Chapter XXVIII: Fault, part 2
A swarm of sparks burst angrily towards the dark skies, like fiery hornets roused from their nest when Yang kicked a thick branch deeper into the campfire. She squinted momentarily at the sudden burst of light, but didn't back away; fire and heat were kind of her things, after all.
Surrounding her was a dark thicket of ash and beech. Their camp squatted in a small nook between two steep mounds; although not too far from the nearest road, it was hardly visible, tucked into a small depression and veiled by vegetation. Shadows danced just beyond the campsite's borders, cast by a fire that burned at its heart. The moon was absent, hiding somewhere in the Remnant's shadow; even it wasn't, it'd likely be behind the crest of the nearby hill, and blotted out by the sparse clouds that drifted above. Stars, though — Gods, there were so many.
Sat atop a decaying log, Yang slurped on her hot noodles, a plume of mist leaving her mouth alongside a contented sigh. There was a distinct chill in the air, and while she didn't mind the temperature, she was grateful for the small fire she'd gotten going. Warm food was the best when camping out in the cold, and it was far from a luxury she took for granted. She considered herself fortunate that stealth was of no consequence to their mission; sure, there were ways to get a firepit going and still keep a low profile, but they weren't exactly foolproof. She seriously didn't envy her sister and Blake, having to chase after some rando hillbillies in the woods.
Lighting a fire was still a bit of a trade-off, even in her privileged position. The price of her warm meal? She couldn't see shit beyond the firelight. Nothing a watchful ear — and some tripwire alarms — couldn't remedy, on the off-chance some overly curious Grimm decided to check out the light. Unlikely, considering they hid their campsite pretty well, but not entirely out of the question.
Which waswhy Yang tensed up the moment she heard some motion in the nearby thicket; just out in the dark, not too far beyond the place where she parked her Bumblebee.
She set down her mug with the faintest thunk of steel on wood, then sat still for a few seconds of breathless silence. When the mystery noise didn't let up, she slowly rose to her feet and circled the firepit, pausing beside her bike. With her back turned to the blaze, she strained her eyes and tried to pierce the darkness, but still couldn't see anything — yet the disturbance persisted, seemingly drawing closer.
Ember Celica whirring to life, Yang pushed a few steps beyond the line of shadow and toggled the flashlight strapped to her jacket; as soon as she did, the noise just… cut off. Shoulders square and arms slightly raised, she turned her torso back and forth, sweeping the woods with a beam of light. She saw nothing at first, and grew quite alarmed by the fact. Then — she spotted it, curled beneath some balding bush and bristling with spikes.
A hedgehog.
She could barely keep her laughter down to a nasal chortle. With a grin, she disengaged her gauntlets and made two more steps towards the creature, lowering herself into a low squat maybe four meters away from it. For, y'know… reasons totally unrelated to hedgehogs being utterly adorable.
"Aww. What are you up to, little guy?" It was a little late into the year to sight one of those waddle about, but she wasn't going to complain. Her getting spooked? Already forgiven.
It would nevernot surprise her, just how loud those cute bastards could be while burrowing and sniffing their way through the forest floor. She could've sworn it sounded like something the size of a deer, or a boar perhaps — but no! Just a fat hedgehog.
Weiss would've never let her live it down, had she woken her up.
Seeing that her new buddy was feeling a little shy, Yang snapped a quick photo and left the creature in peace, chuckling under her breath as she retreated back towards the light. She settled back on her prior spot and returned to eating, but would sometimes shake her head and snicker at all the noise the little fella was making while scurrying off into the night.
Eventually, a licked-clean spoon was dropped inside the empty metal mug. Yang cringed at the clear ding it had made — a fair bit louder than she'd expected it to. Or perhaps it had just seemed loud, midst the silence of the night? That's what she chose to tell herself, but she still reflexively looked over her shoulder, at the tent wherein a hopefully sleeping heiress laid. Breath held in her breast, she anxiously listened on. When seconds passed and no sound of stirring — or yelling — could be heard, she silently pumped her fist.
With the crisis avoided, her attention soon gravitated towards her Scroll. She forwarded the hedgehog pic to Ruby and was about to do the same with Blake when she realized something — her better half had seen the latest meme she'd sent her some time past 1AM. Quite rudely, it had been left on read.
But it also meant that Blake was awake, holding the first watch.
Having spared the tent a single glance and figuring 'eh, far enough', Yang pressed the 'call' button. She had to wait a while — long enough, in fact, to start second-guessing whether it had been the right idea — and released a small exhale when Blake had finally picked up on the eight ring.
Yang grinned. "Hi, beautiful."
"Hey," Blake replied quietly, seeming a little tense. Yang could sort of make out some noise in the background; like crackling, perhaps of dry grass. "Is something going on?"
"Do I need a reason to call my girlfriend?" she retorted, all casual-like, hoping that her playful tone would get Blake to ease up a little.
Going by the small, breathy chuckle she heard, it seemed to be working. "I suppose not. What are you up to?"
"Nothing much. Holding watch, getting startled by hedgehogs; having a good time."
This time, Blake laughed out loud. "Hedgehogs?"
"Yep. Will send you a pic later," Yang promised with a grin. "The chonky bastard was loud like you wouldn't believe, but then I couldn't spot anything when I looked. Thought I was gonna get jumped by some tree-climbing Grimm, I swear."
"Sounds rough, love. Don't let the drop bears get you," Blake spoke in a voice completely void of sympathy. "Are you finished with your hunt?"
"We could've been," Yang spoke, throwing a fresh branch into the campfire, "but Weiss didn't want to risk the night catching us with our pants down. Getting here took a little longer than my ETA, so we're camping about five clicks away from the target."
Even though she couldn't see Blake's face, Yang could hear her crinkle her brow midst the momentary pause that followed. "Weren't you supposed to clear out a mine? Sunset, sunrise, what's the difference if you're underground anyways?"
"It's, whatsitscalled… an open pit mine?" Yang explained. "Iron, I think. Haven't been touched since Mountain Glenn went tits up."
"Oh. That makes sense. Who's hired you, anyways? Some corpo?"
"City Council, actually," she said, smirking at the small 'huh' that humble brag had gotten her. "Yeah, you'd think they'd have a list of tried Huntsmen they'd rather work with, no? I applied mostly for shits and giggles, but here we are."
"Good on you."
"Thanks. Weiss was being a bit of a grump at first, 'cuz she thinks it's her last name that got us the job. Personally, I prefer to think we're just that awesome."
Blake seemed to ponder something for a few seconds, before coming in to rain on Yang's parade: "Oz could've had something to do with it."
That Yang hadn't considered, blindsided enough to physically recoil at the thesis. "…you had to ruin it, didn't you?" she complained, more amused than actually upset. "Anyhoo, how are things on your end? Did you manage to track those assholes?"
On the other side of the line, Blake heaved a sigh. "No dice. We've narrowed down the search area based off the two locations they hit, but it's still a pretty wide radius. Could take days, if we're unlucky."
"Sounds like a pain."
"It's not so bad," Blake replied with a low, almost purr-like trill. She sounded tired but pleased at the same time. "The weather is nice enough, and we get to see some neat places. Like the hunting cabin we're staying at, or an abandoned factory. Helps scratch that urbex itch, you know?"
Yang huffed a laugh. "Haven't had enough of creepy old buildings?"
"What can I say? They tell stories, and I'm a glutton for those."
"How's Ruby?"
"Sharp as ever." There was laughter in Blake's voice, but the melody that Yang usually loved only made her tense up that night. It sounded off-key to her trained ear. Hesitant. Nervous, in a way that instantly made the whole response sound evasive.
Yang licked her dry lips, chest tight with dread at the thought of where that conversation was going to go.
"Any episodes?" she asked quietly, gently, but no answer was forthcoming. Still, the silence itself was just as telling. "Blake?"
…
Nothing, save for the faint breathing telling her that the line hadn't just suddenly gone dead.
"Blake," she repeated, her voice dropping by an octave.
Caught trapped between an obvious lie and truth that wasn't hers to tell, Blake let out another sigh — this time, of defeat. "Sensory deprivation sets her off. That's what she says, in any case."
So surprised was Yang to hear the phrase in that context that her eyelids fluttered in confusion. "'Sensory deprivation'? Like, blindfolds and earplugs?"
Having correctly guessed Yang's mental image, Blake let out a snort, but even that reflex of amusement was but a cold ghost of the real thing. In the heavy pause that followed, Yang saw eyes of amber cloud and darken. "Or when it's too dark and quiet, yes. She likened it to Salem's 'mind-void' thing."
Yang's lungs burned as she inhaled, aching in a ribcage that suddenly felt too small for her innards. Even though she wasn't cold, a shudder rocked her frame; in its wake, patches of unpleasant flush appeared, spreading across her neck, back and upper arms while her blood pressure continued to rise. A scream of rage and dismay was held in the back of her throat, begging for release — for her anger to drown out the sense of wrongness and terror that rose deep in her core.
She knew the darkness Ruby had spoken of, and understood how it could scar a person — break a person — better than most.
'Impressively enough, you lot could've stood a chance… if only your sister still had the one person she could actually count on. So much for you being the bulwark.'
The faint jingle of metal plates clinging together lured her gaze down, towards Ember Celica, informing her of the usual tremor having once again returned to her arm. Yang grimaced — a crooked, ugly thing — and slid her hand further down her thigh, curling her fingers around the knee with some force. Willing the tic away.
A small, dark piece of her psyche wanted to laugh at herself, dry and derisive, but Yang had bigger issues on her mind.
"Fuck… fuck!" she cursed under her breath, whisper shifting into a low growl. Her jacket squeaked, leather taut as she bent in half, forehead nearly reaching her knees.
She felt small — defeated — but she allowed herself but a moment of grief. It was not about her, but Ruby, so she pulled herself together and sat straight and with purpose, shoulder blades drawn back and a look of laser focus upon her brow. "How is she doing?"
"She's managed to calm down, by herself. Good thing, too, because I'd have no idea how to help," Blake said. Though she tried to put on a brave face, there was a distinct tremble to the way she exhaled that she couldn't quite mask or hide. "She went back inside, to try and fall back asleep. She's hoping that listening to some podcasts will help her; white noise, I suppose. And she must've left the lantern on — I can see light."
Yang was nodding to herself, the motion stiff and slightly frantic. "Okay. Okay, good." For a time, she stayed perfectly still, not even doing as little as draw a breath while she stared into the campfire like hypnotized. Eventually, a small, worried frown set onto her face as she pulled herself out of her mind and back into the present. "How are you holding up?"
Blake's inhale was deep and ragged; she held it in for a while, be it to steady herself or simply considering the question. "A little— a little rattled, I guess, but I'm not the one who's had it rough. I'll live," she said, tone evocative of a sad smile. "At least I had some idea what's going on, unlike Weiss."
"Yeah…" Yang murmured, throwing a sympathetic look at the tent behind her. Her shoulders slumped as she exhaled a heavy sigh. She really, really wanted to hug the girls in that moment — all three of them. Needed it, too. "Fuck. Hugs, babe." Alas.
"Thanks. You too."
The two of them would talk for a few more minutes, trying — and somewhat succeeding — to distract each other with brighter things.
A couple yards away, across the semi-translucent wall of their tent, Weiss silently gritted her teeth.
The door of the cabin swung outside with the groan of uncared-for hinges. Mist rolled between her feet as Blake crossed the threshold, stepping out onto the porch that glimmered with rime in the rosy morning light. Despite her jacket and the lavender blanket that mantled her shoulders, her teeth chattered when the first breath of cold air snuck its way to her skin.
She wasn't great at regulating her body heat in the mornings, usually needing some ten minutes on average to stop feeling like she was about to freeze in room temperature, never mind anything that was below freezing. Her and Weiss had that quirk in common, except that the Atlesian didn't seem to mind it nearly as much — nor was she used to sleeping beside a human-shaped space heater.
Thankfully, there was someone pretty warm just in front of Blake.
"Cold," she mumbled to Ruby, still somewhat groggy. Tiny wrinkles hid in the corners of silver eyes as the girl watched Blake shuffle over. Once within reach, Blake latched onto Ruby's back, wrapping her arms around Ruby's stomach and burrowing her face in the folds of Ruby's hood. "Warm," she contentedly purred, soaking in the heat.
Blake was close enough to feel Ruby's chuckle rumble in her own chest. "Good morning to you, too."
There also might've been another, ulterior motive behind that hug.
It had been obvious that Ruby hadn't been okay when she'd retreated into the cabin last night, nor when she'd come back a few minutes early to relieve Blake of her watch duty. Blake could also tell that, despite her best intentions, her failed attempt at a pep talk had only served to upset her friend. She wanted to help, badly, but she couldn't remember the last time she felt so out of her depth. So, since her speechcraft had already failed her, she put her hopes in simple affection. A silent apology.
For what it was worth, Ruby didn't try to shake her off, content to let her friend stay as she was — even seemed to lean into the contact a little, much to Blake's relief.
"What have you been up to?" Blake asked, shifting so that her chin rested on Ruby's right shoulder.
Ruby flicked her wrist, spinning a folded Scroll between her fingers. "Trying to narrow down our search. I pulled up any old maps and aerial photos of the area I could find; been browsing them for the last two hours or so."
Blake straightened at that, an appreciative hum vibrating in her throat. "Any luck?" she asked, trying her best to blink away her sleepiness.
Last day, they had been following the tire tracks leading from the ambush site until packed sand had given way to gravel; from there, it had been impossible to tell where they'd led, the trail getting buried amidst many others. Initially, the two Huntresses had simply picked the direction leading away from any settlements and just walked, checking out any branching roads they'd stumbled upon. Alas, relying on blind luck hadn't yielded results, other than finding them a neat spot to spend the night. A plan was needed — a method of approach — unless they wished to spend the rest of November directionlessly combing through the unfamiliar forests.
Blake had expected working out said method would be something they'd do together, but she was hardly going to fault Ruby for needing something to occupy her mind during the long, lone hours.
"Maybe?" Ruby replied, sounding a little unsure of herself, if determined. She brought her Scroll to life, launching into a report as her fingers swept across the transparent screen, "There's a bunch of caves around, or other places where they could camp without being spotted. Might well be what they're doing, but my gut is telling me otherwise."
"They need some place to stash their loot," Blake assessed, Ruby's hair tickling her cheek as the girl nodded.
"Yeah. Ideally, someplace dry, considering the missing electronics. Caves could do in a pinch, I suppose… but if they did yoink one of the trucks to transport the loot, they are probably holed up somewhere with road access, just far away from any mains to stay low-key." As she said that, a hologram of the area silently appeared in front of them; on it, Blake saw something akin to a Venn diagram of two circles, dotted with multiple custom markers and some scribbles. As she looked closer, she spotted another, second diagram within the first one, noted with a dashed line.
"I marked any abandoned mines, lumberyards, settlements and farms in a thirty mile radius, putting us at nine that we haven't scoped out. Only two of them are within a reasonable walking distance, but it is possible they've got vehicles we didn't see during the ambush."
Amber eyes scanned the projection, trying to align Ruby's explanation with what they saw. There were clearly more than nine markers, but Blake promptly figured out that those in yellow denoted caves or clearings that could possibly be viable sites for a camp. She instead focused on two flags of neon purple, both sitting firmly within the smaller of the Venn diagrams. The nearest of them was maybe three miles away from their current coordinates; the other, about eight.
"We should probably make those two our priority," Blake said, speech slow and thoughtful, mind already searching for the best route to the nearest point of interest.
"And keep an eye out on our way, just in case they are squatting in some cave."
Blake hummed in agreement. She liked what she saw. It was built on several assumptions — the chief of which was that the bandits were locally-based — but it was still a good place to start their search. Plus, the assumptions themselves seemed fairly reasonable.
Like Ruby, she didn't peg those thugs as someone who could survive in the deep frontier; they weren't armed well enough, and likely needed to resupply on occasion. The fact that they ambushed two separate convoys within the span of a week was also pretty telling by itself; they had to be nearby, either to watch the roads for targets… or to act quickly on a tip.
She didn't like entertaining that latter thought.
Blake spent some minutes familiarizing herself with the map, committing the markers and shapes to her memory, considering, planning. As her gaze traced the lines marking the two supply routes, she even tried putting herself in the bandits' shoes for a bit, thinking of raid logistics, ambush sites, hideouts and best getaways. It kind of brought her back, in a not-so-pleasant way — back to her time with Adam and White Fang, with all the darkness that it entailed.
A familiar sense of shame pricked at the back of her mind, like a ghost of sins past coming to haunt her. The sensation was muted and distant at that point, faded like an old scar that started to ache whenever she called upon her old skills and experience. It wasn't exactly pleasant, but she'd found comfort in knowing that she'd come a long way, and strength in using her past misdeeds to guard peace. Perhaps, she also found a degree of absolution.
Once upon a time — a long time ago, it felt like, except it hadn't been — she wished her following Adam were a mistake she'd never committed. As was her wont, ever running from her problems. A part of her still felt that way, but she'd since learned to accept that stage of her story, her journey. The White Fang Blake was as much part of her as the Team RWBY Blake, shaping her into the person she was in the present. She was stronger, now; wiser. A better person, she liked to think. Definitely following a better leader. Still, with the passing of years, there were aspects of the girl she'd used to be that Blake had learned to admire — the strength of her conviction, and her ability to walk away.
That girl got Blake here, and here was home.
Outside of answering a handful of questions that had arisen, Ruby remained largely quiet throughout Blake's silent analysis, neither talking nor stirring in her thermophilic friend's grasp. Until stir she did, dispelling a train of thought Blake was in the middle of after a soft clearing of a throat had failed to do so.
"Hey, about yesterday…"
Blake froze, if only for a heartbeat, moving slightly so that she could look Ruby in the eye — or attempt to, at the very least, as the eyes of silver were downturn.
Though feeling inadequate and, frankly, afraid, Blake offered, "Do you want to talk about it?"
"Talk — no, not really. Apologize." Blake could only squeeze in a single syllable of Ruby's name before the girl in question cut off her protest, a determined look in her eyes for the millisecond silver met gold. "No, not for breaking down. For being a bitch about it."
Her lips upturned in a frown, Blake rubbed her hand against Ruby's arm. Comforting — or so at least she hoped. "It's okay. I don't blame you. You were hurting. If anything, I was the one who was insensitive; for that I'm sorry."
But Ruby shook her head, and Blake spotted a small twitch of upset along the girl's jaw. "Reason, not an excuse. You were trying to help, and I took it out on you."
Blake held back a wince, but couldn't stop her ears from laying flat on her scalp. 'Trying is the operative word there', she wanted to point out, but stopped herself short. While she had thought nothing of it at the time, she'd eventually come to kick herself for some of the things she'd said last night. Good-intentioned, they might've been, but so were the pathways to hell. It'd taken replaying the conversation a couple of times in her head to see it, but dawn on her it had, if much too late for it to matter.
She'd been worse than unsuccessful in comforting Ruby, she was afraid — she'd been dismissive. Telling the girl how she should feel and countering her concerns, when she should've shut her fucking mouth and let Ruby process things. She might've wanted to help, but now feared that she'd only made an already painful situation even harder on the poor girl.
Thus, it bothered Blake to no end that it was Ruby who felt the need to apologize.
Yes, Blake had felt the bite of Ruby's snark last night; seen the distant coldness in her eyes, moments before Ruby had seemingly held back her tongue. But Ruby hadn't hurt her — not beyond simply letting Blake know that her approach hadn't worked. If anything, Ruby had shown remarkable restraint, all while under immense distress. Much more restraint than Blake — or anyone else she knew, for that matter — could've mustered. Could ever hope to muster.
She — truly, from the bottom of her heart — didn't need Ruby's apology. Didn't want it. It made her eyes sting and jaw clench.
But something caved as she looked Ruby in the face. So earnest. So hurt, and defeated, and determined.
'Ah,' Blake caught herself, eyes widening in realization, her breath hitching a little. 'There you are, Blake, doing it again.'
Perhaps that was just the thing. Maybe the best way she could help was to just take the damned apology. Not for her own peace, but Ruby's.
Bit of a selfish ask on Ruby's part, perhaps… but also pretty human.
It still didn't feel right, but Blake simply exhaled and shoved her stubborn pride into her back pocket, her eyes lowering momentarily in acceptance. "Alright. Apology accepted, then," she granted, making the effort to lift the corners of her mouth. "Buy me a bottle of wine once we're done here and we're even."
Seeing Ruby's face brighten made it worth it. "Can do."
Slate-gray gravel crunched and groaned as Bumblebee slowly rolled to a halt. Having killed off the headlights, her rider stared down the road, lilac eyes narrowed. Some two hundred yards ahead she spotted a security barrier, worn and battered, blocking the path forward. Just beyond, the gravel road broke free of the surrounding woods, spilling out onto some clearing aglow with the light of late morning.
"Looks like we're here." Yang smoothly undid the clasp of her helmet, then threw Weiss a quick glance and jerked her head to the side. "Hop off."
Weiss didn't need Yang to tell her twice. The moment her feet touched the ground, she basically tore the headgear off her head and drew greedily of the fresh air. Going by the look on her face when she hung the helmet on the handlebar of the bike — nose scrunched and eyebrows drawn together — she'd been itching to get rid of the thing for a good while now. Indeed, that impression was only further solidified when Weiss' next course of action was to wipe her face dry with a tissue she magicked out of her coat's pocket.
Yang doffed her own helmet and shook her mane loose. Putting away her headgear, she placed her elbows on the handlebars and stacked her hands right under her chin, lilac eyes turning at Weiss. They lingered on her for a spell, watching the girl do something with her Scroll — possibly check in.
Ah, there it was again. The frown, and the brief flash of hesitation before Weiss pocketed the device away.
It was subtle, but Yang could tell that Weiss was upset. There'd been something… off about the girl since that morning — or was it before, since the change of the guard? Either way, she had her educated guess what exactly bit Weiss in the butt, and couldn't help but feel partly responsible.
Odds were, Weiss knew about the last night, one way or another. Had listened in on the call, maybe, or felt what'd happened through that connection of hers. Or — wild idea — Ruby'd just told her. The latter especially stung Yang a little, but she chose not to dwell on it. Considering that they were about to walk into a Grimm-infested area, she needed Weiss to have her head in the game.
Plus, she didn't like seeing Weiss so down in the dumps. Thankfully, she had just the idea for a distraction — for both of them.
"Wanna bet what Grimm we'll get to fight?" she shot at Weiss, quickly catching her attention. Seeing the eyes of blue narrow in consideration, Yang cracked a sly grin. "Say, three guesses; the one who gets the most right — wins."
Weiss' jaw moved slightly as she pondered, weighing her odds — or perhaps just pretending she was less interested in the offer than she actually was. "Alright, I'll bite. What do I get if I win?"
Yang's smile widened when Weiss took the bait hook, line and sinker. Appealing to that girl's competitive nature seldom failed, and it tended to keep her focused. In that one aspect, Weiss hadn't changed much since their Beacon days. Bets and dares were by far the best, most surefire way to get her out of her shell, or to rope her into some act of miscellaneous shenanigery.
That, or you could simply be the Weiss-whisperer that was Ruby. Yang was pretty sure that the list of things the kid couldn't talk Weiss into was pretty darn short.
"The winner gets to decide what do we do to blow off some steam after this hunt. What d'ya say?"
Weiss didn't reply for a handful of nerve-fraying seconds, making Yang wonder whether she'd been a touch too transparent. Sat astride Bumblebee, she watched Weiss in unblinking anticipation, only for all that tension to leave her system like at the snap of a rope when Weiss simply put her chin in-between her thumb and pointing finger.
"Cliffs, forest, open space… some Nevermores. Plus Centinels and Creeps."
All reasonable choices, keeping in mind what they knew of the lay of the land. Maybe a little too reasonable, even, getting Yang to suck on her teeth in displeasure.
"Was kinda tempted to say Creeps. Oh well." She swung her right leg over Bumblebee's frame, then hummed to herself whilst holding the handlebar still, reconsidering her guesses as the built-in gyro stabilized the bike in place. "A bunch of Ursai, a Taijitu, and… eh, why not — Geist."
Weiss balked at that final pick and coughed up a small huff of surprise, but dipped her chin in acknowledgment all the same. When Yang let go of Bumblebee, Weiss took it as her cue to get moving, her ponytail whipping about as she turned and began marching down the gravel road. Yang jogged after her without dallying, kicking up tiny loose stones as she went. Keys she'd left in the ignition, on the off chance they would they would end up needing the bike in combat — or, even less likely, to skedaddle.
After a while of walking in lockstep with Weiss, Yang spotted her friend eyeing her from the side. There was a certain smugness to the contour of Weiss' eyelids; not an altogether rare expression, marking the times when she was fairly confident in her odds of winning at something. It almost felt like she'd won already, envisioning herself lording over Yang.
"Any ideas what you wanna do if you win?" Yang prodded, genuinely curious.
"Why, yes," Weiss casually admitted, and a slight twitch of her mouth betrayed the smirk that threatened to break through her nonchalant facade. "Even a brute could benefit from experiencing some finer aspects of culture. Like opera, for example."
Lilac eyes squinted dangerously as Yang's gaze sharpened into a glare. "Are you calling me uncultured?" she asked, putting quite some effort into keeping a grin off her face.
"What I'm calling," Weiss spoke, her playful smile now apparent in full bloom, "is that you haven't been to one. Or am I mistaken?" She peered at Yang knowingly through her eyelashes, a challenge in the eyes of blue. And so smug she was, so self-assured, that Yang would've been peeved had Weiss not been her friend — even though she was right.
Instead, Yang just chuckled. "Got me there."
Opera never struck Yang as her kind of thing, and Weiss obviously could tell. Too classical, too formal, too… hoity-toity. In Yang's mind, opera had always been something for people passionate about classical music or dance — or a thing for snobs, of rich or old variety. Ultimately, though, wasn't she simply bashing something she'd never tried?
She trusted Weiss. If the girl won, it wouldn't be the first time she had absolute say in planning an evening. Sure, the Schnee always played it off as strong-arming her teammates into doing something she wanted, but she had a track record of putting every consideration into making it something they all could enjoy. Didn't always pan out, but an effort was made every single time — and Yang could tell.
Whether Weiss would win, now that remained to be seen.
"We should probably get off the road," Weiss remarked, motioning towards the thicket to their left. Although humor continued to stain her tone, her eyes visibly hardened, telling Yang that the time had come for them to get down to business.
The two Huntresses jumped down the elevated base of the road and vanished into the underbrush. Cloaked in tree and mist and shadow, they moved at a sharp angle from the main access — forty degrees or so — stalking towards the dig site at a relaxed but steady pace. Their slowness was warranted — with dry, dead leaves underfoot and bare branches surrounding them, it simply wasn't an easy environment for stealth. It didn't help either that Yang and Weiss were the less sneaky half of team RWBY. What did help, however little, was Yang's choice of wardrobe, and Weiss' foresight to pick flat-soled — though still fairly tall — shoes. They winced a lot during their march across the vast of yellows and browns, though, objectively, they hadn't made more noise than a small animal would.
Certainly less than that blasted hedgehog had.
A remnant of an old wire fence materialized in front of them from the thicket and the fog, rusted, torn and overgrown. Once encircling the perimeter of the site, it had been long since claimed by nature, its old bones marking the line where the old forest gave way to new growth. They slowed down basically to a crawl, circling around a tangle of young trees until they finally arrived at the true edge of the forest, their target coming into view.
In front of them, they saw the place where giant machines had bitten into the once-gentle slope of a hill. Now, a sheer and jagged face of sediment and limestone stood in its place, some hundred feet tall — and atop it, perched on the trees and rocks cresting the edge, sat a flock of large avian creatures.
"One point goes to Weiss…" Yang muttered at the sight of ten or so Nevermores, definitely not thrilled to see them overlooking the site. It had less to do with Weiss being right, and more with the bastards being pretty annoying for Yang to fight. There was one silver lining, at least — none of them was particularly large.
Her eyes flitted to Weiss, who was watching the birds with her brow furrowed in thought. "How do we go about this? Kinda could use Ruby right about now."
Weiss spared her a glance, giving Yang a little nod of agreement before resuming her previous musings.
They rarely needed to worry about Nevermores — or any other flyers, really — with Ruby around; if she couldn't pick them off from a distance, she was perfectly capable of taking the fight to their home turf and kicking their asses there. In her absence, Weiss and Yang needed to get creative.
Yang defaulted to letting Weiss take the lead with the planning. The girl was Ruby's second-in-command in all but name — or perhaps they had actually discussed it at some point? Either way, Weiss would usually take the wheel whenever Ruby was elsewhere or occupied, so it was only natural for Yang; what she was used to. Especially since Ruby clearly trusted Weiss to take care of things whenever she wasn't around.
After a brief huddle, the two of them backtracked a little, retreating across the old fence and deeper into the forest. They then spent the better part of half an hour circumnavigating the site, climbing ever higher as they snuck their way up the hillside, towards the Nevermore perch — and with Grimm none the wiser.
Finally, the time for stealth was over, and that moment couldn't have come soon enough for Yang's knees.
Dead leaves crunched under Yang's boots as she kicked off from her crouch into a full sprint, barreling towards the forest's edge. The noise she'd made was all the warning the beasts had gotten — barely enough time to turn their beaks around or begin unfurling their wings. Their startled motion only made them a bigger target for their real problem.
The Grimm shrieked in pain as a hail of foot-long ice stakes smote the whole flock without mercy or exception, piercing their hides and nailing their wings to the ground. Two Nevermores dropped dead on the spot, spines severed and eyes burst; the rest cried and thrashed as the ice spread across their bodies, razor-sharp shards burrowing into their black hide and holding them in place — for a time, at least.
In the meantime, Yang was bounding towards them in long leaps. Just as she was about to break the treeline, she dug her front foot into the ground and braced. Leaves exploded around her as she jumped forth, firing Ember Celica to launch herself over a wall of shrubbery. Soon as she touched the ground again, she dashed towards the nearest Nevermore and ran up its back; she'd been intending to smash its head open, but a pleasant surprise had been waiting for her — an ice spike wedged a little awkwardly just under the Grimm's skullplate, begging to be pushed in.
And though she might've gotten better, she was still not that great at impulse control.
Her lips curving into a smirk, Yang jumped high and — firing Celica — dropped hard, putting all her weight and momentum into hammering that nail where it belonged. She felt the stake crack and snap under her boot, but the Nevermore's sudden jerk and silence told her that it'd done its job. The Grimm folded beneath her and tilted over midst a cloud of black smoke; she herself let the gravity take her, ducking into a forward roll split-second before the corpse crashed to the ground.
Within moments, Yang sprung back onto her feet with practiced ease. Good thing, too, as the nearest Nevermore lurched forward and tried to peck her with its obsidian beak, slow and sloppy thanks to the ice that bound it. Still grinning, she shifted her weight and wove to the side, only to bounce back and drive her armored fist into one of the avian's four eyes. She tuned out the ungodly screech that followed and launched a timed charge inside the Grimm's skull. With her other hand, she cracked the bird on the chin and fired the shotgun; as the Nevermore's head rocked back, she tore her arm free of the eye socket and watched with dark satisfaction as the Grimm had its mind blown.
A few meters to the side, a lance of molten rock burst from the side of a Nevermore's skull in a flash of flame, its heat intense enough that Yang could've sworn she felt a gust of warm air touch her skin. Rather than admire Weiss' handiwork, she blasted off towards the nearest hostile, slugging it so hard across its beak that the aftershock nearly freed the monster from the ice. Grasping onto the feathers that covered its neck, Yang pummeled it with bone-shattering blows until it fell limply to the ground, a quarter of its head blown away.
Shaking off the tar and bone from her arm, Yang glanced to check how her teammate was doing — just in time to see the sword-arm of Arma Gigas cut short the screams of another Nevermore. Safe to say, Weiss was doing just fine on her end.
Yang's head whipped to the side when a cavalcade of loud cracking announced the first Grimm breaking free from its binds. She barely made a step in that direction when the same noise hit her from another angle; wasting no time on looking behind, she just sprinted at the nearest monster. Heedless of the ice shards flying her way, she dug her fingers into the Nevermore's wing just as it was about to take off. With a pant and a groan, she twisted her body around and heaved, almost like she was trying to throw the giant bird over her shoulder. Not that it was her goal — she was pretty sure she was far too light to throw a Nevermore—
The monster screeched.
—but ripping a wing off the socket was a whole 'nother story.
There was a disgusting, wet squelch and Yang stumbled forward, dropping to one knee as most of the resistance suddenly disappeared. A shadow overtook her, and as she glanced up, she saw the now one-winged Nevermore careen past her, straight towards the ledge. It tried desperately — and futilely — to dig its talons into the earth, but it soon flung itself off the cliff, screeching madly all the way to the ground.
A wave of wind crashed into her just as she was about to stand, nearly throwing her back to the grass. While she'd been wrestling with her latest prey, the remaining two Nevermores had escaped the ice and taken off; both were wounded, and one had its tail set on fire, courtesy of Weiss. It was that second Nevermore that nearly followed its brethren in plunging itself down the cliff; hovering not that far from the edge, it was beating its wings fiercely just to try and stabilize itself in the air.
Yang flung a quick glance at Weiss, who gave her a sharp nod of go-ahead. With that blessing, Yang flicked her hair off her face and sprang to her feet, immediately breaking into a sprint. She didn't have much in the way of a run-up, but she made the most of it, launching herself beyond the ledge with a blast from her gauntlets.
Yang grinned ever-wider, her teeth catching the morning sun. For a few rapid heartbeats, she felt weightless, giving in to a free-fall from a cliff hundred-feet tall. Having zeroed in on her target, she course-corrected her descent with another salvo from Celica; a moment later, she was crashing into the Grimm with a grunt. She yelped when her fingers couldn't find purchase among the hard feathers, and felt a pang of panic as she slid a couple of feet down the bird's back. She caught on just in time, inches above the Nevermore's flaming tail, and was quick to climb back up in fear of her shoelaces taking fire.
The Nevermore lurched then flew off, upward and away, quite nearly managing to throw Yang off before she could secure her grip. A low growl spilled through her teeth; now growing annoyed, she clung in place for a couple of seconds, then pulled herself up and started her determined crawl up the creature's back. The wind lashed at her face, hair whipping about and getting in her mouth or eyes, but she carried on regardless. Once she'd made it to its head, she curled her fingers around the horn-like protrusion and pushed with all her might.
The bird cried and cawed as Yang twisted its head so far forward that the ground was all it could see. It struggled to right itself, but it only served to wedge her against its neck, granting her better leverage as she absolutely laid into it.
The Grimm lasted seven hits before she was weightless again, some two hundred feet in the air.
Glancing at the many monsters that stalked the ground beneath her, she could only briefly consider her landing strategy before her musings got cut short. In that very moment, she'd located the other Nevermore — just above her, nosediving right her way.
'Uh-oh,' she thought, noticing the clear interception course with a hint of concern. Caught in a free-fall, there wasn't much she could do to outmaneuver the damned bird; dodge its talons, perhaps, if she timed it—
Yang noticed something out the corner of her eye, and smirked.
Just when the Nevermore was readying to strike, it got T-boned by a winged blur of cyan and white. The cavalry had arrived — Weiss, sat astride a Manticore, rammed her summon straight into the overgrown corvid. At the same time, two lances of fire clipped the creature's wings, probably on the odd chance the horns didn't do the trick.
Or just because Weiss could.
The last Nevermore plummeted to the ground, leaving behind a dark trail of smoke and slate feathers; Yang expected to follow suit, but then she fell face-down through the first of Weiss' gravity glyphs, which sharply slowed her descent. Power rippled and stretched around her, almost as though she'd faceplanted into a sheet of very elastic material that eventually gave way and tore apart, only for another layer to catch her again. It… wasn't a particularly pleasant experience. Tingly, with her hair standing on end. The steady thrum of Aura-charged Dust filled her ears, while the jerking motion of her slowing fall did a number on her stomach.
Seeing Weiss loop around to pick her up, Yang grunted and twisted her body in the air, firing Ember Celica for additional leverage; the moment that she managed to turn herself upright, a circle of solid light appeared right beneath her feet. Weiss flew to her side a moment later, her expression positively smug.
Yang simply grinned, much preferring that look on Weiss' face over the prior frown. "Thanks for the save!" she quipped, throwing in a mock salute at the rider of the white Manticore bobbing in the air before her.
Her nostrils diluted in a silent laugh, Weiss rolled her eyes in lieu of a comment. Having slid a little further back to make some room atop the beast, she motioned for Yang to hop on. Without any dallying, the latter leapt off the platform; grabbing onto one of the Manticore's horns, Yang swung herself onto its neck, her legs kept close lest she accidentally clipped Weiss in the head. As soon as she was safely astride the mount, the snowflake glyph disappeared and the Manticore shot forth.
Obeying some unspoken command, the beast descended sharply before evening out its flight into a leisurely sweep over the mine site, allowing the two Huntresses to take stock of the situation. Only now that they were out of the forest could they appreciate the full scale of that place. It was a massive, open space, but most of it was a motionless graveyard of old machinery and processed stone. The deepest pit had long since turned into a lake of still water; within, a gigantic excavator laid half-submerged, brown with rust and pock-marked with algae.
Although most of the site seemed relatively clear, the situation thirty feet directly below them was rather Grimm — heh — making Yang pretty glad that Weiss had caught her. As confident as she was in her ability to hold her ground, playing king-of-the-hill with a hundred Beowolves would not have been a good time — and that's not mentioning all the other species her eyes had spied.
One variant in particular brought a smile to her face. "Ursai. One-one."
Behind her, Weiss grunted in wordless acknowledgment; the girl's right arm was wrapped loosely around Yang's midriff, while the other held onto her sword. It felt to Yang like Weiss was only half-listening, and it was easy to imagine her face — blue eyes narrowed and seeking, searching the horde for a single sign of a Creep or Centinel. Too bad—
In the corner of her vision, Yang saw Myrtenaster rise in Weiss' grasp. Suddenly, the sharp, clear note of an activating glyph pierced her ear; the next thing she knew, a wave of heat slammed into her face when six lines of vivid orange streaked from the tip of the blade, each hurling towards a different point where the swarm was the thickest.
…on second thought, calculating that little air strike was probably the reason why Weiss had been distracted.
The spears of radiance rocked the ground below with a barrage of thundering explosions of fire and light, tearing apart both the Grimm and the ground they stood upon; lumps of earth shot skyward in equal measure to black limb and gore, some of them reaching as high as forty feet in the air.
Yang closed her eyes as the Manticore plowed right through a column of smoke left in the wake of Weiss' attack. She felt the cloud envelop them briefly in its warm, foul-smelling embrace, but they soon broke free of it on the other side. Below and around her, she heard the chaotic pitter-patter of viscera and debris falling back to the ground, prompting her to look behind.
Each strike had gouged a shallow but wide crater in the ground below. What little grass had managed to take root among the surrounding silt and gravel was now dead and gone, smoldering with an amber glow that shone dimly behind the clouds of dust and smoke — for there was a lot of smoke, mainly of the dark variety. Some of it was from the flames, but the majority billowed from all the Grimm caught in the barrage, wafting off fading corpses and missing limbs.
Yang let out an impressed whistle. "That sure thinned 'em out." Although most Grimm avoided the bombardment, it still left the horde scattered and reeling — she literally saw Beowolves tripping over each other in disarray as they tried to give chase, only to get trampled by some random Ursa. In the meantime, Weiss continued to steer the Manticore away from the remaining Grimm, quickly leaving them in the dust.
"Mm. Good, because I just burned through all the fire Dust I've loaded," Weiss stated.
Yang tried to twist around to look at Weiss, but the arm pressed to her stomach warned her to stop squirming. "You got a refill?" she asked, obediently looking straight ahead, speaking loud enough to compensate for the direction and the roaring of the wind.
"Yes, but I'd rather not attempt reloading in the air."
That was fair enough — the Manticore's back was so wide that it required active effort from Yang to stay mounted, even with both of her hands free and burrowed in the monster's white fur. As much as she liked thinking she had pretty killer legs, she wasn't confident at all in her ability to hold onto her spot with her thighs alone. Neither was Weiss, by the look of things. Which — no shade — made sense.
They put quite the distance between themselves and the main force of Grimm, though that did little to discourage the monsters from their pursuit. Their howling and bellows carried far in that empty space, sweeping over the gray dunes of gravel and cobblestone. It was a promise of violence, eager in its bloodthirst — and it was precisely what the two Huntresses had wanted. Them just flying away put all the Grimm to one side; the Grimm giving chase meant that Weiss and Yang also had the luxury of picking their battlefield.
"Over there." Yang pointed off to their right, drawing Weiss' attention to a tiny 'valley' between two mountain ranges of loose rubble. It was maybe one hundred yards away, across a small graveyard of excavators and other heavy machinery. "Nice killing lane to funnel them into."
Weiss must have agreed with her assessment, as their mount soon changed course. It banked to the side, forcing Yang to lean forward and pull tighter on the white fur as the beast flew in a gentle arc towards the two rows of gray hills.
Suddenly, something stirred beneath.
It happened between two beats of a heart. Yang caught but a glimpse of movement before Weiss threw them into an emergency barrel roll — all for naught. With a piercing wail of rusted metal, the air buckled and roiled beside them as something massive lashed out, missing the two Huntresses by maybe half a foot.
It missed not the Manticore.
Something dark and fast and jagged shattered the beast's horns and tore out its right wing. The force of impact jerked the girls forward, and Yang involuntarily closed her eyes to the shards of iridescent bone flying in her face. Surprisingly, the way they hit her skin was soft and ethereal.
The jolt that launched her into the air was anything but.
Knowing she was head-down and on a collision course with the ground, Yang reflexively arched her back and readied her gauntlets to fire. A spark of anger flared in her blood, but as soon as she blinked her eyes open and saw the enemy, the tension was washed off her jawline by a mix of surprise and glee.
A wicked grin set on her face, she blasted off — straight at the hulking silhouette rising from the otherwise inconspicuous mound of loose stone and metal parts. The sneaky bastard had the gall to try and swat her with a rising backhand, but a wild and well-timed redirection let her snake her way around its arm and into its center of mass.
The split-second before the fist of metal impacted stone, Yang's hair flared on fire.
Shaken by a thunderclap, the mass of living rubble fell back and skidded off the side of the mound in an explosion of shrapnel and debris, landing in the dirt with a tremendous clamor. The feedback of her strike carried Yang a few yards the opposite way, if in a much more controlled manner; she spun in a somersault and dropped to the ground, positively nailing her three-point landing.
Maybe a second later, Weiss lowered herself to the ground beside her; although using seemingly the exact same method she'd used to catch Yang, hers descent was far more graceful of a glide. She made herself seem nearly weightless, like a mere feather on the wind. It got Yang to wonder — was it a mass thing, or had Weiss intentionally handled her like a sack of potatoes?
Weiss' pale eyes burned with mild annoyance as she looked at the cloud of dust that completely obscured the creature's prone form. Going by her expression, one would think she was being harassed by some pesky bug, not a Grimm the size of a small building. "This is aggravating," she muttered, only for her words to be drowned out by a sonorous groan that bellowed from within the cloud. Moments later, the imposing form of a Grimm clad in stone began to rise from the ground, curtains of dirt and gravel cascading down its shoulders
Yang scooted closer and nudged Weiss with her elbow, grinning. "Two to one~" she singsonged in a cheery voice, eyes sly and mirthful as they fished for Weiss' reaction.
The hulk of a creature that stood before them seemed to be in the middle of the pack for its kind when it came to size; tall, broad and lumbering of movement, as most Geist were after choosing stone for their skin. The bulk of its body was made up of smaller rocks the size of Yang's head, with only a handful of larger boulders peeking out here and there. A chunk of its torso was missing where Yang had struck it, but the beast was knitting itself back together under their very eyes, inky tendrils of shadow reaching for surrounding rubble and taking it for its armor. Really, it stood out in one aspect only — for its right arm, rather than stone, it took a torn-out arm of a mobile excavator. That was what wasted their Manticore in a single strike, its heft and teeth tearing through the summon like tissue paper.
Weiss just glowered at the thing, thoroughly unimpressed, a sigh of exasperation ripping free of her chest. It wasn't even actual anger that she wore on her face — rather, it was like the Grimm was an inconvenience, and she had to actively keep herself from rolling her eyes out of her skull.
Yang's grin widened. Weiss hadn't said out loud, but it was still written out on her face as she stared at the Geist: 'you just cost me my bet, you dimwit.'
Getting ambushed by a Petra Gigas — Excavator Gigas? — of all things also had to sting. Cheeky bastard, pretending to be a pile of rubble. Yang hadn't spotted it in time, either!
Weiss' eyes flitted briefly to Yang, not turning any softer when they did so. "Just knock it over once I give you the opening, okay?"
"Can do," Yang chirped in a playful lilt.
Weiss faltered — she tried to hide it, but she still made a little sound that could be nothing else but a snort of nasal laughter. Not willing to give Yang any more satisfaction, she silently spun the Dust chamber of Myrtenaster; at the exact same time, the Grimm took its first, thundering step towards them.
The Huntresses split, with Weiss rushing straight ahead and Yang taking the flank. The Schnee was a white blur — propelled by her glyphs, she glided across the field in the span of two seconds. The giant tried to smoosh her with a wild elbow slam, but she simply skated to the side and lashed at the offending appendage with her sword. She struck sparks against the rough stone, right where it touched the earth; moments later, bindings of ice glued the Grimm's whole arm to the ground.
She didn't stop there, pushing past a startled stomp of the Grimm's leading leg and towards the one that trailed behind; it, also, she froze in place, trapping the Grimm in a very unstable, forward-leaning stance.
A heartbeat later, Yang's strike blew the giant's forward knee to smithereens, causing it to drop flat on its stupid face. Soon as it touched the ground, another one of Weiss' glyphs immobilized its whole torso.
Yang was about to jump the Grimm and pummel it like there was no tomorrow, only to freeze when Weiss' rapier whipped to the side in a clear 'halt' motion.
"Allow me," Weiss spoke, taking a calm step forward. Then, she paused and considered Yang briefly. "Kill it if it runs."
A single blond brow rose high on Yang's face, but she complied, morbidly curious as to what Weiss had in mind.
Weiss jumped onto the stone that made up the behemoth's back and drove the tip of her blade between the rocks. At first, nothing happened; then, a thin layer of rime began to cover the construct with a white sheen, fractals of frost growing and spreading, feeding off the dew that slicked the stones. Within seconds, it covered the whole Petra Gigas — but was obviously not enough to harm it, never mind kill.
But then, the millimeter-thin layer of ice began to thicken, and Yang was reminded that Weiss Schnee could be damn scary if she wanted to be.
Rapid crystal growth had its place, but it usually caused the ice to conform to the space around it; perfect for trapping things in place. Weiss' approach — slow and methodical — let it burrow in. Sink into the pores and between the rocks, seep deep under the surface.
At first, there was a soft hum; a crystalline song that vibrated deep within Yang's ears and teeth. Steadily it grew, climbing to a crackling crescendo—
—until Weiss made the stone itself scream.
Solid rock, her ice tore asunder; small stones, it drew apart. Even the metal plating of the excavator arm bent and buckled, making Yang flinch when some of the rivets snapped off with a sound that might have been the supersonic crack. The Geist animating it all thrashed and wailed under the torture, desperately trying to keep hold of its parts, but it couldn't possibly hope to hold back the forces that carved the mountains.
So it let go. The moment it did, Yang put a shell in its ghostly face.
After the spent brass casing hit the gravel, her frame shook as she exhaled a small laugh. Only then did she remember to actually breathe, so enthralled she'd been with Weiss' performance.
Waiting for the Geist to pop out had been a part of it, but that wasn't all. She'd been just that impressed, with the control and ruthlessness both — maybe even intimidated a smidge. It had been weirdly mesmerizing, seeing the ice grow lazily while Weiss turned a Petra Gigas into a joke under her literal heel. Confident indifference was quite the look on that girl, Yang had to give her that — doubly so with a massive Grimm beneath her feet, screeching for its life as it was being slowly torn apart.
No wonder Ruby was into her, heh. Pocket-sized menaces, both of them.
"Well, that's— creative," Yang let out, hesitating for words somewhat. When the eyes of blue turned her way, she flashed Weiss a quick, lopsided grin, made slightly awkward by a brow tented in mild concern. "You let off some steam?"
Weiss was slightly taken aback by the question, but pondered it all the same. As she did, her posture relaxed and a soft, contented smile made itself at home on her lips. "Yes, I think so, now that you mention it." It was genuine and maybe even a little bit surprised; not twisted or sadistic at all, nor even salty about her losing bet. An odd contrast, considering the way she'd handled the Geist just moments before.
But, after a little thinking, Yang believed she understood the expression. Completely owning that Petra Gigas probably made Weiss feel in a way she hadn't felt since the accident — powerful, capable, in control. After all, taking one down effectively solo was not a simple task, even to a licensed Huntsman, never mind doing so so handily. It had to be reassuring, especially after Ruby's little snafu from their previous hunt.
'Taking some time apart might end up being good for both of them,' Yang mused idly. She wondered if Rubes had thought of that.
Weiss' gaze suddenly shifted upwards, flying over Yang's head and off into the distance. Lilac eyes followed, soon reminding Yang of the pack of Grimm that had been chasing them not too long ago, before their plans had been so rudely interrupted. The enemy was still a while away, but quickly approaching.
With a quick pull of her arm, Weiss snapped Myrtenaster free of the ice, then dismounted the empty shell of Petra Gigas with a dainty little hop. Freezing mist churned and slithered about her feet as she walked over to Yang, sparing the defeated foe not a single glance.
Yang side-eyed her comrade while Weiss took the opportunity to break open her sword to refill the drum with fresh Dust. "Looks like I win," Yang quipped, her smirk growing when Weiss' eyes narrowed into razors and pointed her way. The girl scoffed before snapping the blade of her rapier back into position.
"We'll see about that," she ceded, taking the first step towards the wall of lesser Grimm bearing down on the pair. A varied bunch though it was, it very clearly lacked both Creeps and Centinels.
The other Huntress just chuckled beside her, cocking back her right arm when the first Beowolf got within fifteen yards of their position.
Yang would, in fact, win.
Hidden behind a tangle of bushes that crowned a small embankment, Blake was carefully scanning the lair of their prey.
It had been a lumber yard of some sort, once. A large compound, replete with worker quarters, warehouses and processing units, all protected by a perimeter wall of concrete and watchtowers of steel. That time had long since passed; now, paint was peeling off the buildings in large, curled scabs of red, off-white and yellow, whereas old rust covered just about every inch of metal in sight. Plasterwork was neglected and crumbling, eroded to the point where large swathes of wall showcased raw brick that laid beneath. The facility must've waited abandoned for at least a decade or two before new residents had moved into its old husk, hidden at the end of an overgrown, inconspicuous dirt road.
They lucked out — they'd found their targets in the second location they checked that day, arriving at the place a little after 10 AM, offering them plenty of time to rest, plan and observe.
Although there was no one outside at the moment, the complex still showed signs of recent activity. Patchwork repairs marked the perimeter wall, covering up its many holes with wire fence and heavy scrap. Moreover, tire tracks led in and out of the gate, with some of them leading to a warehouse at the rear of the compound. Blake would love to sneak in and take a peek inside — and her gut was telling her that's where they'd find the missing trucks.
Having heard Ruby stir beside her, Blake pried herself away from her binoculars and shot the girl a glance. The poor thing had barely slept last night, so she'd convinced her to at least take a nap while they were staking out the hideout. An hour and a half later, Ruby apparently had had enough.
Having gathered that nothing much was happening, Ruby took her time before fully coming to. She stretched lazily in her sleeping bag, then propped herself up on her elbow and tried to crane her neck over the bush to look at the compound.
"How many?" she asked, voice hoarse with sleep as she thumbed away the sand from her eyes.
Blake's gaze flitted in that same direction. "About a dozen, at the very least. Twenty would be a safe assumption."
"Nothing we can't handle," Ruby assessed before being forced to stifle a yawn. "We should still play it smart, though. I'd rather avoid a body count. They're rabble, and I wouldn't bet a single cookie on them not shooting each other if we kick down the door."
"Raisin or choco chip?" Blake quipped, replying to Ruby's exaggerated eye roll with a brief but playful smile. Her attention lingered on the girl for a moment, studious and thoughtful. "Do you think we should contact the militia?"
Ruby's hesitation was but momentary, followed by a stiff shake of her head. "Too risky. Odds are, someone on the inside has been feeding them the intel on the convoys."
Blake's right ear shook in an exasperated flick. Tiny wrinkles gathered around her eyes, brought about by the grimace that settled onto her face. "I was worried you'd say that."
Huffing a silent laugh, Ruby began to shimmy her way out of her bedroll, tucking her legs by her chest once she'd freed them from the fabric. "Let's wait for now. Since their last hit was a dud, they might need to go on a supply run. If not, we'll sneak in after sundown."
The proposed course of action suited Blake just fine — made her a little excited, even, especially the latter prospect. She was about to turn her attention back to the compound, only for Ruby to speak up just when she began to raise her binoculars.
"Yang and Weiss check in?" the girl asked, a little subdued.
Amber eyes softened as they studied Ruby's face for a spell, making the girl's gaze shy away in turn. "Still worried that something might happen to her?"
A small laugh escaped Ruby. "Guilty as charged," she quietly admitted, her fingers picking distractedly at the yellowing grass that grew beside her. A wry, self-conscious grimace twisted her features as she nodded. "A little, yeah. Ironically, it's gotten better, now that I can't do anything about it even if I wanted. I've been thinking about it, though — not, like, all the time, but… you know. When thoughts wander."
Blake found herself absently bobbing her head. She knew well that frame of mind.
"They checked in about half an hour ago. Everything's gone well on their end, and they should be back in Vale this evening."
Ruby's arms slacked nigh imperceptibly in relief. "Good."
Her murmur dissipated into uncomfortable silence. Uncomfortable for Blake, in any case, who felt the rare need to fill it with something. A couple questions and soft affirmations weighed on her tongue, but none of them called out to her as the right choice. For a moment there, she considered simply giving up and just letting Ruby be, but she couldn't bring herself to just lift up her binoculars and get back to watching the base.
Ultimately, she simply gave in to her mix of worry and curiosity.
"Your… fear for Weiss — have you tried talking it over with Glas?"
Ruby's fingers looped around a tuft of grass and pulled, popping it clean off the ground, only to immediately discard it as feed for the soil. "Mm. For the better part of the session. It's probably the main reason she wasn't too impressed with me not running the idea of a hunt by her, first. Said that if I were with the police or military, I'd probably have been deemed unfit for duty."
Shoulders tensing, Blake felt her heart take a tumble down her gut. "That's a little harsh, no?" she commented, leaning a little closer to Ruby.
Eyes fixed on the sea of leaves before them, Ruby bobbed her shoulders in a small — and depressingly languid — shrug. Accepting, resigned. "She's probably not wrong, though. I was distracted, sloppy. Even I can tell that it was dangerous," she flatly replied. "But she had a couple of suggestions, too. Think I'd like to try them out."
"Do tell?"
Ruby lifted her head and looked up. "Doing tag team fights, for one." Taking note of Blake's confused eyebrow, she went on to explain, "Something about it being a scenario that's both relatively safe andhigh-intensity. Ideally, she'd like Weiss and I to go against people we don't know too well."
Blake accepted that response with a somewhat hesitant nod. Wind tousled her hair, but she paid no mind to the black strands that flew in her face, putting them in their place with a reflexive flick of her hand. "What else?" she probed further without missing a beat.
"This, I guess," Ruby spoke, spreading her arms wide and turning her eyes to the sky above. Sparse gray clouds sailed across the otherwise clear heavens, partially covering the midday sun. "Giving up any control over what happens to her and just… bearing with it."
She looked tired.
Blake scooted closer and reached out, taking Ruby's hand into her own and gently thumbing its back; she cracked a little smile when eyes of silver turned at her in a silent question. "You're doing fine."
Ruby huffed a silent, dry chuckle. "Yeah? 'Cuz it feels like a bitch and a half."
The next hour or so they spent with their eyes trained on the old logging outpost. Around one in the afternoon, Ruby's hunch proved to be correct: two beat-up pickups rode out through the main gate, each carrying three passengers. The two Huntresses took it as their cue to act, and Blake was promptly dispatched to scout out the facility.
The infiltration turned out to be an easy task. Up a tree and over the wall, followed by a quick, mostly undisturbed sweep of the compound. There were 'guards' posted outside, but Blake found them rather beneath the term; one she walked right past, whereas the remaining two pulled ahead only by the virtue of not playing games on their Scrolls. Clearly, they didn't expect anyone to find their little base of operations, much less attack it.
They were either exceedingly cocky, or indeed had a mole with the militia.
She looped around the complex, climbing a couple of roofs and sneaking careful glances through some windows. Although simple, sneaking in quickly proved to be a most worthwhile endeavor. It let her estimate the enemy numbers and get a feel for the layout of the place, yes, but, more importantly, it also informed her of a certain nuance or snag that would without doubt affect their plan of attack. The news had its silver lining, perhaps… but it narrowed their margin of error quite a bit.
Ruby needed to know.
Extraction proved marginally more challenging, as she had little choice but to vault over the perimeter wall; it was crested with a razor wire so brown and scabbed that it might as well have been wrung into the shape of the word 'tetanus'. Without any ramp or tree to help her, she was forced to break cover and run for it, then pray that no one saw her getting tossed over to the other side by a clone of hers. She arched her back and cleared the barbed wire, then dropped down to the ground in a smooth tumble. Immediately, she dashed towards the tree line, not waiting to check if anyone had heard her land on a bed of crunchy leaves.
Although she technically knew where she'd left Ruby, she'd actually noticed her only when she was nearly upon her — and even that was only because Ruby had moved, shifting the cover of leaves she'd buried herself beneath.
Who would've thought that a red cloak made for pretty decent camo at the right time of year.
"Doesn't seem like they saw you," Ruby stated, pulling away from her scope.
Her observation tickled Blake more than it should've. "Not surprised," she deadpanned, a part of her wondering if that one guy had since managed to beat the next level.
"How was it?"
She dropped to one knee beside the pile of leaves that was Ruby. "I've counted nine in the main building. Most are drinking or playing poker, while the rest seem to be cooking something. Three are doing a bad job patrolling the perimeter, and I think there might be some more in the warehouse." Then, her expression darkened. "And they've got prisoners."
Author's Note:
Well, this took a lot longer than I would've liked it to, especially when keeping in mind that I decided to split the chapter yet again. Writing's been… tough, those past two months, and I'm only now beginning to get back into the groove. I swear, job searching is the worst.
I hope you enjoyed. Part 3 is probably going to be on the shorter side, but I wouldn't be too surprised if it blew up to another 10k. We'll see. It involves the pairs getting drunk, so that could be fun!