Ch. 57 Where luck fails
"Hey there Firecracker."
Yang looked at her uncle in disbelief. It wasn't the first time he saved her like this, but the other time was when she was a child just after Summer disappeared.
This time was not like back then at all. The stakes were higher as strange as that sounded since she and Ruby nearly died back then. But Qrow killed the Grimm and saved them near effortlessly. Now however Qrow was visibly struggling against the scorpion faunus.
Tyrian was here to kill her and that sent her back to Beacon, back to the tower, back to Cinder. As she got her bearings again, she felt her support. She felt the soft hug of the woman from the basement as she tapped into her semblance.
Her first strike took Tyrian by surprise but he soon adjusted. Qrow was yelling something at her, but all she could hear was the rushing of blood in her ears. The exchange of blows was swift and while Qrow's face tightened with focus Tyrian's manic grin only grew wider.
As Yang let her semblance flood her with power and her hair and eyes lit aflame she unleashed her finisher.
It was for nothing… no worse than that, Tyrian parried her blow with ease, altering its path towards Qrow, forcing him to stop his niece's strike.
Qrow slid back as he received her blow on the flat of Harbinger. Yang froze for just a moment, but it was a moment too much.
Qrow could see Tyrian rear back his stinger and barely had time to react. The gears of Harbinger turned just fast enough to push Yang out of the way, unfolding Harbinger from a sword to warscythe, launching Yang a good distance back.
As Yang fell to the floor a second time, she could see her uncle take the strike meant for her. Tyrians stinger slicing clean through Qrows aura and creating a long thin gash on this forearm.
Qrow grunted in pain, but as luck would have it, the pained jerk of his arm caused his scythe to rapidly fold itself back, into a sword. Unluckily for Tyrian, his tail got caught in the exposed gears when the telescopic handle collapsed in on itself, pulling the scythe head back to Qrow.
Tyrian howled in pain when he felt his tail ripping off, nearly collapsing in agony as his stinger got pulverised by the gears.
"AAAAaahhh! You! YOU'LL PAY FOR THAT!" screamed Tyrian, his eyes widening while his pupils constricted.
Yang, still sitting on the ground, realised it was the first thing she could hear properly since Qrow arrived. It was only then it dawned on her that Pyrrha was firmly holding her forearm, holding her back from joining the fight again.
While Tyrian tried to take a swing at Qrow, he was easily deflected by the curved blade of Harbinger stuck mid transition. When Ren and Pyrrha's gunshots rang out, the cripled faunus had no choice but to turn and run away.
=O=O=O=
"Jaune! I have the lab results, it's all good, we can use those for joint articulation!"
Ruby rushed into the workshop in a flurry of rose petals, waving around the printed results of the material testing.
"That's good news…" voiced Weiss. Ruby turned to the source of the voice, noticing Weiss in a wheelchair sitting in a corner out of the way of Jaune's work. Weiss was dressed in pale blue pyjamas with a large scroll in her lap, displaying the design of her new leg.
Before anything else could be said though, the door to one of the siderooms opened, revealing Winter. "As good as those news are, I'm afraid I have some bad ones. Whitley called. It's about father."
Weiss nodded. She was sort of pleased at how the three of them managed to mend their relationship as siblings recently, however she was sure Whitley was risking their father's wrath by keeping in touch with them. Luckily Klein was most helpful when it came to hiding Whitley's activities, even going so far as lending Whitley his personal scroll to further obfuscate Whitley's involvement with his sisters.
"What is it now? Still trying to get Weiss back in his custody?" asked Ruby.
"He held a gala yesterday as a charity to help Vale. He was very public about how he feels Weiss is being taken advantage of by you two. I fear it's a matter of days before forces a public appearance from her."
"She'll be ready. We should be able to finish putting the mechanism together today, schedule the operation for tomorrow and give Weiss as much time as we can before she has to confront your father. Ruby, I'll need you to help me, go get changed and meet me back here as soon as you can."
"Got it!" Ruby called out as she once more disappeared in a burst of petals.
Jaune turned to Weiss to say something but stopped the moment he noticed Weiss open her mouth.
"What about Whitley? Is he alright?"
"Father made him attend the gala and paraded him in front of investors and influential people. Nothing unusual. He seemed on edge but that was probably because he was hiding the call from the other staff while Klein acted as lookout."
"What about the gala? Did it do any good for Vale at least?"
"Doubt it, from what Whitley said, barely anyone even knew the gala was a charity event. It just makes for a good looking headline for the SDC."
Jaune turned away from the conversation and went back to work. With the articulation mechanism confirmed to be able to handle huntsmen levels of stress and strain the last of the parts could be done today.
The main skeletal support of the leg was mostly done with the exception of the joint, the old revolver chamber was refurbished and prepared to be used as it, the circuitry and wiring was ready for installation too and the outer armour would be finished as soon as Weiss finalised the last of the design.
Jaune would freely admit that he was surprised by her choice of design, though it was flattering that the Arc Rose joint emblem on Lunatum Cor Rosae became the inspiration for it.
If all went well doctor Polendina would perform the required surgery tomorrow. Unfortunately that too would be more complicated than normal. Unlike a socket for a detachable prosthesis, the permanent attachment Weiss opted for required her nerves to attach directly into the circuitry and the main skeletal structure to be fused with the original bone.
Normally that would be done under local anaesthesia to dull the sensitivity and let the surgeon attach the nerves with minimal pain. Weiss however reacted poorly to painkillers ever since they were flushed out of her system after the hospital escape.
Doctor Polendina suspected it was a mental block as a result of the long term involuntary exposure to painkillers and opiates. Whatever the cause though, it meant that the operation would be very painful for Weiss as they needed her conscious for it.
Ruby would be the one assembling the leg during the operation as Jaune guided her to minimise his semblance's ability to interact with the finished leg. The assembly process however needed to be accompanied by Aura imbuement from Weiss as each step was completed and since the assembly needed to happen concurrently with the operation that meant Weiss had to stay awake during it.
Once it was done though, so long as Weiss kept it filled with Aura, it would be near impossible to remove from her. It wasn't quite on the same level as Atra Aurora when it came to Aura capacity, but its nature as a dustcaster aided in Aura retention allowing it to stay imbued for nearly a week through minimised leakage.
But since she would be imbuing it with each and every step, he doubted it would ever come anywhere near to empty.
=O=O=O=
Blake sat on the top deck of the ship she boarded nearly a month ago. The sky was dark and one could see the stars clearly this far away from any settlements.
She had incredibly bad luck when it came to boat travel. At first she thought to escape from Vale as quickly as possible. So, since air travel was being restricted at the time, she chose a boat. That turned out to be a mistake, least of all because Sun decided to join her without telling her.
No, the problem lay in her route. The first boat she boarded took her north, but only got her as far as the main settlement on Vytal. It was once a fairly prominent settlement, and the antique map hung up in the visitor's centre called it Civitas Insulae Vytal. But as it just meant city of Vytal island, most just called it Civi or Vytal these days, the latter becoming widespread when the Treaty of Vytal was signed there, ending the latest war between kingdoms.
From Vytal she had several choices on how to continue, though only two would really bring her back home. In the end she opted out of going north. While that route was technically safer thanks to passing between Solitas and Anima and stopping in Argus, she didn't fancy the cold or coming so close to Atlas. So her journey continued south.
The ship she was on now made stops in just about every settlement along the west coast of Anima, although there aren't all that many. Today's stop was the last one before embarking to Kuo Kuana, the capital city of Menagerie, and Blake's home.
"There you are. I got worried when I didn't find you in your cabin."
"Sun…"
"Hey, I just worry, you know. What if the ship left while you got lost on land?" he said with his signature dumb smile on his face.
"I should have left you on Vytal…" she replied in faux annoyance.
"Pffft, yeah right. You'd go insane without any company but the crew."
He was probably right about that. Nonetheless Blake decided to tease him and took out a pill bottle from her pocket. It was the last of her medication.
"I'm already insane, can't get that much worse." she shook the bottle like a rattle as she said that.
Sun's face fell, growing uncharacteristically serious. "Blake, don't even… You're not crazy, you went through bad shit… How many do you even have left?"
"I've been good without them for the past two weeks. This should last me a while. Definitely until we reach Kuo Kuana."
Sun sighed in relief. Blake was a mess after Beacon but once they spoke about it on their way to Vytal, things got a little better. Of course, Sun was no therapist and even he could tell she wasn't done dealing with whatever happened, but she was opening up, even if it took time. The important thing was that she didn't have as many anxiety attacks lately.
The first one he saw before they left Vale was the reason he decided to come with her on the boat. That he only told her he was with her after they left port was just so that she couldn't escape like she was so prone to doing..
"So we have what… two more weeks before I can meet your parents?"
"You should enjoy your last two weeks of life…"
Sun smiled, a Blake joking at his expense was better than a depressed one.
"Hey, your parents are going to love me, just you wait!"
Or at least he hoped so…
=O=O=O=
Author's note:
Ok, if it wasn't clear, Bumblebee isn't happening in this fic. That isn't to say Sun will succeed in wooing Blake... or will he? You'll have to wait and see.
So this one is slightly shorter than I anticipated since I once again got lost in comparing it to cannon events. Apparently RNJR walked for 6-8 months in cannon? Yeah, I'm gonna say that was because of Jaune being inexperienced and Ruby having bad stamina, cause these guys are superhuman compared to our reality and 6-8 months is achievable with baseline humans without Aura. Thus everything in the timeline moving up slightly. Also Blake was just traveling home in those 6-8 months presumably? Or she was running around Vale for a while before that, or the events in the episodes don't happen chronologically... Yeah the cannon RWBY timeline is a bit of a mess when it comes to exact times and distances. It serves the animation format well to do that but is mildly infuriating when trying to figure stuff out.
In real life I've been pushing off things I desperately need to do, but decision paralysis is getting to me. Plus I was commuting for two hours every day last week, since I was house-sitting for my parents. Waking up before 5 AM is soul draining, so glad that is over now.
But hey if you want to support me you can do so on P a treon . com (slash) OlympianScribe
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed and are looking forward to the next chapter: Ch. 58 Reconnected