Reunion
This was getting dangerous.
Tai was watching the rear of the refugee column like a hawk through his binoculars, and on the horizon he could already see a thick black cloud of trouble brewing, off in the remnants of the night.
Grimm, bearing down on them like a tsunami.
"We need to move." Flavian spoke to his left, a steel in his normally friendly voice.
"I know, but they've already been travelling all night. They're exhausted." The younger blonde responded, his face turning stern.
"Best chance is to try and keep spirits up, give them less negativity to track."
Flavian snorted derisively and Tai couldn't blame him. That tactic might've worked for a small group he was escorting between kingdoms, not for hundreds of refugees that were fleeing their burning homeland.
"Any word on support from the city?" The old knight asked, though his face indicated he already expected a certain answer.
"CFVY signalled that the plan is to break them against the city. Anything else carries too much risk."
Flavian nodded grimly.
"A sound plan."
They both stood on the dune for a moment, staring at the patch of sky that remained dark with Grimm even as the sun began to colour the sky with lighter pink hues as it rose.
"People are going to die." The older man stated.
Tai exhaled softly, shoulders sagging slightly as he dropped the pretence of confidence he had been wearing for the sake of those around them.
"I know."
As the sun started to filter through cracks in the old wooden blinds, emerald eyes continued staring at the ceiling.
Pyrrha had spent all the previous day helping the Huntresses set up, and at the end of it, despite her tiredness, she had been unable to fall asleep. Nervous energy coursed through her like lightning, and weary as she was her body had forced her to stay awake.
Nerves. It was ridiculous. They were her friends, they would be happy to see her.
"Thanks to you, I've made friendships that will last a lifetime."
She'd said those exact words to Jaune, once. What felt like only a few weeks ago but in reality, with all its strangeness now, had been years.
So why was she so worried? So… fearful at the idea of her team seeing her again? Why were her emotions now the exact opposite of what they should be, all the time?
A soft nock at the door broke her from her thoughts. Thinking about it was pointless anyway. It would all be resolved in a few hours, she would be back with her team again. It would all be okay. She was sure of it.
Fiona poked her head around the door, seeing if Pyrrha was awake. Seeing the girl, her ears drooped as she entered.
"Hey there, Red." She whispered. It was a nickname they'd taken to calling her. "I've got good news and I've got bad news."
Pyrrha sat up immediately, throwing off her covers. Eyes gazed at Fi, eyebrows raised questioningly.
"They're nearly here, but well, they're…" The girl trailed off. Pyrrha stared at her intently, urging her to finish.
"There's a horde right behind them. It's… not looking good."
Pyrrha was on her feet in a second, throwing off her bed clothes and going straight for her armour.
"Hey, wait! You can't go out there on your own!"
Pyrrha just shot her a stubborn look, pulling on her engraved bronze greaves.
"There's a plan! It's a good plan!"
Pyrrha looked at her, using one hand to type out a response on her scroll as she pulled a glove over it with the other.
"If it were your friends out there, would you just sit here?"
Fiona's face shifted from her usual adorable kindness to a steeled resolve almost instantly.
"If it were my friends out there, I'd trust them to handle themselves. I've had to many, many times before. They're huntresses. It comes with the job."
But Pyrrha's team weren't huntsmen. They were students, barely into their first year at the academy-
Maybe not even that, anymore. Even if they'd stayed in Vale, there was no school for them to learn at. They may've learned on on the job, but-
The image of Jaune, much as she loved him, struggling with a lone Ursa, nearly dying without her help, played across her mind.
"The plan, Red. They're making good time, they'll be at the walls before the horde is on them, at least mostly, and here we have the full support of Shade Huntsmen and Atlas. Your best chance at helping them is here."
Pyrrha wavered. She knew the girl was right, at least in her head, but almost everything in her roared at her to run out into the desert, to save who she could-
Almost everything. Something… different took hold. A plan, it said. You always need a plan.
The red-head sighed, slowing down. Looking at Fiona, she nodded determinedly.
Fiona let out a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding, smiling softly.
"We'll be at the east gate when you're ready, Robyn's preparing to get the civilians in the city as fast as possible and out of the line of fire."
Pyrrha's face hardened and Fiona nodded.
"I know, you'll want to find your friends. They'll be out in the thick of it, I know, but the best way to help them is to get the civilians out of their way, I promise you. Then you can charge out and take out some Grimm, and we'll be right behind you."
Again, almost everything in Pyrrha didn't like it. She should be out there, fighting, but Fiona was right. The best way to help her team was to remove the burden that would slow them down.
Sighing, she finished getting dressed, shifted Miló and Akoúo̱ onto her back, and nodded. Fiona smiled.
"I'm heading off. Eat something before you follow, it's going to be a long day."
Pyrrha nodded. The girl had no idea just how long.
"T-Minus one hour until operation commences. Repeat, T-Minus one hour until operation Desert Shield commences. All forces report to your stations. Admiral Steele holds command."
The tinny radio-crackling voice echoed through the training chamber at an unnecessary volume, startling Qrow and Winter awake. He had fallen asleep with his back leaning against the hard-light blocks of the training room. She had fallen asleep against his chest.
Winter drove herself to her feet with a speed she would not have managed a few hours prior, a cursing quietly about having fallen asleep. Qrow, wisely, said absolutely nothing about it as he rose.
Shirt was soaked with tears and snot, he noticed the abundant panic that spread across the Ice Queen's face. What little make-up the woman wore was a tear-tracked mess, and her uniform was crumpled to high hell. Handing her a handkerchief, Qrow nodded toward the doors.
"We're in a training room, there are showers adjacent. You have an hour. You'll be fine."
Winter calmed, taking the offered piece of fabric slowly, a shocked expression on her face.
"What? It's clean." He said, assuming she thought he just kept it to sneeze into and didn't bother cleaning it between uses.
"No, it's just… I never thought you actually knew how to be a gentleman."
Her voice was hoarse from the hours of crying, but the teasing version of Winter was back. As she wiped the make-up off her face and blew her nose, Qrow smirked.
"There's plenty you don't know about me."
Winter smiled slightly, genuinely, and then her face snapped back to the icy commandant persona she wore so often.
"I meant it Qrow, what I said last night. One word to anyone and I will-"
"Yeah, yeah, Ice Queen. Just go use the shower already, I've gotta wait for you to go first and I'd rather not stand here wearing your snot all day. Got a battle to fight, dont'cha know."
Winter scowled at him and stormed off toward the door. Watching her go, Qrow's smirk at having won the little verbal sparring match did not leave his face.
The door opened, and Winter paused.
"Qrow." She called over her shoulder so that he could barely see her face.
"Yeah?"
"Thank-you."
The woman strutted out, door slamming closed automatically behind her, missing the look of mild surprise on the older man's face.
"You're… welcome."
Qrow sat back down, waiting for her to finish her shower and leave before he could do the same. A glint off of the badge that sat on his chest, somehow miraculously spared the snot-sodden fate of his shirt, caught his eye.
"You shut up." Qrow remarked, grumbling at the badge like a madman, smiling softly all you while.
"Weiss! Weiss, please, you need to wake up!" A harsh whisper cut through her warm, comfortable sleep like a knife.
The white-haired girl just rolled over, ignoring the calls of whoever was bothering her and trying to go back to sleep.
"Shhhhhh, it's…. too early."
"Weiss!"
Sighing in frustration, the Schnee girl rolled onto her back, blinking blearily at the woman above her, sleep obscuring her eyes.
"Mom? Please, it's barely even light yet. I had a late night-"
"I'm sorry, sweetheart, but this is urgent."
Weiss sat up, finally wiping the sleep from her eyes.
"What is it?"
"You know those nice girls that help in the refugee quarter, that Qrow and I help when we can? The Happy Huntresses? Something's going on down there, they've been texting about it in a chat we share so much my phone woke me."
Weiss sighed again, growing more annoyed with the early awakening by the second.
"They're probably just out having a good time-"
"No! Something's wrong, I think they're getting ready to fight."
The last of Weiss' tiredness evaporated, anxiousness taking hold instead.
"Show me the messages."
Willow passed her daughter her scroll. Weiss' mother was not a trained huntress, and as much as the shared chat was mostly about organising food for the displaced, over the last few hours it had shifted into mish-mash of pseudo-Atlesian military and specialist short-phasing, jargon and code that she could not interpret. Qrow was joining in, and while his messages made the most sense, much of what they contained was beyond her.
Thankfully, both her daughters were trained huntresses.
Weiss passed her mother her scroll back as she bolted out of bed, shedding her sleepwear and throwing open her cupboard, looking for her huntress gear. After a second, she threw a pillow hard at her sister in all but blood in the bunk above hers.
"Ow! Hey!"
"Ruby! Get up!"
The urgency in Weiss' voice cut through Ruby's usual playful start to the day, causing her silver eyes to widen in panic.
"What's going on!?" Came the response as the girl clambered out of bed gracelessly, nearly falling onto her face as she did so.
"The Happy Huntresses were getting ready to welcome the Valean refugees, but something's wrong. They seem to be expecting a fight. Qrow's communicating the same." Weiss tried to explain, doing her lengthy hair up into a messy bun to cope with the desert heat, slipping on pne of her new, desert-heat compliant combat dresses.
"What!? Why didn't anybody tell us!?" The younger girl whined, fumbling her way into her own gear.
"I don't know! Get your gear on and call your sister! I'll try to get through to Blake."
Both scrolls were dropped onto the bed, phoning their targets.
"Mom, don't leave the house, don't let Whitely leave either. Get Klein to prep a bullhead! Now!" Weiss barked at her mother and she checked the levels of the dust-cylinders and smoothness of the revolver-action of Myrtenaster.
Willow hesitated, looking confused.
Weiss turned to her, exasperated.
"Mom! Please! Move!"
Willow snapped out of it, nodding and running off out of the room.
Weiss checked the scrolls, neither Yang nor Blake had picked up.
Were she the type, Weiss would've sworn profusely.
"We'll have to get them en-route." Her partner stated. Now that the confusion and sleepiness had left her, Ruby was back in full-on team-leader mode.
"It's out of the way. It'll cost time." Weiss pointed out.
The red-haired girl sighed exasperatedly.
"I know, but we don't know what we're headed into. I don't want to do it with just us."
Ruby was right, but it still didn't sit right with either of them wasting time diverting to people who should know to pick up their damn phones.
The door burst open, Whitely standing in the doorway, panting, still in his pyjamas.
"Bullhead's nearly ready! Klein's just running some checks!"
Weiss nodded, giving her brother a half-second hug before taking off down the corridor. Ruby said a quick 'Thanks!' toward the boy herself and followed after her partner.
Ruby continued trying their teammates as they bolted onto the bullhead, Weiss trying to get a hold of her sister.
"Klein! Shade dorms!"
"Yes ma'am! Hold on!"
The small man's eyes shifted from blue to red as he blasted skyward, speeding toward the academy.
A loud clang woke Jaune far too easily. Years of waiting for things to go disastrously wrong in the village of the Pleasers had made him a light sleeper, but he didn't need to be one to awaken to the noise that was emanating from the corridors of Amity Arena.
Throwing open the door, Jaune was confronted with the sight of Atlesian servicemen marching through the corridors, transporting large cases and weapons through the annals of the place and towards the outer balconies.
The hell?
Slamming the door closed again, Jaune threw on his under-armour jumpsuit as quickly as he could before leaving the room he dodged through the ranks of preparing servicemen and down towards Polendina's lab underneath the main coliseum. Within, he found an immense hard-light projection of Amity floating in mid-air, an arrow showing movement its movement and estimated time of arrival to wherever they were going. The projection's destination was the edge of the city, where several friendly-coloured lights were nearly surrounded by the blood-red lights depicting Grimm. Polendina himself underneath it, gesturing at specific points and speaking to the officers with him, leading to them barking out further orders.
The lab was two-floors tall, and a small walkway and control room surrounded it on the second floor. Jaune watched what was going on for a moment from his position above it all, trying to work out what was going on without interrupting.
"Ah, little late to the party, aren't we? I figured you and your friends would be up and at em' by now."
Jaune jumped slightly as Maria crept out of the shadows, her cane clacking against the metal floor.
"What's going on? Is this an exercise or something?" He asked, impatience getting the better of him. Whatever it was, he'd seen the troops hauling weapons, and that was never a good sign.
"Well, from what I understand with my perfect Atlas-jargonese, by my reckoning there's a Grimm attack heading for the east gate, following the refugees from Vale. They're setting up Amity as something of a sky- fortress, given the shields and all."
Staring at her, Jaune's face fell into a frustrated confusion.
"What!? Why the hell didn't anyone say anything!?"
Maria shrugged as though it was the most unimportant thing in the world.
"How should I know? Atlas soldiers don't exactly report to old ladies. Well, save that she-devil Corodvin."
Jaune rolled his eyes at Maria's jab and hopped over the balcony and onto the lab floor proper. Striding up to the brass of the Atlesian military in front of him, he muscled his was to the good doctor.
"Doctor Polendina, what's going on? Why didn't anyone wake me?"
Polendina stopped, cast his eyes away from the projection in front of him toward the blonde (technically) teenager.
It seemed to take a moment to register in Polendina's gaze who Jaune was.
"Oh! Jaune my boy! Sorry, I got so caught up in all the excitement that I forgot! You should get ready, there's a fight coming."
The first horrendous boom of artillery fire tore through the narrow halls behind them, echoing through Amity from the outer balconies like a wave.
Polendina's face turned grim.
"My mistake, it is already here. The refugees from Vale will need help son, best get down there. I'll fire up the armourer, we need to get you combat-ready fast. Amity is moving into position, but you have a way to get there faster than anyone, don't you son?"
Polendina smiled knowingly, causing Jaune to nod.
The armouring machine at the edge of the room fired up with a mighty noise. White-bronze metal pieces moved into position as the Atlesian brass glared at Jaune for his interruption, but not daring to speak out for fear of offending the good doctor who was organising Amity's defences.
Jaune called to Maria.
"Can you contact the others? Tell them what's going on?"
The woman shook her head.
"I've been trying but their phones are engaged, seems like they might've figured it out themselves."
Jaune sighed. Even if they had, they were all over the city. They'd never make it in time.
Fine.
The boy's eyes darkened as he stalked toward the machine-helper that Polendina had programmed to assist with donning his new armour. The familiar hiss of the floor parting and the Professor's immense gift rising behind him, drowning out the mutters and barked orders of the men behind him.
Jaune closed his eyes, stepping into the machine, and felt, for the first time in months, normal, as the weight of full-plate armour settled against him again.
As the weight of being The Rusted Knight established itself within him once more.
I'll just have to protect them by myself. Again.
As dawn finally fully broke over the rooftops, Ren eyed the movement of the Atlesian Navy warily. The ships were shifting into some kind of defensive pattern, around the moving Amity Arena, and it was putting him on edge.
Scroll in hand, Ren's thumb hovered over Nora's profile picture. He should call her, he knew. But she had asked him wait, to give her time, and if she'd known about this and not sent anything then it must be a false alarm, right? Some kind of training exercise?
The feeling of unease did not go away. He couldn't contact Jaune, the idiot had yet to replace his old scroll, even months after his freedom from the Ever After. Their team leader stubbornly refused a new one at every turn, instead working with Polendina to try and fix the old one, or at least recover whatever was so important to him off of it. Whatever his reasons, the efforts had proved fruitless, despite Polendina's genius. Time did not give back what it took, and it had taken its toll on Jaune, and his scroll, during their entrapment in the Ever After.
Ren didn't have Polendina's contact info, or Maria's. Socialising had always been Nora's forte.
With every passing day her absence was beginning to be felt more and more, and not just romantically, or companionably. Things he hadn't even realised her relied on her for weren't getting done. Like telling people when they needed to shut up, or liaising with and keeping him up to date with what was going on amongst their friends, or just flat-out translating what the hell was going on for him half the time.
A bullhead roared over his head at speed, heading toward Shade, and that was enough to contort the knot in his gut further. Something definitely wasn't right.
Ren dropped from the scouting route he'd assigned himself, making his way toward the eastern gate, below where the airships were assembling themselves.
The refugee quarter.
Nora would be there, helping the Huntresses with whatever was going on. At the very least, he could keep an eye out for her, like he usually did. Jaune was with Polendina, if something came up he would know, and he would be there.
Ren attempted a group call in the shared chat between his team and team RWBY, free-running over rooftop after rooftop toward whatever was about to happen.
Weiss and Ruby both picked up.
"Does anyone know what's going on? The Atlas Navy looks like it's setting up for a fight." He barked out, trying to get the words across as the dual-whine of bullhead engines blared out of his phone from both Weiss and Ruby's mics, causing him to jerk the phone away from his ear at the sudden barrage of sound.
"The Huntresses are getting ready for a fight too, we don't know what's going on. We're trying to reach Blake and Yang, are you with them?"
Weiss' voice barely registered above the background noise, but he caught it, cursing as he did so.
"No, I'm in the city. I'm heading towards the east gate, but I'm half a city away, I don't know if I'll make it in time."
Ruby spoke next.
"Okay, we're sweeping by the dorms and grabbing the Bees, we'll be there as soon as we can. We'll pick you up if we see you en route. Any word from Jaune or Nora?"
"No, nothing."
A moment of silence from the other end meant the two were worried.
"Look, the second they get wind of something they'll be there. Nora's probably there already. I'll make contact when I know what's going on."
Ren cut off the call and stowed his scroll, focusing on running. It was going to be a long day.
Nora growled at her buzzing scroll.
The girl had spent her day off from helping the huntresses getting drunk. Very, very drunk. While blowing off some steam had seemed like a good idea at the time, the roaring headache that assaulted her now heavily disproved the idea.
She'd been too hammered to make her way back to the refugee quarter, and it was hardly safe down those streets at night, especially pissed up. So she'd taken a room at the tavern she'd been drinking at alone like a sad old lady and just let herself crash.
Said crash had been supposed to last until she'd slept through the hangover, but the scroll under her pillow just would not stop vibrating.
Snatching it out from under her, Nora eyed the offensive piece of technology as though it were a particularly disgusting sock. Nonetheless, eventually, after focusing enough to ignore the headache for five seconds, she read through the plethora of messages between the Huntress chat and missed call on the RWBY-JNPR chat.
The citrus-haired girl bolted out of bed, grabbing around for the clothes she'd cast around the room.
Nora swore loudly as she hastily tried to reassemble her garb to be somewhat presentable.
"Shit! FUCK!"
Her combat gear and Magnhilde were still in her room at the Huntresses' place. Nora could handle herself without a weapon, but against something that the Atlesians were taking seriously enough to dedicate warships? No, she had to get back, get her gear.
Which meant whatever was going on she might not make it in time to help her friends. Ren was already well on his way into whatever was happening, if the post-call recording was any indication.
The thought made her heart plummet. Ren, with no support, fighting something the Navy was moving to fight.
With renewed fervour she finished dressing and catapulted out of the room, sprinting past the owner coming to complain about her noise, and was out of the building and down the street in a second.
The eastern gate was on the other side of the city, and Ren was already halfway there, expecting her to be there, ready to help her-
"Dammit."
Crashing straight through a stall that was set up in the middle of a crossroads, Nora ignored the angered yelling of its keeper as she tried to make up time.
Pushing down the worry that was creeping up from her stomach, she could only think one thing.
"I'm the one not there."
The city edge of Vacuo was in utter pandemonium. A seemingly unending stream of panicking civilians were tearing through the gates, overpowering the Happy Huntresses' and Shade Huntsmen's attempts to divert or direct them. It was taking everything they had just to slow people down enough to ensure no-one was trampled to death, literally throwing up pillars of ice and stone with Dust in order to slow the throng down enough to get a handle on it.
The panic only grew worse as the airships above opened fire on whatever was causing the fervent terror that had taken hold of these people. Even the established Atlesian refugees were running for cover inside whatever quarters they had managed to procure over the last few months. There was only one thing Pyrrha could think of that would cause this; the Grimm.
The flame-haired girl was doing all she could to direct people with hand-signals, but without a voice or a means to create a real physical barrier like the dust-mages, it was all she could do not to get swept away in the crowd. The wanton panic and sound of air-ship fire tore at her mind, reminding her of the awful night of The Fall of Beacon. It had only been a few days ago to her. The night she'd died.
Pyrrha didn't know how she was keeping it together. More than once her body had tried to attack itself, hurling her into a moment of such potent anxiety that she had barely been able to breathe. Something in her had pushed it back, kept her head clear, even as all around her were losing theirs. Whenever her trauma over Beacon reared its ugly head and threatened to pull her under like the rest of them, it was immediately followed by that odd feeling of innate distance, as if it had happened years ago, to someone else, as if it were somehow unimportant.
Robyn fired off flare-bolt after flare-bolt, various colours and sparking patterns communicating what she wanted to say to her allies as best she could without being able to speak over the rancour of the panicking crowd, but it was a language Pyrrha had never been taught, and could not keep up with. Whatever they were trying to say, she could not understand nor help. Her presence here was pointless.
The crowd heaved again and she had to fire Miló into the ground as she kicked off to avoid being trampled, sending herself skyward. Slamming the spear into a nearby wall, Pyrrha gazed out over the heads of the fleeing refugees, hoping to gain some kind of insight.
To her horror, the queue of souls outside of the gate was two-thirds larger than those that had managed to make it in, and in the distance she could see the hallmarks of combat, the coloured flashes of dust-use and kicked-up sand-pillars from powerful attacks, all in an effort to slow the horde of Grimm bearing down beyond it.
The air-ships continued to rain fire into the mass of the horde, but the tell-tale screech of the vulture-like Nevermore of the Vacuoan desert was unending.
Her friends were out there, somewhere, fighting in that.
Looking down at the Huntresses, Pyrrha watched them work in tandem, their teamwork showing through even without her support. They didn't need her, if anything she was only getting in the way.
Launching herself over the wall and soaring over the heads of the refugees, Pyrrha propelled herself along with rifle fire from Miló. As she landed on the other side of the crowd, Pyrrha took off as fast as her legs would move toward the rear flank, darting between straggling refugees as she looked desperately toward the thick of the fighting for any sign of her friends. Two young girls, platinum and strawberry-haired, were at the very back of the civilians, toting old Valean rifles, taking pot-shots at whatever Grimm they could see skyward, doing their best impression of being protectors, even as they backed fearfully toward the city. Pyrrha only noticed because of a passing resemblance to Yang and Ruby. Maybe they were related? Family fleeing the city together? Maybe Team RWBY was nearby?
If RWBY was near, the other members of JNPR would not be far from their sister team.
The girls were waiting, glancing off in a direction that they clearly expected someone to be coming from. It was probably where the fighting was thickest.
It was a long-shot, information based on far too many maybes. But Pyrrha did not have the time to ask, mired as she was with her muteness. Darting past them, sprinting off towards the fight, desperately hoping her friends were still okay, that she might be able to help.
"THIS POSITION IS BECOMING-" A Centinel's head came crashing down on Flavian's tower shield, mandibles chattering as it tried to bite the man's face off. Roaring, Flavian landed a counter-blow that severed the thing's head from its body.
"UNTENABLE!"
"I'M AWARE!" Came the replying roar from Taiyang, slamming his lightning-dust infused cestus through the eye of a Sulphur Fish, feeling the grotesque wetness of its innards along the length of his arm before it faded to ash.
An immense dust-round from above impacted a dune not far in front of them, sending both men flying as it obliterated a chunk of the horde coming at them.
Trying to rise, Tai spat sand out of his mouth. An arm linked itself with his and pulled him upward, getting his feet back under him.
"C'mon lad, on your feet! Our kind don't die on our backs!" Flavian was trying to shout, but his voice was growing hoarse. They were both exhausted, the better part of the last few hours had been a sprint across the desert to try and stay in front of this hoard, pushing the civilians on all the while. It was catching up with them, and at the worst time. The Grimm were on them faster than expected, and the refugees were struggling to get into the city quickly enough.
More fire reigned from the ships above, pounding into the dunes, turning sand to glass and Grimm to nothing. It would be beautiful, if those same rounds didn't keep landing a little too close for comfort.
"What the fuck are they doing up there?" Tai croaked out.
"Damned if I know. Here, we've got maybe thirty seconds before they're back on us."
Flavian swallowed several gulps before slamming a near-empty waterskin into Tai's chest. The younger man took his weight off the older and accepted it, finishing the last of the oddly delicious water before throwing it over his shoulder and down the dune behind them.
"Hey, that was a perfectly good waterskin." Flavian jostled, picking his shield back up and loosening his wrist as Grimm began to pour back over the dunes in front.
"If we make it through this I'll buy you another one, this time not made from a goat's piss-bag." Came Tai's tired response, taking up a stance of his own, dust-knuckles cracking in front of his eyes as he activated the dust-functions of his boots.
"Your daughters-" Tai began, watching the throng draw closer.
"Will be fine. They're strong women, like their mother. They'll figure it out." Flavian replied solemnly, raising his sword to eye-level over his immense shield.
There was no time for more. Something tried to burrow beneath them. A dust-enhanced stomp from Tai turned the sand to glass in a lightning-spread, killing it. A hand pulled him down, shield thrown up over both of them as Flavian blocked the feather-spray of a Nevermore. A dart managed to pierce through the old shield. Tai felt it scrape against his aura at the back of his neck.
Gatling-fire filled their ears, Coco of CFVY offering fire-support from the bullhead. The Nevermore crashed earthward, taking out a swathe of Sulphur Fish as it impacted, but the Centinels were still coming, unaffected by the skyward fire as they burrowed in and out of the sand.
Fist and blade sent them back to black ash, the ignoble insectoid screeching wrenched at Tai's ears as they died. Behind them a swarm of Sulphur-Fish crested the dunes, sprinting down in an avalanche that kicked up sand and made it impossible to see, rolling themselves into golem-like shapes of sprawling limbs.
Fox blasted between the pair of them, heading off the swarm and fighting amongst the kicked-up blinding sand like only he could, copper arm-blades slashing at a mile a minute.
For a second, it seemed as though they might actually get a handle on this.
The sound of an explosion caught Tai's attention. One of the bullhead's engines was aflame, torn apart by baby Ravagers.
Coco was thrown from the side of the ship as it came down, Yatsuhashi diving to catch her.
"VELVET!"
Coco's heart-wrenching scream echoed out as the dunes exploded with the force of the bullhead's impact, the ship wrenching itself apart as it ground across the sand. Fox dived aside as scores of Centinels and Sulphur-Fish exploded into dust in its wake, a black plume of smoke spiralling skyward from the wreckage.
Coco moved at a speed Tai hadn't seen from someone in decades. The minigun was collapsed into a handbag as she used it to bludgeon Grimm after Grimm aside, snarling like an animal as she dashed madly toward the fallen ship, Fox sprinting after her.
"MOVE!" Roared Flavian, diving down the hill after them, trying to prevent CFVY getting cut off as they tried desperately to save their teammate, Tai following instinctively.
Fox dived into the wreckage as Coco's Gianduja roared with gunfire again, dusting anything that came at them from above, her face contorting into a desperate rage as she attempted to keep Nevermores and Ravagers at bay, unable to protect herself as ground-based Grimm pulled closer.
Flavian was in front of her in an instant, warding off Centinels and Sulphur-fish alike. Yatsuhashi barrelled toward the downed bullhead at Fox's signal, desperately trying to wrench open the wrecked cockpit with his strength.
Lightning from Tai's fist oared outward, a bolt that spider-webbed its way outward, cutting down a swathe of Sulphur-Fish.
It was alright, all they had to do was hold, help would come, they were managing-
As Fox and Yatsuhashi finally managed to pull Velvet's limp form from the bullhead, something exploded out of the ground beneath him. Tai was thrown backward into the sand violently, his Aura tanking the hit as he was thrown clear.
The hiss of acid filled his ears. The immense, gluttonous form of a Cenitaur stood where he had been standing. The sickening sounds of it trying to regurgitate filled him with horror, as he realised it was aiming its acid vomit at a tragically unaware Coco-
Flavian crashed into the thing hard, its vomit firing ground-ward as the pommel of the older man's sword smashed its fash away from the undefended girl. Its scythe-like arms raked through the air and into the shield, ripping its aged face upon and nearly taking Flavian's arm with it. The weight of it pressed up against his shield, bearing down on the man as he tried to keep it from crushing him. A valiant stab at its face bounced off its face-plate, its mandibles wrapping around the weapon and tossing it away.
Tai surged to his feet, driving himself toward helping his friend, but Centinel after Centinel broke out of the ground, barring his way. For very one he stuck down another arrived, driving him back and away.
Fox's implant notified him of the danger. The boy began to bolt from Velvet's side, leaving her to Yatsuhashi in order to help the older men, but the Bullhead's smoking frame exploded violently, sending fire and metal everywhere. Shrapnel tore through smaller Grimm around the explosion, peppering the sand with nails and shards of metal. An immense pillar of sand was cast skyward as Fox and Yatsuhashi were thrown clear, their Aura trying to shield them from the ferocious force of the explosion, the larger boy using his body to shield the unconscious Velvet as best he could as they were vaulted clean across the sand, their aura shattering into nothingness on impact.
Coco finally noticed the horror of what was happening behind her as the bullhead exploded, the noise climbing above the screeching of ravagers and nevermores. Shrapnel and scrap fell down around her as the girl cursed violently, unable to fire Gianduja at the Centinels surrounding Tai or the Cenitaur without potentially hitting her friends, or Flavian. The girl made to sprint back, collapsing the gun again-
An immense Death-Stalker slammed out the dune beside her, called by the explosion and the terror that was coursing through the girl's veins at the sight of her team unconscious and vulnerable. It slammed into her sending her reeling. Coco tried to re-engage the gun but the thing's massive pincers' came at her too fast, forcing her to desperately try to bat them and the tail aside, to buy herself time-
The weight of the Cenitaur finally proved too much for Flavian's ageing muscles as it forced him to one knee. Pulling backwards powerfully, the last scraps of metal holding the shield together came away violently and awkwardly, a sickening crack and a roar of pain emanated from the man as his arm broke with the power of the Cenitaur ripping his shield from him, his weight falling instinctively backward, falling from one knee to awkwardly prone.
Trying desperatly to reach him, Tai ducked by one Centinel only for another's mandibles to sink into his leg, pinning him in place as another ripped into his arm. Aura held them at bay but he could not move. Tai reache out toward the older man desperately with his free hand, his spare leg straining with force as he tried to break through the hold of the insectile Grimm pinning him down.
"FLAVIAN!"Tai roared, realising with mounting horror what the broken arm meant, what he'd stupidly forgotten. The friend that had helped him carry the load all the way from Vale was a Knight, not a Huntsman.
The man had no Aura to shield him.
Flavian Arc, the last Knight of the Arc family, tried desperately to get his feet back underneath him. Honour demanded he meet his fate on his feet, as a man. Glaring hatefully at the grotesque abomination that would doubtless be his end, he rose on unsteady feet as its scythe-like pincer descended toward his chest.
A pair of burgundy, high-heeled boots crashed into the Cenitaur's face, sending it reeling backward and its strike wide as its attacker kicked off it and flipped away from the acid-spewing Grimm, grabbing the older man by the scruff of his neck and hauling him back and away from the creature.
Flavian and Tai stared at the figure before them, mostly hidden in the standard sand-cloaks of Vacuo, jaws agape. The Grimm reeled in pain for a moment, the twin-stiletto heels to the eyes had blinded it painfully, and it pulled back for a moment with an enraged hiss.
Pyrrha's body, her soul, everything in her, for the first time in what felt like days, had moved like lightning the second she'd seen the blonde in dated white armour a split-second from death. Worry had flooded through her like a tidal wave, overcoming her entirely and driving her to a speed that had been damn near inhuman.
"Jaune! Are you alri-"
Two thoughts hit her simultaneously.
This man was not Jaune.
She could speak.
The prone man before her was far, far too old to be him, but the similarities were there. The hair, the eyes, it was as if looking at her partner, forty years older. The older blonde stared at her slack-jawed, his eyes had swollen at the mention of Jaune's name and a confused, overwhelmed croak left his throat.
An enraged hiss caught her attention. The Cenitaur's eyes had regenerated, and it had turned its ire upon its blinder. Pyrrha stood her ground between this thing and its prey, and for the first time in days finally felt like herself again. There was such beautiful simplicity in this, the fight, the hunt. For as long as she could remember this is what she had wanted. What she had strived to excel at. Being a Huntress.
The thing buried its arms in the ground and unhinged its jaw, acidic bile dripping from its nauseating maw, positioning itself like some vile vomit-spewing turret.
Pyrrha slipped into a combat stance, the tell-tale smirk of the Invincible Girl on her face as she reached out with her semblence, her Polarity, calling Miló and Akoúo̱ to her hands-
They did not come.
Sheer panic froze her blood and weighed in her feet like lead. The Polarity was gone, the innate push and pull she was so used to feelings from the world when she reached out with her very soul did not come. Instead there was just-
Nothing.
The weight of Flavian Arc pulled her down hard as the Centitaur's acid spewed at her, the cloak so kindly gifted by the Happy Huntresses evaporated behind her in a haze of green bile and choking fumes, melting in the dirt.
A tell-tale hiss from the hem of the remnants of the clock forced her to instinctively try to throw it clear, the acid left on it burning against her Aura, even as she hit the ground next to the elder knight hard.
Dread coursed through her as the Cenitaur shifted its head toward her again, jaw still unhinged, it stomach bloating with acid again. Pyrrha was caught, desperately trying to get the acid-covered cloak off amidst the tangle of limbs she and her saviour had become as he'd pulled her down and out of harms way.
In a moment, as the bile dripped from the things jaw, everything became horrifyingly clear.
Just like Beacon.
"Do you believe in destiny?"
"I do."
The world itself seemed to slow down as the words tore through her mind like wildfire. Was this hers? To be brought back from the dead only to suffer through it again?
Cold fury took hold in her, fierce and frustrated. Pyrrha raged at the sense of utter powerlessness she felt, again, as the acidic vomit travelled up the thing's throat aggravatingly slowly, the last second of her life before it ended in tortured agony, bathed in acid, seemed to last an eternity, contorted with a furious clarity not entirely her own, that she could do nothing with, could do nothing about.
In that moment, however, her last thought was truly, and only, her as she waited for death to come for her once again, unaware of the soft sound of hoof-prints in the sand behind her.
"I didn't even get to see him-"
An immense form crashed into the Cenitaur, thundering from behind her and into the abomination. Bronze horns battered it down to the ground as metallic feet trampled it to death beneath its immense weight, black ash scattering about amidst the sound of steel grinding against itself as the thing galloped onward without stopping.
The thing. a horse-sized metal jackalope, barrelled off toward Coco. Comprised of thick white metal plates with bronzed edges around each joint, within which a darker metal could be seen. Stag-like bronze horns rose from its head, and upon its back rode a man in matching full-plate armour, white as driven snow, mantled in bronze.
The man did not turn back, instead ripping his sword and sheathe from his waist, exactly where her partner had once kept his.
The sword shifted to a bastard sword while still in the sheathe, then the grip extended skyward, changing the weapon into an immense glaive-like lance that the mounted knight used to crash through ranks of Grimm that had taken advantage of the opening created by the Death Stalker. Centinel after Centinel fell to hoof or horn or lance, scatting ash over the sand like bloodstains. The knight in shining armour grabbed Coco's tired from from behind as the Death Stalker's pincer clacked closed where she had been half a second earlier, the steed never stopping, hefting her small frame onto the mount as they tore back through the opening he'd created toward them.
Tai had freed himself now, surging forward and helping Flavian and the girl up, but both were transfixed by the sight of the knight and his metal steed crashing through lines of Grimm, tracking its movement back toward them with laser-locked eyes.
The knight dropped Coco off by her teammates, and the breathless girl turned to thank him.
"No time!" Came the muffled voice behind the helmet. "Watch the skies, I'll handle the Stalker. June, Guardian Mode."
The man swung himself off the metallic beast as it lowered its forelegs down, eyes turning red as it scanned for enemies. The large bronze horns, forked like a stags, split open along each fork, revealing a series of Atlesian-looking rifles, its rear haunches opening to show racks of small missiles. It fired its rifles at incoming Grimm with astounding accuracy, protecting the older blonde men, Pyrrha and Coco with its flanks.
Coco unleashed the might of Gianduja once again, driving the circling vulture-mores and ravagers off or destroying them outright, firing constantly in order to keep up with the number of Grimm circling overhead.
The knight still hadn't even sent them a sideways glance, the visor of his helm pointed only at the Grimm ahead, red sash around his waist billowing in the wind. The Death Stalker tore toward them, furious at the loss of its prey.
Weapon shifting back down, the knight ripped the sheathe off the stunning sword and shifted it into a shield, taking a stance as he pointed the shield the wrong way. Behind himself.
Emblazoned upon it, though not in the gold or yellow that Jaune bore, was a beautiful bronze depiction of the Crest of Arc.
Pyrrha felt her heart stop, the man next to hers breathing hitched as her own left her body. Neither had the time for anything else as the knight triggered something, a gravitonic pulse firing out of his shield, propelling him at speed toward the raging Death Stalker.
A pincer came down hard from his side, but the shield battered it away even as the second dove in. Another gravity pulse, shunting the first claw away, had him spin fast enough to catch the second the same way. Another pulse, another pincer sent wide as its face was exposed to the knight's sword.
He did not have time to strike. The tail came crashing down, forcing him to throw himself backwards from it. The pincers came up in a shield once again, but the knight's sword shifted again into a spear. A gravity-dust enhanced throw, purple exploding from the base of the hilt, saw the spear slam through the gap between the claws of a pincer and rocket straight into one of the thing's larger eyes.
It screamed in agony as the knight fiddled with something behind his shield, 'June's' eyes shifted away from its guardian duties momentarily, locking onto and firing its small arms into the link between the stinger and the rest of the Death Stalker's tail as it roiled in pain.
The tip of the tail exploded under the volume of fire, the stinger falling into the skill-plate of the Stalker and pinning itself there. The armoured warrior flicked his wrist, activating the gravity dust within his spear, and it exploded backward, ripping itself from the Death-Stalker's eye-socket, slamming its pincers open from within, even as the knight blasted himself forward again, catching his own weapon in mid-air, he shifted shield and spear into the glaive-lance from before, bringing the flat of it down hard onto the stinger embedded in the Stalker's skull.
It drove deeper but not enough, the immense scorpion-Grimm pulled back a pincer, readying a blow of its own.
Another gravitonic blast from the lance-head exploded the stinger clean into its skull, its roar of rage dying instantly as its form began to dissipate into nothing, leaving a large, ink-black stain in the sand.
"SHIT!" Roared Coco, the barrels of Gianduja slowing to a stop, barrels spitting nothing but smoke.
"I'M OUT-!"Something cut her off, a sound that Pyrrha had heard before.
A low, undulating hum that shifted to silence, and then exploded.
Ruby Rose catapulted out of the city walls, launched by a large black glyph. Crescent Rose roared, firing as she rocketed skyward without losing momentum, shifting her weapon to War-Scythe mode as she drove straight through the heart of a huge Nevermore and out of its spine, dusting it in her wake.
The previously unchallenged Grimm in the sky shifted into a chaotic mess as it fell. Ruby turned to a Rose-red bolt as she trailed across the horizon. Ripping her scythe down a Nevermore wing, she used her semblance to rocket higher again, turning human just long enough to assess the enemy, her feet against the blade of Crescent Rose as she hung upside down for a second, firing to launch herself downward, guillotining a Ravager's head off, speeding off again, never losing momentum as she reaped her way across the sky.
A second meteor, this time burning gold, impacted hard a way off, kicking sand into the air with the draconic force of the impact. Even through the swirling sand, Yang Xiao-Long's burning locks could be seen at the epicentre. The impact fell stunningly silent faster than it should have, the work of the darting black form of Blake Belladonna, her shadow-art training allowing her to assassinate her way through swathes of Grimm under the cover of the cloud kicked up by her louder partner.
Reinforcements. Thank the gods-
The younger of the two men with her collapsed to his knees, starting in utter disbelief at the scene before him, tears streaming down his face as he struggled to find words.
"They're alive." He finally managed.
"They're alive. They're alive. They're alive. They're alive. They're alive." repeating it like a mantra, crazed, grinning madly at the sight of the bulk of Team RWBY carving a swathe through the ranks of Grimm above and away from them.
The celebration did not last. A final, horrendously large head of a King Taijitu crashed through the opening in the dunes the Death Stalker had created, splitting them up from the knight that had saved them. One head dove straight for him, the other rounded on her, the men and Coco.
Tai did not notice, too busy staring ecstatically at the red and gold across the glassed battlefield. Coco shifted Gianduja back to purse form, Pyrrha reaching for Miló and Akoúo̱-
A hard-light dome, projected from segments of 'June', threw itself up between them as it stuck, the Taijitu's head slamming into the wall and pulling back as it struck with a cattle prod.
After a couple more tries it instead rounded its attention back toward the other side of its body, where the knight was desperately fighting the first head off.
Pyrrha made to leave the hard-light cage, to try and help, but the thing shocked her, burning her hands as she tried to force her way though it.
Turning to the robotic rabbit, Pyrrha went to shout at it to let her out, to let her help.
The words died in her throat, again, and to her horror she found that her voice had left her once more.
"Drop the damn shield! We need to help him!" Roared Flavian,
"Error: Target Too Large to Combat Given Current Parameters. Guardian Mode Protocols Engaged. Personnel Preservation Paramount. Hard-Light Shield Will Not Drop Without Authorisation From User."
Flavian's right fist connected with the large robot's flank hard, only for him to pull it back hard from the pain.
"Open it you useless bucket of-!"
Both heads of the Taijitu crashed downward, trying to get the knight off-balance. The perfect synchronisation of the heads forced him to to dart around the battlefield, hiding behind his shield, searching desperately for a chance to counter attack-
A bright-green blade drove itself into the eye of the white head, that side of its body pulling back and screeching in pain as a man that used the attached cord to zip-line across the wastes, flipping over its head and firing his machine pistols into its other eye, blinding it as he fell downward and into formation with the sword & shield wielding warrior.
"About time." Grunted a voice from inside the helmet.
Ren's reply was simply a semi-amused raising of an eyebrow, before both were forced apart again by the unwounded head diving at them, fangs burying themselves in the dirt of where they had stood a second prior. The wounded head thrashed around blindly, trying to hit anything and everything around it.
Ren darted artfully between its strikes, leaping into the and firing his gun-blades behind him and as he landed on its head hard, pinning the blinded head to the ground, tethering it down.
"NOW!"he roared, the knight positioning himself to finish it. Sword and shield turned to bastard sword, to glaive, and finally dust beamed out of its sides, turning the weapon into an immense polarm-length great axe, blades formed of hard-light as it came down hard, guillotining the wounded head from the neck of the giant serpent.
The spare head roared at the loss of its twin, and the two huntsmen realised their mistake. They were right next to each other, easy targets with their weapons buried in the sand beneath them. The Taijitu lunged before either had time to correct their error-
Something loud and pink soared over the dunes to their side, riding her hammer across the sky.
"SMASH!"
A charged-up Nora delivered a literal hammer-blow to the side of the thing's face, driving it and the rest of its body away from her teammates, one of its teeth breaking out of its face from the force of the blow. The head catapulted into a dune, loosing an avalanche of sand that it struggled to free itself from.
The three moved like clockwork together. Nora threw the broken tooth to a sprinting Ren, who kicked off the knight's shield, a gravity-enchanced shunt sending him at speed toward the remaining head. Driving the tooth into the Taijitu's eye caused it to scream violently, before an aura-enhanced strike send the fang explosively through its skull, killing it as black fluid exploded outward and across the sand.
The three formed up, waiting for their next challenge as more Sulphur-fish scuttled through the hole in the dunes, surging toward them like a wave.
A myriad spray of white quills reigned down from behind them, piercing through the Grimm and sealing off their torrent from the gap. As a giant Arma Gigas tore forward and punted a Sulphur-fish golem apart, Weiss Schnee descended on the snow-white wings of a Nevermore sprouting from a glyph at her back. landing softly on the ground, taking up a stance alongside them, the earth now blissfully clear of Grimm.
Seeing the questioning looks now that they had a moment of peace, she shrugged.
"Ruby's skyward and the Bees have their own thing going on, I figured I'd find you guys."
Shrugging, Nora shifted her weapon back to its grenade launcher form and started taking pot-shots skyward at groups of remaining baby ravagers, cackling like a madwoman, driving them off. At some point while they were fighting Qrow had joined his niece in the air, shapeshifting between bird and man in order to remain in the sky, cleaving through Grimm, and between the two family members and the joining Atlesian fighter pilots and AA fire from the support ships, the skies were clearing. The air support from the ships had broken the bulk of the horde, and the Shade Huntsmen were pushing the Grimm further and further away from their position.
The battle was nearly over, the Grimm were falling back. It was almost done.
Pyrrha watched from behind the hard-light shield as her friends, unaware of her presence, reconvened. The knight, who could only reasonably be one person, did not match the image of the boy she knew. He was taller, broader, knew how to fight on a level that the boy she loved had only been able to dream of attaining.
As he removed his helmet, blonde locks were revealed, shaved low at the sides and back, the lengthy top hair folded back into a flat mistralian knot. Weiss laughed at something he was saying, brushing black Grimm-soot from his pristine armour affectionately as she did so. Nora punched him in the arm, grinning madly as Ren gazed out her from just out of her eyeline lovingly. Even Ruby, finished in the sky, landed amongst them, sending sand everywhere, laughing at them as they dusted themselves off.
"To have what they have."
The words came to her mind unbidden, and she could not deny the twinge of jealousy within her even as her eyes welled with happiness at seeing them again. Had they always been this close? No, no they hadn't. It was impossible to put into words, but the level of comfort between them seemed far deeper than before.
It only lasted a moment. Then Nora caught Ren looking at her, and pulled back. A flash of hurt crossed the ninja's face and he, too, pulled away slightly.
Weiss was gazing at the boy before her with something in her eyes that definitely hadn't been there at Beacon, her hand still hadn't moved itself off of his breastplate after helping him wipe the sand off. An armoured hand ran through his hair, and as her eyes followed the movement of his arm, the snow-haired girl's ice-blue yes peered over his shoulder.
Straight into the vibrant emerald of Pyrrha's.
The horrified gasp echoed outward as a gloved hand covered her mouth.
"Weiss-?" Ruby tried, turning to look in the same direction as her teammate, a tiny gasp of her own leaving her mouth at her eyes shrank at the sight of the red-headed girl.
Ren and Nora followed suit, and in their shock reached for each other instinctively, taking each other's hands, holding onto each other tightly.
"Guys, what-?"
Finally the knight bearing the Arc crest turned around, and finally, Pyrrha saw the man Jaune Arc had become.
Time had not been kind, it seemed. White streaks salted his hair and short beard, making him look far older than the others, and his eyes were so tired. Pyrrha knew Jaune, knew him truly, but those sky-blue eyes of his were not of the Jaune she knew. They betrayed a soul that was far older than the mortal coil it was confined in. A dissonance lay there, a lack of belonging.
Those same eyes were confused at first, as if they did not quite recognise what they were seeing. Then realisation bled in, emotion filled his eyes as he stared at her.
Pyrrha raised her hand, waving softly, smiling as she blinked the tears from her eyes.
"Hello, again."
Jaune's mind was completely empty. No thought, no internal monologue, nothing. He registered nothing else, not even the presence of his own father other than the fact that, before him, once again, stood Pyrrha Nikos.
Then she raised her hand, in that way that she used to, and her heard her voice. In his mind, like a recording. A distant memory from so very, very long ago. From a much happier time.
"Hello again!"
The words echoed around his empty mind, loud at first, then quieter, and quieter, until they disappeared into the echoes of time that were his memories once more, and his blood turned to utter, total, inescapable-
Rage.
The hard-light shield dropped as he launched Aureus in its spear-form as hard as he could, firing it off in a gravitonic burst that sent it speeding toward the imposter faster than the eye could follow.
The sand at Pyrrha's feet exploded with the impact, throwing her backward, landing hard on her back as fear and confusion coursed through her, her face betraying her panic as she watched Jaune stalk toward her, hell- bent.
"Neopolitan." Came the feral growl from Jaune's mouth, a disgusted venom in his voice that Pyrrha had never heard fall from his lips, let alone thought that it would ever be aimed at her. Something in her squirmed horribly as she tried to back away from him, kicking backwards across the ground as she held up her hands, begging him to stop.
Jaune ripped the spear from the ground, collapsing it back into a sword, pointing it at the defenceless girl as he stopped at her feet.
"Take that face off, murderer, or so help me I will-"
Jaune's own father stepped between them, splaying himself in front of the boy, his breastplate scratching against the tip of the sword as he defended Pyrrha from his son.
"Jaune! Get a hold of yourself boy!"
Sky blue met sky blue, and recognition filled the younger Arc's eyes, before he leaned past his father to hiss at Pyrrha again.
"Oh, very clever, another of your little illusions? Did your research before you tried to kill us all at Atlas!?"
"I don't know what you're talking about! Jaune, please! It's me!"
Pyrrha's mouth opened to speak, to scream, to anything, but nothing came. Blind panic filled her. Tai helped her stand as the others caught up, Jaune's spear-throw having snapped them out of their stupor.
"Dad!" Ruby tried to catapult past Jaune, but the blonde held his arm out.
"They're illusions, Ruby! Don't trust them!"
The red-head stopped, casting her eyes around confusedly as Nora shifted Magnhilde back to a hammer.
"Should I break their legs?" She asked viciously, raring for a fight as ever, as she dropped in next to Jaune, ready to back her leader up.
Ruby stared in horror as her father and friends prepared to fight each-other, until Ren finally stepped in.
"STOP!"
Running between the two groups, Ren pushed the two Arc men apart.
"Jaune, I can feel their emotions. My semblance- They're not illusions!"
Jaune didn't back down.
"Her Semblance evolved in the Ever After, Ren. They could talk, take more than a few hits even, she could-."
"Jaune! Trust me! They're real!"
Finally his leader looked at him, saw the pleading eyes of his brother in arms, and relented. For a moment he pulled back, then rage took him again.
"Maybe our Fathers are, though I doubt it." He ground out, eyeing his own father like an enemy. "But Neo can't talk, and neither-" He said, pointing at Pyrrha with his sword. "Can this one."
Pyrrha tried, she really did, tried to force something, anything out of her throat, a word, any word, but it would not come. Tears welled in her eyes and cascaded down her cheeks as she tried to get him to listen, to understand.
"She can talk. The first thing she did was speak your name." Replied Flavian, though Jaune blatantly ignored him.
"She means us no harm, Jaune, she's just scared." Ren tried to calm him. "I got a text, from Pyrrha, yesterday. Her scroll Jaune."
Jaune rounded on him, his ire needing a new target.
"SO!? Salem took Vale weeks ago! Beacon! You think she's above using that phone just to fuck with us!? Would you put it past Cinder to pull this shit!?"
Ren faltered.
"N-no. It didn't read like something she'd write either..."
"Jaune." It was Ruby this time, a quiet, confused voice that cut through the conflict.
"It really could be her."
Jaune and Nora both looked at her like she'd gone insane, but the girl pressed on anyway.
"Cinder betrayed Neo when she dropped us off the bridge, she'd never help her, and when I was in the tree-"
Ruby cut herself off, eyeing her father carefully before forging ahead.
"I could have become my mom, Jaune, it gave me the option. I could have become a dead woman. If Neo made that choice in the tree-"
"WHY THE HELL WOULD SHE DO THAT!?"
Jaune's patience finally met its end as he roared, the force of the sound scraping at his throat.
"You think Neopolitan would 'become' Pyrrha out of the kindness of her non-existent fucking heart!? The same woman that helped murder her!? How many times do they have to pull this shit before you get it!? Pyrrha is gone-"
The way he said her name carried such sorrow that the others looked down, away from him, again hiding from his grief.
"-And they still use her memory against us. Cinder at Haven, Watts in that digital fake-world of his. The last time you saw Pyrrha, she was beating you half to death, cursing you as one of Neo's fucking pawns. The last time I saw her face, it was one of that Cat's fucking tricks, forging Pyrrha's image just to use her to drive Miló into my spine!"
Tai and Flavian were staring at Jaune like he was mad, but his team were far less judgmental. All eyed him with a mix of trepidation and sympathy.
"I am not falling for it again. I won't." Rounding back on the girl behind his father, Jaune made to move in.
Flavian moved in front of him again.
"Move." His son grunted, still not convinced this was actually his father at all.
"No. She saved my life, son. Honour demands I protect hers, even against my own blood."
"Honour before family. Typical. She really did do her research."
Flavian's face fell, the wizened man again seemed far older than his years as his son's words cut deeper than he would like.
Determined to follow his own advice to Tai, he let himself feel it, and sighed.
Pyrrha peaked around him, just to look at Jaune. The glower that came her way from his eyes cut to her soul, but even still, on a smaller level, she was honestly just happy to see him again, alive and okay.
Maybe he hated her, for whatever reason made sense to him. It would cut her to her core every day that he did, but he was alive. He was safe, and even underneath the pain it was so good to see him again.
"Jaune," Weiss whispered, grabbing his arm softly. "Maybe we should-"
An explosion shattered their concentration. An Atlesian fighter crash landed in a dune nearby, the ravager that it had been fighting taking off toward the city.
"Shit!" Jaune hissed. "We don't have time for this! Ren, Nora, don't let her out of your sight! Get the others to safety, call a bullhead or something!"
He whistled, and June activated again, blasting past him as he threw himself onto his mount. Jaune rode the robot in a gallop skyward along hard-light stepping points projected underneath its hooves, jets firing from small gaps in its haunches, chasing after the lone Ravager before it could make it to the city proper.
An awkward moment hung in the air, before Tai lunged forward and grabbed his daughter in a bear hug, spinning her around as Ruby thumped him on the shoulders.
"Dad! Put me down! You're embarrassing me!" She chided, even as she giggled.
"Nope!" Came the reply from the tall blonde man, grinning like an idiot as he span his daughter around.
Ren and Nora eyed Pyrrha, Ren with sympathy, Nora with suspicion. Pyrrha just… smiled at them. There was little else she could do, it was taking everything she had not to break down crying.
"So…" Tried Flavian weakly, attempting to break the tension.
"How exactly does one, 'call a bullhead'?"
A/N: Jesus Mary mother of fuck this took a long time. It is, easily, the longest chapter yet, by more than a couple thousand words. It is 23 solid A4 pages long, but it kind of had to be. It all had to go in one chapter to make the flow make sense, and I also promised you a reunion this chapter. There it is, you have it. I sincerely hope it is to your satisfaction.
No, Jaune doesn't believe it, and won't for a minute yet. Pyrrha's image and memory have been literally used to stab him in the back several times both in canon and canon-adjacent material, and every time he's let his guard down when it comes to her it's nearly gotten people killed. Equally, he's convinced his Father is a lie also, because why the hell would a guy that doesn't even live in Vale be here with the refugees?
Don't worry, we're gonna smooth it over. Soon. Ish.
The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed over the last few chapters that Pyrrha has proven herself capable of making noise and talking, though it's intermittent, and there is a reason for it, harkening back to what the Blacksmith told her in Chapter 2. It was all be explained in time, but I think there's enough evidence on the table at the minute for you to figure out why yourselves. Equally, Pyrrha's Semblance isn't working! I know I've mentioned it before, but it's definitely changed, and I already know what to, but she's gonna have to rediscover it. I already have a plot line for that in mind, though it'll likely take a while.
Also I kicked a little Snow bird your way as well, I hope you guys are fans of the Qrow/Winter pairing because that's gonna feature a bit, at some point. Their sexual tension is through the roof, and it's funny that the Schnee sisters both go for ruggedly handsome older men.
Also, if I haven't been clear so far, as much as this fic is definitely significantly about Pyrrha coming back, it is still set in the larger backdrop of what's going on within the central narrative, and as a result, this is basically going to be my depiction of Volume 10 What if Pyrrha came back from the dead. This means that in typical RWBY fashion, there will be drama, visceral combat, and character death. I know I warned about it already but I've not tagged this with Major Character Death just because Pyrrha and Penny already died. I will be killing off characters at some stage, if you don't like it, well, I really am sorry, but it's necessary, and faithful to the nature of the original work.
This is my first real attempt at writing combat scenes, well, ever. So I would really appreciate feedback on it.
Equally, I appreciate hearing from you in the reviews / comments every week as well. I know I don't reply to all of them but they really do give me the enthusiasm to keep writing, so please do let me know what you think, even if (especially if) there's constructive criticism involved. I can't get better at this without a few tips after all.
Finally, please don't expect every chapter to be this long. This thing nearly bloody killed me to write. I loved doing it but god it's a bloody mammoth. I can't do this every week, it's way too much. Nearly 12,000 words. It's too much.
Hope you're enjoying this fic and your week so far!