Ironwood gasped. Winter crystallized. Ruby honked out a huge laugh. Then her brain started to work. It ticked. The world rotated— if minutely— in that time.

Then Weiss was in her arms— in her plume— her mother's plume— the manor's gold trim and white walls blurring past. In the next conscious moment, however, Ruby felt a rebellion in the blue and white and pink mottling her graverobbed Semblance. They split, her and Weiss becoming her and Weiss again, and the two girls clattered into a flat wall where two halls split off.

"Whenceforth couldst thou—"

"What the fuck are you—"

And they met each other's eyes. Given five minutes, they would've used every one of those three hundred seconds kicking, punching, screaming, clawing, pulling hair, kissing, and/or fucking, but the incoherent cry of one Penny rang out loudly from the way they'd come. The yell was chased with a futile bid for control and unity from Ironwood.

Ruby yanked her partner up and tried to pull her on the rightward path. Weiss grabbed her own partner's collar and pulled her leftwise.

"Hell do you think you're—"

"Art thou unmanned, we must—"

Ruby's nose crinkled. Weiss flushed with immediate recognition and shame.

"Why do you smell like piss?"

"Don't tease me, Bell-Be—"

Belaflor Reaps Greatest Of The Lands Most Sullied was unfurled in a flash, Ruby channeling her Aura to swing it up like a hook— almost blindly, knowing by some tick of instinct where to go— to catch Penny's flying body, arc it around, and slam the robot into a wall. By the same instinct, she jammed her autocannon's barrel into the sternum of the wall-splatted girl and jerked the trigger.

Clunk.

No bullets. Why the fuck did she—

Penny whirled, her arm sweeping out, palm glowing green— Weiss' blade shot out in front of it, blocking the blast of energy. Ruby drew away, Aura pumping her shoulders back before it flooded her waist, twisting her, winding her up before uncoiling her body so hard that the blade sounded like god's own hand chopping through the air. The scythe smashed Penny's legs out from under her and Weiss— like clockwork, like they were fighting Cardin again, like she didn't smell worryingly of urea— drew the lovely, basket-hilted sword up once more to mercilessly slash against Penny's so-pretty-it-was-ugly face.

Seeing Penny's mad confidence melt to something like pants-shitting 'I was not prepared for this'-ness was, by Ruby's somewhat uninformed rubric, orgasmic. Her Aura held, unfortunately, so Ruby was deprived the right to see archetypal ultraviolence upon the bot. Her feet lit up, heating— only a short beat before they exploded with green energy, pressing her against the wall and forcing her towards the ceiling.

Reinforcements were shouting down the hall. Ruby turned to her partner, only to find her bolting down the left hallway already. Ruby chased her without hesitation, but with frustration, her scythe folding back up at her side.

"The hell are you going!" Ruby called, catching up to her partner easily. "Does the other way not lead out!"

"Deeper in the belly lieth mine heart's contempt! I shall set it free!"

"Valish, Weiss!" Ruby demanded, flicking her buckler out to deflect a glob of hot green Penny-stuff.

"Faunus below, penned like animals!" Weiss growled. "I shan't abide it."

"Why not! Isn't—" she lashed her buckler out to deflect another one before it could hit Weiss' back. "Isn't that your thing!"

Weiss looked at Ruby like she'd asked if Jaune was free game for a good snog. "Florabel!" She reproached, panting at what was honestly a moderate jog for Ruby. "I— I am not—"

Ruby started running backwards beside her partner, raising an eyebrow at her as she batted another green bolt away, never looking at it. She didn't know how she was doing that so well, but she wasn't keen on questioning it either. "You're not a huge racist?" Ruby asked, part smug, part genuinely hopeful.

Weiss soured, focusing forward again. "I… want no such excess cruelty as—" she breathed, her cheeks bright red splotches of exertion— "that which hath befallen thy kinfolk in this place."

Ruby opened her mouth, but Penny came screaming towards them— both in terms of velocity and volume. She had assumed robots would be smart— and perhaps they were— but Penny's fault was that she didn't seem to learn. Ruby leapt up and dipped into the line, killing her momentum fully as she poofed out of it, unmoved and unmoving, her buckler set back in favor of having her wires laced between her hands. She stuck her legs forward, fingers bleeding as she redirected her Aura there and away from the wires on her skin, and her braced body caught Penny like a baseball glove made of knives. Her legs, braced and pumped full of Aura, nearly jammed out of their sockets as each talon closed against Penny's shoulders, her hands moving quick to wrap the wires around her head— Penny batted her away, but the damage was already done, and Ruby's claws raked splintering gouges into the floor as she caught herself, channeled her Aura back up to her arms, and pulled.

Penny sputtered in the air, dropping and cutting her thrusters low to keep the wild thrust from sending her into a wall. Her hands swatted at the cobweb of razor-sharp wires julienning her Aura, which was a panicky and stupid thing to do when you were a robot who could mince their palms to their heart's content, and was an especially stupid thing to do when it left your back turned to Weiss Schnee.

Ruby's partner surged towards Penny from behind, her hand swiping over her sheath— her sheath for her sword, both of which Ruby had made— and she already looked like she'd been born to use it. Ruby watched the sheath's revolving chamber spin, then settle with a line of yellow over the front, ebbing brightly. Weiss drew. She tugged smoothly at the leather-wrapped hilt, her skinny, pale hand slipping its long fingers around the handle, the humble silver basket hiding and contrasting her skin like lingerie. The blade slipped forth, its profile the swingable yet thrustable middle-ground build between broadsword and sidesword— just as Weiss had asked— glowing with a brilliant yellow imbuement of lightning Dust.

The sword struck Penny's Aura and sparked, grinding into it, glowing even brighter as the Dust-imbued edge reacted with the android's soul, then snapped right through the barrier and buried itself in Penny's shoulder with crackling, deafening, fast-living and fast-dying pops like a taser at full blast. The mechanical girl jolted, seizing, her hands going still in Ruby's wires as the sides of her neck smoked, then suddenly popped. She stood in the way someone who was about to fall over dead stood, but she didn't fall over dead. She just stood. The sides of her neck fizzled.

Ruby was looking closer before she knew what she was doing, the engineer in her heart driving her to look at what she was pretty sure were a pair of now-blown fuses on each side of the android's neck. Thankfully, Weiss was there, jolting her back into the real world with a furious jerk.

"Florabel, for god's sake, come!" Weiss demanded, shaking her partner, somehow not conferring a smug joke from Ruby. "We've your kinfolk to save!"

Ruby, blinking, shook herself out of the other girl's hands. "No, that's— I came here for you, Weiss! We need to get out of here! We don't have time for—"

Weiss slapped her hard, her nails biting Ruby's cheek. "We haven't the time? Or you? Canst thou not spare a moment for thine own people?"

Ruby slapped her back— tried to, Weiss caught it— then tried again with her other hand and succeeded. "I can, later! I came for you— I want you— I walked away and hijacked a ship for you! I sucked my mum's soul out and I couldn't give less of a fuck because I'm busy— for once— doing what I want to do. That's what you wanted, right? That's why you broke up with me!"

The words were birdshot, each syllable a flechette that gouged Weiss' features into anger, fear, and lethal comprehension. She grit out, "This is about more than you."

The front of Ruby's brain burned, the middle of her brain felt like it'd run into a wall, the back of her brain also burned: a sandwich with wall for meat and fire for bread. "Oh, now it's about more than me? Now it is?" She screwed her eyes shut and shook her head like there were bugs in her ears. "Now it's— you told me— I— Weiss!" She roared through her teeth, her hands seizing the girl's bony shoulders before abruptly pushing away, Ruby twitching back to kick Penny's paralyzed robo-body over, hungry for catharsis. It thumped stiffly to the floor. The Faunus continued to seethe, "You can't just— tell me one thing, then do another, you— what do you want from me!"

Weiss was red from exhaustion. From emotion. "Our relationship has nothing to do with—"

"I ate your thumb!"

Weiss shut up, swallowing thickly. Ruby's claws raked (krrrrk, krrrrk) against the floor, unbidden. She tried to run a hand through her hair, only to be reminded of her mother's braids. Her voice started to sound sharp, but in the tacky way that a knife tells your skin that it's sharp— like it wants you to press closer, tempting, begging you to split yourself.

"I ate your thumb, because I— I didn't— I misunderstood, on the train I misunderstood, in the hospital— I thought I could tell you, I misunderstood, I thought you wanted me to get what I want— I want you— I want—" she growled, hot with embarrassment, feeling like she was a kid confessing to her moms in the principal's office. "I don't know how to do this! I'm not normal, okay! I can't just— pick up on the 'sage nuances' you're trying to give me— I want you because I have a huge, stupid, gay idiot crush on you! I'm sorry I'm not enough, or I'm not right— but god, Weiss, I'd be a Huntress for you!"

Weiss' voice was painfully resolute. "I don't want you to."

"And why not!" She took a lurching step forward and grabbed Weiss by the cuts in her bloodied shirt, hauling her up and getting a sword pointed at her face (which she ignored). "Why don't you, why! You don't like me? You— you don't want to fight me anymore? Or fuck? Or what, Weiss! Explain us!"

Weiss' stony face cracked, she opened her mouth, but Penny was whirring up again. Cinder— Cindy— whatever— was skidding down the hall, filling it with fire. Winter was charging further behind them, hand on her saber.

Ruby's skin prickled, her hands moving to her scythe, brows furrowing— mum's scythe.

Her body, her heart, her soul itched to whip apart into petals— cleave Penny, catch Cinder in the crook, throw her into Winter, overhead, point through the sternum, out the back, into Winter, triumph— but the desire made her head hurt, front senses all burning like she'd bathed in smelling salts. Ruby felt implacably hewn: she didn't want to fight them, she needed to. Some part of her did, at least.

But there was a tugging at her wrist, and Weiss' eyes were bluer than blue, begging: 'Run first, talk later.'

She was so terminally beautiful, like a perfect corpse walking. There were red stains on her mouth. Through the rips and beneath the undone buttons, Ruby could see all the bright blue veins on her clavicle. Her nose was tiny, her chin dainty and flat in line with her face— neither poking out sharply like Ruby's own— like an old princess in chiaroscuro profile. She looked like shit. Ruby wanted to kiss her— do anything for her— the wrenching desire dwarfing bloodlust, and she went with Weiss as if she'd never objected in the first place.

She was angered at how easily she gave in. Angry at looking weak, running. The anger tried to pull her around, to stop her feet.

But Weiss was right next to her, sprinting for her life, and it was hilariously pathetic. She was huffing and puffing, her face drawn with focus, immediately breaking out with an amount of sweat that made Ruby's mouth feel dry. If she had been forced to admit that her thoughts were— without hesitation or even a moment's pause— instantly freaky, she would have to follow that admission up with a prompt and merciful suicide.

To distract herself, to help Weiss not look like an out-of-shape idiot in front of her badass sister, and also to touch and feel and hold (like a baby grasping for your finger), Ruby swooped in front of her partner— it was easy to get ahead of the comparatively slow girl, even backwards— and cupped her hands up in front of herself, motioning up with pumps of her arms.

Weiss was panting like a dog. Ruby mentally slapped herself. "What— sayest— thee—"

"Up—" Ruby motioned. "Uppies, yknow?"

"What?"

Ruby rolled her eyes and grabbed Weiss' collar.

"Flora—"

They broke into petals, speeding down their path as a mottle of mismatched feathers, petals, and sparks of silver. She reformed only a second later, this time materializing with Weiss' legs wrapped around the front of her waist, Ruby holding the bone-dense girl up under her skinny, trousered thighs.

"Cover my ass!" Ruby commanded, her bird-legs nearly buckling under the weight and speed before she juiced them up with her Aura. She vowed to never say shit about Aura channeling again; going full speed while giving Weiss uppies was phenomenal.

The ugly, stupid little Fourth squeaked, realizing herself. "F-Florabel, art thou derang—"

"Yes!" Ruby shouted over the din of their escape, a flare of orange flame blasting by too close for comfort. "I literally am! Now cover my ass!"

She felt Weiss' arms moving against her, swinging and batting away inbound projectiles with her sword. "Thy methods art harebrained!"

Ruby agreed, but it was very fun. "How much further!"

Weiss grunted, swinging. Her legs were holding tight around Ruby's waist. "Thou'rt—" she swung again, grunted again— "Thou'st changed thy—"

"No!" Ruby shook her head, her features scrunching up. "Or— yes— I don't know! We're running and that's on the way and I'd literally do anything for you right now, so whatever! We'll free the fucking slaves, whatever!"

The annoyance tinged with fawning, this time: "Florabel!"

"Shut the fuck up, princess!"