10
"She said she had a date?" Blake asked as she stooped to see her work better, hands fiddling about before here.
Yang stood next to her, leaning on the wall and looking for all the world bored with their activity.
Considering they were breaking into a teacher's office, she could read the mood a little bit. She hissed just that at her partner from the control panel she had taken apart in her hands. Yang just laughed her off and scanned the corridor again. Since she was a new teacher, Carmine's office was located a bit apart from most of the other teachers and late in the evening as it was, no student was in sight, most having gone off to enjoy their weekend already.
The wires sparked against her fingers, the bite of electricity seeping through her aura. It was a crude job but she didn't have the means to be able to hack the lock. Breaking it into opening though? That the White Fang had taught her. She had gone on quite a few missions where stealth was required, she had never imagined the experience and skills would find use in Beacon however.
Wasn't she meant to be a huntress now?
Wherever her musings would have taken her were interrupted as a soft clicking sound came from the door. Testing it tentatively, she pulled it open and was able to look into Carmine's office. It hadn't changed since she'd been there a few days ago, not that she'd expected it to. The makeshift office was fairly bare, really just a desk, filing cabinet, and a few seats. Their goal lay on the desk, or rather a part of it.
Yang swept into the room as Blake put the terminal back together. It would still be broken however she knew how to minimize evidence left behind. The teachers would know someone broke in but not who. And hopefully they never would.
Shutting the door carefully, Blake walked over to stand behind Yang who had already sat behind the terminal atop Carmine's desk. There was a reason it was only the two of them doing this. Blake had the skills to get into the room but not ones that would enable her to get into the computer in the office. Instead they left that up to Yang. And while she didn't have any hacking skills to speak of she had one thing none of the others had.
She knew Ruby best.
No matter how much she had changed, Carmine was Ruby, even if she went by a new name it didn't change who she was. And who knew her better than her own sister? The only reason they hadn't brought their leader was that the mere thought of breaking into a teacher's office nearly sent the straight laced girl into a panic attack so Weiss had stayed behind with Ruby to calm her down.
"You sure you know what the password is?" Blake asked.
"Who do you think you're talking to?" Yang cracked her knuckles and made Blake wince in the process, "I'm the best sister ever. Besides, Ruby's always had the easiest password to remember."
With a handful of taps on the keyboard she filled in the password box and a moment after hitting the enter key the screen faded into the standard background of a desktop.
"I'm in." The blonde said with a smirk.
"Such a skilled hacker." Blake droned and bent down to get a closer look over Yang's shoulder at the screen.
"There. Open that application." She pointed a particular icon out to Yang.
Opening it started an application most personal terminals had, a scroll backup system. It was designed mostly because of how dangerous travel was in general backups were built into these in case one lost or damaged their scroll in the field or just in general. Usually the default setting was to sync automatically with the scroll paired with the terminal and luckily enough for them it seemed that Carmine didn't turn that feature off.
Open before them lay all the files on her scroll the last time it had been connected to the terminal. Blake's eyes zeroed in on the words 'White Fang' down the list. Opening the directory showed several files. Some dated in the future but there were several made just recently.
Placing her own scroll onto the desk she quickly synchronized with the terminal and started downloading all the files on the White Fang that Carmine had. Yang started snooping around in a different directory labeled 'Media'. Blake ignored it in favor or flicking through some of the White Fang files on her scroll. Some of the later ones were hefty and full of documents. Several were crime scene investigations but with no context she was unlikely to make too much sense of those.
"Hey look!" Blake's eyes flicked back to the screen in time to see a group shot of team RWBY together. In fact it was one they had just taken after she'd come back from the docks, their first picture as a team, "There's more too."
Yang flicked through some more pictures and she saw a few. One with her and Bake, another with Weiss berating Ruby. Many were typical photos of their life in Beacon but like a switch the pictures changed. One picture was everyone together and the next contained some of team JNPR and some of team RWBY. But two people were missing. Blake and Pyrrha.
"Hey wait!" Yang's face nearly collided with the screen as she attempted to look closer, "Do I have a prosthetic?!"
Upon close inspection they could see that Yang's right arm, slung over Nora, was indeed mechanical and Blake could remember she'd seen it in a picture before. The one she'd seen at a glance before when Carmine had first arrived from the future.
"It looks like it."
"How! What happened!" Yang started flipping through the pictures faster, her eyes glued to the screen.
Some kid who looked just a bit younger than Ruby started appearing in the pictures, cane in hand with a green overcoat. He looked uncomfortable at first but eventually like he started to belong. One flashed by that caused Yang to gasp, Ren and Nora together in a Mistralian wedding. Nora was absolutely stunning in her dress and was beaming. Jaune could be seen in a suit in the background behind Ren and it looked like Yang was right behind Nora.
"Oh wow." Blake muttered, "Looks like Nora's patience pays off."
Yang tittered and continued through more pictures but something felt off. Eventually she found what it was. Weiss had stopped appearing. The most in any of the pictures were JNPR, that kid, Blake, Yang, and Ruby. Even in photos she was sure the heiress should have been in, she wasn't. All of the sudden Yang stopped on a single, still image. It was different from all the others, a thumbnail for a video. On the screen was Yang's face, arm outstretched to hold the scroll and in the background they could see Blake, just barely. They were older. It had a different mood to all the others. The expression on Yang's face in the image looked haggard and desperate, there were tears streaming down her face.
Yang made to click on the play button but Blake's hand snapped out to stop her before she could even think, "A-are you sure you want to see that?"
Yang looked up at her, a lost and worried look in her eyes, "Can you honestly tell me you don't want to see it?"
Blake bit her lower lip but withdrew her hand. Despite wanting to stop Yang and despite knowing it wouldn't be pleasant she nodded to Yang who took a gulp before hitting play.
Her heart was hammering in her chest and she thought she could almost hear Yang's as well.
The video started with a lurch, the image blurring as the scroll was waved around. They looked to be fighting, Blake had Gambol Shroud in pistol form, the weapon barking over the edge of whatever they were standing on. Yang paused to fire Ember Celica over the edge as well. The din of combat could be heard through the speakers on the terminal.
"Yang! Good timing. You wouldn't believe how big that Grimm was, it blew a huge hole in the wall and everything!
Yang's face on the screen contorted in worry, "What! Are you okay?!"
"I'm fine." Ruby's reply caused her sister to relax but there was still something in her face, something Blake couldn't quite place but felt familiar, "What about you, Yang? How's the South Wall?"
The blonde looked away, hesitant, before taking a deep breath like she was readying herself and Blake felt her heart sink. Her hand on Yang's shoulder tightened but it seemed like she didn't notice.
"Not good." She finally said before shouting at the scroll, it seemed like Ruby had made a move, "No! You can't leave the North wall! You leave and the Grimm will flood in. They haven't finished evacuating yet. And…" There were tears glistening in Yang's eyes, her voice cracking, "And that's also why we can't leave the wall either."
"We have to hold as long as we can and without you stopping the Grimm on your end they'd slaughter the evacuees. None of us can move, Ruby."
There was a dead silence before Ruby's voice could be heard through the speakers, "No!. No, no no no! You can't do this do me Yang. I'm coming to get you!"
"Don't you dare!" Yang shouted, eyes flashing a brilliant crimson before settling back into lilac. In the background howls could be heard approaching. Shrieks as nevermore dove through the sky in a torrent of anti-air fire, slamming into the wall's defender, "It's too late! We won't hold out much longer and there's no way for you to get to us in time. You'd be dooming everyone."
"But Yang.." Ruby sobbed, her voice failing her as she realized what was happening and the same hit the both of them watching the recording. Blake felt sick to her stomach, words spoken by Carmine came back to her and it was with dawning horror that she knew with certainty how this would end.
"Just don't." Yang looked like it broke her heart to say it, it was starting to become harder to hear her, "We aren't gonna make it, Rubes." Just saying it looked like it broke her, "I need you to be strong. I need you to survive. I love you."
Ruby let out a strangled sob, "I l- Look out!"
In the background a flash of black and white jostled the screen, a Nevermore having dove down upon Yang. The screen blurred for a moment as the scroll tumbled to the ground, only showing the night sky once the it stabilized, the stars being blotted out by flying Grimm of all kinds and streams of tracing fire were directed above, illuminating the shapes of Nevermore, Griphons, and others as they swarmed the walls of Vale. A yell was punctuated by the sharp bark of a gun as Yang slew the Grimm that attacked her. They could see her standing over the scroll but she didn't move to pick it up again.
Blake appeared next to her, amber eyes glowing in the night as she looked down at the device and presumably at Ruby on the other side. They couldn't hear what she mouthed but it looked like a farewell. All the while they could hear the recorded sobs of their leader as she screamed for her sister and her teammate. It fell upon deaf ears.
"They're over the walls!" Came a shout from the side and suddenly everything became more chaotic. A wall of black and white appeared, Yang moving to the side to avoid it, and suddenly the screen went black, the recording over.
In the silence that followed Blake couldn't tell if it was her own heart hammering or Yang's but her hand on the other's shoulder shook violently. Her partner was pale faced and seemingly rooted to the spot. Slowly Blake moved, peeling the blonde's hands away from the keyboard held them. She clasped them tightly in her own in an attempt to get them both to stop shivering and after a few minutes they did.
"What was that?" Yang asked in a whisper, her eyes sought Blake's, "Was that… Did I just see how I die?"
The voice was so small, so scared, so vulnerable that her heart ached for her partner and it purred her into action, "No. Yang, that wasn't you. It won't be you. I won't let it. Ruby won't let it. Neither of them will."
Blake had known she'd died in Carmine's timeline but that hadn't prepared her for what she had seen there. It was haunting. Yang hadn't been prepared and the shock was showing but her partner's vibrancy was quick to return, even if she still seemed distracted.
"Yeah." Yang nodded, slowly at first but picking up speed as she dispelled the last vestiges of the experience, "You're right. And the first step is to look over what we found on the White Fang. We should get back to the others."
They both stood and made their way to the door and Blake wouldn't remark on how closely Yang stood beside her as they made their way back to their dorm.
-SY-
Carmine eyed the empty warehouse with a wary gaze. She knew Uncle Qrow was flying about, keeping watch, but she still felt cautious. This would have been the perfect time to sell her out to Cinder, if Roman wanted to betray her.
Not that it would work, but Torchwick didn't know that.
She had to place her trust in the thief knowing that Cinder intended to silence him, and that the only way out of the situation was through her. A lone silver eye roamed across the depressingly empty warehouse. It looked to have been recently emptied, no dust had yet settled on the floor, and everything was cleaned out. Roman had probably just moved the dust to a new location. That was fine. She didn't need to know where it was, she already knew where it would be.
Mountain Glenn.
Carmine wondered if even Torchwick knew he was going there yet. It would be fun to find out. A clang echoed across the empty space and unhurried, measured, steps reached her ears. They were bothering to conceal herself and it was just the one set. She knew better than to take that for granted. There were many ways of concealing yourself and Neopolitan knew most of them. If she had to take a guess, the girl was in the rafters, ready to drop down on her. Maybe she could keep Qrow company, then.
It was like a game, trying to guess your opponent's moves and thoughts. A dagger in the night could catch any huntsman or huntress if it was a surprise but Roman had to know her aura would be up, so she didn't have to worry about a sudden attack from Neo. They also both knew that one on one he didn't stand a chance against her. It left her confident enough to cross her arms in front of her, well away from the weapons in their new holsters on her thighs. Her past self had helped her redesign them to allow for faster drawing with a speed cut on the upper part.
Carmine saw the glow of his cigar first, approaching like some phantom in the night appeared Roman Torchwick, puffing on one of his trademarked cigars and Melodic Cudgel in his other hand. He stopped just short of her and it put the whole situation in perspective. Here the both of them were, meeting in an abandoned warehouse late at night. It was such a typical venue from her old comics it made her want to burst out laughing. Instead she settled for a small smirk, offering her hand to the crook.
"Carmine Rose." She greeted, "I see you had no problem with leaving the accommodations of Vale's finest."
Torchwick hooked the crook of his cane over his left wrist, leaving it hanging there and a clear message that he didn't intend to use it as he offered his own hand, shaking hers, "Roman Torchwick. I really wouldn't recommend staying with them. One-star. No room service and terrible food."
"I wouldn't know." She smirked slightly, "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised you didn't come alone."
She enjoyed the shock that spread across his face before he shook his head, "I'd really love to know how you know that."
"You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"Probably more than my life's worth." He took a long drag on his cigar, the embers burning brighter as he inhaled, "So. Shall we get down to business?"
"Yep." She answered the crook, "Has she told you about Mountain Glenn yet?"
Roman started choking on his cigar, "How do you know that?!" He asked to which she merely raised an eyebrow, "Right, bloody psychic or something. Yeah. She just told me actually." Roman stared at her as Carmine shrugged before shaking his head and muttering to himself. Something about how it was worth much more than his life.
A slow smile build up around her face that had Roman shivering, "Good. We'll lay a trap in Vale for her."
Torchwick's eyes widened in the dim light from his cigar as Carmine laid out the plan to him, her voice disappearing into the dark shadows that surrounded them, a suffocating, oppressive darkness that enveloped just the pair.
-SY-
AN: And it has been a long time. I've been struggling to write anything since the death of my father last year but I'm trying, guys, I really am. Things should be looking up from here.
Anyways, this chapter. Things are definitely moving forward and we haven't seen the last of what Yang's just found out.