her from more fire blasts while Blake used the ribbon to climb out in the nick of time. The floor shuddered shut moments later.
Cinder tsked and leaned more into her fire for her attacks, but with the arena reduced to a flat battlefield and the barrier keeping out the swarms of Grimm and massive nevermore above, she was at a disadvantage. Yang leaped to the front whenever she could, tanking the damage and coming out the other side with a wild grin on her face.
Overhead, the nevermore broke through the outer barrier. Fortunately the spectators had long since evacuated, but with the nevermore's breakthrough came swarms of smaller flying Grimm. The remaining huntsmen, huntresses, and students stuck dealing with hordes of griffons, couldn't stop the biggest threat from attacking the second barrier around the arena itself.
That meant it was up to her team to take Cinder down before the Grimm broke through the last barrier. At least the outer barrier going down meant more rocket lockers could come through, arming more of the students.
"Ladybug!" Ruby called out, and Blake joined her in a coordinated assault while Yang and Weiss supported from range. Cinder's defenses held, for the most part, and she ended their attack with a wall of flame that forced Ruby back. As Ruby flipped, she exchanged her spent magazine for Dust ammunition. "Iceflower!"
Weiss readied herself next to her. Combined with Weiss's glyphs, Ruby's ice Dust bullets hit Cinder's position with the force of trains and created chunks of ice equally large. "Bumblebee!"
Blake tossed Gambol Shroud to Yang, keeping hold of the other end of the ribbon, and braced herself. Yang took a few running steps and then blasted herself into a faster and faster arc with shots from her gauntlets. After the third shot, her hair ignited and she left a burning trail in her wake. Blake was rock-steady as the fulcrum to her force and, with a cry, aimed Yang right at Cinder's icy prison. Yang released Gambol Shroud, cocked back her fist, and hit it like a meteor.
Ruby threw up an arm to shield herself from the explosive blast of steam that instantly coated the arena, fogging up everything inside the barrier. Weiss cleared the worst of it a moment later, revealing Cinder with her arms up. She'd had one of her swords in a reverse grip along her crossed forearms and Yang's fist—after crashing through several feet of ice—had shattered that sword. Cinder's aura flickered along her arms, she was breathing hard, and tracks in the floor showed where she'd been shoved back, but she was standing. Swaying, but standing. More importantly, her aura was still holding.
"You've got to be kidding," Blake said as she recalled Gambol Shroud, ejected its magazine, and slid in a fresh one. Weiss pursed her lips and spun Myrtenaster's cylinder. Ruby tensed.
Yang scowled. Lingering flames fighting against the steam flickered in her hair, flames that flared when she cocked her left fist and rammed it into Cinder's side. The shotgun shot echoed in the muffled bubble created by the steam-filled barrier and sent Cinder flying. She landed badly and rolled, her weapons—one shattered, the other visibly riddled with cracks—shocked from her hands. She ended up on her stomach mere feet from the edge of the arena.
"It's over," Ruby called, advancing carefully, wary of more fire traps. What was the official thing huntsmen said? Law classes didn't start until year two.
Cinder let out a quiet growl that barely carried over the chaos leaking in from outside. She balled one hand into a fist and punched the ground next to her. The impact seemed to give her strength, because she brought up her other hand and pushed herself back to her feet.
Falling into step with Ruby, Yang ejected her shells and tossed up two fresh rolls. Locked and loaded, she glared at Cinder with a promise of more pain to come. "She was never frozen. The ice took most of it."
Standing now, Cinder appeared to be catching her breath. Her shoulders rose and fell. Steam rose from her in deceptively gentle wisps. Weiss, Blake, and Yang glanced at Ruby, who pursed her lips and maintained her wary approach. Cinder wouldn't stop being a threat until her aura broke.
"Call off the Grimm," Ruby tried. "We can stop this now."
Her shoulders' motion shuddered with the laugh that spilled from her lips. She raised her head to show light blazing around her eyes. "It's just beginning."
What had been a constant backdrop of hollow thuds suddenly sharpened into cracks. Ruby looked up in time to see the barrier shatter. Hard light panels winked out of existence and the massive bird dropped down with a deafening shriek. Ruby and her team fired on it even as they scrambled out of its way, but their bullets didn't do more than irritate the thing.
"Did it land on her?" Weiss yelled over the din of shrieking Grimm and howling wind.
"Not likely!" Blake yelled back, and then squinted. "She's on its back!"
Sure enough, Cinder was clambering up near its neck. The nevermore sank down, flared its wings—sparing only a moment to flick razor-sharp feathers at Yang before she could launch more incendiary rounds at it—and took off with a rush of wind that nearly bowled Ruby off her feet. Weiss called up a gravity glyph to stall its ascent but had to abandon the effort when familiar orange pools spawned below all of them. They scattered to avoid Cinder's attack; when the dust cleared, the nevermore was already out of range.
"Fuck," Yang said, and even though it wasn't something Ruby would ever say, she had to agree.
"We need to warn Professor Ozpin," said Blake. "We failed. He needs to know Cinder got away." Weiss nodded and pulled out her scroll.
Failed.
While Weiss made that call, Ruby stared after the nevermore, which was getting harder and harder to pick out thanks to distance and the number of Grimm around the arena. But she could still see it. It wasn't gone. Cinder hadn't gotten away; she was still getting away.
Her gaze shifted to just outside where the inner barrier had fallen, where her tipped-over weapons locker sat.
"Ruby," Yang's warning tone pulled her out of her thoughts, "what are you planning?"
"We haven't failed yet."
"What are you—"
"I can reach her." She raised her eyes to her sister's and put every bit of confidence she could muster into her voice. "I can."
Blake looked where she'd been looking. "That's reckless."
"And incredibly unsafe," Weiss tacked on while she poured fresh Dust into one of Myrtenaster's cylinders.
Yang crossed her arms. "Only if she does it alone."
"No, I'm quite sure it's just as dangerous no matter how many people attempt it. But very well. The headmaster told us to hold our position and assist with defending the arena; however, it seems the other students and professionals have that handled." Finished reloading, Weiss discarded the spent cartridge and flourished her weapon. "If anyone can make your idea a less than suicidal venture, it's me."
The team exchanged a look and then took off at a run for their lockers. It was trivially easy to get themselves sorted out. Weiss, as the one providing accuracy, stability, and grip, had to stay behind but would follow as soon as she found a ship. The rest of them stood up their lockers and then held onto them like oversized spiders. A white glyph bonded them to their chariots; more glyphs laid out the beginning of their flight path.
A sheen of sweat on her brow, Weiss spoke with a light tremor of exertion in her voice. "Ready."
"Ready?" Ruby asked Blake and Yang.
"For this? Never," Blake replied while Yang answered, "Yup."
"On three." Ruby held her thumb over the launch button on her scroll. "One. Two. Three!"
She pressed and it was only by the grace of Weiss's semblance that the locker didn't roar clean out of her grasp. She shrieked in surprise at the sudden speed and clung to the thing for dear life while Amity swiftly fled her surroundings. Open sky enveloped her—open sky riddled with dozens upon dozens of dogfights between hopelessly outnumbered ships and legions of Grimm. Flak exploded like fireworks, close enough for the heat to wash over her like a warning. Still she flew.
Weiss's glyph flickered out after a few seconds, whether because of range or its power being spent Ruby didn't know. Either way, she was thankful for her tight grip on the locker when the abrupt lack of support nearly tore her clean off it.
Chancing a look over her shoulder, she caught Blake and Yang not too far behind her. Blake's ears were flat against her head, her face set in a reflexive grimace, and she'd copied Ruby's example of holding her locker tight enough to fuse with it. Yang, on the other hand, had a manic grin on her face—until a black blur crossed her flight path.
"YANG!" Ruby yelled, but the wind snatched away her cry. Her sister, her sister's locker, and the griffon she'd hit all went tumbling into the open air. More griffons swooped through the air nearby, and it was all Ruby could do to hope she didn't hit them.
Anti-air gunfire strafed through the sky. Ruby watched it tear through a swarm of griffons and then keep coming. She squeezed her eyes shut but it missed her by hairs. Blake wasn't so lucky; one round clipped her locker's thruster, sending her into a nauseating spiral dive. She kicked off the doomed locker moments before it exploded and disappeared into the chaos.
Alone, Ruby clung to her locker. They'd be fine. They had their landing strategies. They'd be fine. But now she was down her whole team and chasing someone who'd been going against all four of them at once.
She needed to call for backup, but who? Uncle Qrow was with Ozpin at Beacon, General Ironwood was probably on his flag…ship…The one currently plummeting down on the edge of the city, a giant smoking hole in its side from where another ship had fired its main gun on it. Ruby blinked away wind-induced tears and confirmed that yes, that was the flagship going down. What was going on?
She shook her head and refocused on Cinder's nevermore. Still ahead of her. At the same time, she brought the scroll she'd kept in a death grip back into view. She dialed the only other person she thought could maybe reach her in time.
"ADAM!" she yelled. If he responded, she couldn't hear it over the wind. She had to yell just to hear herself. "CINDER'S GETTING AWAY ON A GIANT NEVERMORE FLYING SOUTH FROM AMITY!"
Even with her scroll's volume up as high as it could go, all she heard in response was the barest scrap of his voice. Not enough to even guess what he said. She sent him a silent apology, hung up, and then tucked her scroll deeply and securely in her pocket. Hopefully he could send some of the White Fang's airships her way. A few bullheads would be nice…if they could make it through all the Grimm. And misbehaving Atlesian ships. Weiss let Professor Ozpin know the situation too, so there were more reinforcements coming from there. Maybe. Hopefully. All she had to do was prevent Cinder's escape until help arrived.
She clutched the locker tighter and resolved not to think about the flash of her own aura levels she'd seen before pocketing her scroll. She'd be fine. She'd be—
The locker shuddered. Sputtered. The blood drained from Ruby's face. Had she been hit? She glanced over her shoulder to see the exhaust trail looking way thinner than before. Seriously? Out of fuel? There was no helping it; she could feel herself slowing down. Cinder's ride was pulling away.
When she'd told Yang she could make it, it wasn't just about the locker. She had something the rest of her team didn't, and one last magazine of wind Dust she could use to make it happen. She ejected Crescent Rose's current magazine—catching and stowing it, since it was only half spent—and replaced it with that final Dust magazine. She then released her white-knuckled grip on the locker and maneuvered herself so she was practically surfing on her rapidly slowing steed. Thusly—precariously—balanced, she levered her beloved scythe behind herself and took a deep breath. Her focus narrowed to the distance between her and the nevermore.
"C'mon, Ruby," she whispered, and pulled the trigger.