Chapter 14
Day 4: Dawn
Tundra
Weiss woke gradually from her light slumber. She knew something had woken her but wasn't sure what until a bright flash shone through the fabric of the tent, followed by a low rumble a few moments later. Groggily, she checked her scroll. "It's four-thirty in the morning…" she sleepily murmured, "What could that possibly be?" She was about to ignore it and go back to sleep when the phenomena happened again: a flash of red light followed by a loud rumble. She sighed, supposing she should find out what that was. 'Wait…' she thought, her brain finally starting to get into gear, 'Thunder and lightning? We're out on the tundra in the snow, there's no thunderstorms in Atlas. That doesn't make sense…'
She looked at the girl huddled against her in the sleeping bag; Ruby hadn't stirred at the noise, but Weiss could see that she was shivering in her sleep and her forehead was clammy to the touch. Weiss carefully climbed out of the sleeping bag and pulled it tighter around her partner, placing a tender kiss on her forehead. Blinking sleepily, she quietly unzipped the tent and stepped out into the frigid morning air.
The sky was just beginning to turn a light shade of pink as the sun started to peek over the horizon. She shivered as the bitterly cold wind of the early morning cut right through her layers of clothing. Still groggy, she looked around, scanning the horizon and trying to figure out what had woken her up. Her breath caught in her throat as her eyes landed on Atlas, still tens of miles distant. She was no longer sleepy.
She stared in horror as a roiling storm cloud, blacker than anything she'd ever seen, and laced with red bolts of lightning, bore down on the city, rapidly flowing down the slopes of the distant mountains. An involuntary gasp escaped her throat as the head of a truly massive black whale studded with gravity crystals emerged from the cloud; it opened its mouth, disgorging dozens of small black shapes into the air. Weiss watched as what she could only assume were flying Grimm began to flock around the cloud, seeming almost to fly in formation. Almost two minutes later, the beast's muted roar reached her ears; she could only imagine how loud it must have been for the people in the city.
"Thats…" she murmured to herself, her brain barely able to process what she was seeing, "That's Her…isn't it? Salem. Sh-she finally came for the relics…" She spent another few minutes watching; she saw the white and gray shapes of fighters and warships launch from Atlas and Mantle, but neither side moved to engage the other, each side maintaining a good distance from the other.
Weiss turned towards the tent, Ruby's name on her lips, intending to call to her partner and share the terrible news, but she paused.
'If I tell her…' she thought somberly, 'she'll try to walk there to fight Salem herself, fatal poisoning be damned.' She could see it now: a sick and weak Ruby hobbling across the tundra until she collapsed from pain and exhaustion. 'And when she realizes that she'd never make it there,' she thought, tears beginning to gather at the corners of her eyes, 'She'll spend what could be her last few hours worrying about Yang and Blake.' Ruby wouldn't be able to help it, it was just in her nature.
Weiss thought back to how depressed Ruby had gotten when she hadn't been able to help set up the tent just a dew days ago. Not being able to protect the people she loved while they fought the ultimate evil would utterly destroy her.
Weiss entered the tent and gazed at her partner, Ruby's sleeping face slightly contorted in pain. 'She has so much to worry about as it is…I can't put more on her plate.' She thought, gently caressing Ruby's clammy cheek, 'This will be my burden to bear, I'll worry enough for the both of us.'
But the question now was how she was going to hide a massive cloud of Grimm from Ruby. Weiss gently wiped the sweat off Ruby's forehead and the sickly girl finally stirred under her light touch.
"Weiss?" she weakly croaked, "Are you with me?"
"I'm here Ruby." she said softly, slipping her hand into Ruby's, "Always." Ruby just looked so weak and tired; the purple veins that had permeated the rest of her skin were now making their way from Ruby's neck onto her face. Weiss wanted nothing more than to make her partner feel better, to make all the pain go away.
Ruby looked at a corner of the tent, just over Weiss' shoulder, "When did Zwei get here?" she asked, "and when did he get so big?" she lapsed into incoherent mumbling under her breath, her eyes half-lidded.
Weiss chuckled humorlessly to herself, it looked like keeping Salem a secret from Ruby wouldn't be that hard after all, as long as Ruby's fever continued to make her delirious. If she saw it at all, she likely wouldn't give it a second thought. Sighing heavily, Weiss began the long, arduous process of breaking down their camp. With some effort, she managed to get Ruby situated next to the fire then began to pack up the tent after pulling the heating tab on a ration pack.
Between coughing fits, she managed to get a few spoonfuls of food into Ruby's mouth, she ate some herself even though she wasn't hungry; her all-consuming worry for Ruby entirely killing her appetite. An injection of painkiller into Ruby's arm and an anti-fever drug reduced some of Ruby's symptoms, but she remained delirious, continuing to mumble to herself.
She extinguished the fire and packed the rest of the supplies into the duffle, placing it at the front of the sled. With some difficulty, she picked Ruby up and laid her down on the sled, using the supplies and tent as a pillow; making sure that Ruby was facing away from the deep, black cloud that meanaced Atlas.
With Ruby safely bundled in the sleeping bag, Weiss set out from camp. She knew they had to get home today. She needed to somehow travel twenty-plus miles through Grimm infested tundra or somehow signal for help to come pick them up. 'If I can't get us home,' she thought, 'then I'll have to…I promised Ruby that I'd…" her brain refused to let her finish the thought.
To her eternal frustration, she had to move slow at first, as the area they had camped in was surrounded by boulders and dead trees that required slowness and care to navigate around. As she moved, she saw large groups of Grimm eagerly heading straight for the giant cloud, no doubt to join up with their brethren. She had to divert from the direct path home and take a longer route a few different times to avoid large groups of the monsters.
Once the majority of the Grimm had passed them and they were out on the open snow, Weiss began to extensively use her semblance, sending them flying across the tundra on long trails of dust-infused glyphs. She burned almost completely through her aura twice in two hours, retreating to the sleeping bag to huddle with the feverish Ruby while her aura recharged.
Day 4: Afternoon
As they continued zooming across the tundra, Weiss began to send flares of fire-dust high into the air, trying to attract the attention of anyone at this point. Ideally, she wanted forces from Atlas to see their plight, but was even willing to bet on the outside chance that she could steal a vehicle from Salem's minions if they came looking instead. there was always the chance that they'd overpower her but If she couldn't flag down someone Ruby would die anyway, so to Weiss it was worth the risk. Ruby's coughing fits we're getting worse, each spasm of Ruby's chest splattering the snow with red and purple fluids. It only made Weiss more determined to find rescue; Ruby had to live, it was the only outcome she was willing to accept.
Eventually, Weiss was too exhausted to use her semblance, she plodded along, putting one foot in front of the other almost mechanically as she launched the occasional flare. The knowledge that she'd soon have to make the hardest decision of her life was a constant presence in her mind, but she still held out hope for a miracle, hope for some kind of future where the both of them would make it back to Atlas. She let her aura build back up again before resuming rapidly moving across the tundra with glyphs. After burning through most of her aura for a third time she stopped to rest, almost gasping for breath. She pulled out the remainder of her ration and sat down on the edge of the sled. She tried to get Ruby to eat something, but she wasn't even sure if the sickly girl could even feel the spoonful of food poking at her lips. Weiss sadly shook her head, holding tears back as she ate a few bites herself, knowing that she'd need the strength for later.
The spoon hanging limply from her fingers, she stared, unseeing, at the snow; she knew she needed to get moving again, but she was just so tired. Her calves and ankles ached constantly from all the work they'd been doing the past several days. She gave herself two more minutes, then she'd set off again. She chewed another spoonful and fought the urge to close her eyes. She was so utterly exhausted that she didn't hear the flapping of wings until it was much too late.
She snapped her head up just as a massive, black shape slammed into the snowpack a hundred feet in front of her. She jumped up, her hand drawing Myrtenaster from her hip on pure muscle memory before her mind had even fully registered what had happened. As her brain finally caught up, her mouth dropped open in shock; standing in front of her was a massive Grimm, it's eyeless, bone-like mask seeming to taunt her as it sized the two of them up, as if it knew just how weak they both were. As it began to plod menacingly towards her, she noted that its bat-like wings were being absorbed into its skin which seemed to be composed of a black, tar-like goo that was constantly dripping down it's form but never reaching the ground. It's long, lanky legs and thick torso tickled a memory at the back of Weiss' head, a painting in one of the many hallways of Schnee Manor, a creature her family used to own and train generations back, 'Hound' was the only word she saw fit to describe it. She had expected to attract minions of Salem, but she had thought that Salem would send someone with a craft of some kind, not…whatever this was.
It opened its mouth, revealing it's razor sharp teeth, " L…" it slowly growled, its voice deep and gravelly.
Horrified, Weiss assumed a fighting stance, making sure she was planted directly between the talking monstrosity and Ruby. "Wh-What are you?" she breathed.
" L…" Was it's only reply, as it closed to less than fifty feet away. It wanted Ruby. It was going to take her away.
She glanced back, Ruby hadn't noticed the new arrival, she was still huddled in the sleeping bag, trembling with fever. If she had anything to say about it, Ruby would never know this thing existed. She turned back to the Hound, fixing it with a deadly glare; not that it had any eyes to see it with. She dropped into a fighting stance, bringing her sword across her body. "You can't have her…" she snarled at the beast, "Salem can't have her…" a glyph appeared beneath her feet, "She's MINE!" She launched herself at the Grimm as a second glyph sent Ruby and the sled sliding in the other direction, as far from the monster as she could get her partner.
She impacted the monster blade first, Myrtenaster sinking deep into the Grimm's weird, drippy skin. The Hound seemed to smirk at her as it jumped sideways, her blade made a gross sucking noise as it came out of it's mostly liquid form. She launched herself at it again and slashed at it, carving several chunks out of its side. It jumped away again, and looked at her, seeming to contemplate something.
"F A S T…" It growled, it's voice deeply unsettling Weiss; Grimm weren't supposed to talk, they exhibited intelligent pack behavior at best, but speech was literally unheard of. It's body began to shake slightly, and bits of gooey 'flesh' began to slough off of it, pooling in a disgusting, oily puddle at its feet. The bone protrusions on its back retreated slightly as it's body rearranged itself into a more sleek form.
It grunted with satisfaction, coiled it's muscles and launched itself at her, now much faster than it was before. She barely brought up a glyph in time to deflect it to the side, sending the beast skidding a dozen feet away. She didn't even have time to catch her breath before the Hound was on its feet and bounding at her again. She threw herself backwards with a glyph, avoiding its razor sharp claws carving a chunk out of her face.
She skidded into a kneeling pose, preparing to bring a summoning glyph into being; her Lancer would make short work of this creature. But as she began to channel, pushing her solid down through her blade she made a shocking discovery: she didn't have enough aura to summon anything much less one of her more aura-draining creatures. She could feel that her aura had dwindled down to almost nothing, using it to traverse the tundra for the entire day had taken its toll on her.
The monster bore down on her again, and she expended more of her precious aura to push herself away again, just barely skidding away in time to avoid its razor sharp claws. She realized that the Hound was corralling her in a certain direction, back towards Ruby.
She was breathing hard, she had been fatigued before this fight had even started, and now she was an entire other level of exhasted; but she brought Myrtenaster up anyway as it stared at her. She wouldn't let it get to Ruby. "I promised I'd get her home!" Weiss yelled, brandishing her blade at the monster as it stalked towards her, "We've come this far, I won't let some under-cooked experiment stop me now!"
It cocked it's head at her and seemed to smirk. Then, it moved; too fast for her eyes to even track. She had just started to bring up her blade in an attempt to defend herself but it was too late, its bony head slammed into her chest sending her flying.
She landed hard, her spine slamming straight into the snow. She had a fraction of a second to register that she had landed a few feet from Ruby and the sled before she doubled up in pain, clutching at where the monster had slammed into her. The taste of copper filled her mouth and she spat, splattering the snow with a mouthful of blood.
She had to get up. If she didn't the monster would take Ruby and then she'd truly be alone; she tried to uncurl herself but her body was slow to cooperate. She had barely managed to get onto her hands and knees when she was slammed onto her back again. The snarling beast's paws pinning her shoulders to the ground as it stood over her, it's bony face somehow looking triumphant. She struggled to break free of its grasp, but it was heavy and so strong.
It lowered it's head, disgusting, black drool dripping out of its mouth and onto her chest. Sudden pain blossomed in both her shoulders as razor sharp claws extended from it's paws digging deep into her shoulder muscles. She felt a cry building at the back of her throat, it was clearly enjoying inflicting pain on her. She tried not to give it the satisfaction, but the Grimm pushed its full weight onto her chest, digging the claws in further. She couldn't help it anymore. She screamed, a wordless howl tearing from her throat.
She screamed for the stabbing pain in her shoulders, for the throbbing ache in her legs from the endless walking, for the ever-present phantom pain in the scar on her side.
She screamed for Ruby, because she knew that once the Hound had finished her off, it would take Ruby. Take her back to its master. Turn her into some kind of monstrosity.
She screamed because she'd failed. Neither of them would be making it back to Atlas. The pain, the fighting, the walking, it was all for nothing.
Now there was nothing she could do anymore. It was over. She let the scream die in her throat. They both should have died with the pilot in the crash. At least that would have been quick. And they'd have been together. She was so tired.
The Grimm opened its jaws, lowering its head down towards her face. She struggled futilely against its grip for a moment, before going limp, unable to break free. She looked towards the sled, towards Ruby, she wanted to see her face one last time before the end.
Ruby was awake.
She was sitting up, her eyes open and clear, a look of utter fury on her face.
"DON'T TOUCH HER!" Ruby shouted, her voice loud and commanding. The sickly, dying girl had vanished, she looked alive, her eyes burning with an intensity Weiss had rarely seen.
Weiss inhaled sharply, Ruby's eyes weren't just metaphorically burning, she quickly jerked her head away, knowing what was coming.
Even with her head turned away, blinding silver light washed across her vision, and she heard the Hound above her scream in agony, the claws in her left shoulder pulling out as it shielded its face.
The light faded and she looked up at the thing still pinning her to the ground with one arm. She inhaled sharply, the power of Ruby's silver eyes had blasted the skin off of the thing's face. Glaring down at her was the partially rotted face of a Faunus man. With horror she saw that his single remaining silver eye was boring right into hers. A growl emanated from the back of his throat.
She reached down to her skirt with her freed hand and cracked the tiny, hidden vial of emergency gravity dust sewn into her belt. A large, black glyph formed directly on her chest. Too late, the monster looked down and saw the whirling circle. With a grim smile, she triggered it; she grunted in pain as the recoil from the glyph pushed her further into the snow, but the beast was sent flying, landing several hundred feet away. She sat up, quickly snatching up Myrtenaster and looking to see if it would come back to finish them off.
The beast struggled to its feet, limping badly. Glowering at the two of them, an ugly scowl on its decaying face. It limped slowly off in the direction of their crash site, no doubt to hide and heal from the grevious wounds Ruby had inflicted on it. The thing limped slowly over a snowdrift and out of sight. Weiss let out a held breath and whirled towards Ruby. The red-clad girl slumped back onto the sled, her breathing ragged and sweat dripping down her forehead.
With a wordless cry of relief, Weiss wrapped her arms around her partner. "You're awake…you're ok…" her words were muffled as she pressed her face into Ruby's shoulder. She could feel what little aura she had left begin to stem the flow of blood from her shoulders.
Weiss pulled back after a few moments and Ruby smiled at her weakly, the strength she had shown moments ago already beginning to fade, "I heard you scream…" she said softly, "And I…it focused my thoughts…" she looked at Wiess with the most loving expression, "I had to save you, no matter the cost…" A massive cough wracked her body, she leaned over, and coughed blood onto the snow.
Weiss put her hand over her mouth as tears gathered in her eyes. Ruby had known that the effort of using the silver eyes could have killed her outright, but she had done it anyway. She laid a hand on Ruby's back, trying to soothe her pain. She looked back, seeing if the Hound was going to double back on them; as far as she could tell from the few glimpses she got of it, the Grimm was just wandering slowly deeper into the tundra, where she eventually lost sight of it.
Ruby sat back up and saw where Weiss was looking, she gently patted her hand bringing Weiss' attention back to her. "That's what I'd become, Weiss." She said softly. "A monster like that thing. A rotting host for one of Salem's creations." She shook her head, "I know what I've asked you to do is hard but I can't become that." She choked up, "I refuse to become a monster used to hurt the people I love." She doubled up again as another coughing fit exploded from her throat.
Weiss desperately looked towards Atlas, hoping she could spot a Manta flying towards them; but her hopes were immediately dashed. Salem had begun to attack. She could see Grimm swarming towards Atlas and disappearing in explosions as the city's defense turrets opened fire. The ships and fighters surged forward to counter the assault.
'Even if they could see us,' Weiss thought, 'They couldn't send rescue now anyway…' her jaw trembled. she knew what had to happen now.
Ruby's coughing fit subsided and she slumped back into the sleeping bag. Weiss stared into her lap, her hands fidgeting with her skirt, "It's only going to get worse isn't it?" Weiss whispered, "The pain? The coughing?"
Ruby nodded sadly.
"This is really what you want?" Weiss asked, her hands beginning to tremble.
"It is." Ruby responded, making her voice as strong and clear as she could.
"Ok…" Weiss whispered, her voice cracking. She looked up, tears streaming down her cheeks but a determined look on her face.
"I'll do it."
Sorry for the late update, I had two hellish weeks at work this past month and had zero motivation to write once I got home, so thanks for being patient! If you love angst, this is definitely the chapter for you because it is overflowing! I'd like to give a special thanks to Flo07225 over on AO3! Originally the Hound wasn't going to be in this chapter, but they left a comment on a previous chapter that inspired me to add it! Leave a review letting me know what you thought! As always, thanks to my editor V, and thanks to all of you for reading!