Fandom Distorted Mirror [IC]

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

As it would happen, Raven actually had a fairly concrete idea of what was about to happen now by the time her little recap was through. That sobering clarity came from the Grimm restraints that had emerged from the pocked floor midway through to gently snake around her arms and ankles, slowly lifting her off her feet and elevating her into the air as though she were being crowd-surfed at a concert. When the bandit was finished, Weiss's body language was worryingly serene, and rather than any sort of scowl, glare or glower at Raven's choice of verbiage the expression etched in her face was somehow so much more terrifying than all three as she leaned forward and gave her arm a gentle touch of faux gratitude, smiling what was simultaneously the most disingenuous, passiveaggressive, condescending, and quite frankly terrifying smile to have ever been smiled. Her voice rang out, thick with a hollow note of magnanimous appreciation.

"Now?"

Spoiler

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"Why, now I thank you, of course."

The precise nature of that thanks came in the form of all four summoned limbs coiling, rearing back and absolutely hurling Raven headlong towards her own portal at full tilt, little in the way of regard spared for the elder Branwen's dignity or comfort.

Because obviously she had surmised every single word of that dumb explanation already.

Bitch.

Regardless of whether she managed to right herself by whatever means before disappearing back into Vacuo, by the time Weiss was in her line of sight again the former councilwoman was already turning away, arms crossed with one finger drumming in agitation as she pinned Yang with a look that was far less false and far more a conflicting jumble of emotions that seemed to be beginning to crystallize into some variation of 'irate'.

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"First of all, I'd like to stress how much that is empirically NOT what happened. No, Yang, you did not 'punch' the ancient disembodied lord of darkness back inside my head. His arrogance deluded him into thinking he could make a prisoner of me—of all people—in my own body, and I've spent the better part of the last several hours using my limited scope of consciousness to meticulously reverse engineer how things work in there so I could punish that lapse in judgment and figure out exactly what layer of my subconscious memory I needed to bury him in so he can't return. THAT'S what happened." She pulled a face, flapping her hand dismissively as if to bat off some nonexistent argument. "Yes, fine, whatever, you broke his concentration and gave me an opportunity, but if anything you're forcing me to play my hand early, and I—WOULD YOU WIPE THAT STUPID GIDDY LOOK OFF YOUR FACE?! I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU CAME HERE!"

Yang knew enough about this variant of Weiss by now to know the only time she really raised her voice without purpose was when she felt overwhelmed, bouts of chronic semi-hysteria that could shatter her image of calm, poised serenity as suddenly and violently as a crack of thunder; a kneejerk defensive reflex cultivated somewhere between the endless scrutiny she lived under as a child and all the years she'd spent snipping and pruning her own emotional state like some sort of bonsai tree thereafter.

She also knew Weiss well enough to know full well it was coming. They were subtle cues, the growing shortness of the woman's breathing, the way her folded arms had tightened in on her slender frame so she stood with shoulders hunched and thumbs tracing anxious circles on her midriff, how the tiniest, most imperceptible note of strain entered her voice as she went on and on. But they were there, and given just how practiced the former maiden had become at keeping her nerves buried during her day-to-day dealings spoke to just how overwhelmed she felt by what was happening right now, by what had happened to her, by Yang's being here and how it all ended up going in Atlas and—Just—by all of this.​

Giddy wasn't quite the right word.

There was a smile on Yang's face, but was as soft and tired as she felt, and more than anything, relieved. Her stride was purposeful despite how much everything hurt; her clothes were singed all over, and angry red lines and marks snaked down her real arm from where the flames had been conjured up. Later, she'd look herself over with a wry frown and acknowledge that there were definitely some things to work on with the whole Maiden thing, and that, frankly, she probably would've been better off just ignoring the magic in this fight. Later she'd take any notice of just how tired she was, the exhaustion from tapping into the maiden power so violently on three hours of sleep from the physical and emotional drain of the battle in the headmaster's office seeping all the way into her bones at this point.

Later, she'd have to deal with the fact that Masque and Raven weren't going to be on the other side of that portal.

But the only thing she took stock of now was that Weiss was on the verge of exploding.

She carefully placed a hand on Weiss' shoulder, unsure of just what exactly the former maiden might've been subjected to in the time she'd spent here, but the smile flickered closer to amused when she finally spoke up.

"Weiss, if you really thought I'd abandon you here when I we had a real, honest to god shot to help, the kinda that was just gonna shrink the longer we waited, you have not been paying attention."

Then she wrapped her arms around the smaller woman and just let her shoulders sag, the tension leaving them in waves as she took a deep breath. It could only loosely be called a hug with how gentle the pressure was; she figured the last thing Weiss needed after literally being stuck as a prisoner in her own body was to feel trapped. She just wanted to give Weiss an anchor, a physical reminder that she really, seriously, did not have to do this whole saving the world thing alone.

"...Now c'mon. We're gonna see if we can't find some way to get that creep out of you for good, kay?"

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

Had Raven been conscious enough to process it, she might have noticed the darkened silhouette prowling through the mist as she fell, and definitely would've noticed the gnarled, shadowy claw that shot forth from the smoky depths to pin her back against the wall barely a second after Blake had wrenched her blade free and stormed off for her new prey. The low-pitched, rattling gurgle that came from her daughter's lips as she lunged in to an uncomfortable distance may well have been enough to steer the huntress's dreams towards nightmares all on its own, and it was fortunate she wasn't awake to see the damage that had been wrought on the Dragon's body from the explosion, already skewered and severed following the encounter as it was.

Yet still her tortured carcass moved, and there would've been no mistaking the scratchy, distorted noise bubbling up from the back of her throat as anything other than a laugh.

"D̷o̴ ̸I̴ ̷h̶a̵v̵e̶ ̴y̴o̸u̶r̶ ̴a̴t̴t̶e̸n̷t̵i̷o̴n̷nnn ̴n̷o̵w̷, m̶mmo̸t̶h̴e̵r̵?̵ W̵i̸l̴l̸ ̴y̶o̸u̸ ̸l̸o̷o̶k̷ ̵a̶t̵ ̵m̵e̵ ̴n̸o̷w̴wwww?̷"

It inhaled close to her skin, its malicious laughter flowing into a low moan of euphoria as its shoulders shook from the negativity it siphoned from the huntress even while she slept. Such a heavy heart. So many regrets. The beast had no doubt rousing the Dragon's mother to consciousness would've proven a delectable meal in its own right.

Yet it knew how to leverage the situation into a more delectable one still. The flavor of a soul's unmitigated anguish, the ideal seasoning to complement the medley of physical agony already awaiting it.

The claws around Raven's throat started to tighten—




"—G̸k̵t̵h̴!"

The creature's hand flew to the Dragon's mouth in shock, where the subtle click of a weapon's hammer a short distance away had prompted the sudden and violent expulsion of a trickle of black ichor from between her lips. Her head had whipped towards the source of the noise, Blake and the Red Masque's silhouettes barely distinguishable through the slowly dissipating fog, before the confusing storm of emotions erupting from the beating core in its vessel's chest had it double over with an inhuman shriek of pain, single intact arm flying to her gut.

"W̷h̶a̵a̸a̷a̵t̸t̵t̶t̶.̸... ̵i̵s̵s̴s̶s̷s̷s̶...... t̶h̶i̵s̷s̶s̷s̸s̵?̴! H̶o̴w̸ ̸i̸s̸ ̶t̷h̵i̴s̴s̷s̵s̵?̵!̷"

Where the wretched, demonic voice had previously been powerful and resounding, whatever abrupt case of poisoning or indigestion had assailed it now barely let it muster up the strength for it to rise over a nauseated hiss, shaken by rage and incredulity.

"B̷u̴t̴ ̷s̷h̶e̴ ̶i̷s̷ ̵t̴h̵e̴ ̴s̶s̷s̷o̵u̴r̸c̴e̸ ̴o̴f̶ ̵a̸l̴l̶ ̵y̸o̶u̸r̸ ̴s̶s̷s̸s̵u̵f̸f̵e̴r̷i̴n̵g̴g̸g̸g̴g̷g̶—!"





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"KITTY, NO, STOPPPPPPPPPPP!"

The face that flung itself in front of Gambol Shroud's barrel barely a split-second before its trigger pulled back cut it so fine that even most top-flight huntsmen and huntresses would've fallen short of the requisite reflexes or trigger discipline to stay their hand before perforating it, the panicked heedlessness with which she did so for all the world suggesting the body now prostrated between Blake and her target in a manner that held a twinge of irony lost on all of them had some sort of reason to think she was bulletproof.

It only took a single look to determine that she wasn't.

The clean impalement Neo dealt her had left a thick patch of crimson over much of her midriff, front and back, staining the dusky fabric of her jacket. The last of the arms Dragon was born with had, like her first at the hands of Eve on the night Haven fell, been neatly severed below the elbow, no effort made to tourniquet the grievous wound as shocking amounts of blood continued to drain the ichor from her body and the color from her face, her skin a worryingly ghostly pale.

They were grievous, mortal wounds.

They were nothing in comparison to the burns.

Dragon had been auraless when her mother's explosion detonated at point-blank range, the abomination that had taken her form eager to weather the assault. The strength and vigour her semblance offered her in the deepest, darkest depths of pain was the only reason she was breathing at all.

Yet that strength did not equate to invincibility, a fact this particular iteration of Yang Xiao Long never seemed to have taken much notice of. The entire left side of her body looked as if someone had doused it in kerosene and struck a match. Much of her sleeve and trouser leg had been torched away, what little hadn't little more than a charred crust of fabric that had seared into her outer layer of skin. The most visibly affected area was her face, where the flesh around her left eye had practically fused it shut, the pupil beneath entirely unseeing and stained a more mottled, sickly red than the vibrant crimson of her other.

This woman shouldn't have been conscious.

She shouldn't have been alive.

And yet she was, and rather than any sort of self-preservation instinct guiding her hand was instead following whatever deep-buried protective drive the sight of Blake preparing to execute her sister had unearthed. It was almost laughable, really. The Dragon could barely lift her remaining arm, the Grimm appendage just barely touching her wrist in staying fashion rather than applying any actual force. There was absolutely nothing Ozpin's fearsome savage could do to avert Blake's course other than plead.

Her wide, deferential eyes were all the confirmation the faunus needed that she was doing exactly that. The rule of might philosophy she lived by had been discarded, the law-of-the-jungle outlook preached by the tribe tossed to one side; In that moment, utterly deprived of strength and staring down the barrel of a gun, Yang was less dragon and more a helpless, wounded animal, the mother who stood alone between its young and the predator who'd come to claim them.

Most of the strength she had left appeared to have been spent on that single, desperate cry, and when her voice came again it was little more than a plaintive wheeze.

"She's... she's just a fucking spaz, okay? She just doesn't know any better. Schnee got in her head, that's all. I'm handling it. Please, just, p-please just let me handle it."​

If anyone else was in the room, it would've look like Blake froze entirely; like she was a computer that had gotten stuck in a recursive program and bluescreened. Every part of her was suddenly still. She wasn't even breathing, her finger bent an iota too short on the trigger for her weapon to fire.

But the masque and the dragon could see her eyes; could see the how the veritable storm that the dragon's intervention had caused was engulfing those thoughts. Shock, confusion, and a violent rage all warredf for their place behind those eyes. No matter how much she may have hated it, Blake was a killer through and through, and she was loyal one. You didn't betray them to the enemy then just come slinking back; they didn't even know for sure if thats what this lunatic was doing. From what little they'd seen she was just as much a danger to them as the moment she set foot into Weiss' little ivory castle. She couldn't be trusted, those eyes were too dangerous to let live off the leash, and she... she was...

... She'd seen these two interact more than most over the last few years. How they treated each other. She would've thought the Dragon would be glad to finally be rid of the masque. She should be. This wasn't some cruelty being dealt to the dragon, it was a necessity, a battlefield amputation.

... but ...

Loyalty was to be rewarded. At the end of it all, that was why Blake was here; not necessarily a reward for herself, but to do the bloody work so that all of faunuskind could reap the rewards. The Dragon- Xiao Long was loyal. She served Lord Ozpin as unflinchingly as Blake did him, as Blake served Sienna. Loyalty was to be rewarded, and it certainly wasn't to be punished. She didn't deserve-

The effect of Ozwen's single, emphatic 'no' dealt a blow more abject and devastating in the pain-fuelled Dragon's heart than any dose of physical agony ever could no matter how excruciating, and the look of betrayal, hurt, and raw, bottomless despair that flooded her eyes as her breath hitched would've had them fade back to lilac in a heartbeat had there not been such a potent undercurrent of helpless anger to them all. They were awash with tears, glistening in the sinister crimson glare of the chapel as her face blanched, her lips started to tremble, and her chest started to heave shallow, unsteady breaths, voice finally emerging in a plaintive mewl.

"B-B-But this isn't right, this isn't what you told me! Everything feels so different and I've been with you so long and I've tried my hardest and, please, please please you promised, please just make it like before, I, you—yuh-you told me I was perfect the way I was! YOU SAID WE COULD BE A FAMILY AGAIN! You said... y-y-you said..."

She inhaled.

"—MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM—"

Yang may not have accrued any actual damage to fuel her, but it spoke to her stubborn ways and how much she sheerly did not want this to happen that the renewed flurry of frenzied thrashing when Ozwen's slender hand reached out for her saw a few more of the arms snap and fade away as she screamed and sobbed and spouted incoherent pleas in the direction of Ozwen, Blake, Summer, anyone who might listen, anyone she hoped might change their mind and finally decide they cared for her.

"..."

Blake did what was necessary. She did not do what was cruel. Despite it all, despite all the blood on her hands, it was rare that those felt like they conflicted.

"...Fine." she finally growled out

Blake's finger lifted from the trigger. Then she planted her boot in a vicious stomp against the side of Masque's head, its ice claws blessedly retracted. She far more carefully moved to scoop the dragon into her arms, and turned to leave the room; it wasn't like there was anywhere these two could go. Her voice was a dull, low growl of frustration as she affixed her eyes ahead.

"Rest. They can't pull that trick again. Lets see if its too late to save the arm."

 

[Gus Gungus]

Giddy wasn't quite the right word.

There was a smile on Yang's face, but was as soft and tired as she felt, and more than anything, relieved. Her stride was purposeful despite how much everything hurt; her clothes were singed all over, and angry red lines and marks snaked down her real arm from where the flames had been conjured up. Later, she'd look herself over with a wry frown and acknowledge that there were definitely some things to work on with the whole Maiden thing, and that, frankly, she probably would've been better off just ignoring the magic in this fight. Later she'd take any notice of just how tired she was, the exhaustion from tapping into the maiden power so violently on three hours of sleep from the physical and emotional drain of the battle in the headmaster's office seeping all the way into her bones at this point.

Later, she'd have to deal with the fact that Masque and Raven weren't going to be on the other side of that portal.

But the only thing she took stock of now was that Weiss was on the verge of exploding.

She carefully placed a hand on Weiss' shoulder, unsure of just what exactly the former maiden might've been subjected to in the time she'd spent here, but the smile flickered closer to amused when she finally spoke up.

"Weiss, if you really thought I'd abandon you here when I we had a real, honest to god shot to help, the kinda that was just gonna shrink the longer we waited, you have not been paying attention."

Then she wrapped her arms around the smaller woman and just let her shoulders sag, the tension leaving them in waves as she took a deep breath. It could only loosely be called a hug with how gentle the pressure was; she figured the last thing Weiss needed after literally being stuck as a prisoner in her own body was to feel trapped. She just wanted to give Weiss an anchor, a physical reminder that she really, seriously, did not have to do this whole saving the world thing alone.

"...Now c'mon. We're gonna see if we can't find some way to get that creep out of you for good, kay?"

The problem with being an obsessive, paranoid cynic who had spent countless hours mapping out every possible twist, turn and eventuality that might arise as a byproduct of your actions was that when things started to deviate from the script, as they had a tendency to do, it became remarkably easy to sort of just... spiral out. Not that she wasn't adept at improvisational thinking when the situation called for it, but they had witnessed firsthand just how hard and fast someone as maladjusted, desperate for that sense of control, and quite frankly used to getting her way as Weiss Schnee was could spiral out towards the end of their stint in Atlas, and on a more personal level Yang was witnessing that almost manic edge of distress begin to seep back into the edges of the woman's eyes as her prim-and-poised bearing started to slip. She actually took a few short, rapid steps back from Yang as she drew near, eyes darting back and forth between her and the door with a suspicious squint.



"No, no, you know what?! Name one way in which this isn't a trick! Go on! I'm sure this'll be absolutely hilarious! And quite frankly I could use a dose of levity, Ozpin, so let's just see what other ridiculous scenarios you can devise because I was not born yesterday and I am NOT BUYING IT, do you HEAR ME?! NO, I SAID—!"

Despite the outburst, and the increasingly wild, accusatory shrillness she was delivering it in, any actual resistance towards Yang touching her was nominal, even as her hands wrung themselves with a severity bound to cause chafing if they kept it up. Her eyes were growing increasingly flared and skittish, stealing furtive glances towards every corner of the room, as if trying to pick out some sign or inconsistency that confirmed this was all some sort of elaborate deception, an illusion or dream or something meant to mine her unconscious mind for information. This couldn't be happening. This wasn't happening. This was too easy. Nobody was stupid enough to do this for her, why would anyone ever want to do this for her-?!

She gave a quiet, bleating moan as Yang's arms came around her, eschewing anything so accepting as squeezing the huntress back the way she might've wanted in favor of sort of just melting into that embrace and burying her face in the hands she alighted against Yang's collar with an eagerness that suggested she was past the point of even caring if it was real or not.

She was trembling like a leaf.

"I'm s-s-sorry." She managed, voice a marked contrast from its typical overbearing qualities as it struggled to find its way out amid her palms and the tremor wracking her shoulders. To a surprising extent for someone so skilled in the art of deflecting, the desperately contrite tone of apology sounded familiar to her, some old perfectionist's reflex she hadn't triggered in a while but that had never quite gone away. "I'm s-so, so s-s-sorry. I owe you more apologies than I could ever find the words for. Everything I've done to you has been awful, you complete rube, everything I've said and done is s-so terrible, and I don't, I don't understand why you won't just let me... why..."

She went quiet before she could embarrass herself further, instead just sort of taking a moment as she let her breathing sync with that of the chest she was pressed against unconsciously. When she did speak again it was practically inaudible, voice quavering behind the dry lump her voice seemed unwilling to swallow.

"T-today was just... the worst day, Yang. I'm really not having a good day."

She wasn't sure if the amount of time they stood there like that was shorter or longer than it felt, or what it possibly could've looked like to someone like Raven, but when she was ready she pulled back only the requisite distance necessary to cup Yang's face, eyes that were no longer sharp with paranoia now soft with the kind of warmth and trust she honestly looked like she didn't really know how to register (much less process). She looked almost sheepish, uncertain enough in her ability to adequately reciprocate this type of intimacy that essentially she was trying to just follow Yang's lead, visibly unhappy with the results.



Then she sighed.

"...Add one more apology to the bill, I suppose. Because..." She took a deep, steadying breath.

"I'm not going with you."​

 

[MidwayLives]

As the seconds clicked by and it seemed all too likely Masque was going to get shot in the face, she continued to pull her arm.

The flesh tore and metal scraped against the surface of bone. Blood spurted out as though it were a whale breaching. The pain was intolerable but Masque wasn't sure what to do about death staring her right in the face. She knew that she didn't want to be locked up and forgotten about. Just discarded like trash and left to rot away.

But the idea of it all just ending...?

That really scared her.
​

"KITTY, NO, STOPPPPPPPPPPP!"

The face that flung itself in front of Gambol Shroud's barrel barely a split-second before its trigger pulled back cut it so fine that even most top-flight huntsmen and huntresses would've fallen short of the requisite reflexes or trigger discipline to stay their hand before perforating it, the panicked heedlessness with which she did so for all the world suggesting the body now prostrated between Blake and her target in a manner that held a twinge of irony lost on all of them had some sort of reason to think she was bulletproof.

Masque just stared as Yang came to her defense;.

The only barrier keeping Blake from killing her where she lay.

"Yang...."
​

Most of the strength she had left appeared to have been spent on that single, desperate cry, and when her voice came again it was little more than a plaintive wheeze.

"She's... she's just a fucking spaz, okay? She just doesn't know any better. Schnee got in her head, that's all. I'm handling it. Please, just, p-please just let me handle it."

Got in her head? Didn't know any better...?

Masque wasn't sure what to make of it.

But she knew that the more Yang talked, it was more time for her to live.

She continued to pull her arm.

​

"..."

Blake did what was necessary. She did not do what was cruel. Despite it all, despite all the blood on her hands, it was rare that those felt like they conflicted.

"...Fine." she finally growled out

Blake's finger lifted from the trigger.

Masque's eyes didn't leave Blake's until the gun was lowered-

*RIIIIP*

"AGH!!!!!!!!"

The spikes ripping themselves free from her mangled arm wasn't a pleasurable sensation. As far as you could get from one, actually. Holes the size of quarters had been left in her arm, the forearm covered in blood and even trying to bend her arm sent a shockwave of pain throughout Ruby's body. Letting her arm slump against the floor, Masque looked back up at Blake.

"You bi-"
​

Then she planted her boot in a vicious stomp against the side of Masque's head, its ice claws blessedly retracted. She far more carefully moved to scoop the dragon into her arms, and turned to leave the room; it wasn't like there was anywhere these two could go. Her voice was a dull, low growl of frustration as she affixed her eyes ahead.

"Rest. They can't pull that trick again. Lets see if its too late to save the arm."

Masque's head hit the floor and her hand fell limp.

As Blake walked off with Yang in tow and out of the room, it seemed all was well.


*twitch*​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

The problem with being an obsessive, paranoid cynic who had spent countless hours mapping out every possible twist, turn and eventuality that might arise as a byproduct of your actions was that when things started to deviate from the script, as they had a tendency to do, it became remarkably easy to sort of just... spiral out. Not that she wasn't adept at improvisational thinking when the situation called for it, but they had witnessed firsthand just how hard and fast someone as maladjusted, desperate for that sense of control, and quite frankly used to getting her way as Weiss Schnee was could spiral out towards the end of their stint in Atlas, and on a more personal level Yang was witnessing that almost manic edge of distress begin to seep back into the edges of the woman's eyes as her prim-and-poised bearing started to slip. She actually took a few short, rapid steps back from Yang as she drew near, eyes darting back and forth between her and the door with a suspicious squint.

"No, no, you know what?! Name one way in which this isn't a trick! Go on! I'm sure this'll be absolutely hilarious! And quite frankly I could use a dose of levity, Ozpin, so let's just see what other ridiculous scenarios you can devise because I was not born yesterday and I am NOT BUYING IT, do you HEAR ME?! NO, I SAID—!"

Despite the outburst, and the increasingly wild, accusatory shrillness she was delivering it in, any actual resistance towards Yang touching her was nominal, even as her hands wrung themselves with a severity bound to cause chafing if they kept it up. Her eyes were growing increasingly flared and skittish, stealing furtive glances towards every corner of the room, as if trying to pick out some sign or inconsistency that confirmed this was all some sort of elaborate deception, an illusion or dream or something meant to mine her unconscious mind for information. This couldn't be happening. This wasn't happening. This was too easy. Nobody was stupid enough to do this for her, why would anyone ever want to do this for her-?!

She gave a quiet, bleating moan as Yang's arms came around her, eschewing anything so accepting as squeezing the huntress back the way she might've wanted in favor of sort of just melting into that embrace and burying her face in the hands she alighted against Yang's collar with an eagerness that suggested she was past the point of even caring if it was real or not.

She was trembling like a leaf.

"I'm s-s-sorry." She managed, voice a marked contrast from its typical overbearing qualities as it struggled to find its way out amid her palms and the tremor wracking her shoulders. To a surprising extent for someone so skilled in the art of deflecting, the desperately contrite tone of apology sounded familiar to her, some old perfectionist's reflex she hadn't triggered in a while but that had never quite gone away. "I'm s-so, so s-s-sorry. I owe you more apologies than I could ever find the words for. Everything I've done to you has been awful, you complete rube, everything I've said and done is s-so terrible, and I don't, I don't understand why you won't just let me... why..."

She went quiet before she could embarrass herself further, instead just sort of taking a moment as she let her breathing sync with that of the chest she was pressed against unconsciously. When she did speak again it was practically inaudible, voice quavering behind the dry lump her voice seemed unwilling to swallow.

"T-today was just... the worst day, Yang. I'm really not having a good day."

Yang fell into the older sister role as easy as she breathed; it was what she'd always been best at, her own stress and relief put aside at the sight of the normally terrifying . her arms tightening into a more firm hold once she was sure Weiss didn't want to push away, her thumb rubbing soothing circles against Weiss' back. She rested her chin on the top of Weiss' head. An entirely different old reflex to fall into than perfectionism, one that Ruby hadn't needed in a long time, but a part of herself she'd always have. Whatever fears or stress she had were clamped down on, and her own breaths came soft and easy to try and coax the rythmn of Weiss' to the same.

At the last statement, the rhythm was interrupted with a soft huff of a laugh, and Yang smirked up towards the ceiling even if Weiss couldn't hear it.

"Yea. Understatement. Yours makes mine look like a cakewalk, and I have had a day. But it doesn't..."

She wasn't sure if the amount of time they stood there like that was shorter or longer than it felt, or what it possibly could've looked like to someone like Raven, but when she was ready she pulled back only the requisite distance necessary to cup Yang's face, eyes that were no longer sharp with paranoia now soft with the kind of warmth and trust she honestly looked like she didn't really know how to register (much less process). She looked almost sheepish, uncertain enough in her ability to adequately reciprocate this type of intimacy that essentially she was trying to just follow Yang's lead, visibly unhappy with the results.

Then she sighed.

"...Add one more apology to the bill, I suppose. Because..." She took a deep, steadying breath.

"I'm not going with you."

There was a flustered edge to warmth Yang's eyes had in turn when Weiss's hand went to her face, as they flicked over towards where Weiss fingers brushed her cheek then across to a little lower than Weiss' eyes; the memory of what, exactly, had capstoned their last goodbye and hug (which gods was literally just some dozen of hours ago) was still clearly seated primly and arrogantly in some part of Yang's mind that was being given a bit more priority than it had any right to, a giddy feeling that almost made up for the bone crushing guilt that was a package deal with thinking back on it. The beginning of a question, a clarification, a something was at the tip of her tongue, and it died as Weiss spoke up.

Everything else gave way to doe eyed confusion. Then hurt, and anger, and then whatever else the eyes had to say was hidden away as Yang squeezed them shut and took a deep, forcefully calming breath as her arms shifted to hold Weiss by the shoulders as she hung her head.

"....Why?"

The words edged as close to neutral as she could get, Yang wanted desperately to believe that they were wrong, a desire at war with the one to give Weiss the genuine trust no one else ever seemed willing to give her.

"I know I don't have to tell you how dangerous it was to come here, and believe it or not I think we got the easy job; I don't even know how things went for the others. All to get you out of here, and to take Oz off the board and save Vacuo. So please, just... why? Do you really just-" another deep breath "-You don't have to do it all yourself Weiss. I don't even know for sure if that's what this is, but..."

 

[Gus Gungus]

"..."

Blake did what was necessary. She did not do what was cruel. Despite it all, despite all the blood on her hands, it was rare that those felt like they conflicted.

"...Fine." she finally growled out

Blake's finger lifted from the trigger. Then she planted her boot in a vicious stomp against the side of Masque's head, its ice claws blessedly retracted. She far more carefully moved to scoop the dragon into her arms, and turned to leave the room; it wasn't like there was anywhere these two could go. Her voice was a dull, low growl of frustration as she affixed her eyes ahead.

"Rest. They can't pull that trick again. Lets see if its too late to save the arm."

Were Blake to have ventured her professional opinion as a dealer of death, the prognosis, in a nutshell, would've been 'not good'.

The fraught, unsteady gasp of relief that came from the Dragon's lungs when she relented gave away just how little there was she could've done to avert the faunus's course if she hadn't. It was everything she could do just to stay upright where she had flung herself, and had her aim in impeding the flight of any prospective bullets been off by even the tiniest margin on the first try she would not have managed a second. The hiss of air carried half the makings of a bitter laugh, the sheer irony of the plea apparently no more lost on her than it was Blake, and with it went the last of the unhinged enforcer's strength as she slumped over and hit the floor; her semblance's glow little more than dim, wispy embers at this point where at its apex only minutes before it had pierced the veil of mist and reached every corner of the room.

Bearing that in mind, it was unsettling just how cold the body she picked up off the floor was.

It was like she was already a corpse. Being frank, the Dragon had lost staggering amounts of blood in a frighteningly short period of time, having yet to dress her arm or fashion any kind of a tourniquet—and the reality was that it was too much. Blake herself had seen enough shed to recognize the early indicators of someone on the verge of going into shock; the glazed, unfocused look in her eyes, the soft, greedy gulps and pants as her body tried to take in as much oxygen as possible to prepare, the total absence of color in her skin save that milky, bloodless white as icy bullets of sweat started dotting her forehead.

The arm was hopeful.

At this point, it was going to take a miracle of modern medicine to save Dragon.

The nature of this particular offensive by their enemies had put Ozpin's first, most fiercely savage line of defense through a proverbial meat grinder, beset by three separately impressive enemies with their own individual scores to settle. Her mother coming at her without a trace of hesitation like she was the mistaken penstroke she never corrected. Neo's sadistic side meeting its natural prey in Yang's masochistic qualities as she came after her in her relentless quest for vengeance. The annoying, buzzing presence of the Masque, and how it had provided the perfect opening for the Valkyrie who had gone blow for blow with Tiger to come down on her again and again with strength exceeding even what she had brought to bear then. They had, in the most candid terms possible, kicked the absolute shit out of her.

But, y'know. Mondays.

"Mmnnnoooo don't save the arm, the leg tastes way... better.... whoaaaa, meoww. H'come no'n told me the gun show... was in town... s'my favorite..."

Her lips seemed incapable of anything more than indiscernibly murmuring gibberish at this point, the shiver that wracked her entire form violent as her weight settled in Blake's arms; her body's way of reacting to the sudden warmth pressing on it, reminding it what an average core temperature was supposed to feel like. Her own frame's toned curves felt as weak as a kitten's, and it was hard not to feel surprised when such a brutal killer so immediately curled against her rescuer like one, intact hand hooking weakly around Blake's shoulders where it briefly felt around for purchase and instead ended up tracing its fingertips up and down the length of one of her back's deeper and more ridged scars. It wasn't clear if she even knew what it was, but the sensation and rhythm seemed to give her something to focus on.

Something to help keep her from losing consciousness.

"...Heeeeyyyy..."

The face nuzzled against the crook of Blake's neck shifted into a frown, the gliding path of the fingers stopping near the peak of her spine, a more direct sign of lucidity from the fading creature in her arms as she instead started poking and prodding at a knot of stress in the faunus's muscles.

"—yur so tense, kitty. You're gonna drop dead someday, you know that?"

The claws started digging in, but rather than so much as a pinch through her aura all she felt was a sudden and sharp release of pressure as the troublesome spot was rolled and kneaded between expert fingers. A wave of relief spread out through her shoulders, the buckets of stress, frustration and pain the Hand had accumulated since Atlas finding themselves under siege by a tender kind of touch for the first time, and Dragon kept up the gentle ministrations as her eyes sluggishly lifted to affix Blake's with a gaze that was equally tender.

It was all a bit bizarre, really. It begged the question of whether the fits of delirium the brain was capable of conjuring to make the process of death easier had drawn up some sort of history between the two in the Dragon's mind, one that—outside of the standard relationship shared by a sword and a sledgehammer—didn't exist. Maybe it was an innate, implicit understanding of what it was like to have the world grind you down, once her eyes saw mirrored in Blake's own.

Or maybe—

Her hand moved towards Yang's face again, but this time to cup her cheek so she could hold her eyes steady. She almost made a terrible mistake. She almost forgot what she wanted.

"...Thank you."

The words were heartfelt, a tone of sincerity that would've made anyone from the world over yonder wonder if this Blake was actually all that different from the one back home.

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh... k?"

There was something slightly sheepish in how she slid off her and got up, thus proving that deep down in both Remnants Yang had no game.

—maybe the simple truth was that even towards the end of her tortured, tormented and beleaguered existence the Dragon had never been touched like that before. Maybe in some way, shape or form, even when both had been corrupted, twisted and distorted beyond all recognition in the depths of despair like some cruel, unfunny joke of the universe, some souls were just meant to find each other. Maybe it was just nice to finally know what a connection felt like.

Even if it was fleeting.




"Sorry we're all such... such assholes. Y'know, stinking humans. For what it's worth... which is jack, shit and dick... I was r-really... lookin' forward to... to watching you burn it all down."

Her next shiver seemed more like an attempt at a giggle, but lacked the strength to make it past a feverish two-note trill. The back massage was similarly fading, though her devotion in servicing the Hand's battered, cut and neglected body in some form or another (however meager) using the last of her energy was completely earnest.

"Hey, just... just don't take any more shit from anyone, okay? Trust me. It'll fuck you up. And quit letting people use you like some, some fucking meat carcass to hide behind, that shit is suss as hell. If they're sooooo committed to you faunus guys then I don't see why... why you're always the one who bleeds." She snorted, or at least attempted to. "'Sides, heh, the real crime is... w-would be getting... gettin' born with an ass that good and just... throwing it all away..."

The delirious ramblings faded out to a quiet gurgle, and the hand slipped from Blake's shoulders and went limp, the pulse Blake had initially felt hammering against hers at the rate of a hare's starting to slow.​

 

[Gus Gungus]

There was a flustered edge to warmth Yang's eyes had in turn when Weiss's hand went to her face, as they flicked over towards where Weiss fingers brushed her cheek then across to a little lower than Weiss' eyes; the memory of what, exactly, had capstoned their last goodbye and hug (which gods was literally just some dozen of hours ago) was still clearly seated primly and arrogantly in some part of Yang's mind that was being given a bit more priority than it had any right to, a giddy feeling that almost made up for the bone crushing guilt that was a package deal with thinking back on it. The beginning of a question, a clarification, a something was at the tip of her tongue, and it died as Weiss spoke up.

Everything else gave way to doe eyed confusion. Then hurt, and anger, and then whatever else the eyes had to say was hidden away as Yang squeezed them shut and took a deep, forcefully calming breath as her arms shifted to hold Weiss by the shoulders as she hung her head.

"....Why?"

The words edged as close to neutral as she could get, Yang wanted desperately to believe that they were wrong, a desire at war with the one to give Weiss the genuine trust no one else ever seemed willing to give her.

"I know I don't have to tell you how dangerous it was to come here, and believe it or not I think we got the easy job; I don't even know how things went for the others. All to get you out of here, and to take Oz off the board and save Vacuo. So please, just... why? Do you really just-" another deep breath "-You don't have to do it all yourself Weiss. I don't even know for sure if that's what this is, but..."

"...I'm doing it to you again."

Whatever coy mix of butterflies and affection Weiss was just barely allowing to play on the corners of her features in response to the unspoken question Yang was clearly thinking about as much as she was was banished before it could come to anything, or precisely distinguish whether it was encouraging or not. Her face fell as she stiffened up in Yang's arms like a layer of fresh snow turning to ice, and though the hand dropped from the huntress's cheeks and she moved to turn away from the embrace defensively with arms crossed she stopped with a hint of a curl to her lower lip when Yang gripped her shoulders instead. Listening to the rest of the current Winter Maiden's appeal in a state of patient, guarded silence, the former one's gaze drifted all the way to her boots as she let the words wash over her with as stellar a pokerface as ever, no clues given as to how they were being taken aside from a nebulous squint.

Weiss knew how they were being taken. She knew what every instinct in her was screaming at her to do right now, how badly every coiled up knot of anxiety and dread and paranoia and her own self-critical impulses that had run rampant within her for years wanted to pull away, freeze herself over, throw everything she had into one final concerted effort at shutting Yang out and continue walking her own path of isolation. The logical part of her brain was furious with herself for not having done so already, to be frank. For not having taken the nuclear option and severed all ties with this poor girl beyond repair long ago. For being so weak. For being so selfish. For being such a hypocrite who developed such strong feelings of attachment for this scruffy yellow oaf and her absolutely phenomenal rug of hair, for never amounting to anything even close to the unbiased shepherd of Remnant's progress she had so-confidently asserted herself to be.

The problem was that the rest of Weiss had already decided that she was done hurting Yang.

Period. Willfully or otherwise. That logical part of her brain hated how easily the sentimental was winning, but as far as she was concerned it could shut up right now.

So she didn't pull away. She lifted her eyes back to Yang's slowly, and in turn made to grip the huntress's chin between thumb and forefinger and gently lift it so their gazes met, the way her thumb brushed the corner of her lips in a stroke that was somehow both fussy and soothing entirely unconscious. For the first time since the two had known each other there was a level of actual deference in Weiss's eyes, removed from whatever strange chess game of mental subterfuge both liked to fancy themselves the winners of. A soft, reassuring trust to the smile her lips evoked that she hoped made it clear how content she felt being held by these hands even questioningly, how much ground she was willing to concede to the poor, stubborn big-hearted idiot in front of her if it just meant she could make those eyes feel anything other than endless loop of hurt, anger and sorrow they had been cycling through ever since they first met hers.



All this in no way stopped those eyes from also being the absolute height of rude and unfair.

"Yang... please just listen to me."

It wasn't a shrill, peremptory demand or an overwhelmingly loaded question. It was a request. Nothing more, nothing less, just the pale, shivering woman Yang held looking her straight in the eyes with her own haggard, dark-rimmed ones and issuing a quiet plea to be heard out as she shifted one hand up to take her prosthetic while the other kept caressing her face. The Merlot-constructed monstrosity had been built from the ruins of the one Weiss herself had destroyed, but now there were species of flower less delicate than her touch as she guided it down to her own chest, her other hand eventually joining the first there to clasp the prosthetic between her palms and let her thumbs gently fondle it while she proceeded.

"This isn't... anything you may be thinking, or that'll interfere with the promise you made to me or, or anything of the sort. This is good, Yang. This is... this is me finally listening. Why, I'd call it downright joyous, even! I hadn't the slightest notion things might fall into place this quickly!"

For what it was worth, her smile carried a genuinely bright twinge to it now, and her eyes glowed in a manner Yang had yet to witness before. Not with the ancient forces of Winter or Spring.

With hope.

"I've... been thinking about what you said to me. About my destiny," she quickly elaborated, beginning to caress Yang's mechanical digits in a more touchy fashion as she laced her own fingers with them, her opposite hand rubbing gently back and forth over the knuckles. As it would happen, this was also the moment a glowing, ethereal Winter Schnee stepped out of a glyph directly behind Weiss and in Yang's line of sight. Weiss didn't acknowledge her, eyes still giving Yang her full attention, but the silent, lingering stare the ghostly figure gave Yang as she crossed the whole length of the room to stand guard by the door could've turned blood to ice.



It was only marginally better than the one Weiss was giving her when her eyes came back.

"You know, when you abducted me and manhandled me through a portal to the desert kingdom against my will." Came her further, flatter clarification. Whatever sarcastic edge her tone had quickly disintegrated, though. "About... being fated to serve evil and defying it instead? Well, I'm paraphrasing. The way you said it was..."

“Do I think you could be a better person? Probably, definitely actually, you’ve done some terrible stuff. But, I mean, shit, Weiss, I think I could be a better person, I think everyone but my sister could. But that doesn’t mean you need to be fixed. All I know about you, for sure, is that some greater force than all of us, than all of this, decided that you were supposed to be an actual monster, that you were supposed to be on the side of darkness. And weiss, you, you...”

She stepped forward and even if Weiss hadn’t turned around, swept her up into a hug and even though they were quieter the words carried the full weight of Yang's soul.

“Whatever destiny you were supposed to have, you already beat it. Destiny said to serve the darkness, and you told it to fuck off. You’re already better than should’ve been, and you did it by being this version of yourself. Not the one I already know.”

Of all things, the imperious, unflappable Weiss Schnee's smile actually grew a bit diffident at that, even outright bashful in a demure sort of way as she fought off the rosy tint in her cheeks and tried not to get too caught up in her recollections, content to simply squeeze Yang's hand tighter against her chest.

"...it was perfect, Yang. It was everything I needed to hear. When I had my little, er... let's call it an 'episode'—" She released Yang's hand only for the minimum amount of time necessary to provide air quotes, then retook it. "—after... certain events transpired towards the end of your stay in Atlas, I was just—I don't even know how to describe it, honestly. I was... in a complete tailspin. My entire life I've believed I was destined for something great, that I was supposed to right the wrongs of my family name using the metric of what I can contribute. I told myself the betterment of Remnant was what I was making all those necessary compromises for, but I..."

It was a testament to how uncommonly sincere and from-the-heart these words were that she was stumbling over them, nothing rehearsed about what she was attempting (and somewhat struggling) to convey.

"...it just... had been made very clear to me very suddenly how flawed an individual I was. Am. Whatever—more importantly, that I am not the person who has any business... restructuring Remnant or whatever it is I was even going on about." There was the sheepish note again, the fingers around Yang's fidgeting slightly with embarrassment. "The world is changing, but there's no overnight solution. Unfortunate, but true. It's going to be a slow change, spearheaded by people like you and your sister, and it wasn't that I didn't have some good ideas but I can't just—Anyway—"

She cut herself off again, giving a frustrated flap of the hand at her own lack of cohesion. This 'complete trust' thing was exhausting, she didn't like it.

"—I can't dwell too much on all that or I'll go insane. The point being, I couldn't stop thinking about how it was all for nothing, how I never had a destiny and every terrible thing I'd ever done had been for nothing the real point is that none of this matters because I was WRONG!" The sheer happiness with which she delivered that final exclamation was emphatic, finally grabbing Yang's flesh and blood hand so she could link both the brawler's limbs with hers and give them a giddy little flap. "It's not that I don't have a destiny, Yang. My trajectory was just off! I didn't have all the pieces I needed to start with so I set myself to the wrong task! This, THIS is my destiny!"

Her elated grin reached its widest point as she threw her arms wide, gesturing to the corrupted interior of the Grimm like her meaning was completely obvious.

When it became apparent it hadn't been, she crossed her arms with a mild eye roll but continued, otherwise undeterred.

"Ozpin. Obviously. He's my white whale, Yang, or I suppose in this instance my dark one. He's the problem I was always meant to dedicate myself to solving! I mean, he's already been my priority virtually from the second I first learned of him, but I saw him as an obstacle standing between myself and what needed to be done rather than the enemy I needed to neutralize. A very large obstacle, but an obstacle all the same. I should've been pouring all my resources into eliminating him from the very start! Had I only known that...!"

The longer Yang and Raven listened, the more being afforded such a raw, unfiltered, stream of consciousness look at this world's Weiss Schnee was making one thing abundantly clear.

She was completely delusional.

To a lesser extent than many of those Ozma had sought out through the years, true. Certainly less so than the likes of the Red Masque. But it was still there. She was a rationalist who'd become so convincing she could find a way to rationalize anything to herself; there was a certain logic to everything she said, to be sure.

But there was also an inherent level of chaos to the world this Weiss's brain just couldn't seem to wrap itself around. The idea that everything she had suffered had been senseless and without purpose, that every ruthless act and betrayal of her principles she ever carried out had been a futile gesture, was too terrible to contemplate. When her first fantasy unraveled herself, she had shattered like fine china only to piece herself back together wrapped in the secondary, more comforting fantasy someone she cared deeply for had offered up in its stead. The fact was that she had been created in a certain image, made to be a distortion of certain traits, values and flaws, and apparently when it came to Weiss Schnee that meant she always had to be the solution to something, always had to throw herself headlong with everything she had into fixing whatever problem or issue she was fixating on, always had to chase that validation that her existence had an intrinsic value that balanced out in positives, not negatives. She couldn't stop herself any more than a shark could stop swimming; if ever it were to try, only one fate awaited it.

It drowned.

Or, you know, maybe she was just too unsteady to explain herself properly. This was all still very overwhelming. She held her hands up with an eager, placating wave, everything she had just stated in her mind apparently making perfect rational sense.

"I know. Look, I know. You don't have to believe me, but there's more. He, Ozpin, when we fought he had this semblance, and feeling its effects explained so much about his nature and I—He made me KNEEL, Yang!" She whined, a sudden pitch injected into her voice.

"He told me to kneel and I couldn't do anything to stop myself! I mean, seriously, with everything you know about me, how the thought of some all-powerful man wielding that power might be an affront to me specifically, the results I've been able to yield thus far—can you honestly tell me you're POSITIVE there isn't some element of fate in play here?! I'm not saying I'm some predestined hero, far from it, I'm just saying we're like... opposing forces! A-and I always saw the threads of my father's same questionable moral fiber in him, you know I did, but I've touched his mind now and it's so much worse, he embodies all that man's most disgusting traits in so many more horrific ways, and-and I could have a real opportunity to cripple his legion here and I mean Yang, what if I'm the only one who can?!"

She finally went quiet, and the sheer weight to the somber air descending over her made it clear she had finally realized that there was a very solid chance that what she was saying, however convincing it may have sounded in her mind, however unequivocally she may have felt that it was true, probably came across as little more than hysterical drivel outside of it.



"...I just... when does it stop?"

She huffed, her shoulders sagging, and when she finally looked back up it was a far more level bearing meant to dispense with the waxing poetic and cut right to the true heart of what she wanted to get across.

"How many times is he going to be allowed do this? How many times can he seek out a powerful young woman at her lowest, bend her to his will and begin the slow, agonizing process of grinding her down into nothing because he has unresolved issues with his wife before it's too many? One would've been too many. And it's... it's been so much more than just one, Yang. As I said, I've touched his mind." She pursed her lips, voice mournful as she started to list them off. "Myself. Ruby. Blake's practically given herself over to the process. Cast your eye far back enough and you'll find Maria Calavera, and... and you, Yang. Look at what he did to you. Am I supposed to just... allow that? How can you possibly ask me to run away from this? No."

She shook her head adamantly.

"I'm sorry, but I am not running. Not while I can do more good here. And unfortunately—"



The glacial coloration of her eyes was swallowed up by the ominous, malevolent red of Oz, which she coquettishly fluttered her lashes in for Yang's benefit for a few moments before they cooled to their more aesthetically pleasing blue again.

"—I happen to know I can do more good here than anywhere else. Ozma's consciousness is suppressed, yes, but his enforcers will still carry out his will once they become aware of that. So will his Grimm. Vacuo isn't saved; at best, it's prolonged. But if I'm Ozma, secretly conspiring with the kingdom's defense force thanks to your sadsack mother and whatever her stupid soul did to me—" Somehow it was even more insulting that there was actually nothing sharp or scathing about her tone as she glanced over Raven's way, only pointed matter-of-factness.

"—then it's a kingdom in with an actual chance of weathering the storm. Not only that, but with the element of surprise at our disposal it's entirely attainable for us to end the threat posed by him and his army right there and then for good. Now do you see? I hope so. Because those questions I asked, Yang? They were all rhetorical. I'm not going to allow it. I know exactly how many times is too many. And as for when it stops?"

She sneered, pulling her shoulders back and drawing up to her full height as her hands shot to her hips imperiously.

"It stops with me."

Unfortunately, the moment was undercut by the doleful frown her lips suddenly pulled into as she threw her gaze back to Yang in concern.

"Wait, oops. That became a monologue. I'm fairly positive it started life as an effort to comfort you. Did it?"​

 

[MyrtenRose]

"How many times is he going to be allowed do this? How many times can he seek out a powerful young woman at her lowest, bend her to his will and begin the slow, agonizing process of grinding her down into nothing because he has unresolved issues with his wife before it's too many? One would've been too many. And it's... it's been so much more than just one, Yang. As I said, I've touched his mind." She pursed her lips, voice mournful as she started to list them off. "Myself. Ruby. Blake's practically given herself over to the process, and... and you, Yang. Look at what he did to you. Am I supposed to just... allow that? How can you possibly ask me to run away from this? No."

She shook her head adamantly.

"I'm sorry, but I am not running. Not while I can do more good here. And unfortunately—"

The glacial coloration of her eyes was swallowed up by the ominous, malevolent red of Oz, which she coquettishly fluttered her lashes in for Yang's benefit for a few moments before they cooled to their more aesthetically pleasing blue again.

"—I happen to know I can do more good here than anywhere else. Ozma's consciousness is suppressed, yes, but his enforcers will still carry out his will once they become aware of that. So will his Grimm. Vacuo isn't saved; it's prolonged. But if I'm Ozma, secretly conspiring with the kingdom's defense force thanks to your sadsack mother and whatever her stupid soul did to me—" Somehow it was even more insulting that there was actually nothing sharp or scathing about her tone as she glanced over Raven's way, only pointed matter-of-factness.

"—then it's a kingdom in with a real chance of being saved. Not only that, but with the element of surprise at our disposal it's entirely attainable for us to end the threat posed by him and his army right there and then for good. Now do you see? Because those questions I asked, Yang? They were all rhetorical. I'm not going to allow it. I know exactly how many times is too many. And as for when it stops?"

She sneered, pulling her shoulders back and drawing up to her full height as her hands shot to her hips imperiously.

"It stops with me."

Good fucking lord this lady could drone on and on, in even the most damn dire and time-critical situations. The grimm had cleared out, and this world's Ren sure, but who even knew how the rest were faring while this woman went on and on and on and on without any end in sight, to the point it was almost painfully ironic when she started talking about when it stops and how it stops with her. The it being Ozpin, of course. That whole speech was almost unbearable to listen to without speaking up even a single time, but out of respect Raven kept herself from making a sound the whole time Weiss was running her mouth. And not just out of respect for her daughter, and how much Yang clearly cared for this woman. That was not something Raven could say she really understood. This Weiss was completely insufferable and so much worse. Did Yang just not see the worst of this woman, or did she just decide to overlook the worst while trying to scrape out whatever little good there was, deep inside, just because this evil wore a familiar face?

Yet, perhaps it was her own bias on this particular Weiss Schnee, the focus on all the worst and cruel traits that drowned out the good that was in there. Schnee made it very easy in that regard. The constant insults and clear disgust thrown her way from Weiss, if not actual hatred. Not to mention the whole taking advantage of her vulnerability, both physical and mental, all to steal away the power of the maiden and ended up taking some of her soul in the process. Even just now, the woman had called her a bitch, thrown her right through the portal like some toy and when she had returned, insulted her further. Not that Weiss was necessarily wrong, but Raven didn't need to hear it from her in particular. The hypocritical bitch.

Still, perhaps that truly was the case. That neither mother or daughter could truly see Weiss. All the good and all the bad, mixed together in one tiny package. There was good in there, Raven had to begrudgingly admit. Maybe not as much as Yang thought there was, but it was there. The fact that the former maiden was even walking right now was testament to that. Raven didn't share the same concern or affection for this Weiss that Yang did. She would never love this woman in the way friends should love each other. Hell, she doubted she would ever even like this version of Weiss. But after silently listening to that whole monologue, Raven did find that there was some strange respect there.

And in some ways that was more important than liking somebody, as far as Raven was concerned.

What Weiss had just proposed, Raven had to admit that it was pretty ballsy. It took guts, real courage and maybe a sprinkling of some insanity to proceed on something like that. And that much, Raven could respect. She made that much clear when, rather than snap back at Weiss for her insult or try to punch her out or anything confrontational like that, she calmly approached Weiss and held out a hand. The intent was meant to 100% respectfully shake Schnee's hand, but whether it was returned, or the gesture was slapped aside, or just ignored entirely, Raven turned to Yang all the same.

"If you're going to answer, keep it brief. We have to get out of here, you know?!" She just had to make it super extra clear that this was not the time and place for this kind of stuff.

And as if on cue, a moment or two after that was about when Ruby barged into the room so fast that she collided with the ethereal summoned Winter before she could stop herself. Like a true dolt. "Ah!"​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

Were Blake to have ventured her professional opinion as a dealer of death, the prognosis, in a nutshell, would've been 'not good'.

The fraught, unsteady gasp of relief that came from the Dragon's lungs when she relented gave away just how little there was she could've done to avert the faunus's course if she hadn't. It was everything she could do just to stay upright where she had flung herself, and had her aim in impeding the flight of any prospective bullets been off by even the tiniest margin on the first try she would not have managed a second. The hiss of air carried half the makings of a bitter laugh, the sheer irony of the plea apparently no more lost on her than it was Blake, and with it went the last of the unhinged enforcer's strength as she slumped over and hit the floor; her semblance's glow little more than dim, wispy embers at this point where at its apex only minutes before it had pierced the veil of mist and reached every corner of the room.

Bearing that in mind, it was unsettling just how cold the body she picked up off the floor was.

It was like she was already a corpse. Being frank, the Dragon had lost staggering amounts of blood in a frighteningly short period of time, having yet to dress her arm or fashion any kind of a tourniquet—and the reality was that it was too much. Blake herself had seen enough shed to recognize the early indicators of someone on the verge of going into shock; the glazed, unfocused look in her eyes, the soft, greedy gulps and pants as her body tried to take in as much oxygen as possible to prepare, the total absence of color in her skin save that milky, bloodless white as icy bullets of sweat started dotting her forehead.

The arm was hopeful.

At this point, it was going to take a miracle of modern medicine to save Dragon.

The nature of this particular offensive by their enemies had put Ozpin's first, most fiercely savage line of defense through a proverbial meat grinder, beset by three separately impressive enemies with their own individual scores to settle. Her mother coming at her without a trace of hesitation like she was the mistaken penstroke she never corrected. Neo's sadistic side meeting its natural prey in Yang's masochistic qualities as she came after her in her relentless quest for vengeance. The annoying, buzzing presence of the Masque, and how it had provided the perfect opening for the Valkyrie who had gone blow for blow with Tiger to come down on her again and again with strength exceeding even what she had brought to bear then. They had, in the most candid terms possible, kicked the absolute shit out of her.

But, y'know. Mondays.

"Mmnnnoooo don't save the arm, the leg tastes way... better.... whoaaaa, meoww. H'come no'n told me the gun show... was in town... s'my favorite..."

Her lips seemed incapable of anything more than indiscernibly murmuring gibberish at this point, the shiver that wracked her entire form violent as her weight settled in Blake's arms; her body's way of reacting to the sudden warmth pressing on it, reminding it what an average core temperature was supposed to feel like. Her own frame's toned curves felt as weak as a kitten's, and it was hard not to feel surprised when such a brutal killer so immediately curled against her rescuer like one, intact hand hooking weakly around Blake's shoulders where it briefly felt around for purchase and instead ended up tracing its fingertips up and down the length of one of her back's deeper and more ridged scars. It wasn't clear if she even knew what it was, but the sensation and rhythm seemed to give her something to focus on.

Something to help keep her from losing consciousness.

"...Heeeeyyyy..."

The face nuzzled against the crook of Blake's neck shifted into a frown, the gliding path of the fingers stopping near the peak of her spine, a more direct sign of lucidity from the fading creature in her arms as she instead started poking and prodding at a knot of stress in the faunus's muscles.

"—yur so tense, kitty. You're gonna drop dead someday, you know that?"

The claws started digging in, but rather than so much as a pinch through her aura all she felt was a sudden and sharp release of pressure as the troublesome spot was rolled and kneaded between expert fingers. A wave of relief spread out through her shoulders, the buckets of stress, frustration and pain the Hand had accumulated since Atlas finding themselves under siege by a tender kind of touch for the first time, and Dragon kept up the gentle ministrations as her eyes sluggishly lifted to affix Blake's with a gaze that was equally tender.

It was all a bit bizarre, really. It begged the question of whether the fits of delirium the brain was capable of conjuring to make the process of death easier had drawn up some sort of history between the two in the Dragon's mind, one that—outside of the standard relationship shared by a sword and a sledgehammer—didn't exist. Maybe it was an innate, implicit understanding of what it was like to have the world grind you down, once her eyes saw mirrored in Blake's own.

Or maybe—







—maybe the simple truth was that even towards the end of her tortured, tormented and beleaguered existence the Dragon had never been touched like that before. Maybe in some way, shape or form, even when both had been corrupted, twisted and distorted beyond all recognition in the depths of despair like some cruel, unfunny joke of the universe, some souls were just meant to find each other. Maybe it was just nice to finally know what a connection felt like.

Even if it was fleeting.


View attachment 858729

"Sorry we're all such... such assholes. Y'know, stinking humans. For what it's worth... which is jack, shit and dick... I was r-really... lookin' forward to... to watching you burn it all down."

Her next shiver seemed more like an attempt at a giggle, but lacked the strength to make it past a feverish two-note trill. The back massage was similarly fading, though her devotion in servicing the Hand's battered, cut and neglected body in some form or another (however meager) using the last of her energy was completely earnest.

"Hey, just... just don't take any more shit from anyone, okay? Trust me. It'll fuck you up. And quit letting people use you like some, some fucking meat carcass to hide behind, that shit is suss as hell. If they're sooooo committed to you faunus guys then I don't see why... why you're always the one who bleeds." She snorted, or at least attempted to. "'Sides, heh, the real crime is... w-would be getting... gettin' born with an ass that good and just... throwing it all away..."

The delirious ramblings faded out to a quiet gurgle, and the hand slipped from Blake's shoulders and went limp, the pulse Blake had initially felt hammering against hers at the rate of a hare's starting to slow.​

"...shit"

Blake only made it a few steps before her eyes fully took stock of just how viciously the dragon had been torn up. In more than one place the assassin counted kill shots, the sort she'd land and consider her work done.

The Dragon dying would be frustrating, to be sure. She was a powerful warrior, the one The Hand most often shed blood with when she wasn't working directly with the Fang, and the only other one she counted among Ozma's followers as truly loyal. Ozma's victory was the Faunus' victory, and losing such a potent weapon in his arsenal was a blow to The Hand as much as it was to him, to say nothing of Blake failing the implicit task she'd been given to protect her.

But that should've just been it.

A frustration. Nothing more.

Because the Dragon was a monster. Blake was loyal to Ozma, and she was willing to fight alongside the likes of the Dragon and Nikos, but she did not equate herself to them. She was a monster of her own breed, to be certain, and if there was a judgement in the afterlife she held little doubt as to where she would fall no matter how just the cause for it all was. But there wasn't any revelry or joy in the violence those two found. The Dragon in particular just seemed to feed off the suffering of others, breaking and battering whatever she could get her hands on just to prove her own strength and worth. Even with everyone she'd pushed away and everything she'd lost, Blake had cared and been cared for in her life; she knew the shape of it, she understood parts of it, and she knew what it was to lose it, deeply. A few moments of strangely soft touches shouldn't have mattered.

Yet there was something in that final look, those last words; something that harkened back to all she'd seen today, to memories of another warrior, and to a brief meeting with a lost soul.

The empty feeling that was blooming in her chest was small, barely there, but far more than should have been.

She dropped to her knees and laid the Dragon flat on the ground.

"No. Keep talking, dragon. Don't drift off just yet. There's more to do."

a wave of flame engulfed both of Blake's hands with an auraless wince, an impromptu sterilization.

"You'd really let this be the end? Finished off by the mother who left you? There's no... no justice in that!"

Her words got more heated than the soothing monotone she'd intended; she'd never been the one who was good with words, like Sienna or Weiss or even Eve in her own, righteous way. She huffed and focused, and much the same way that she conjured her shadow clones, a hand of ice slowly sculpted itself around the stump she'd gotten hours that felt like forever ago.

"So don't let that be it. Just keep talking for now, or groan, or feel up these stupid legs you keep ogling, whatever keeps you awake. You're not coming back from this otherwise."

Then she got to work, a frozen knife manifesting in one hand as she did what she always did in reverse; put someone back together. The knowledge required to take someone apart was remarkably similar, knowing what exactly resulted in death and how to prevent a target from stopping it, which parts of the body connected to where, the flow of the blood, the endless network of nerves, the same daunting knowledge of biology and murder that had allowed Blake to sculpt the shades of herself with the staff of creation turned towards doing what she never did as she tried to save a life instead. It wasn't pretty; cuts and cauterization, no anesthetics to dull it, bandages made out of the last shreds Blake had left on her that weren't still holding herself together after the day's violence, and a nonexistent bedside manner, but she worked with the same fervor and efficiency she applied to every kill she'd ever taken.

A minute in, her arms were slick with blood up to elbows, but no more of it was gushing onto the floor, and she put her head against the dragon's chest to see just how much work she had to do, or could possibly do.

 

[Gus Gungus]

"...shit"

Blake only made it a few steps before her eyes fully took stock of just how viciously the dragon had been torn up. In more than one place the assassin counted kill shots, the sort she'd land and consider her work done.

The Dragon dying would be frustrating, to be sure. She was a powerful warrior, the one The Hand most often shed blood with when she wasn't working directly with the Fang, and the only other one she counted among Ozma's followers as truly loyal. Ozma's victory was the Faunus' victory, and losing such a potent weapon in his arsenal was a blow to The Hand as much as it was to him, to say nothing of Blake failing the implicit task she'd been given to protect her.

But that should've just been it.

A frustration. Nothing more.

Because the Dragon was a monster. Blake was loyal to Ozma, and she was willing to fight alongside the likes of the Dragon and Nikos, but she did not equate herself to them. She was a monster of her own breed, to be certain, and if there was a judgement in the afterlife she held little doubt as to where she would fall no matter how just the cause for it all was. But there wasn't any revelry or joy in the violence those two found. The Dragon in particular just seemed to feed off the suffering of others, breaking and battering whatever she could get her hands on just to prove her own strength and worth. Even with everyone she'd pushed away and everything she'd lost, Blake had cared and been cared for in her life; she knew the shape of it, she understood parts of it, and she knew what it was to lose it, deeply. A few moments of strangely soft touches shouldn't have mattered.

Yet there was something in that final look, those last words; something that harkened back to all she'd seen today, to memories of another warrior, and to a brief meeting with a lost soul.

The empty feeling that was blooming in her chest was small, barely there, but far more than should have been.

She dropped to her knees and laid the Dragon flat on the ground.

"No. Keep talking, dragon. Don't drift off just yet. There's more to do."

a wave of flame engulfed both of Blake's hands with an auraless wince, an impromptu sterilization.

"You'd really let this be the end? Finished off by the mother who left you? There's no... no justice in that!"

Her words got more heated than the soothing monotone she'd intended; she'd never been the one who was good with words, like Sienna or Weiss or even Eve in her own, righteous way. She huffed and focused, and much the same way that she conjured her shadow clones, a hand of ice slowly sculpted itself around the stump she'd gotten hours that felt like forever ago.

"So don't let that be it. Just keep talking for now, or groan, or feel up these stupid legs you keep ogling, whatever keeps you awake. You're not coming back from this otherwise."

Then she got to work, a frozen knife manifesting in one hand as she did what she always did in reverse; put someone back together. The knowledge required to take someone apart was remarkably similar, knowing what exactly resulted in death and how to prevent a target from stopping it, which parts of the body connected to where, the flow of the blood, the endless network of nerves, the same daunting knowledge of biology and murder that had allowed Blake to sculpt the shades of herself with the staff of creation turned towards doing what she never did as she tried to save a life instead. It wasn't pretty; cuts and cauterization, no anesthetics to dull it, bandages made out of the last shreds Blake had left on her that weren't still holding herself together after the day's violence, and a nonexistent bedside manner, but she worked with the same fervor and efficiency she applied to every kill she'd ever taken.

A minute in, her arms were slick with blood up to elbows, but no more of it was gushing onto the floor, and she put her head against the dragon's chest to see just how much work she had to do, or could possibly do.

"You're still new here."

She recognized the voice well before its originator crossed into her field of vision, though the chances it took her a brief moment longer than it should've weren't insignificant. Lie Ren was perhaps the most similar to Blake of all Ozpin's pawns in terms of bearing, a quiet, noncommittal presence whose loyalty to the master of Grimm had come about through outside allegiances rather than any personal affiliation. The bodyguard of Vale's criminal overlord had been present when Blake first offered herself just as he was present now, though any reasons he had for lingering after Valkyrie's demise were something of an enigma. The two had never had a reason to speak.

Whatever his motives may have been, his step was measured as he circled around and took a knee by the Dragon, glancing over the damage before his eyes instead moved to Blake with a curious squint—curious enough to merit wondering what exactly he was seeing. The berserker had lain motionless throughout the Hand's efforts, the occasional buck or spasm from the brawler's frame that had come precariously close to disrupting her work notwithstanding; The airflow moving in and out of her lips was shallow, and the sole rubric Blake had to measure her responsiveness—unfortunately—had been a deep, approving 'mhnnnn' at the mention of her gams followed by a playful tweak of her inner thigh. But her familiarity with the ebb and flow of the tenuous string that separated life and death had proven invaluable, and her efforts were no doubt to thank for the fact that the Dragon had even clung to life long enough for Ren to make his way across the scene. He touched two fingers to her neck, reading her pulse.

"New enough, anyway. This isn't the first time this has happened. It was always Arc's job to put her back together."

He sighed, the frown curling a little deeper at the memory. He shifted back onto his haunches, shaking his head like the EMT whose duty it was to call it.

"She's finished. We should—'"



"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH—"

"—Holy—"

"—AAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEȄ̸̡Ę̴̉É̸̹Ê̶͜E̵̱͒E̶̛̘Ȇ̷̞E̴̳͠!"



Ren's eyes were unusually wide when Yang's shoulders initially sprang up off the ground, the sudden way the woman bolted upright with an endless, harrowed scream as if waking from an indescribably horrible nightmare shattering his mask of calm like a stone breaching the surface of a tranquil pond. They flew wider still when, in the midst of that scream, her scratchy, weathered voice abruptly cracked a few octaves higher, its pitch rising to the kind of unmitigated shriek that could only come from excruciating pain or blind terror.

Or both.

But Ren's eyes practically bugged out of his skull when that shriek started to change. When the Dragon's quivering form started being wracked by violent, unnatural spasms, her back arching at a painful angle, her remaining limbs twisting and contorting in ways that were just wrong as her bones unleashed sickening crackles in protest. Grimm possessions weren't unheard of, the thought of those more esoteric species among the dark-infused creatures haunting enough to the ensouled that they had served as the inspiration behind many a short story and horror film.

After today, either Blake or Ren could say with some certainty that not a one of them did justice to how horrible it was.

Even to those who pledged themselves to the dark and dispensed death without batting an eye, something about this was just... It was that look. The one filling every millimeter of Dragon's eyes, spilling over from their corners along with hot tears of panic and frustration, an unwilling, pleading look common in prey organisms and characterized by the sheer biological drive to resist what was happening to it on every conceivable level. She didn't want this. Whatever their opinions of Dragon, watching that look die out and succumb so quickly triggered the kind of primal fear response in them universal to all life with a developed social instinct; the kind felt by the gazelle who chanced a look back as it ran from predators. Who caught sight of the poor, hapless animal who hadn't run fast enough, who had fallen behind, who'd drifted too close to the back of the herd and only now realized the severity of its situation as it was set upon and devoured.

That kind of a look.

And then it was gone, and the look that replaced it was so much worse.

"L̷E̷T̷ ̸H̶E̸R̵ ̴D̸I̵E̶E̶E̶E̵E̶E̵E̴E̷E̶E̸E̵E̴E̸E̵E̷!"

There was as little human left in Yang's eyes as there was about the guttural, monstrous screech that clawed its way out of her lungs in the same instant actual claws seized Blake's throat, too fast and aggressive for even her reflexes to evade. Ren was similarly caught off guard, the boot that lashed out and caught his chest only glancing yet still strong enough to launch him most of the ways up the (long) corridor all the same, and by the time he landed the monster inhabiting Dragon had flipped the Hand over onto her front with abominable strength and straddled her, using her hips and legs to keep her pinned. The boneless, malefic limb was longer than it had been less than a second ago, effortlessly stretching and contorting without relinquishing an iota of the pressure from the vice around her jugular; wringing her neck without regard for aura as the grimm's mass coiled around and around her head from every angle, lifting her mask, covering her eyes to take her vision, blocking her mouth and nose so breathing became even more of a feat.

"L̶e̷t̸ ̸h̵e̷r̶ ̶d̶i̷e̴ ̸s̴h̸e̵ ̸i̸s̶ ̴m̴i̴n̶e̷ ̸l̷e̸t̴h̵e̶r̴d̸i̴e̶s̴h̷eis̶m̴i̶n̸e̸s̵h̵e̸w̶i̴l̶l̷d̸i̵e̸ ̷s̸h̶e̷ ̶w̴ill̴ D̴IE s̵h̸e̵i̸s̶M̷I̶N̵E̵, T̷H̶I̴S̶ ̸F̵L̶E̶S̴H ̷I̶S̵ ̶M̵I̶N̷E ̸A̵N̸D̷ ̶I̵ ̸S̷H̷A̷L̵L̷ ̵RISSSS̶E̸ ̵A̸N̸E̶W̶ ̵̵ ̵FROM T̴H̸E̵ ̵A̵S̵H̴E̷S̸ ̴O̸F̷ ̵I̶T̴S̶ ̶S̸S̷S̴U̶F̵F̵E̸R̵I̶N̷N̵N̸G̵G̴G̵!"

The arm's hold was extraordinarily difficult to break, and it reared in close enough that Dragon's breath was hot against her ear as it slowly started to increase the pressure. She could feel teeth squirming against her skin, now, writhing to the surface of the corrupted flesh wherever it gripped her, and as they latched onto her aura eagerly she felt the same sense of soothing tranquility Yang had calmed her with in her cell back in Atlas begin to lap at the raging fires of her soul, though what had been a tender caress then now felt more along the lines of a numbing agent a predator might inject to quiet its struggling prey. Everything that had made Blake who she was, the storm of righteous anger and frustration and helplessness and pain that had forged her into the weapon she became, was beginning to grow mercifully, disquietingly still; along with any sense of concern she may have felt for Dragon.

As it drank from the pool of Blake's anguish, the creature gave a deep, rattling shiver that bore close resemblance to a moan, seemingly assuaged from the frenzy it had awoken in. There was something insidious in an entirely different sense from the dynamic between predator and prey found in nature about the way Dragon's hips started to shift and grind against her, the demonic voice returning in a more gentle tone.

"Ye̴s̵s̷s̷s̷s̴s̴s̶. B̶e̸ ̴s̸t̸i̴l̷l̷l̸l̷l̴, w̴i̸t̷h̴e̷r̴e̵d̵ ̶H̵a̸n̷n̴n̶n̶d̵,̶ ̵t̵r̶a̴i̴t̶o̸r̸ ̴o̷f̴ li̷f̷e a̷n̴d̶ ̵k̶i̸n̴n̶n̴n̶n̶. B̸e̶ ̸a̴t̶ ̴r̶e̷s̸s̸s̴s̵t̶.̵̶ Y̷o̸u̸r̸ ̸t̴o̸u̴c̵h̵ ̴w̷a̸s̸s̵s̷ ̶m̴e̵a̷n̸t̷ ̸t̴o̸ ̵b̴r̷i̷n̶g̶ ̵o̴n̵l̶y̶ ̷d̶e̸a̷a̶a̷t̴h̴h̶h̴h̶,̷ ̴y̵o̶u̶r̶ ̴l̴e̴g̷a̶c̵y̸ ̵o̵n̴e̶ ̶o̸f̷ ̸s̵s̸s̴t̶r̵i̸f̷e̸ ̴a̷n̵d̷ ̶s̶s̸s̷o̸r̶r̶o̵w̶w̵.̷ Y̷o̷u̶ ̷d̶o̴ ̸n̴o̶t he̶a̷l̷l̵l̴l̵l̸."

Any reaction the words may ordinarily have provoked was lost in the settling storm. It took so much energy to be angry.

It was so draining to care.

The monster laughed, its harsh, hollow guffaw delivered straight into Blake's ear as it shuddered again.

"H̶o̸w̵ ̶d̸e̴l̸i̸g̷h̴t̷f̵u̶l̵ ̶y̸o̶u̵ ̴a̸r̶r̴r̷r̵e̶.̴ S̸s̷s̶o̵ ̷m̷u̸c̷h̷ ̶t̸u̶r̷m̶o̴i̷l̵.̴ ̴S̸s̴s̴o̸ ̸m̵a̶n̸y̶ ̴c̶o̴n̶t̷r̴a̵d̵i̸c̵t̸i̷o̸n̴s̸s̶s̸s̷s̴.̷ ̶I̷t̷ ̵m̵u̶s̴t̵ ̵b̴e̵ ̸s̷s̴s̸u̵c̶h̴ ̵a̷ ̴b̴u̷r̴d̸e̷n̸n̵n̴ ̸t̶o̵ ̶c̷a̶r̷e̷ ̴s̷s̵s̸o̸ ̵d̵e̸e̴p̴l̵y̴y̶y̷y̶,̵ ̶i̷s̶s̶s̷ ̶i̶t̸ ̴n̴o̶t̶?̶ ̵L̶e̶t̸ ̷g̵o̴o̶o̷o̵.̶ B̸e̷ ̷a̵t̷ ̶r̷e̵s̴s̷s̷s̵t̸.̶ Y̴o̷u c̷a̴r̵e̶ ̴n̷o̴t̷h̷i̷n̶g̷ ̷f̸o̵r̶ ̸t̷h̴i̶s̵s̷ ̶b̵e̴a̴s̶t̷ ̷o̴f̶ ̵a̵ ̵w̶o̷m̵a̵n̵,̴ ̶t̷h̷i̴s̶s̷s̴ ̴b̴a̸r̴b̶a̷r̷i̷a̵n̶,̴ ̵t̶h̴i̴s̸ h̶u̷m̶a̴n̷nn.̷"

Again, whatever feelings that word evoked were swallowed with a shiver of pleasure from the atrocity mounting her. She was delicious. Such a righteous fury. Such impotent sadness. It needed more. It demanded more, and the touch Blake felt on her soul probed deeper as the creature pulled back momentarily only to dart back in for her opposite ear, already giddy in its anticipation of the fresh wellspring of pain its next words would bring.

"L̶e̴t̷ ̵t̷h̴i̶ss̶ ̶be̷a̸s̶t̶ ̷s̶u̷f̷f̶e̷r̸ ̵a̴n̶d̵ ̶d̵i̴e̸ ̶a̴s̶ ̶y̸o̵u̶ ̶d̶i̷d̷ ̵y̴o̴u̶r̶ ̸own̴n̷n̴n̵n̸.̴"​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"You're still new here."

She recognized the voice well before its originator crossed into her field of vision, though the chances it took her a brief moment longer than it should've weren't insignificant. Lie Ren was perhaps the most similar to Blake of all Ozpin's pawns in terms of bearing, a quiet, noncommittal presence whose loyalty to the master of Grimm had come about through outside allegiances rather than any personal affiliation. The bodyguard of Vale's criminal overlord had been present when Blake first offered herself just as he was present now, though any reasons he had for lingering after Valkyrie's demise were something of an enigma. The two had never had a reason to speak.

Whatever his motives may have been, his step was measured as he circled around and took a knee by the Dragon, glancing over the damage before his eyes instead moved to Blake with a curious squint—curious enough to merit wondering what exactly he was seeing. The berserker had lain motionless throughout the Hand's efforts, the occasional buck or spasm from the brawler's frame that had come precariously close to disrupting her work notwithstanding; The airflow moving in and out of her lips was shallow, and the sole rubric Blake had to measure her responsiveness—unfortunately—had been a deep, approving 'mhnnnn' at the mention of her gams followed by a playful tweak of her inner thigh. But her familiarity with the ebb and flow of the tenuous string that separated life and death had proven invaluable, and her efforts were no doubt to thank for the fact that the Dragon had even clung to life long enough for Ren to make his way across the scene. He touched two fingers to her neck, reading her pulse.

"New enough, anyway. This isn't the first time this has happened. It was always Arc's job to put her back together."

He sighed, the frown curling a little deeper at the memory. He shifted back onto his haunches, shaking his head like the EMT whose duty it was to call it.

"She's finished. We should—'"

Ren's greeting got only a curt glance, the most Blake was willing to spare from the bloody work, before she returned to it in silence. Whatever opinions she had on her fellow assassin had no room to drift to her thoughts just yet, her mind as laser focused as it ever was on the task at hand. Her hand briefly disappeared entirely into the cut deep cut she'd made along the dragon's abdomen, and a sickening crunch signaled the removal of a rib that was doing more damage than good at this point. Even if this wasn't a nigh impossible task to begin with, just how much of the dragon's innards pulsed with black ichor and bony potrusions made the whole ordeal that much more daunting; She was already drifting close to the line that would make her more beast than human.

She finally allowed herself a moment to breath as Ren leaned in, her hands resting just above her hips to keep them from touching anything contaminated as she heaved a few times as the death dealer made his prognosis.

She listened in silence, her eyes grim, yet her mouth set into a determined growl rather than any sort of lament or anger as she raised her hands, and sparks snaked across her fingers.

"Not yet. stand b-"

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH—"

"—Holy—"

"—AAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEȄ̸̡Ę̴̉É̸̹Ê̶͜E̵̱͒E̶̛̘Ȇ̷̞E̴̳͠!"


Ren's eyes were unusually wide when Yang's shoulders initially sprang up off the ground, the sudden way the woman bolted upright with an endless, harrowed scream as if waking from an indescribably horrible nightmare shattering his mask of calm like a stone breaching the surface of a tranquil pond. They flew wider still when, in the midst of that scream, her scratchy, weathered voice abruptly cracked a few octaves higher, its pitch rising to the kind of unmitigated shriek that could only come from excruciating pain or blind terror.

Or both.

But Ren's eyes practically bugged out of his skull when that shriek started to change. When the Dragon's quivering form started being wracked by violent, unnatural spasms, her back arching at a painful angle, her remaining limbs twisting and contorting in ways that were just wrong as her bones unleashed sickening crackles in protest. Grimm possessions weren't unheard of, the thought of those more esoteric species among the dark-infused creatures haunting enough to the ensouled that they had served as the inspiration behind many a short story and horror film.

After today, either Blake or Ren could say with some certainty that not a one of them did justice to how horrible it was.

Even to those who pledged themselves to the dark and dispensed death without batting an eye, something about this was just... It was that look. The one filling every millimeter of Dragon's eyes, spilling over from their corners along with hot tears of panic and frustration, an unwilling, pleading look common in prey organisms and characterized by the sheer biological drive to resist what was happening to it on every conceivable level. She didn't want this. Whatever their opinions of Dragon, watching that look die out and succumb so quickly triggered the kind of primal fear response in them universal to all life with a developed social instinct; the kind felt by the gazelle who chanced a look back as it ran from predators. Who caught sight of the poor, hapless animal who hadn't run fast enough, who had fallen behind, who'd drifted too close to the back of the herd and only now realized the severity of its situation as it was set upon and devoured.

That kind of a look.

And then it was gone, and the look that replaced it was so much worse.

"L̷E̷T̷ ̸H̶E̸R̵ ̴D̸I̵E̶E̶E̶E̵E̶E̵E̴E̷E̶E̸E̵E̴E̸E̵E̷!"

There was as little human left in Yang's eyes as there was about the guttural, monstrous screech that clawed its way out of her lungs in the same instant actual claws seized Blake's throat, too fast and aggressive for even her reflexes to evade. Ren was similarly caught off guard, the boot that lashed out and caught his chest only glancing yet still strong enough to launch him most of the ways up the (long) corridor all the same, and by the time he landed the monster inhabiting Dragon had flipped the Hand over onto her front with abominable strength and straddled her, using her hips and legs to keep her pinned. The boneless, malefic limb was longer than it had been less than a second ago, effortlessly stretching and contorting without relinquishing an iota of the pressure from the vice around her jugular; wringing her neck without regard for aura as the grimm's mass coiled around and around her head from every angle, lifting her mask, covering her eyes to take her vision, blocking her mouth and nose so breathing became even more of a feat.

"L̶e̷t̸ ̸h̵e̷r̶ ̶d̶i̷e̴ ̸s̴h̸e̵ ̸i̸s̶ ̴m̴i̴n̶e̷ ̸l̷e̸t̴h̵e̶r̴d̸i̴e̶s̴h̷eis̶m̴i̶n̸e̸s̵h̵e̸w̶i̴l̶l̷d̸i̵e̸ ̷s̸h̶e̷ ̶w̴ill̴ D̴IE s̵h̸e̵i̸s̶M̷I̶N̵E̵, T̷H̶I̴S̶ ̸F̵L̶E̶S̴H ̷I̶S̵ ̶M̵I̶N̷E ̸A̵N̸D̷ ̶I̵ ̸S̷H̷A̷L̵L̷ ̵RISSSS̶E̸ ̵A̸N̸E̶W̶ ̵̵ ̵FROM T̴H̸E̵ ̵A̵S̵H̴E̷S̸ ̴O̸F̷ ̵I̶T̴S̶ ̶S̸S̷S̴U̶F̵F̵E̸R̵I̶N̷N̵N̸G̵G̴G̵!"

The arm's hold was extraordinarily difficult to break, and it reared in close enough that Dragon's breath was hot against her ear as it slowly started to increase the pressure. She could feel teeth squirming against her skin, now, writhing to the surface of the corrupted flesh wherever it gripped her, and as they latched onto her aura eagerly she felt the same sense of soothing tranquility Yang had calmed her with in her cell back in Atlas begin to lap at the raging fires of her soul, though what had been a tender caress then now felt more along the lines of a numbing agent a predator might inject to quiet its struggling prey. Everything that had made Blake who she was, the storm of righteous anger and frustration and helplessness and pain that had forged her into the weapon she became, was beginning to grow mercifully, disquietingly still; along with any sense of concern she may have felt for Dragon.

Apparently it was possible to break Blake's mask of calm, righteous fury and focus;

All one had to do was rise from the dead and let out a sound so horrid all four of Blake's ears would never forget it. Said ears went flat against the Hand's head as she jerked backwards, one arm raised up defensively out of sheer, instinctual defense against the unknown, the sort of hardwired biological reaction that Blake was normally so good about tamping down. It did nothing to save her as the claw snaked around it with effortless speed and engulfed her.

The Hand bucked and screamed and thrashed, far from the graceful monster or indomitable killer she usually appeared to be; none of those qualities, her training, her determination, her power, were going to save her from this, and her body and mind knew it both. She heaved and bucked as the dragon mounted against her back even as the tranquility of its touch began to take hold, a purely physical response that was entirely in vain as she felt its slimy pressure snake across her entire skull.

Eventually, even those stopped, and her ragged, wheezing breaths of what little air she could filter through the grimm’s grip began to slow.

As it drank from the pool of Blake's anguish, the creature gave a deep, rattling shiver that bore close resemblance to a moan, seemingly assuaged from the frenzy it had awoken in. There was something insidious in an entirely different sense from the dynamic between predator and prey found in nature about the way Dragon's hips started to shift and grind against her, the demonic voice returning in a more gentle tone.

"Ye̴s̵s̷s̷s̷s̴s̴s̶. B̶e̸ ̴s̸t̸i̴l̷l̷l̸l̷l̴, w̴i̸t̷h̴e̷r̴e̵d̵ ̶H̵a̸n̷n̴n̶n̶d̵,̶ ̵t̵r̶a̴i̴t̶o̸r̸ ̴o̷f̴ li̷f̷e a̷n̴d̶ ̵k̶i̸n̴n̶n̴n̶n̶. B̸e̶ ̸a̴t̶ ̴r̶e̷s̸s̸s̴s̵t̶.̵̶ Y̷o̸u̸r̸ ̸t̴o̸u̴c̵h̵ ̴w̷a̸s̸s̵s̷ ̶m̴e̵a̷n̸t̷ ̸t̴o̸ ̵b̴r̷i̷n̶g̶ ̵o̴n̵l̶y̶ ̷d̶e̸a̷a̶a̷t̴h̴h̶h̴h̶,̷ ̴y̵o̶u̶r̶ ̴l̴e̴g̷a̶c̵y̸ ̵o̵n̴e̶ ̶o̸f̷ ̸s̵s̸s̴t̶r̵i̸f̷e̸ ̴a̷n̵d̷ ̶s̶s̸s̷o̸r̶r̶o̵w̶w̵.̷ Y̷o̷u̶ ̷d̶o̴ ̸n̴o̶t he̶a̷l̷l̵l̴l̵l̸."

Any reaction the words may ordinarily have provoked was lost in the settling storm. It took so much energy to be angry.

It was so draining to care.

The monster laughed, its harsh, hollow guffaw delivered straight into Blake's ear as it shuddered again.

"H̶o̸w̵ ̶d̸e̴l̸i̸g̷h̴t̷f̵u̶l̵ ̶y̸o̶u̵ ̴a̸r̶r̴r̷r̵e̶.̴ S̸s̷s̶o̵ ̷m̷u̸c̷h̷ ̶t̸u̶r̷m̶o̴i̷l̵.̴ ̴S̸s̴s̴o̸ ̸m̵a̶n̸y̶ ̴c̶o̴n̶t̷r̴a̵d̵i̸c̵t̸i̷o̸n̴s̸s̶s̸s̷s̴.̷ ̶I̷t̷ ̵m̵u̶s̴t̵ ̵b̴e̵ ̸s̷s̴s̸u̵c̶h̴ ̵a̷ ̴b̴u̷r̴d̸e̷n̸n̵n̴ ̸t̶o̵ ̶c̷a̶r̷e̷ ̴s̷s̵s̸o̸ ̵d̵e̸e̴p̴l̵y̴y̶y̷y̶,̵ ̶i̷s̶s̶s̷ ̶i̶t̸ ̴n̴o̶t̶?̶ ̵L̶e̶t̸ ̷g̵o̴o̶o̷o̵.̶ B̸e̷ ̷a̵t̷ ̶r̷e̵s̴s̷s̷s̵t̸.̶ Y̴o̷u c̷a̴r̵e̶ ̴n̷o̴t̷h̷i̷n̶g̷ ̷f̸o̵r̶ ̸t̷h̴i̶s̵s̷ ̶b̵e̴a̴s̶t̷ ̷o̴f̶ ̵a̵ ̵w̶o̷m̵a̵n̵,̴ ̶t̷h̷i̴s̶s̷s̴ ̴b̴a̸r̴b̶a̷r̷i̷a̵n̶,̴ ̵t̶h̴i̴s̸ h̶u̷m̶a̴n̷nn.̷"

The last motion Blake made before she laid still entirely was a small, unwilling shudder as the dragon rutted against her.

It was stripping her bare.





Blake's anger was real. Her fury was real, the blackened, righteous weapon she'd been gifted by human hands that Sienna had carefully and lovingly sharpened into a tool of horrible destruction, and gifted in turn to humanity's greatest foe. It was real, it was hers, but it wasn't her, and it was food for the beast.

Her hate was real. The Schnees and their terrible crimes against her two most beloved and the faunus as a whole, the human who was her first kill who'd almost stolen her father from her, Carnelian and the sheer fact that he still lived and breathed upon this earth after all he'd done to her people and to her. It was a typhoon inside her, a tempest, that so often engulfed everything else, that rose like bile to the top of her thoughts and drove her every breath, the only thing that had kept her breathing at all when it all went wrong in Atlas. But as much of it was inside her, as much as it engulfed her heart, it wasn't her, and it too was food for the beast.

Her anguish was real. The shotgun slug through her heart that was the memory of Eve, a deadly wound in and of itself that fed everything else, leaked her souls lifeblood behind her every step, as every act in the last few days grew more vicious, more paranoid, more fervent, all for her sake; a fully embraced delusion that Eve's last words and act were a call for her to finish the work they'd started together, that Eve had come around to seeing Blake's way, Sienna's way, Ozma's way as the only way forward for all she bucked and sneered against it. To say nothing of the twin daggers through her back that were her parents abandonment, or the sheer, undeniable weight of all the corpses she carried across her back; Yet even as it drove her onward and downwards, as much as it fueled all her other emotions, her despair was not what made Blake Belladonna Blake, and in the end it was also naught but food for the beast.

So much of what The Hand had embraced as herself drained away, like a dam lake who's levee had broke and was spilling away to expose the hidden shores beneath. Dead, scabby flesh around her heart, the armor beaten and cut and trained into her to cover it that let her do her work was being siphoned off of it in chunks, and finally the beast got a look at what it was that lay beneath. Small, weak, and malnourished, but there still nonetheless; the core of Blake Belladonna.

A young woman who wanted to just run away from all her problems, hide from them, but could never do it in the end. A girl who was looking towards the stars and dreaming of her books, where everything was black and white, and justice won out in the end.

Something that no one was ever supposed to see. Something Sienna had done so much work in shattering to rebuild into something more pliable, useful. Someone Blake herself was eternally on the run from, driving herself farther and farther away from in a desperate, never ending war against the weight of everything she'd done and what it would do to that idealistic, hopeful soul if it was ever made to bear the weight without all the steel of forced calm and the strength of terrible fury.

For just a moment, the despair flooded everything else, a a broken, choked sob spasmed through The Hand's form as the beasts' tongues and teeth along her face tasted tears.

The more it fed, the more the soul was desperate to cover, and despaired that it could not, and the cycle turned and turned as Blake felt herself growing weaker and weaker as more was pulled away. It was all just so much. All she wanted to do was what was right, what was just. How could her task not be? Even if you took every drop of blood she'd shed, that the Fang as a whole had shed, and compared it to what Humanity had done through the ages, you would have a raindrop in a hurricane. So why did it feel like this? Why did the words of the beast cut so deep, when her most hated enemies had tried much the same and found nothing but steel and fury across her soul.

It really was just so much.

Too much.

It didn't just not matter what happened to the Dragon; it didn't matter what happened to her. She was broken. She was weak. None of it would matter in the end. she....

Again, whatever feelings that word evoked were swallowed with a shiver of pleasure from the atrocity mounting her. She was delicious. Such a righteous fury. Such impotent sadness. It needed more. It demanded more, and the touch Blake felt on her soul probed deeper as the creature pulled back momentarily only to dart back in for her opposite ear, already giddy in its anticipation of the fresh wellspring of pain its next words would bring.

"L̶e̴t̷ ̵t̷h̴i̶ss̶ ̶be̷a̸s̶t̶ ̷s̶u̷f̷f̶e̷r̸ ̵a̴n̶d̵ ̶d̵i̴e̸ ̶a̴s̶ ̶y̸o̵u̶ ̶d̶i̷d̷ ̵y̴o̴u̶r̶ ̸own̴n̷n̴n̵n̸.̴"​

"..."

The flow stopped. The wells of fury and sadness within Blake hadn't suddenly vanished, and were far from empty, but they stopped refilling endlessly in a vain attempt to keep her heart covered. In its place was a brief, quiet realization. Why she'd tried so hard to save a monster's life in the first place

She didn't want to do that.

The entire reason she fought, the entire reason she'd joined the white fang alongside her mother and father, why she'd ever had the skills and drive to plunge that blade into that first man's heart all those years ago, was not a quest for vengeance or bloodshed or survival of the fittest. It was because of exactly that; Because no one deserved to suffer as Eve had. That was why Blake had taken up the sword.

In her own, twisted way, it was still why she carried it, even as the blood of those who suffered at her own hand had drenched her all the way up to the eyeballs, threatening to drown her. She fought to protect. She killed to protect. She would wipe out humanity to protect. But in the end, as deluded as it was, as terrible the cost had been even before the bill was due, it was the truth. Blake Belladonna was a protector.

She wasn't meant to be cruel. She was barely capable of it, save for when the storm of everything else within truly overwhelmed her. yet the storm was so calm now; so clear. Both how much she did not want that to be the case, how unjust it would be for Yang Xiao Long's last moments of conscious thought to be so completely and entirely subsumed with terror and despair, and the course of action to take.

"Think of your body as... an anchor. A conduit for your soul, nothing more and nothing less. Try and understand how your aura is simply another, lesser-understood element; comprehend its place among them, in the natural world. Reach out with your soul and try to shape it, amplify and suppress it as though you're waxing and waning a flame. Then focus it to where the damage is worst, and if you're doing it right, you'll notice. But it's..."

She already created with her semblance, mastered the power of her soul to a level few had ever reached, and she’d seen how well the ancient magics of the gods played with the power of the soul. She just needed a push.

Yet that might not have been enough. Normally, Blake wouldn't be able to do this. The beast was right; Her hands were no longer meant to heal. yet right now, with everything else being sucked away...

"You have to be calm, Blake. The power is spiritual, not bodily. Willpower alone isn't enough. If that will is coming from a corporeal place, driven by concepts like fear or anger or hate, then it might seem more effective to someone uninitiated, but it's just... easier. Training wheels. More a hindrance than anything, really. So find your zen. Meditation helps. So does tea."

...what was left felt right, in this moment. Like something Eve would approve of, even if the target of the protective instinct would've made her scream bloody murder

"You're fine. Stop... complaining."

Something entirely different than Blake's soul suddenly flared inside her, and even if it too was food for the beast, enough of it coursed through Blake that her hand was aglow as she bent her arm to press it to the Dragon's wounded side.

 

[Gus Gungus]

"..."

The flow stopped. The wells of fury and sadness within Blake hadn't suddenly vanished, and were far from empty, but they stopped refilling endlessly in a vain attempt to keep her heart covered. In its place was a brief, quiet realization. Why she'd tried so hard to save a monster's life in the first place

She didn't want to do that.

The entire reason she fought, the entire reason she'd joined the white fang alongside her mother and father, why she'd ever had the skills and drive to plunge that blade into that first man's heart all those years ago, was not a quest for vengeance or bloodshed or survival of the fittest. It was because of exactly that; Because no one deserved to suffer as Eve had. That was why Blake had taken up the sword.

In her own, twisted way, it was still why she carried it, even as the blood of those who suffered at her own hand had drenched her all the way up to the eyeballs, threatening to drown her. She fought to protect. She killed to protect. She would wipe out humanity to protect. But in the end, as deluded as it was, as terrible the cost had been even before the bill was due, it was the truth. Blake Belladonna was a protector.

She wasn't meant to be cruel. She was barely capable of it, save for when the storm of everything else within truly overwhelmed her. yet the storm was so calm now; so clear. Both how much she did not want that to be the case, how unjust it would be for Yang Xiao Long's last moments of conscious thought to be so completely and entirely subsumed with terror and despair, and the course of action to take.

Blake Belladonna was many things.

For the ancient, nameless horror dwelling within Dragon, she might as well have been ambrosia.

From her heartbreak to her fury, her hatred to her shame, the violent storm of negativity and self-loathing that raged eternally within the faunus's soul was a feast of enrichment and sensation the likes of which it could not recall. It wasn't so far apart from the Dragon's in terms of volume, if more deeply layered; but the sheer texture of it made her a pleasure to which even the savage enforcer of Ozma's will didn't compare. Yang Xiao Long, too, was someone who had been many different things over the course her cursed existence—the scrappy, courageous little girl whose tender heart and stubborn spirit had made her the victim of years of torment and exploitation at the hands of those who regarded it as stupidity and weakness. The broken shadow who had emerged from the other side of that torment jaded and hollow, who'd been so pitifully easy for Ozpin to enthrall and give purpose with the dark power of his words, her brilliant light utterly crushed under the weight of despair. The unhinged, hedonistic maniac she warped into after being bonded to a creature of pure malevolence, whose encouragement to indulge her every temptation and fill the emptiness in her soul with fleeting pleasures coaxed her ever-deeper into its embrace even as it fed on the growing darkness in her heart. On a twisted, depraved level, the beast called Dragon was still a protector herself, if only in the same sense as an abused, neglected junkyard dog stayed devoted to the owner who inflicted the abuse.

But that darkness had long since been fully internalized. Yang had embraced it, let it taint and distort her true nature rather than running from it the way Blake had hers. The Dragon was a pot that was boiling over, a candle that was burning out; but the Hand was the candle that relit, a cup endlessly refilling itself. Each layer of her it breached was a new pleasure, a new angle of euphoria bringing a different rhythm and vigor to the inexorable gyrations she felt against her from behind, a different intensity to the shifting black mass that had engulfed her skull, stolen her sight, crammed its way between her lips while she screamed. It was a strange, alien sensory experience for one with such honed senses and coordination especially, further muddled by the bizarre sense of contentment and bliss flooding her being every time one of her veins of negative emotion was full tapped, the ravenous entity immediately clamping onto the next with renewed eagerness and an appetite that was never sated.

Not a one of those veins drew a starker reaction than the one representing the haggard, withered, broken idealist at Blake's core. The beast threw its head back with a hitch of its breath the moment its deep dive exposed that pitiful, shriveled thing, the rubbing on her lower half reaching its zenith in time with her strangled sob as the truth of Blake Belladonna was laid bare for her to rip apart and consume. It didn't even notice her flow of negativity cease as it was cut off at the source, so lost was it to its sensuous revelry. She was divine. She was exhilarating.

Yet it wanted more.

It would always crave more. This beast had a billion stomachs.

It—

Yet that might not have been enough. Normally, Blake wouldn't be able to do this. The beast was right; Her hands were no longer meant to heal. yet right now, with everything else being sucked away...

...what was left felt right, in this moment. Like something Eve would approve of, even if the target of the protective instinct would've made her scream bloody murder

Something entirely different than Blake's soul suddenly flared inside her, and even if it too was food for the beast, enough of it coursed through Blake that her hand was aglow as she bent her arm to press it to the Dragon's wounded side.

—screamed.

The reaction was sudden, hysterical and volatile as the fertile energies of Spring washed over it, the beast reacting to the healing touch like it was a vial of salt flung directly on the open wound. That energy alone wasn't even the worst of it. Flickers of something warm, intense and nauseating rose like bile from the depths of this form the moment it felt Blake's touch, emotions on the polar opposite end of the scale to what it was supposed to feel threatening to overwhelm its dominance. The thighs riding her stopped, and though her eyes were still obstructed Blake felt the figure atop her sag as its booming, guttural hiss receded into short, shaky breaths, cut off in a gasp of indignant anger the moment the scene registered with it.

"HEY!" It screeched, the sort of piercingly shrill notes of reflexive anger one might invoke on a dog who wouldn't leave the cat alone. Yet the underlying protective instinct was undeniable, the sort of scorching passion and actual concern for another life the Dragon before Haven had made every effort to burn out of herself, that honestly had no business still existing. That didn't stop them erupting in that moment, fiery and explosive enough to drive the monster back inside as Blake felt the form atop hers rock in a more purposeful manner as it darted back in close. "Not—"

Some of the teething coils enveloping her face started to twitch and shift, not in the same controlled, sapping manner as before but as if something were pulling on them from outside.

"—fucking—"

A sudden upwards pull against Blake's head saw the tendrils covering her eyes and nose ripped away, light flooding her vision in the same moment oxygen flooded her lungs as at least one of her body's airways was mercifully released. The way the ones smothering her mouth and neck wrapped tighter in retaliation made it apparent Dragon's arm wasn't obeying her at this moment in time, which explained the vicious nature of her more direct intervention as the thing Blake registered was the fiercely savage sight of her tearing off swathes of Grimm flesh with her teeth.

"—HER!"

She spat the coils away with a snarl of disgust, then drew what was left of her human arm back and slugged the Grimm one full force with her auraless stump and its protruding bone.

This did absolutely nothing, except really fucking hurt her and snap off the tourniquet Blake had fashioned so the tide of blood from the fresh wound started gushing in full again.



"OOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! FUCK!" She yowled, articulate as ever, and as the edges of agony and panic started to settle back in over whatever wave of resistance Blake's torment had provoked her efforts became increasingly meager as her eyes flared and she yanked on the limb fruitlessly. "K-kitty, fuck, I'm sorry, it won't— f-fucking— it—it doesn't like when other stuff makes me feel gS̶K̷R̴E̶E̶E̵E̵E̶E̷E̶E̸E̷E̶E̶E̸E̶!!!!!"

She thrashed, screamed and contorted as the possession took hold quicker this time, whatever she had to say lost amid the second blood-curdlingly terrible noise to erupt from her lips in as many minutes. The snares throttling Blake whipped her around onto her back so quickly the feeling of whiplash hadn't even registered when Dragon's knees slammed down on both her elbows from the pounce the beast took up her body, weight settling on Blake's chest with legs trapping her arms this time so she couldn't use that cursed touch. The arm started slamming her head back into the floor, fresh tendrils beginning to spool around her face again like a spider's web as hundreds of tiny, pointed fangs emerged from its skin.

"I̶ ̶W̵I̸L̶L̴ ̸F̴E̷A̷S̴S̵S̵T̷ ̸O̴N̴ ̶Y̷O̶U̵R̵ ̸P̸A̴I̸N̷N̷N̷N̷N̶N̴N̴N̵! Y̸O̵U̶ ̶W̴I̷L̶L̸ ̶K̴N̶O̶W̸W̶W̴ ̷T̸H̴E̸ ̶T̶O̸R̵M̷E̴N̷T̷ ̷Y̴O̷U̷ ̷H̶A̷V̶E̷ ̴S̷S̴S̷O̴W̸N̶,̴ ̵R̶U̸N̷A̷W̸A̴Y̷ ̵ ̸S̵S̸S̸O̴U̴L̷!̴!!̴"​

 

[Gus Gungus]

What Weiss had just proposed, Raven had to admit that it was pretty ballsy. It took guts, real courage and maybe a sprinkling of some insanity to proceed on something like that. And that much, Raven could respect. She made that much clear when, rather than snap back at Weiss for her insult or try to punch her out or anything confrontational like that, she calmly approached Weiss and held out a hand. The intent was meant to 100% respectfully shake Schnee's hand, but whether it was returned, or the gesture was slapped aside, or just ignored entirely, Raven turned to Yang all the same.

"If you're going to answer, keep it brief. We have to get out of here, you know?!" She just had to make it super extra clear that this was not the time and place for this kind of stuff.

The unspoken implication hardly went unheard by ears as scrutinizing and inclined to read into everything as Weiss's, and though her eyes again narrowed at the proffered hand as if it were an illusion or attempt at deceit of some kind it was little more than a front for the wave of sheepishness and mortification she felt slam into her as she had to remind herself Yang's MOTHER was in the room. And obviously just considered her some sort of blowhard. Ironically, the Schnee standing there on the other end of that one sentence looked far more flustered, rueful, and put-in-her-place than she had at any other point Raven had said anything to her, ever, which came across in the strained response she gave with the faintest of eye twitches after a moment.

Spoiler

"What a pointless contribution," she mumbled irritably, pretending she derived any kind of satisfaction from watching Raven fly as her outstretched hand found itself snatched by another summoned Grimm appendage and used as the fulcrum to fire her straight back towards her own portal again. Her own tone was close to apologetic, at the very least explanatory as she forced the words out towards Yang without actually looking back at her. "Obviously it goes without saying we don't have the most time, I was simply using it to put your mind at ease while also... it's hardly some sin of impracticality, I just had a great deal to go over and I talk fast, and, it's a big whale and the only corridor to this room is under observation so excuse me if I thought we could take between one and five minutes to just..."

...Just... Stand around and dither at Yang pointlessly in what may have been her final chance to do so, she supposed. This was hardly her being pragmatic, at a time when that trait was probably required of her more than ever if this plan were to actually succeed and not simply be the latest series of cliff rocks she dashed herself on. She threw her gaze back towards her lookout in Winter, whose own effectiveness had itself just been undercut by Yang's sister (who seriously needed to work on her semblance control when it came to rounding corners, judging from what she'd seen).



Winter, bearing no particular attachment nor sentimental adoration for anyone in this family the way her sister did, also had no apparent intention of letting its youngest off the hook for such reckless obtrusiveness. Qrow came unnervingly close to bowling the spectral woman over himself as he skidded through the doors, and if the exquisite detail of her features wasn't enough to sell him on the idea that this was actually some personification of Winter then the curtly raised eyebrow as she held the hand Ruby dangled from out for him to accept definitely cinched it.



"Whoa. Uh, thanks." He gingerly accepted her. "So... sorry to hear about—"

He wasn't sure whether to take it as a sign that the ghostly entity was more, less, or the same amount of Winter she had been in life when she primly stepped past him without further acknowledgment, resuming her post by the door. This prompted Qrow to lean in for his niece and mutter from the corner of his lips, voice assuming a pitch he hoped was soft enough to avoid unwanted (spiritual) notice. "You just got chewed out by a freakin' ghost."

Then he finally looked at the other two, seemingly concurrently with Weiss reaching a snap decision in her head.

"So you're—?"

"Fine," she interrupted, having shoved a finger to Yang's lips right as the poor girl finally parted them to speak in a scene that was beginning to feel fairly reminiscent of Weiss booting them all from Atlas earlier that same day.

"And we're just..."

"Leaving." She kept her return volleys brusque and to-the-point, a far cry from the intense verbosity of before. Yang was spun around like a turnstile by the glyph under her feet so Weiss could plant both hands flat against her back and push, what ordinarily would've been a fruitless (and kind of funny) labor on her end eased by the row of identical glyphs she manifested between Yang and the portal—which the huntress's heels glided across effortlessly no matter how hard she tried to plant them or dig them in. "I appreciate all you've done here, but as unprecedented a phenomenon as this may be Yang's sad idiot mom is actually right. Belladonna is the Spring Maiden now. If anything tips her off to the ruse I may not be able to keep control of the situation, and for all we know she could be making her way towards us at this very moment! Hahaha!"

There was an extremely frivolous, forced, and quite frankly tremulous quality to that misbegotten attempt at a disarming laugh, bearing that of a team leader who'd suddenly remembered she left the oven on mid-meeting and was trying to bring things to a close extremely rapidly. Conveniently before Yang had a chance to get any kind of a word in and prolong this any more. She supposed Blake was both the oven and the ensuing fire threatening to burn down her entire life in that analogy, though had she known the precise nature of the delay the Hand was currently facing the pangs of guilt, self-doubt and genuine fright the faunus was capable of invoking in her probably wouldn't have quite been what came to the fore.

"So while I think—nnf—we can all agree this has been a... productive meeting—" The sudden shift in pitch accompanied her slamming her shoulder against the mass she was attempting to move. "—good lord, Yang, where does all this weight come from?—now that we're all fine, we're refreshed, all our very flattering and sweet fears have been put to rest and there are no reasons whatsoever anyone should be feeling ANY trepidation about the way things are going, given how obviously—under—control I have everything—"

The flurry of shoves and slaps Yang felt against her back carried the sort of emphasis that would've been appropriate had they been the push that sent her through the portal entirely. Unfortunately they were only halfway across the room when Weiss slumped, forehead against Yang's back, her huff of air nothing at all to do with exhaustion but rather a simple frustrated accompaniment to her analysis of where exactly she needed to be putting her hands and weight for this to work.

"—We can all part ways to amicably focus on our respective tasks, free of any malcontent, sentimentality or unexpected developments that might cause us to feel worried or upset at a later juncture and carry out extremely reckless and foolhardy rescue attempts. Agreed? Good."

It was as if she believed her voice carried the power to cement contracts, and that just by saying all those things they would become so. She shifted her hands closer to the brute's waist and resumed her labor, well and truly Remnant's answer to Sisyphus in that moment.​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

Blake Belladonna was many things.

For the ancient, nameless horror dwelling within Dragon, she might as well have been ambrosia.

From her heartbreak to her fury, her hatred to her shame, the violent storm of negativity and self-loathing that raged eternally within the faunus's soul was a feast of enrichment and sensation the likes of which it could not recall. It wasn't so far apart from the Dragon's in terms of volume, if more deeply layered; but the sheer texture of it made her a pleasure to which even the savage enforcer of Ozma's will didn't compare. Yang Xiao Long, too, was someone who had been many different things over the course her cursed existence—the scrappy, courageous little girl whose tender heart and stubborn spirit had made her the victim of years of torment and exploitation at the hands of those who regarded it as stupidity and weakness. The broken shadow who had emerged from the other side of that torment jaded and hollow, who'd been so pitifully easy for Ozpin to enthrall and give purpose with the dark power of his words, her brilliant light utterly crushed under the weight of despair. The unhinged, hedonistic maniac she warped into after being bonded to a creature of pure malevolence, whose encouragement to indulge her every temptation and fill the emptiness in her soul with fleeting pleasures coaxed her ever-deeper into its embrace even as it fed on the growing darkness in her heart. On a twisted, depraved level, the beast called Dragon was still a protector herself, if only in the same sense as an abused, neglected junkyard dog stayed devoted to the owner who inflicted the abuse.

But that darkness had long since been fully internalized. Yang had embraced it, let it taint and distort her true nature rather than running from it the way Blake had hers. The Dragon was a pot that was boiling over, a candle that was burning out; but the Hand was the candle that relit, a cup endlessly refilling itself. Each layer of her it breached was a new pleasure, a new angle of euphoria bringing a different rhythm and vigor to the inexorable gyrations she felt against her from behind, a different intensity to the shifting black mass that had engulfed her skull, stolen her sight, crammed its way between her lips while she screamed. It was a strange, alien sensory experience for one with such honed senses and coordination especially, further muddled by the bizarre sense of contentment and bliss flooding her being every time one of her veins of negative emotion was full tapped, the ravenous entity immediately clamping onto the next with renewed eagerness and an appetite that was never sated.

Not a one of those veins drew a starker reaction than the one representing the haggard, withered, broken idealist at Blake's core. The beast threw its head back with a hitch of its breath the moment its deep dive exposed that pitiful, shriveled thing, the rubbing on her lower half reaching its zenith in time with her strangled sob as the truth of Blake Belladonna was laid bare for her to rip apart and consume. It didn't even notice her flow of negativity cease as it was cut off at the source, so lost was it to its sensuous revelry. She was divine. She was exhilarating.

Yet it wanted more.

It would always crave more. This beast had a billion stomachs.

It—




—screamed.

The reaction was sudden, hysterical and volatile as the fertile energies of Spring washed over it, the beast reacting to the healing touch like it was a vial of salt flung directly on the open wound. That energy alone wasn't even the worst of it. Flickers of something warm, intense and nauseating rose like bile from the depths of this form the moment it felt Blake's touch, emotions on the polar opposite end of the scale to what it was supposed to feel threatening to overwhelm its dominance. The thighs riding her stopped, and though her eyes were still obstructed Blake felt the figure atop her sag as its booming, guttural hiss receded into short, shaky breaths, cut off in a gasp of indignant anger the moment the scene registered with it.

"HEY!" It screeched, the sort of piercingly shrill notes of reflexive anger one might invoke on a dog who wouldn't leave the cat alone. Yet the underlying protective instinct was undeniable, the sort of scorching passion and actual concern for another life the Dragon before Haven had made every effort to burn out of herself, that honestly had no business still existing. That didn't stop them erupting in that moment, fiery and explosive enough to drive the monster back inside as Blake felt the form atop hers rock in a more purposeful manner as it darted back in close. "Not—"

Some of the teething coils enveloping her face started to twitch and shift, not in the same controlled, sapping manner as before but as if something were pulling on them from outside.

"—fucking—"

A sudden upwards pull against Blake's head saw the tendrils covering her eyes and nose ripped away, light flooding her vision in the same moment oxygen flooded her lungs as at least one of her body's airways was mercifully released. The way the ones smothering her mouth and neck wrapped tighter in retaliation made it apparent Dragon's arm wasn't obeying her at this moment in time, which explained the vicious nature of her more direct intervention as the thing Blake registered was the fiercely savage sight of her tearing off swathes of Grimm flesh with her teeth.

"—HER!"

She spat the coils away with a snarl of disgust, then drew what was left of her human arm back and slugged the Grimm one full force with her auraless stump and its protruding bone.

This did absolutely nothing, except really fucking hurt her and snap off the tourniquet Blake had fashioned so the tide of blood from the fresh wound started gushing in full again.

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"OOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! FUCK!" She yowled, articulate as ever, and as the edges of agony and panic started to settle back in over whatever wave of resistance Blake's torment had provoked her efforts became increasingly meager as her eyes flared and she yanked on the limb fruitlessly. "K-kitty, fuck, I'm sorry, it won't— f-fucking— it—it doesn't like when other stuff makes me feel gS̶K̷R̴E̶E̶E̵E̵E̶E̷E̶E̸E̷E̶E̶E̸E̶!!!!!"

She thrashed, screamed and contorted as the possession took hold quicker this time, whatever she had to say lost amid the second blood-curdlingly terrible noise to erupt from her lips in as many minutes. The snares throttling Blake whipped her around onto her back so quickly the feeling of whiplash hadn't even registered when Dragon's knees slammed down on both her elbows from the pounce the beast took up her body, weight settling on Blake's chest with legs trapping her arms this time so she couldn't use that cursed touch. The arm started slamming her head back into the floor, fresh tendrils beginning to spool around her face again like a spider's web as hundreds of tiny, pointed fangs emerged from its skin.

"I̶ ̶W̵I̸L̶L̴ ̸F̴E̷A̷S̴S̵S̵T̷ ̸O̴N̴ ̶Y̷O̶U̵R̵ ̸P̸A̴I̸N̷N̷N̷N̷N̶N̴N̴N̵! Y̸O̵U̶ ̶W̴I̷L̶L̸ ̶K̴N̶O̶W̸W̶W̴ ̷T̸H̴E̸ ̶T̶O̸R̵M̷E̴N̷T̷ ̷Y̴O̷U̷ ̷H̶A̷V̶E̷ ̴S̷S̴S̷O̴W̸N̶,̴ ̵R̶U̸N̷A̷W̸A̴Y̷ ̵ ̸S̵S̸S̸O̴U̴L̷!̴!!̴"​

There was a brief moment, as Xiao Long bit and tore and fought back, that everything came flooding back. The anger and hate and grief a crashed back down against Blake's soul, and a gasp forced its way out of her lips as she felt it all as fresh as the moment Eve's blood splattered against her.

That almost killed Blake in and of itself. It was a weight against that fragile core it was never meant to bear, and she felt the tears pooling against her eyes where they couldn't escape past the creature's mass as the light in her hand sputtered out.



Then it was drifting away again, and when the beast fed upon her soul once more, there was a layer missing to the meal. It was nothing compared to the feast of misery that comprised the rest of Blake's emotions, a mere seasoning, so small against everything else that made The Hand who she was that it may have not even realized it was there the first time around; the trill of genuine panic and fear, borne of Blake confronted with a foe she didn't understand, could not figure out how to fight against.

Now she knew. Now she had an understanding. For all the truths the creature had spoken, one was the most true, and the most damning; Blakes hands were tools of pain and death, not healing and redemption. But a cornered beast used whatever it had on hand to fight back, and while the nameless monstrosity might have been ancient, while it was a predator in the truest sense of the word, while Blake's heart and soul may have been beaten and battered and raped and reforged into something wholly artificial, the shape was that of a predator; the creature was not the only one in the room. It was the entire reason Blake walked these halls. Why Ozpin had given the shadowfang, with their unwillingness to play nearly as obediently as his other forces, anything more than the time of day and a promise of destruction. She didn't walk these halls because she thought Ozma's grimm would heed their master's commands and leave her alone, like she was shielded from their hunger and power; she walked among them because that was where she belonged

The Beast felt something suddenly coil around the dragon's neck and suddenly jerk it backwards; Blake's flexible legs locking around it to swing them both off the floor for just a moment.

A moment was all she needed for both of her hands to latch onto the appendage just above where its wrist would have been and unleash a bone-chilling cold, aiming to harden and brittle the grimmflesh as she squeezed with all her might to shatter it at that point.

Everything crashed back in once again.

To say she cried out was to say a volcano boiled over. The sound wasn't all that dissimilar to that which had escaped the dragon's lips when the Beast took over, except there wasn't anything unnatural about this. It was too natural. A primal, animal sound; the sort that hadn't been heard on the face of Remnant since even before the shattering of the moon, since humanity had first been born and felt their first pangs of grief and anger, unable to process what was happening to them.

yet still she moved, and while the beast was still reeling Blake vanished in a haze of black mist only for her arms to grip the dragon from behind; one across her waist in a death grip, and the other winding the grimm appendage around itself like it was Gambol's ribbon as she whispered hoarsely.

"You want my pain? have it. Have it all."

Then she forecefed it. No more did she try to hold on to any of it; whereas before it had been like pieces of herself were being ripped off with a steak knife, now Blake was jamming her emotions down the beast's gullet. The wells of anger and fury and hate and sadness were turned from armor for her heart to fuel for the fire, in a bizarre midpoint between giving herself over completely and utter defiance. It was the only way she knew for sure she could do what she had to, as her other hand lit up with the vibrancy of spring and began putting the dragon back together from the inside out.

It wouldn't be enough.

She could feel her skin growing paler and clammier even after just a few seconds of this, her heart beat tapering down to a slower and weaker rythmn. At the end of the day, she was still just a faunus.

"....Xiao Long. You need.... we're both going to die if you don't...."

 

[Gus Gungus]

There was a brief moment, as Xiao Long bit and tore and fought back, that everything came flooding back. The anger and hate and grief a crashed back down against Blake's soul, and a gasp forced its way out of her lips as she felt it all as fresh as the moment Eve's blood splattered against her.

That almost killed Blake in and of itself. It was a weight against that fragile core it was never meant to bear, and she felt the tears pooling against her eyes where they couldn't escape past the creature's mass as the light in her hand sputtered out.



Then it was drifting away again, and when the beast fed upon her soul once more, there was a layer missing to the meal. It was nothing compared to the feast of misery that comprised the rest of Blake's emotions, a mere seasoning, so small against everything else that made The Hand who she was that it may have not even realized it was there the first time around; the trill of genuine panic and fear, borne of Blake confronted with a foe she didn't understand, could not figure out how to fight against.

Now she knew. Now she had an understanding. For all the truths the creature had spoken, one was the most true, and the most damning; Blakes hands were tools of pain and death, not healing and redemption. But a cornered beast used whatever it had on hand to fight back, and while the nameless monstrosity might have been ancient, while it was a predator in the truest sense of the word, while Blake's heart and soul may have been beaten and battered and raped and reforged into something wholly artificial, the shape was that of a predator; the creature was not the only one in the room. It was the entire reason Blake walked these halls. Why Ozpin had given the shadowfang, with their unwillingness to play nearly as obediently as his other forces, anything more than the time of day and a promise of destruction. She didn't walk these halls because she thought Ozma's grimm would heed their master's commands and leave her alone, like she was shielded from their hunger and power; she walked among them because that was where she belonged

The Beast felt something suddenly coil around the dragon's neck and suddenly jerk it backwards; Blake's flexible legs locking around it to swing them both off the floor for just a moment.

A moment was all she needed for both of her hands to latch onto the appendage just above where its wrist would have been and unleash a bone-chilling cold, aiming to harden and brittle the grimmflesh as she squeezed with all her might to shatter it at that point.

Everything crashed back in once again.

To say she cried out was to say a volcano boiled over. The sound wasn't all that dissimilar to that which had escaped the dragon's lips when the Beast took over, except there wasn't anything unnatural about this. It was too natural. A primal, animal sound; the sort that hadn't been heard on the face of Remnant since even before the shattering of the moon, since humanity had first been born and felt their first pangs of grief and anger, unable to process what was happening to them.

yet still she moved, and while the beast was still reeling Blake vanished in a haze of black mist only for her arms to grip the dragon from behind; one across her waist in a death grip, and the other winding the grimm appendage around itself like it was Gambol's ribbon as she whispered hoarsely.

"You want my pain? have it. Have it all."

Then she forecefed it. No more did she try to hold on to any of it; whereas before it had been like pieces of herself were being ripped off with a steak knife, now Blake was jamming her emotions down the beast's gullet. The wells of anger and fury and hate and sadness were turned from armor for her heart to fuel for the fire, in a bizarre midpoint between giving herself over completely and utter defiance. It was the only way she knew for sure she could do what she had to, as her other hand lit up with the vibrancy of spring and began putting the dragon back together from the inside out.

It wouldn't be enough.

She could feel her skin growing paler and clammier even after just a few seconds of this, her heart beat tapering down to a slower and weaker rythmn. At the end of the day, she was still just a faunus.

"....Xiao Long. You need.... we're both going to die if you don't...."

Ren had no idea what the hell he was looking at.

The most cursory, surface-level reading to take would've been that Dragon and the Hand were rolling around like a pair of apex predators colliding in the wild, the bear and puma who coincidentally stepped into the same clearing at the same time and the inevitable eruption of violence that ensued. That was the simplest, most straightforward, and honestly given their many differences the most believable explanation, and as someone who had only ever wanted to enforce his employer's interests and carry out the tasks required of him he despised the fact that he knew better.

It only took a more discerning set of eyes and ears to reach the more logical interpretation. To know that the Dragon herself wasn't a part of proceedings in any predatory capacity at all; for all intents and purposes, she was the scrap of meat Belladonna and a predator far older, stranger, and more terrible than either of them could even hope to contemplate were fighting over. The prey animal, though in the jaws of such a daunting and alien beast the faunus had found herself sliding into that ill-fitting role at an alarming rate herself. Watching such a thoroughly capable killer—His better in most if not all respects, he had no shame in admitting—be reduced to little more than panicked breaths and fading struggles in so short a time would've been horrifying enough to normal eyes.

To an empath's eyes, it was at least three times worse.

Every negative emotion Blake had ever felt, every bad feeling that had ever troubled her on a sleepless night or gnawed at the back of her mind on her most terrible days, was being torn up by the roots, strip-mined unwillingly from the deepest depths of her soul. That alone would've been a disconcerting enough sight for anyone bearing his semblance to witness, Belladonna herself hardly even visible under the storm of intermingling reds, blues, greens and virtually every shade in between being extracted from her. What was more haunting was watching those dark, pained, and yet undeniably vibrant emotions flow towards the infernal arm suckling on her face, shrivel up in its orbit and turn black, before wilting away into nothingness entirely. That sight, as well as the sheer uncertainty of it all, were what had him tensed up in indecision where he had landed, Stormflower trained on the pair but genuinely not knowing if gifting the Dragon's form the pain of further bullet holes was in any way likely to help the situation.

So eager was the monster to resume its feast on Blake's woes that it hardly seemed to notice the mere act of leveraging she committed with her legs, barely reacting to the physical sensation as it instead continued draining her blindly. The initial burst of maiden's light that had leapt and curled up from the corners of her eyes swiftly fizzled out with a hiss, and the two predators entered a sort of tug-of-war as the ancient creature's endless capacity to consume warred with the eternal and bountiful radiance of Spring, perhaps the closest thing there was to its polar opposite in its affinity for renewal and giving life. For a brief, terrible moment, it appeared that even that energy, when applied directly, was food for the beast, those first sparks lost in its ravenous void.

Then the shifting, writhing, teething mass ceased doing any of those things. She felt the tendrils squirming against her grow cold, the soft, squirming mass her hand clutched start to freeze over and crack as the beast started to scream, long and piercing, made all the worse by the fact that at such a high pitch it was easy to make out Dragon's tone buried somewhere deep down on the bottom layer. However numerous and vile the pleasures it derived from gorging on others' pain, unlike the woman whose vessel it inhabited it appeared to have no greater fondness for its own than most things did; though new tendrils were already springing out from the point the originals shattered, the beast was all frenzied thrashing and bucking as Blake maneuvered her way behind it, presenting a formidable physical challenge but lacking in the finesse needed to truly dislodge her as her primal scream swallowed up its own.

None of that made it any less physically taxing to hold a form with as much sheer physical power as the Dragon's in such a position against its will, on top of the concurrent drains on her mind and spirit as she poured her newly acquired magic into the woman's wounds at the same time the beast started absolutely ravaging the misery it was being so freely offered, ensnaring the arm she gave it as instinctively as a wounded anaconda. Just about anyone else would've faded in a matter of heartbeats, become a limp, pacified mouse helpless to stop the snake from devouring it.

But the wrath of the faunus given form knew all there was to know about enduring. In a sense, the Hand was devoting one half of herself to Dragon even as she gave the other to the abomination lurking inside her, and as her strength waned it was honestly difficult to know which was benefiting from that offering more; nor indeed where Yang ended and the beast began. The eyes they both sought to claim were screwed shut, and their voices appeared to be warring for dominance over her lips, as many soft, greedy gasps and desperate pleas for more drawn out by the soothing of her wounds as there were raspy, guttural moans and shudders by her flow of infinite torment. It reached a point where it wasn't even clear which consciousness was the one rocking its hips against Blake's arm, trying desperately to coax the grip on its waist lower the only way it could, a distinct lack of functional and unoccupied limbs to communicate its burning desire more intently.

One indisputable truth was that the creature in her grasp had, at the very least, stopped moving; its furious struggles fading out to an exhausted, acquiescent slump as both sides of the equation accepted what was happening, though there was something more than tiredness to the hoarse, trembling whisper the Hand got as a reply as the beast continued to drain her.

"I k-know... God, I knuh-know, but it's f-fucking... rrrrrrrgh, it's not f-fair, it's bullshit, they've had enough just leave them alone just leave h-h-her alone just f-fucking LEAVE HER THE FUCK ALONE OR I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU! I'LL KILL ALL OF YOU GRAAAAAAGH FUCK YOU FUCK YOU NO, NO, NOnonononono pleeeeaaase just leave me alooooone—"

It ended up being less a reply and more a torrent of incoherent babbling that switched between the kind of meek whimpers one might expect of a little girl and the terrifying screech of an unhinged savage at the drop of a hat, giving the distinct impression that even though Yang appeared to be in control of her body she was far from all the way present. The drops of moisture Blake felt drip back on her from the edges of the Dragon's jawline brought with it the grim realization that the tremor in her voice had nothing to do with fear or dread, but added further clarity to why the woman's frenetic breathing and the erratic hammering of her chest had refused to subside even after her struggles did.

She was bawling.

And though the arm latched onto hers didn't move, the deep, amused rumble echoing through Blake's own thoughts was impossible to mistake for anything other than the beast's laugh as that terrible voice followed suit, minus the difficulty in speech that came through commandeered use of a human jaw.

S̵h̷e̵ ̶f̷e̷e̴l̷s̵ ̷it̵ t̸o̵o. N̷o̶w̷ ̴d̵o̷ ̷y̶o̸u̵ ̴s̶e̴e̸?̶

For a few brief, horrible moments, Blake did see. She saw flashes of her own life, some of her worst moments; huddled close to her father's bleeding body, feeling the lash of a whip on her back for the first time, the day Eve abandoned her and the day she watched a very perplexed and annoyed-looking Weiss Schnee stick a rapier through her chest.

That just wasn't all she saw.

It was late one night in camp, way later than they usually let you stay up. The sky outside was full of thunder and rain, and you could feel the drips from your pigtails trickle the whole way down your back as you huddled into the chieftain's tent with everyone else. It made you shiver. You didn't care, though; you just wanted to see, wanted to hold her, but you couldn't. The bandits kept pushing you to the back of the crowd when you tried.

"Yang? Where's Yang?"

It takes a quiet, tired voice for them to finally part, a few sarcastic groans and sneers given as the throng parts to finally grant you access to the scene at the front of the tent. A much younger, fresher and more clean-shaven Qrow gives his men a knowing look while you trot up to the bedside he's seated at, suddenly no longer cold as the sight of the figure lying there floods you with feelings of warmth, her eyes barely concealed under the rim of a white hood.

Qrow shoots her a glance, giving a candid grunt as he unscrewed the cap of his flask. "You coddle this kid, y'know. The other guys don't like it. Doubt Ray dropped her off here so she could grow up soft."

The woman in bed rolls her eyes, appearing to take no notice of him as she coos at the bundle of sheets in her arms. "Nonsense. I bet Yang's plenty strong. Yang, why don't you hold your sister and show us all what a big strong girl you are?"

Your squeal of a gasp masks the derisive rumble that choice of words sends rippling through the tent, Qrow shooting the bandits a warning glare before leaning over to mutter something in the woman's ear as you clamber up on the bed. "Sister? C'mon, you're killin' me here."

She ignores him, and so do you. He smells bad anyway. You're too transfixed on the bundle, which the woman helps settle in your arms carefully, drawing a small start from you as you immediately feel the weight gently squirm against your chest. You don't know why, but that, right there, is the happiest moment of your life, you're pretty sure. She strokes your hair and settles your head against her shoulder, and you gasp a tiny, breathless "hi!" as the pudgy little face in the bundle weakly blinks its eyes open to look at you, eyes that look so much like hers you can't believe it. The woman smiles.

"Can you remember the name we talked about?"

Of course you do. You look up, crooked smile so wide it almost hurts your cheeks as you give a triumphant shout through teeth that haven't entirely grown in yet.

"Wuby!"

That lady was always so nice to you.

You wish you could remember her name.

Sprinkled among the memories she could recall so vivdly were... ones she couldn't. She couldn't recall them at all, actually, yet the sensations and pictures that flashed through her mind in the next few seconds were as though she had lived them herself.

S̸h̴e̷ ̸i̷s̵ ̵m̵i̸n̷e̷. S̶h̵e̴ ̷i̶s̷ ̴l̵o̵s̴t̸ ̸t̷o̸ ̶y̶o̸u̸.̵ T̶h̸e̶ ̶p̶a̸i̵n̴ I ̶e̷x̸h̷u̵m̷e̴ ̸f̵l̷o̷w̴s̸ ̵t̵h̴r̷o̷u̵g̴h̶ ̷h̶e̸r̴; s̴h̷e̴ ̵d̵r̷i̶n̷k̶s̶ ̶i̵t̶ ̶a̵s̵ ̸r̶e̷a̵d̶i̵l̴y̷ ̵a̵s̵ ̸s̸h̶e̵ ̶d̸o̴e̷s̸ ̷w̸a̷t̷e̶r̷, s̵u̸p̵p̷l̸e̷m̸e̸n̷t̴s̵ ̴i̶t̴ ̶w̸i̷t̷h̴ ̷h̵e̵r̶ ̵o̶w̸n̵.̶ T̶o̷ ̶d̶r̴a̸w̷ ̶b̷r̷e̴a̸t̸h̴ ̶f̴o̶r̶ ̷t̷h̶i̶s̴ ̵c̸r̸e̸a̷t̷u̵r̷e i̶s̵ ̵t̷o̴ ̴s̴u̴f̷f̷e̶r̴. S̷h̷e̸ ̸k̸n̷o̷w̸s̷ ̴n̷o̵t̷h̶i̵n̴g̵ ̴e̸l̴s̸e̵.̶

"NOOOOOOOO-OO-OOOOOOO!"

You're wailing, sobbing, pleading, making enough noise to wake the dead. They don't care. They don't like you. None of Qrow's grownup friends ever liked you. Sometimes they called you mean stuff like baby bird or huntressblood or even traitor, and that lady who let you call her mom told them to stop, and they did but then it made them like you even less. She'd been gone for a while, now. Nobody would tell you where. You hope she comes back soon; you're starting to think Qrow doesn't like you either.

One of the men who grabbed you unlocks the door to the cage he's standing at and the other throws you inside, guffawing as they slam it in your face when you try to run out. You grab at them through the bars but your arms won't reach, and you're up too late and you're not supposed to be this deep in the woods by yourself and Ruby was sleeping all alone back at camp and you don't understand why they won't just answer you. You rattle the bars, waiting for them to turn around, waiting for one of them to come back and admit it was all a joke.

"STOPPPPPP! I'm sorry, I'm s-s-sorry for whatever I did! Just, please just let me out!"

They do stop for a moment, lean in close and discuss something in a hush. You think you hear stuff like "Drain on resources" and "Not like he'll care if the little runt turns up missin' on a hangover day, anyways."

Then one turns to you, and his toothy grin matches the wink he gives you, neither even an attempt at making you feel better.

"I wouldn't cry so hard, grimm bait. That only makes 'em come faster." He cackles, and then he and his buddy are walking away again, one final shout tossed contemptuously over his shoulder as their voices grow fainter. "Make it through tonight and you'll be stronger in the morning!"

And then they're gone, and it's just you, in the dark, alone. After a while you get used to the feeling; you stop questioning why they put you in one of the extra tough cages meant to trap Grimm. But you don't stop crying.

"R̴r̶r̶r̵r̵r̴r̷r̶r̶r̷r̶.̶"

You should've.

They were like vignettes, if vignettes were impossibly real, experienced in first person and processed with the sort of lightning rapidity only brain chemicals could function at. Snatches of a life not her own, the memories subconsciously linked to the darkest, most severe veins of negativity in the Dragon's heart that had been drilled to the surface every bit as mercilessly as Blake's were.

D̷o̵ ̷y̵o̶u̸ ̶s̴e̵e̵ ̸n̶o̸w̶,̶ ̶b̷l̸a̴c̷k̶e̷n̸e̶d̸ ̷Han̴d̵?̵ ̴ D̵o̶ ̸y̸o̷u̸ ̷s̷e̷e̷ ̵h̸o̴w̷ ̷a̴l̷l̸ ̸r̵o̴a̸d̴s̵ ̴l̸e̶a̶d̵ ̶h̷e̸r̴ ̶b̵a̸c̶k̸ ̵t̵o̸ ̵m̵e̸?̷

"Yaaaaang."

You used to think it was cute when she called for you like that. Now—and you hate yourself for it—you can't help but feel a little annoyed.

Ruby's been getting meaner to you lately. You dunno why, really. You remember a time after mom left when it was you and her versus everyone else in this stupid place, and you at least felt a little pride in the bumps and bruises you ended up with because you earned 'em chasing off the assholes who tried picking on her with a stick. Or got your butt kicked trying to chase off the assholes who tried picking on her with a stick. Now...

You don't get it. Not at the time, anyway. She's picked up on the fact that every time she messes with you or roughs you up or breaks your stuff the other kids look up to her a little more, you guess. You aren't old enough to notice the little glances she gives towards the chief's tent when she does it, how she occasionally finds the crimson eyes shrouded therein looking back, ever-distant but approving as their owner nurses his drink. The weak die, the strong live. That was the only rule he still cared about.

Whatever. Ruby just has to figure herself out, that's all. She knows you're never gonna hit her back. You just have to keep being there for her no matter what.

That's what you keep telling yourself.

You have your own problems, anyway; you never had the best sense of what age you are, exactly (people don't tell you stuff), but it's been a year or two since you started getting kinda... fuller. More fleshed out. The other boys your age, even some of the older dudes, they're getting douchier and grabbier and it's getting harder to make them back off, even with Qrow's ground rules and Vernal helping her out sometimes. Qrow barely does anything but sleep it off in his tent anymore, and she's not always around.

You're just getting really sick and tired of this. Of being everyone's punching bag, of no one telling you anything, all of it. You aren't gonna take this forever. Right now, though, you kinda just wanna lie here.

"Yaaaaaaaaaang."

The second, more insistent mewling accompanied by the flap of your tentstring finally has you push yourself up from your sleeping bag, though, golden curls cascading all the way to your lower back—you haven't gotten a haircut basically ever—as you rub your eyes blearily. "Ruby, I'm really tirewhoa!"

You grunt as you feel yourself flipped onto your back, a whoosh of air and scatter of rose petals scattering all over the place in time with her sudden weight settling on your stomach. She's been going nuts with her semblance ever since she unlocked it, but that isn't what grabs your attention; you tsk. She looks like she's been rolling around in the dirt. So, you know, she's probably been rolling around in the dirt.

"Welp. You're gross. We should swing by the lake tomorrow."

"I'd like that, Yang."

She doesn't say much else. Just kinda... hovers over you. You remember squinting, feeling a little uneasy about the way her eyes were taking you in without blinking. You cough and move to sit up, but she pushes you back down. You shoot her a glare you remember being a bit more on edge than normal, attempting to rise again. "I'm really not in the mood to play one of your games tonight, Rmmmm."

You grunt, a bit taken aback as she pushes you back to the mat with her hand over your mouth. You squirm and mumble, suddenly agitated, but she leans forward and speaks in a sudden, soothing voice.

"Shushhhh. I just wanna try something, okay? That's okay, Yang, isn't it?" She curls her lower lip. "You do love me as much as I love you, don't you?"

You freeze at that question, your own eyes wide as they probe the silver ones barely a centimeter away. Of course you did, you wanted to shout! Literally the only two people who had ever been nice to you had those eyes. You'd do anything for those eyes. Anything. They had to know that.

Anything to stop them from leaving you again.

You wanted to say all that. You did. You wanted to explain that this still didn't feel right, it wasn't what you wanted, it wasn't what she should've wanted. But in that moment, breathless, fearful, and slightly petrified, you eventually just gave a timid nod. What was one time, you reasoned? She'd prolly just grope around aimlessly for a while, decide she didn't like it and fall asleep. That was nothing compared to leaving you. It was nothing compared to leaving you alone.

Plus, you could tell by her eyes that your answer didn't really matter anyway.

F̵e̶e̷l̷ ̶i̶t̴.̸ ̵ F̷e̵e̷l̵ ̶h̷e̷r̵ ̷m̷i̵s̸e̴r̴y̷ ̸f̸l̶o̴w̵ ̸t̴o̷ ̴y̷o̶u̶ ̵a̷s̶ ̸y̶o̷u̸r̷s̶ ̶d̴o̶e̶s̶ ̴h̸e̷r̵.̶ K̸n̷o̴w y̶o̷u̶r̶ ̸s̵t̴r̵u̴g̸g̶l̵e̸s̷ ̶h̸a̵v̵e̴ ̸b̵e̸e̵n̸ ̸p̷o̴i̸n̷t̸l̷e̸s̸s̷, fo̸r̵ ̵i̸t̵.̴.̵. ̵g̵n̴n̶n̵n̴n̶h̷.̴.̶.̴

Its shudder rang out through Blake's mind in the same moment the actual arm feeding on her did, and a short (if safe) distance away Ren's eyes widened with the third uncharacteristic expression of shock in as many minutes. The two's emotions had been like a hurricane blowing through a recently-raked botanic garden at this point, leaves of too many different colors to even bother counting billowing between them so thickly they were nearly impossible to make out underneath as the Grimm did whatever it did. That wasn't what surprised him.

It was that the longer this went on, the more of Dragon's leaves were turning—of all things—pink. The arm appeared to be having a reaction to them, too, shuddering and contorting in protest of the bizarre positive feelings Blake seemed to be capable of evoking in the brute; though it appeared to have one final trick to play, the fact that it was receding was undeniable, the sheer volume of the mass grappling with Blake's arm beginning to shrink in turn.

You grunt, feeling a blinding flash of pain whip across your cheek as you slump down against the tree he just threw you into, one knee drawn to your chest as your untamed mass of hair rides down over your brow. You don't move or make a sound otherwise. This is boring you and he knows it.

Rusty likes to hurt people; you've known him since you were both little, and it's really not much of a surprise. He was the kinda kid who used to pull spiders' legs off for kicks, soon to be the kinda adult who liked to pull off other adults' legs for kicks. Real shocker how many kids from the tribe turned out that way. He paces back and forth in front of you, watching you touch some fingertips to the line of blood trickling down from where he clocked you with a dull expression.

"Whaddaya say, slut, huh? WHAT DO YOU SAY?!"

There's a frenetic, almost dangerous energy to his pacing. You both know what he wants. You take a deep breath, tying your hair back in a knot and letting your head loll back with a supremely halfassed come-hither lip bite as you flutter your eyelashes dolefully a few times.

"Harder, daddy. Oooh, you're so bad."

There's so little enthusiasm to the retort, such a dry, uncaring energy that it incenses him, his eyes widening. You almost snort. Good. He never asked if he could start doing this or anything; just heard the rumors like everyone else had. Don't even bother with Dragon 'less you're willing to beat her around some, man. She always liked that shit. Most the time she just lies there, but show her the hand a couple times and watch her spread her wings.

You used to wonder which one of them it was who started spreading that shit around, but eventually you just stopped caring. Came with the territory when over half the camp had tried you out and put you down like a hat that didn't fit right at this point.

"Bitch."

SMAK

He swings the belt buckle he's been twirling around like some kinda dainty little lasso at you, nailing you just above the eyebrow and opening another cut to join the first. The first tonight, not in general; if he had his way there'd be many more to follow, and in exchange you got a pair of warm arms around you at the end of the night. Maybe something you can take to make everything about being alive that little less unbearable. Usually that was enough. Tonight, though...

Rusty had come back from a successful raid, feeling dominant and in the mood. You couldn't have cared less, and it couldn't have been any more obvious to both of you. You snuck into the storage tent while everyone was gone—the old one. Found that chest with all those pictures.

Those gauntlets.

It hadn't exactly been the best few years for you, you could admit. Not that they hadn't all been pretty shitty, but the last few especially... ever since Ruby took off to chase her next passing fixation—fuck you very much, sis—you felt like you'd been drowning. Disappearing. Maybe it started long before that, you didn't know. But given you were pretty sure you hadn't had your good years yet, it was all starting to feel pretty fucking unfair from where you were standing. Slash sitting. Slash getting beaten on by whoever-the-fuck's turn it was today.

Or maybe, you know, you were just weak.

That word. You remember wondering why it was triggering such a strong wave of revulsion and anger in you, only now, after all these years; almost as potent as the revulsion you feel when you look at your own body, or imagine someone touching it without hurting it somehow. You wonder if it had anything to do with that one solitary glimpse of a life that never was, of someone who was supposed to have been significant to you. A vague image of what you were supposed to be.

You decide you don't give a shit about the same moment you decide how unbelievably, abso-fucking-lutely over weakness you are. You HATE it, matter of fact. When you were weak, you got stepped on. People used you up, threw you to one side and abandoned you once they saw you weren't getting the memo. That was how it worked.

CRAK

That was how it had always worked.

THWAK

What made you the perennial bitch? Why were you the one who had to just sit here and take it and die? What was fair about that?

THUD

You weren't weak. You were strong. Years of putting up with this bullshit had made you strong, stronger than them, so strong you can't even feel what this fucking idiot is doing to you right now—

"Uh. Whoa." He stops before he can come down on you again, eyes a bit dumbfounded as they take you in. It's hard to tell, but in the lowlight you're almost sure you can see a faint glow radiating from you, and whatever it is has your body trembling with a sudden wave of heat and power.

He doesn't seem to notice. His gaze is transfixed on yours, mouth an almost wary frown as he tried to process what was happening. "That's... hot. I guess. You get blood in your eyes or something?"

You laugh.

It practically floors him. You aren't even sure why, but you feel an overwhelming urge to just... throw your head back and cackle like a hyena in that moment, only it's not a normal laugh. It's so angry, such a broad spectrum of emotions that had been slowly festering for years that it's more a noise of pure, untapped hysteria than anything, impossible to tell from sound alone whether you're laughing or crying.

The vicious grin on your face makes it pretty clear, though. You turn it up at him, an edge of menace to the faux sultry tone this time.

"You have the tiniest dick in this whole camp."

You give another harsh laugh and wink, enjoying the way he reels back, flummoxed. You're already halfway up to standing, uncoiling and sliding up the tree in movements that somehow manage to be as predatory as they are completely relaxed. He's already swinging at you, yelling something as his open palm catches you across the face.

SMAK

You swing back, hard as you can. You even keep your palm open, too, just to give him a fair chance. Just to gauge if he's strong enough to deserve to survive this.

CRAK

He isn't.

You know right away from the sickening snap and ugly angle his head turned to from his body that he's done, a stunned gurgle bubbling up from his lips as he falls like a tree. You're already on top of him by the time he lands, hands gripping his throat, cheeks locked in that same grin of savagery as you squeeze again, and again, and again, hearing a different snap every time. It's a matter of seconds before big, mean Rusty is a big, mean, motionless corpse underneath you, and you shift back with a faint gasp to admire your handiwork, gauging how it feels to be strong.

"..."



You guess... better???

Though it was fainter, slightly pained, the creature's rattling laugh again hissed out in Blake's mind, words concentrated venom with a twist of fond amusement to soften them.

G̵o̴,̵ ̸t̴h̷e̸n̴.̵ T̵a̷k̴e̶ ̷h̸e̴r, fo̷r̶ ̴n̵o̴w̸.̶ K̷n̶o̶w̵ ̵h̵e̶r̷. K̴n̷o̴w̵ ̴e̶a̵c̶h̸ ̵o̴t̵h̸e̷r. E̵n̸r̷i̶c̴h̵ ̸o̴n̶e̴ ̸a̸n̵o̴t̸h̶e̴r̵ ̶w̶i̶t̸h̴ ̶y̵o̴u̷r̶ ̵w̵o̵e̵,̴ ̵t̶h̷e̵n̷ ̵k̷n̴o̵w̸ ̸i̷n̵ ̸t̸h̴e̴ ̵e̷n̵d̴ ̸t̶h̷a̸t̶ ̶i̵t̵ ̴h̷a̸s̸ ̴a̷l̸l̵ ̵b̶e̶e̴n̶ ̸f̶o̷r̴ ̵n̷a̸u̵g̸h̵t̸.̴ F̴o̵r̴ ̴I̷ ̷w̶i̸l̵l̷ ̴t̷a̷k̸e̶ ̸h̷e̸r̸ ̷r̸e̵g̸a̶r̶d̶l̷e̶s̶s̴.̶ I̴ ̵w̷i̸l̷l̵ ̶u̸s̵e̷ ̸h̴e̷r̶ ̶u̷n̷t̴i̶l̸ ̵s̸h̵e̵ ̷i̷s̷ ̷s̵p̷e̵n̸t̶,̷ a̶s̷ ̵i̸s̷ ̷h̴e̴r̵ ̵p̴u̷r̶p̶o̵s̶e̸,̴ a̴n̴d̷ ̷a̷t̵ ̶t̷h̵e̷ ̴m̷o̷m̵e̸n̶t̶ ̷o̴f̴ ̶h̷e̴r̶ ̷f̷i̵n̶a̶l̴ ̵b̶r̸e̸a̵t̸h̶ ̵I̴ ̷w̶i̵l̸l̵ ̵e̶m̶e̴r̵g̶e̴.̸ T̴h̷e̶n̸,̵ H̶a̸n̵d̸ ̴o̵f̷ ̵d̶e̵c̵a̴y̶,̶ I w̶i̷l̸l̸ ̴t̷a̴k̴e̴ ̴y̴o̸u̸ ̸a̸s̴ ̶w̸e̸l̴l̷.̴ ̵W̴h̸y̶?

This one is briefer than the others, its edges hazy and unfocused like there's something wrong with it. You're all alone now, the tribe well and truly in your rearview after you may or may not have snapped and gone on a killing spree of your least favorites before stealing dad's old weapons and promptly bailing, who's to say. Something resembling the skeleton of a rough log cabin is stretched out before you, and you're trying real hard to ignore the creepy old dude with an obvious death wish who kinda just came wandering up to your new digs before you could even finish building your new digs, which was just all kinds of fucking rude in your opinion given you put up, like, a million signs. Even triple checked to make sure you spelled 'DANJER' right and everything. You're already shoving past him too quickly to get a good look when the memory coalesces, dropping a few more logs onto the timber pile with a dismissive grunt.

"Fuck off before I hurt you, pops, seriously. Just wanna be alone here." You scratch your head, trying (not for the first time that day) to devise a means of measuring shit without having any real clue how to measure shit, when his voice finally hits you.

"Forgive me, miss. But I hardly think that to be the case for such an... impressive specimen. Lend me your ear for a while. Perhaps together we can determine what it is you truly want."

You turn. Slowly, but your legs feel powerless to resist. You're kinda confused, but something about that voice... It drowns out all that other shit in your head, gives you something to focus on, and that's never a bad thing. Still, you're a little unsteady as you mop your brow, and how you can tell for sure this memory is fucked is that everything's starting to sound faraway and scratchy, your vision starting to blur out before you can even get a good fix on his face as your lips start to move of their own accord.

"You, uh, look... am I supposed to call you something?"

He chuckles. "That's up to you, I suppose. Though some have referred to me as the tr̵u̶e̸ ̷m̷a̶s̵t̷e̶r̶ ̴o̵f̵ ̴t̴h̷i̶s̴ ̴w̸o̸r̶l̴d̵—"

B̶e̴c̷a̴u̷s̷e̴ ̸h̶e̷ ̶i̴s̴ ̸n̴o̶ ̸l̶o̴n̸g̸e̷r̵ ̶h̸e̸e̷e̷e̵e̷e̵r̴e̵...

The voice faded from Blake's mind just as the arm detached from where it had cinched onto, once again no larger or more elaborate in form than Yang's human arm had been. The faunus's mind, soul, and body all felt the same merciful release the Dragon's apparently did, all the sudden crying, twisting and raving the former bandit had been doing in Blake's grasp culminating in a single, sharp jolt like she was trying to get away, only to sort of just decide midway through she lacked the strength to and slump back on the smaller woman's frame lazily.

"Oh god... thank you... wh-what the absolute shit... leave... alone... just leave her..." She mumbled deliriously, the occasional aftershock from whatever the actual FUCK had just happened quaking her form as she reached her now-docile arm up to give Belladonna's a single, shaky squeeze; less an expression of infatuation or any newfound familiarity than it was a simple expression of solidarity and gratitude, the universal biological language shared by any two living things who had just survived WHATEVER THE FUCK THAT HAD BEEN.

"...m... my bad... seriously."​

 

[MidwayLives]

Her sister and the faunus whom she'd quickly grown to despise these past few moments? They'd just finished fighting for their lives just minutes away. It would have been no problem to have caught up to them using her semblance. But she couldn't even see. Everything was just a pitch black void. Her body lay still from where it'd been left, the only bright spot being the sheen of her blood continuing to trail down her forehead and diverge at the bridge of her nose. Her body gave twitches here and there as stray voltage from Nora's attack ran it's course through her unconscious body. Her only arm lay uselessly at her side, her sleeve soaked through with blood oozing and running from the holes Blake's spikes had left in her unprotected flesh. Her index finger twitched every now and again. Her scarred chest rose every now and again. A sign that despite it all that Ruby Rose had made it. She wouldn't die here.

The very idea of it angered her. It made her blood boil to the point she'd have started wondering if she'd blow steam out her ears.

As her cape lay over her back, her broken body laid out across the floor, she was deep in slumber. Subconscious thoughts of all kinds running around in her mindscape. Through all of the mess, one stood out to her. The reason that she'd decided to even come back here.

It'd been to help just like she'd said. Even after pushing her luck and nearly getting dropped from up high, she hadn't wavered in that. ....Only it'd ended up being something of a double-edged sword. It'd seem that no matter what she said or did, the others just wouldn't accept her. Not even the other world's Yang who'd been so kind to her. She even agreed that it'd be best for Masque to just...sit and do nothing. If she hadn't gotten up when she did it's likely the pent up frustration from being asked to just...stay would have driven Masque to lash out and attack Vernal(the only other person who'd stayed behind). The nails on her hand reached the underside of the chair and scratched. The scraping of her fingernails against the wood filled the room. Screeeeeech. Screeeeeeeeeeech. Her muscles tensed up and she eyed where Crescent lay from where it'd been ripped away from her. The temptation was quickly becoming overwhelming-

​

"FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU! AIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

She'd heard her sister scream.

It wasn't at all an unfamiliar feeling.

Masque had heard it plenty of times.

Both when others were the cause and...when she was.

Spoiler: Memories

Ruby had grown up basically stuck to her sister's hip. She'd known enough to know that even though they weren't as close as traditional siblings generally were, it didn't make a difference to the young Rose. No matter what obstacles came in their way nobody would ever bother them. Ruby's dad ran the place after all! If any bullies picked on her and Yang got a beating for her troubles, Ruby always did what she could to comfort her/reassure her that she did great. For a while anyhow. As Ruby got older and developed into her adolescence, she began seeing Yang in a different light. Whether it was the general debauchery that likely happened between the other members of the tribe that the sisters were likely exposed to having an adverse effect on Ruby or just something inherently wrong with her, nobody but Yang could probably pin it down for sure. On this particular day, it was none other than Ruby's birthday! Most children usually celebrated with cake and presents and the like. When you lived like her family did? You'd just take it as a symbol of pride that you weren't a weakling. With some-no-lots of drinking and sex involved depending on the individual. For her part Ruby generally got what she wanted for the most part. The first stab at whatever had been caught for dinner that night, taking a central role in leading raids, etc. There was always something that escaped her. The very thing that she wanted the most.

Her sister's full undivided love.

In everyway that mattered.

Tracking down the tent that Yang and her slept in-Ruby never told Yang but if anyone else tried sleeping in it, they'd show up with what looked like human teeth marks and scratches all over them. Play that'd gotten out of hand or a sister that simply refused to share?

"Yang?"

​

You wanted to say all that. You did. You wanted to explain that this still didn't feel right, it wasn't what you wanted, it wasn't what she should've wanted. But in that moment, breathless, fearful, and slightly petrified, you eventually just gave a timid nod. What was one time, you reasoned? She'd prolly just grope around aimlessly for a while, decide she didn't like it and fall asleep. That was nothing compared to leaving you. It was nothing compared to leaving you alone.

Plus, you could tell by her eyes that your answer didn't really matter anyway.

That was just it.

The confirmation that Ruby had been seeking ever since she got old enough to hold conversations with Yang. That no matter what got in either of their ways, they'd always be there for eachother, they'd always protect the other when the chips were down. They'd always...

"...I love you, Yang."

The hand was pulled back and a kiss was had. One that Ruby tried to inject into with as much love as she could muster. While Yang certainly got more than a handful of experience under her belt later on life, Ruby was woefully unequipped for what it came to do what she desired. Sure, she'd spied on others-older kids and some of the grownups doing this kind of stuff, but this just didn't feel the same and for one key reason. As Ruby opened one of her eyes and met Yang's, she blinked.

Yang didn't look happy.

The word 'why?' jumped around Ruby's head a couple of times. What was it that she lacked from the other boys and girls in camp? She'd known Yang the longest! Yang had literally carried her around when she was still too young to fully find her footing! So why was it so much to ask that she and Yang simply give 100% of themselves to eachother? That's what people did when they truly loved someone right? That's what LOVE was supposed to be! The kiss was broken and Ruby...just crawled off Yang and rolled over onto her side. The birthday had been fun and all but...that'd hurt.

"...Night, Yang. I...I love you." She repeated.

Then there was silence between them.


"....I love you too, Ruby."

That wasn't the last time Yang said that.

...But it was the last time that Ruby felt she didn't have to drag it out.

​

Her wide, deferential eyes were all the confirmation the faunus needed that she was doing exactly that. The rule of might philosophy she lived by had been discarded, the law-of-the-jungle outlook preached by the tribe tossed to one side; In that moment, utterly deprived of strength and staring down the barrel of a gun, Yang was less dragon and more a helpless, wounded animal, the mother who stood alone between its young and the predator who'd come to claim them.

Most of the strength she had left appeared to have been spent on that single, desperate cry, and when her voice came again it was little more than a plaintive wheeze.

"She's... she's just a fucking spaz, okay? She just doesn't know any better. Schnee got in her head, that's all. I'm handling it. Please, just, p-please just let me handle it."

Although her mind was wandering and her body was still, anger alone could have compelled Masque's prone body if such a thing was possible.

It'd been a split decision but after coming through that portal and seeing the state her sister was in? Masque had come to a conclusion.

She was helping despite what'd been said. Her attempts to kiss her sister distracted her, allowing the others to act.

It also let Yang know that...that she'd been right. It seemed that Masque just couldn't hack it. She'd failed Weiss and the way things were going, she'd sooner see the inside of another jail cell before she could truly take another step towards trying to help out and right things. Not helping matters at all was the feeling surging through her infected stump. Almost as though it were drawing her to do what she'd done. To stand side by side with the one being that Masque loved more than anything else in this world. When she finished coming through that portal she knew it wasn't going to be pretty. Taking Nora's hammer to the face and getting her aura crunched in one hot go was proof enough of that.

But to recover and then have to stare down the barrel of her potential death? Masque just really couldn't put it together in her head. The idea that Blake and her would ever have to try killing the other? It'd seemed so farfetched. They hadn't even fought during the skirmish in Weiss's office. Masque could only watch and quietly acknowledge that she was seconds away from being blown away. Keeping her eyes glued on Blake even as Yang intervened, Masque surveyed the damage. The bone protruding from what remained of the arm, the surging of the Grimm extremity, the pallid clamor . Masque had never felt so concerned for her sister than she did now. She'd practically begged Cinder that she at least would simply settle for just apprehending her sister. Killing didn't have to enter in it, did it? Not when it meant she'd never see her sister again.

Masque had passed out after the kick had struck her. But as the light faded from her eyes, she saw a glimpse of something she'd never forget.

Blake Belladonna walking off with HER sister. The one who was only supposed to care about and protect HER! Not Blake or anyone else!!! If things had somehow been different, if Masque hadn't been so damaged from that hit, then she could have-

...Then she passed out again. Her face contorted in displeasure/anger even as she tossed and turned.

"Yang....Will be ours. It'll be you two against the world...just like it used to be." Played over and over in Ruby's head, spoken by the 'other' Ruby she kept seeing. From when she'd been recovering in the hospital to only getting worse after her stump had been infected.

'It'll be...just...us.' Masque mumbled in her sleep through bloodied teeth.
​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

She could feel it. Not just The Beast, but the connection, the insight into what had beaten and bloodied the Dragon into the form she was today. It was horrible, it was a heart breaking, and to Blake's horror that kept slipping away, it didn't just go one way

It wasn’t the memory of the gunshot that was burned into your brain, though you still remembered it, your dad’s blood flowing through your fingers, just a hair warmer and thicker than the tears spilling on the back of your palms before they intermixed as they spilled across his shoulder. Nor was it the memory of the kill itself, the act a haze of shadows and blood, blurred with adrenaline and anger.

It was the walk back. How you felt the high slowly wearing off, and the weight of what you’d done slowly sink into your bones. The way his eyes had slowly lost their color. The other bedrooms in the house you’d crept through, and what they’d awaken to find. The finality of it all was finally hitting you, and you could feel the bile churning in your gut long before you had to stumble to the side of the road to let it out. Your breath came quick and heavy, and the regret pierced your heart as you stumbled back to your feet, an immediate, painful desire to take it all back, to walk back the way you’d come and put the life back that you’d stolen, and knowing that you couldn’t. They’d never forgive what you’d become, and deep down, at the core of your soul, you know this was against everything that you were. You look down at your hands, still bloody, and try in vain to smear it off against your clothes, but it’s long dried too much. You fall to your knees and slowly shake your head, your shoulders shivering as the tears start to fall.

You just want to go back. You just want your dad to be okay, for none of this to happen.

But you know it can’t go back, and despite how weak you feel, you know you’re made of sterner stuff, if you’re really your parents daughter. You’ll go back and you’ll tell them what you’ve done. It won’t make it right. But it’ll be the first step.

Then you feel a hand grip your shoulder, and you look up to see a pair of amber eyes staring back down at you, their gaze full of pride and something far, far worse.

You stood at the edge of the castle’s dock, a shocked, hollow feeling winding its way up your stomach, coiling its way around your spine as you stared at her back, striding away. She’d been your anchor. Your cornerstone. The work Sienna had you doing these days was far bloodier and violent than it had ever been while your parents led the fang alongside her. It gnawed at you, the memories of fire and screams and bloodshed.

But you could go on, because she was there too. Right alongside you, fighting through the same hell for the same cause.

Except now she was walking away. The only person who’d ever seen every part of you, even the parts that Sienna or your parents had never seen, never even guessed at. She’d wanted you to leave with her, yet whatever she saw in you wasn’t enough for her to stay. You’d shouted at each other, argued, screamed until you were both hoarse, though never gave anything more than the gentlest touch, because you knew, at least for you, that this didn’t change how you felt about her. You knew you were strong enough for the work, because you had to be, because there couldn’t be any more like her, not like Ilia.

“....Eve.” Your voice cracks even on the one syllable, far quieter than you wanted it to be, yet she still turns.

Whatever those eyes held in answer you can’t see behind the mask, and the only reply you get is silence as she walks away.

You try to bear it. You try so hard. You’re the only one who can do this. Whatever it took to end all of this as fast as possible, to reach the future you craved, you’d suffer anything. You couldn’t be the weak one anymore, the beautiful damsel warrior. You had to be strong.

Yet as the next lash in the number you’d lost count on finds a piece of skin that hadn't been caught yet, you break. It’s practically an involuntary cry, almost a purely physical reaction, but that doesn’t stop the foot from slamming into the back of your skull, crushing your face into the floor after you cry out.

“You think that’s good enough? This is your limit?!”

“...n-no. I just need… I-I just need a break-”

The dazed feeling that you have as the kick to your ear to send your spinning across the floor with a gasp is almost a relief from the pain as Your Leader growls in disgust

“We don’t get breaks, Blake. We can’t have limits. Limits are what doomed every revolution, every uprising, before this one. If this is yours, then we might as well stop now.”

“N-no!” you sputter, pushing yourself up to your hands and knees as you try and catch your breath. You can’t stop. You have to do this. It's the only thing you can do. “P-please, we have to, I-I have to…”

The hand that cups your cheek is far gentler a touch this time, as Your Leader tilts your eyes towards her, and her words are so calm, so caring

“....Are you sure? Do you really think you have what it takes? To be the sword of the faunus that will finally free us? To give all of yourself fully to the cause?”

You put forth your bravest face. You hope it looks much more sure than you feel.

“...Y-yes.”

You have to be the one. It can’t be anyone else.

You bite your tongue to make sure you don't make another sound until this is done

Its only hours after the last memory, and you can’t move. Breathing hurts. Existing hurts. The aura cuffs have come off, but theres far too much work to be done for this healing to be done in anything less than days. You desperately want to fall unconscious, but the arms that otherwise gently carry you towards your room shake you firmly every time come close.

“Not yet, Blake. Pain is only one tool. The humans will hurt you far worse.”

The tone is so soothing, but even in your addled, miserable state, an apprehensive confusion bubbles up inside you.

“You must shed all of it. Pain. Shame. A soft heart. You can’t be you anymore, Belladonna. You can’t belong to yourself. You stand for all of us now, and that means all of you must be discarded.”

“I...I’ll do it… I’m strong enough.” you say as firmly as you can, your words slurred.

“No.” Sienna answers bluntly, and the word hit you as hard as any fist or crack of the whip. “You aren’t, Blake. At least not yet. But you will be. I will make you that way.”

You almost don’t register that the door to your room opens without Sienna touching it, but your ears pick up the sound of other breaths in the room the moment you cross the threshold.

“Whatever it takes.”

The way she dumps you on the floor at the foot of the bed is far less warm than the words, and the moment she turns around, hands are on you. It takes a few seconds for you to realize whats happening, but once you do all talk of strength and doing whatever it takes flies from your thoughts in favor of pure, animal fear. A hand claps over your mouth as you try to scream, and the last you see of Sienna is her calm, steel gaze that meets your silent pleading before the door swings shut.

You understand it now.

This should be a joyous occasion. You’d done the work to become a talon, and now you were ascending all the way to Sienna’s right hand. The cheers in the rafters, the pride on Your Leader’s face as she places one hand on your shoulder and the , The look in Her eyes, just off to the side, the way it looks like she sees both her heart and her vengeance all rolled into one as you slip the new mask onto your face.

You don’t feel any of it. The others aren’t strong enough. They need those cheers, the joy, the exultation of victory, the hope. It keeps them in the fight, but it makes them weak. They won’t be able to do everything that needs to be done. You’ve never felt any joy in the blood and bone; in a lot of ways, you’re still the same teenager who threw up on the side of the road when you thought back on it. But now even the warrior’s pride’s been bled out of you, the shame stripped away. Your leader did everything she did to make sure that nothing would ever get in your way again. No human would break you. No happiness would expose your flank. The closest you got, the time that there was ever a chink in the armor, was quiet moments in Her arms, but even she never really gets to see all the way underneath, and comfort wasn’t joy. That left on an airship dock, a year ago today

The only thing that meets Your Leader’s eyes as you tilt them back up to meet hers is the fury and the cold. The You that you are is buried. Until the day came when the you that had been forged around The You wasn’t needed, it might as well have been dead. You weren't her anymore. You're rage. You're fury. The toll that humanity would pay for its sins. The one who would finally balance the scales and set the world right.

Your leader’s eyes meet your own, and you know she sees it too, because her pride only grows.

Its not even a memory, not really. You could tell anyone exactly what happened; list the layout of the warehouse, count the exact meters between her cell and yours, the number of guards that would have met you in the hallway before she arrived. But its not memory, in the true sense. That was the armor, The Hand, doing its work, like a third party observing a natural disaster. You don’t remember anything after the rapier flashed into your vision while her arms were around you. Its all just a storm, a haze, a grief so true and pure and deep that this well could’ve fed the beast for a year on its own. The feel of the blood on your hands, the way it smelled as it dripped down past your nose, how sad and small a voice sounded, the smell of burnt flesh, the pity in his eyes and the way hers broke.

Real memory doesn’t return till you feel the touch against your cheek, and it all starts to drain away.

The moment the grimm hand tried to brush against Blake's, she shoved the Dragon away with a terrified sob as she stumbled backwards. "N-NO! Get away, stay away, just... d-don't..."

It was more emotion than either the Dragon or Ren had ever seen the hand show, and she was likewise far more unsteady than her normal sure footing as she missed a step and landed on her backside. She wasn't like dragon; she didn't want the numbness, didn't crave it, she loathed it. Her hate and fury were her protection. It was what let her do what she had to. That... thing had stripped her armor bare, left her soul feeling more alive than it had in years, and Blake was truly thinking about what she'd done in the name of justice for the first time in a long time

It was blood

The slash tore straight through the enemy like butter, and Skylar blinked in surprise at his own success before he looked up with a grin. "HAH. See Cardin? I can pull my own weight-" A gunshot joined the stacatto of violence that surrounded them from the melee, and a black blur shot out from above them to wrap around Skylar's neck. He barely had time to blink before he was suddenly yanked into the air fast enough that he dropped his weapon, pulled up at the same speed as the black and white shape descending from the lampost above. Blake deftly landed and spiked Gambol shroud into the ground, the ribbon attached to it looping through the lamp and leaving skylar suspended in the air, flailing as he tried to breathe.

Not her own; her own suffering didn't factor into it at all. She still understood that it was her purpose to suffer so that others didnt' have to. Thats why it burned so much, why it clawed at her chest, who's blood it was

She shifted her hand to hug Eve from the neck and let her forehead rest against Eve's chest. "...I'm so sorry."

Then Eve was cold. The soft embrace was suddenly rigid prison, and the Blake she was holding and that held her in place was no longer the real one, but an icy copy. Blake's sheathe and weapon were both in hand, ready to cut clean through Eve's neck and spine before she even had a chance to register that Blake had betrayed her-

It was others. So much of it

"...Lord Ozpin..."

There was a moment where Blake seemed to be in three places at once, every version of her hazy and indistinct as the sound of a blade sliding against its scabbard was almost instantaneously followed by the sound of metal slicing through skin and bone. Before Ilia could even register that she no longer had a hand, a foot slammed into the side of her skull hard enough to send her into the table in the middle of the room with a crash. To ensure that she didn't do anything untoward after her aura returned.

...And to make sure the faunus wasn't conscious for the pain.

Blake stood where Ilia had been moments earlier. She slowly intook the breath she'd released in her strike and tossed Crocea Mors to Jaune's feet with a jerk of disgust before she turned back to Ozpin, her amber eyes seeming to simmer with the anger the faunus always held deep, deep inside.

"...No one questions my resolve. Not even you."

Not even herself.

It hadn't been up to her eyeballs

In the split second before what happened next, they made eye contact. There was something deeply wrong with the look in those yellow eyes, in how familiar it was in such an unfamiliar scene. She'd seen that look before; in Watts grim professionalism, in Hazel's dust induced growls, Neo's easy grin. Cinder herself had felt that look in her own eyes... but never pointed at a person.

That was a look of a hunter staring down a beowolf. The absolute surety that the beast she was staring down didn't have a soul. The righteous, full hearted belief that the world would only improve with this kill. That it couldn't even be considered violent act to remove this creature from the earth, only a good and noble deed. There was none of the frustrated anger and zealous preaching she'd pointed at Eve or Ilia in there fights. Blake wasn't fighting Cinder; She was killing her.

Then the moment was over as one last semblance dash put her foot into Cinder's back, and the pair came crashing down at blazing speeds into a car parked below with an explosion of glass of metal

It was deeper than that

Feri leaped back from Paradise' strike, her movement's graceful and fluid, but her breathing was heavy as she gave an indignant growl and swiped her ringblade through the air just quick enough to deflect a pair of knives coming at her from behind. "Seriously, why do I get the clown show-"

The lights cut out with a sputtering crackle. It had barely any affect on any of those in the room-

*SPLURCH*

Feri froze at the sound of such a violent wound, and if Paradise didn't himself, he likely clocked the poor wolf faunus straight in the face with his next strike.

He probably did though. The sound had come from right where he'd gently laid Magenta.

The spot where Blake was now standing, the duck faunus hanging off the edge of her weapon, suspended in the air for a few moments before she tossed him to the side with a wet thump, his blood gushing from the new chest wound he'd gained in a sickly black against the greys of faunus nightvision.

She'd just been treading it, floating in it

There was far too much adrenaline in Winter's system for Bear's semblance to last a second past when he removed his hand from her.

In the intervening, however long it was, entirely unclear to Winter's groggy mind, four jagged pieces of metal ripped straight off the wall had been driven through her limbs, her aura flickering and sputtering as it tried to make sense of how to protect from a wound that happened before it had been allowed to work. A far less rabid pain came from her scalp, her hair balled into Blake's fist as she dragged Winter across the floor towards one of the cells.

"You're wrong. Eve Taurus deserved none of the pain you people subjected her to." Her voice was thick and heavy with rage and sadness, the cold she'd felt before torched away by the Schnee's callous words. "I won't speak for myself, but you, you don't deserve to die either. You will, now, but you don't deserve it. You're just another human. But your sister?" she said as they reached the cell and forcefully jerked winter to face the other way around, almost all of the way into the cell.

Almost.

Bear's eyes narrowed, what he assumed was about to happen and what seemed to be the truth not aligning, yet a glance to Tiger showed no similar qualms as Blake nodded to her to head for the cell controls.

"She deserves death. She deserves worse. And now you suffer for it."

"Hand... No, Blake. Daughter of-"

Blake held a hand up to Tiger as Bear spoke. "What."

His voice was solemn as he slowly shook his head. "We fight a war. I accept this. I understand now we were too quick to bend all those years ago. But war, violence, that is one thing. This, little one... This is something else. There are lines even warriors do not cross."

"...There were."

She looked down at Winter, and all she could see was a brand across a blue eyed face, burned on at far too young and age.

"Not anymore."

Bear hung his head and took a deep, weary breath, and slowly shook his head once more as Tiger turned the cell on.

Except now she'd forgotten how to swim.

No. She was just. It was all still true; All her lessons, all her pain, she was still sharp, still lethal, just fragile, but she was just, she was justice, blood could be spilled and a cause could still be righteous and good and kind and necessary and she was justice and it didn't matter, it didn't matter, what she felt didn't matter it never mattered all that mattered was the work and the blood and doing what had to be done so that she didn't have to so no one else had to and so that Blake could reach the light at the end-

Yes. She was justice. Her actions were just. They were evil, they were bloody, she would deserve all that she received for them, they were necessary, and she would prove it.

Maybe it was the aftershocks of the connection, but Blake felt a clarity that she hadn't since she'd first been in the same room as Carnelian about who needed to die. A reaffirmation of her forging, of her worth and purpose as a tool for spilling blood that others would not.

She stumbled back to her feet, at the same time a primitive, jagged spear of ice formed in her hand, and she started for for where Raven was pinned to the wall with a look that would've killed the huntress herself if it was capable, maidenfire and errant electricity and tears spilling from her eyes as she gripped the spear of ice with both arms and started a haphazard charge

 

[MidwayLives]

It hadn't been a hard decision to choose to stay behind.

It'd been one Tiger was proud of.

She'd acted as an individual. Not as a tool of the cause. It'd been thanks to Blake ironically enough that the opportunities for her kept arising. From silently agreeing to the fate that was dealt to Winter Schnee to intentionally seeking out Nora in order to continue the rivalry they'd shared. It'd all been things she'd chosen to do. Not ones that had been asked of her. Would there be consequences for her actions? Tiger was sure there'd be. But she wasn't afraid of them, whatever they turned out to be.

She was a big girl. Always had been. Could take it.

Still, wandering this place had been something of a chore. The faunus had no idea where she was going. The last thing she could remember was following Blake from afar. Enough to keep some distance between the two but close enough for Tiger to keep an eye on her. At some point Tiger had lost track of the Hand and was basically wandering around, left to her own devices as it were. Tiger had never really thought of herself as much of a person for making conversation with. ....If she were to tell the truth she wondered if her intimidating presence drove people off from wanting to engage with her. It'd been like this from since she was a little girl. Beautiful and with a determined outlook and feeling as though she were strong enough to move mountains. People had avoided her back then as well. The only thing she could truly engage herself in was mastering her semblance. Something that hadn't come without constant hospitalizations after going too far/needing to go through physical therapy little by little after jumping to a percentage beyond the limit she'd set for herself. As the years grew by, Tiger got better at it. Eventually it just became a part of her. Wasn't anything special like the ability to breath fire or create illusions. 'Just pump up her muscles' by manifesting the purple smoke seen around her person and engulfing it. The more she increased her percentage, the more smoke manifested inside her. If a blow were sufficiently damaging enough to cause her to vomit up the smoke, her muscles would fade. Like letting the air out of a balloon.

Throughout the years, Tiger idly wondered if she'd ever push her body hard enough that she'd simply....never recover. The latest battle she'd been through had come close. Her flesh tore at the seams revealing muscle poking out from underneath and it hurt to take even a single step. But the thrill of fighting, of combat, it was too good to pass up. If the day came that she simply couldn't fight let alone move anymore? That'd be the day her hair would turn fully white. She'd entrust someone to put her out of her misery. Like you would a racing horse that'd seen it's day. It was of no more use to anyone anymore. It was....expendable.

"I wonder...where the Hand has gone?"
​

Maybe it was the aftershocks of the connection, but Blake felt a clarity that she hadn't since she'd first been in the same room as Carnelian about who needed to die. A reaffirmation of her forging, of her worth and purpose as a tool for spilling blood that others would not.

She stumbled back to her feet

....Was that?

The brief musings of arguing popped up here and there. Tiger brushed them aside as quickly as they'd come. There was no doubting her own eyes, injured as she still was. That was none other than the Hand. The young woman that so many Faunus of the Shadow Fang revered and...feared? Tiger couldn't really say she feared her. Fear in general just seemed like such a strange concept to Tiger. Even with these new powers that she'd acquired and everything to do with this whale and the grimm, Tiger just went through it with the same general impassive nature that she handled life's other affairs. Wasn't really much use for fear if you were willing to tear your own body apart she mused. All that aside, it was nice to see a friendly face. Despite the less than pictueresuqe look that Blake was currently sporting, Tiger took a step forward.

"Hand-"
​

at the same time a primitive, jagged spear of ice formed in her hand, and she started for for where Raven was pinned to the wall with a look that would've killed the huntress herself if it was capable, maidenfire and errant electricity and tears spilling from her eyes

Tiger's eyes shifted over.

What exactly had happened here?

...No. Time for questions later.

"Blake."

The faunus moved forward after the maiden.
​

as she gripped the spear of ice with both arms and started a haphazard charge

The shaft of the spear was grabbed by Tiger's right and the other placed firmly on Blake's shoulder.

"...Blake." Tiger spoke again, eschewing the use of Blake's moniker.

Tiger's eyes gazed over Raven's pinned form.

"I don't know what's transpired here. I've been lost for quite some time. But...I can tell you...I don't like this."

Not for sentimental reasons or anything mind you. Tiger hardly knew this woman.

"...You'd be attacking someone who's not even conscious. What's there to gain from that?"
​

 

[Gus Gungus]

The moment the grimm hand tried to brush against Blake's, she shoved the Dragon away with a terrified sob as she stumbled backwards. "N-NO! Get away, stay away, just... d-don't..."

"—HEY—"

Yang (for like, so many reasons) wasn't on the most rock-solid of footings herself currently, and the wild shove from a Blake whose every synapse seemed to be firing on its most atavistic fight-or-fight level had her less stumbling and more crashing down hard on her own rear end at practically the same moment the Hand did. For that split-second of impact, all seemed as normal in the Dragon; her own chemical impulses registering the hit, the threat, and preparing to respond in kind, to unleash the beast lurking in her flared eyes and bared teeth, nothing analytical or sophisticated about the look of sheer, unbridled intent to harm that flickered across the surface of her face.

In a life spent devoid of meaning, none of the sense of purpose Blake had had carved and chiselled into her body to subsist on, learning to give in fully to moments like that were what had made the simple act of breathing, of existing, so much less painful to Dragon. Life wasn't a purpose. It was a struggle. It wasn't some cozy fucking bedtime story where everything turned out okay so long as the beleaguered young heroine just kept her chin up and thought happy thoughts, because if it was that meant the beleaguered young girl who spent all those nights sitting in the cold dark doing exactly that to the sight and sound of sweet apathy while more and more of herself chipped away every second like an old coat of paint was just wrong, or a mistake, or at the very least had been born deserving to suffer somehow.

Fuck that.

She was just weak. A deluded little flightless bird who hadn't woken up and smelled the roses yet, probably because any time she caught a scent of roses on the wind she was doing her damnedest to sleep harder. That girl was never gonna make it, and the Dragon was sure she hadn't. She didn't even know when it had happened; whether it was a night in the cages that finished her off, or those nights Ruby came to her sleeping bag, or one of the many nights in the years following the little hellspawn's exit she'd spent being choked out, tied up, or slapped around some wannabe alpha's tent like an especially busty stress ball in exchange for whatever meager amount of human warmth and contact she got on the other side of it. Those years were like a long, endless blur. All the Dragon could be sure of was that one morning that girl had woken up and simply withered away, gone with her bedtime stories and dolls and ideals of sisterhood and all the stupid little notions of belonging she'd held on to, of caring for someone and being cared for. Those things were like ghosts, planted in her by one pair of silver eyes and stripped away from her by another. They weren't what life really was.

Life was a game of takers and losers. A good old-fashioned dog-eat-dog battle royal, where victory came through brutality and the only prize was getting your way. Boys, girls, humans, faunus, they were all animals. When it came down to it, they all played by the same rules. The only real distinction was between dominant and dominated, the hand cracking the whip and the one feeling it; Whether you could dish it out or take it, or both. She knew all that. Believed it, even.

With all that in mind, what happened as Blake knocked her down and the unbridled force of nature that was her temper swelled up from the depths of her chest was mostly unheard of, to the extent that it had Ren's brow wrinkling even from his (very) safe distance.



She bridled it.

"—Hey, shh, hey, heyheyheyheyheyheyheyyyy—!" She tried to hush, soothe, and otherwise placate as tenderly as she was capable of, which turned out to be surprisingly tender, if a bit flummoxed and strained. The standard abrasive tone she liked to bludgeon people with was suddenly about as fierce, mocking and threatening as the world's most comically soft-spoken, ill-equipped and overwhelmed babysitter, some elements of her deeper-buried nature apparently not as dead as all that (to her silent chagrin). Her sole remaining hand was half-outstretched towards the panicked faunus out of reflex, but the abrupt realization that it was the same hand that had literally just stripped Blake to her emotional birthday suit and tried to digest everything she ever was for the crime of trying to help her prompted her to jerk it back to her chest apprehensively.

"Wait, kitty, shit, wait, I didn't—oh COME THE FUCK ON!"

The explosive yowl as her other arm shot out to try and gently grasp the Hand's ankle when she fled, only to fail due to not having a hand itself and also being pretty much entirely missing below the elbow, was much more typical of her, and served as a fitting exclamation point to her flopping on her side and eating shit in the attempt.

She stumbled back to her feet, at the same time a primitive, jagged spear of ice formed in her hand, and she started for for where Raven was pinned to the wall with a look that would've killed the huntress herself if it was capable, maidenfire and errant electricity and tears spilling from her eyes as she gripped the spear of ice with both arms and started a haphazard charge

The shaft of the spear was grabbed by Tiger's right and the other placed firmly on Blake's shoulder.

"...Blake." Tiger spoke again, eschewing the use of Blake's moniker.

Tiger's eyes gazed over Raven's pinned form.

"I don't know what's transpired here. I've been lost for quite some time. But...I can tell you...I don't like this."

Not for sentimental reasons or anything mind you. Tiger hardly knew this woman.

"...You'd be attacking someone who's not even conscious. What's there to gain from that?"

And just like that, at the drop of a lien, the rage was back. It was hard to be sure, but Ren may have actually taken a step back as every leaf and petal he saw flitting about Dragon's person suddenly swirled into a dark, violent, crimson hurricane.



"SHE IS DONE—"

The shotgun blast that echoed around Monstra's cavernous insides was barely processable before Yang slammed her shoulder hard into Tiger's sternum, the noise they made somewhere between a pair of bulls colliding at full tilt and a pair of wrecking balls.

"—BEING YOUR WEIRD—"

The Dragon was an impressive specimen herself, the effortless blend of functional muscle, curves and scar tissue her rugged lifestyle maintained one of few genuine points of pride she still had; but she still wasn't anywhere close to Tiger in sheer mass, nor were her guns the kind sculpted from arena clay to wow an audience as the former gladiator's had been. Between that and the state of her aura—of her in general, frankly, still down an arm and sporting a number of grizzly lesions and sear marks Blake's touch hadn't been afforded the time or space necessary to heal—biology and logic both had clear answers as to the result of this particular bull clash.

"—DUMB—"

Either way, neither of those clear, empirical schools of academia had shit to say when the tip of the ice spear snapped off in Tiger's grip and she went skidding back on her heels into the wall from the force, leaving a haggard Yang standing before Blake protectively with shoulders heaving and a posture that made it apparent she was barely able to stand up.

"—FUCKING—REVERSE RACISM VOODOO DOLL FOR THE DAY, OKAY?!?!? Seriously! Clocked out JUST NOW, FIVE MINUTES AGO, BECAUSE I SAID SO! So just—fuck off back to the gym if you're lookin' for gains, tubby! Don't you assholes ask enough of her?!"

The defensive shrill in her voice provoked a genuine bitterness in her sneer, a much more aggressive (if frazzled, worn, and still honestly beyond confused) version of the wounded animal stance she'd taken with the Masque; as if she considered Tiger as much a threat to Blake as she'd considered the Hand to Ruby then. However little or much she may have actually been capable of in that moment was for her to know, but there was unspoken menace in the scowl she let linger on Tiger for a second or two before she gave a soft huff, turned around to face Blake, and promptly stood there looking dumber and more pathetic than she ever had in her entire life, probably.



"Haaaa, oh right. Hi."

Shit.

What had been her plan here, exactly? Did she even have one? Fuck if she could remember. Where was the ideal starting point for 'I really am sorry my evil arm tried to eat you and fuck your soul (possibly vice versa?) and now we both know a whole buncha shit we never wanted to know about one another'?

Dragon liked to think of herself as above the game of meat at this point, someone who saw the rules for the absolute bullshitfuckery they were and could just kick back, laugh at how pointless it all was and not take anything too seriously as she enjoyed however long she had left on the ride. Having to cope with a sudden influx of confusing, horrible, infuriating thoughts and images plumbed from the depths of some brainwashed faunus's mind shouldn't have changed any of that. Kitty was fast and strong and as ferocious on the battlefield as she was in a pair of tights, sure, and chief among the myriad of other conflicting emotions she felt after whatever that trainwreck had been Yang was still highkey weak for how hard she'd come to her rescue and fought to keep her alive after. Implicitly regarding her existence with even the tiniest modicum of value and worth? So hot.

But she knew what she was, had accepted it a long time ago, and felt none of the guilt or torment that was so clearly ripping Blake to pieces right now, so it shouldn't have mattered either way. She knew what the world was. She knew what kitty was. She knew what the world did to people like that. Math wasn't exactly something anyone had ever taken the time out to sit down and go over with her, but from where she was sitting that sounded like basic division.

Except it sounded wrong.

Except... the girl in those memories wasn't weak. She wasn't alone, desperate and scared like Dragon had been, hadn't let that build a lifelong prison for her the way she did. Blake's prison came from someone else. All the pain she took, she took for others. Every shitty, screwed-up thing that ever happened to her had been—as much as it could be—voluntary. All things considered, Yang was pretty sure the chick in those memories had to be the dumbest fucking person she had ever seen.

And the strongest.

She didn't even know how else to explain it other than that. She liked making noise and being the center of attention, but never considered herself the type who was exactly good with words, and the more she surrendered herself to her arm's embrace the less she had felt inclined to spend time thinking on stuff wholesale. She'd always been more of a feeler, anyway. She just... she just liked kitty so much. She didn't get it. It would've been kinda fucking embarrassing to talk about, actually, even more embarrassing than how long had passed between her turning around and actually saying anything, which had to have been pushing five seconds at this point, and fuck it she was just gonna let fate take the wheel on this one.

"Look. In a sec you can kill whichever of us you want, I don't care. Nail all three of us to the wall like a cute lil family diorama if you think that'll give you a pick-me-up. Whatever. I'm doing this."



It was a slow approach until it wasn't, arms by her side to show she meant no harm, the part of her that wasn't human demonstratively and rigidly curled behind her back so it was well out of Blake's touch radius. In her mind that gave her the clear to take the last step or two quickly, rushed with fretful eagerness rather than anything insidious. It wasn't even an embrace in the end so much as it was Yang just sort of falling against her, the only pressure coming from her maimed arm resting gently across the faunus's lower back, cheek dully settling against the crook of her neck as she stood between Blake and anyone else in the room just sort of let her feel her warmth and weight against her body, gave her the rhythm of labored breathing and an ox's heartbeat to zero in on.

It was a wordless apology as much as it was an act of capitulation, like a dog crawling back into its owner's lap a few minutes after a scolding. Ren's face was as befuddled as it got (which generally speaking was not at all) as he slowly inched closer, watching what was typically an unhinged storm of darkness and reds fluttering around the Dragon rapidly bloom into a pink as vibrant as cherry blossoms from the moment the contact started, as if whatever the two of them had just been through had unearthed some sort of deep, neglected vein of... something in the depths of her soul. She gave a subdued, dreamy snicker, at least partially to gauge whether she was still alive.

"I get you guys have your whole adorable matching outfits vibe and all, but for the record I like the kitty down under here way more."​

 

[MidwayLives]

The shotgun blast that echoed around Monstra's cavernous insides was barely processable before

Tiger's ears twitched and her head turned.

"What was-URK!"
​

before Yang slammed her shoulder hard into Tiger's sternum, the noise they made somewhere between a pair of bulls colliding at full tilt and a pair of wrecking balls.

"—BEING YOUR WEIRD—"

The Dragon was an impressive specimen herself, the effortless blend of functional muscle, curves and scar tissue her rugged lifestyle maintained one of few genuine points of pride she still had; but she still wasn't anywhere close to Tiger in sheer mass, nor were her guns the kind sculpted from arena clay to wow an audience as the former gladiator's had been. Between that and the state of her aura—of her in general, frankly, still down an arm and sporting a number of grizzly lesions and sear marks Blake's touch hadn't been afforded the time or space necessary to heal—biology and logic both had clear answers as to the result of this particular bull clash.

"—DUMB—"

"I don't...*cough* Understand..."

Smoke trailed out from Tiger's mouth as she was too busy being confused to really stand up to this show of muscle.
​

"—FUCKING—REVERSE RACISM VOODOO DOLL FOR THE DAY, OKAY?!?!? Seriously! Clocked out JUST NOW, FIVE MINUTES AGO, BECAUSE I SAID SO! So just—fuck off back to the gym if you're lookin' for gains, tubby! Don't you assholes ask enough of her?!"

The defensive shrill in her voice provoked a genuine bitterness in her sneer, a much more aggressive (if frazzled, worn, and still honestly beyond confused) version of the wounded animal stance she'd taken with the Masque; as if she considered Tiger as much a threat to Blake as she'd considered the Hand to Ruby then. However little or much she may have actually been capable of in that moment was for her to know, but there was unspoken menace in the scowl she let linger on Tiger for a second or two before she gave a soft huff, turned around to face Blake, and promptly stood there looking dumber and more pathetic than she ever had in her entire life, probably.

Tiger's back hit the wall and she leaned forward to cough up some more of her smoke.

"Ack...ACGHK...."

Sounded like a cat yacking up a hairball.

"...Okay. Not....really sure what that was about..."





Tubby....? : (​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

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"...I'm doing it to you again."

Whatever coy mix of butterflies and affection Weiss was just barely allowing to play on the corners of her features in response to the unspoken question Yang was clearly thinking about as much as she was was banished before it could come to anything, or precisely distinguish whether it was encouraging or not. Her face fell as she stiffened up in Yang's arms like a layer of fresh snow turning to ice, and though the hand dropped from the huntress's cheeks and she moved to turn away from the embrace defensively with arms crossed she stopped with a hint of a curl to her lower lip when Yang gripped her shoulders instead. Listening to the rest of the current Winter Maiden's appeal in a state of patient, guarded silence, the former one's gaze drifted all the way to her boots as she let the words wash over her with as stellar a pokerface as ever, no clues given as to how they were being taken aside from a nebulous squint.

Weiss knew how they were being taken. She knew what every instinct in her was screaming at her to do right now, how badly every coiled up knot of anxiety and dread and paranoia and her own self-critical impulses that had run rampant within her for years wanted to pull away, freeze herself over, throw everything she had into one final concerted effort at shutting Yang out and continue walking her own path of isolation. The logical part of her brain was furious with herself for not having done so already, to be frank. For not having taken the nuclear option and severed all ties with this poor girl beyond repair long ago. For being so weak. For being so selfish. For being such a hypocrite who developed such strong feelings of attachment for this scruffy yellow oaf and her absolutely phenomenal rug of hair, for never amounting to anything even close to the unbiased shepherd of Remnant's progress she had so-confidently asserted herself to be.

The problem was that the rest of Weiss had already decided that she was done hurting Yang.

Period. Willfully or otherwise. That logical part of her brain hated how easily the sentimental was winning, but as far as she was concerned it could shut up right now.

So she didn't pull away. She lifted her eyes back to Yang's slowly, and in turn made to grip the huntress's chin between thumb and forefinger and gently lift it so their gazes met, the way her thumb brushed the corner of her lips in a stroke that was somehow both fussy and soothing entirely unconscious. For the first time since the two had known each other there was a level of actual deference in Weiss's eyes, removed from whatever strange chess game of mental subterfuge both liked to fancy themselves the winners of. A soft, reassuring trust to the smile her lips evoked that she hoped made it clear how content she felt being held by these hands even questioningly, how much ground she was willing to concede to the poor, stubborn big-hearted idiot in front of her if it just meant she could make those eyes feel anything other than endless loop of hurt, anger and sorrow they had been cycling through ever since they first met hers.

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All this in no way stopped those eyes from also being the absolute height of rude and unfair.

"Yang... please just listen to me."

It wasn't a shrill, peremptory demand or an overwhelmingly loaded question. It was a request. Nothing more, nothing less, just the pale, shivering woman Yang held looking her straight in the eyes with her own haggard, dark-rimmed ones and issuing a quiet plea to be heard out as she shifted one hand up to take her prosthetic while the other kept caressing her face. The Merlot-constructed monstrosity had been built from the ruins of the one Weiss herself had destroyed, but now there were species of flower less delicate than her touch as she guided it down to her own chest, her other hand eventually joining the first there to clasp the prosthetic between her palms and let her thumbs gently fondle it while she proceeded.

"This isn't... anything you may be thinking, or that'll interfere with the promise you made to me or, or anything of the sort. This is good, Yang. This is... this is me finally listening. Why, I'd call it downright joyous, even! I hadn't the slightest notion things might fall into place this quickly!"

For what it was worth, her smile carried a genuinely bright twinge to it now, and her eyes glowed in a manner Yang had yet to witness before. Not with the ancient forces of Winter or Spring.

With hope.

"I've... been thinking about what you said to me. About my destiny," she quickly elaborated, beginning to caress Yang's mechanical digits in a more touchy fashion as she laced her own fingers with them, her opposite hand rubbing gently back and forth over the knuckles. As it would happen, this was also the moment a glowing, ethereal Winter Schnee stepped out of a glyph directly behind Weiss and in Yang's line of sight. Weiss didn't acknowledge her, eyes still giving Yang her full attention, but the silent, lingering stare the ghostly figure gave Yang as she crossed the whole length of the room to stand guard by the door could've turned blood to ice.

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It was only marginally better than the one Weiss was giving her when her eyes came back.

"You know, when you abducted me and manhandled me through a portal to the desert kingdom against my will." Came her further, flatter clarification. Whatever sarcastic edge her tone had quickly disintegrated, though. "About... being fated to serve evil and defying it instead? Well, I'm paraphrasing. The way you said it was..."




Of all things, the imperious, unflappable Weiss Schnee's smile actually grew a bit diffident at that, even outright bashful in a demure sort of way as she fought off the rosy tint in her cheeks and tried not to get too caught up in her recollections, content to simply squeeze Yang's hand tighter against her chest.

"...it was perfect, Yang. It was everything I needed to hear. When I had my little, er... let's call it an 'episode'—" She released Yang's hand only for the minimum amount of time necessary to provide air quotes, then retook it. "—after... certain events transpired towards the end of your stay in Atlas, I was just—I don't even know how to describe it, honestly. I was... in a complete tailspin. My entire life I've believed I was destined for something great, that I was supposed to right the wrongs of my family name using the metric of what I can contribute. I told myself the betterment of Remnant was what I was making all those necessary compromises for, but I..."

It was a testament to how uncommonly sincere and from-the-heart these words were that she was stumbling over them, nothing rehearsed about what she was attempting (and somewhat struggling) to convey.

"...it just... had been made very clear to me very suddenly how flawed an individual I was. Am. Whatever—more importantly, that I am not the person who has any business... restructuring Remnant or whatever it is I was even going on about." There was the sheepish note again, the fingers around Yang's fidgeting slightly with embarrassment. "The world is changing, but there's no overnight solution. Unfortunate, but true. It's going to be a slow change, spearheaded by people like you and your sister, and it wasn't that I didn't have some good ideas but I can't just—Anyway—"

She cut herself off again, giving a frustrated flap of the hand at her own lack of cohesion. This 'complete trust' thing was exhausting, she didn't like it.

"—I can't dwell too much on all that or I'll go insane. The point being, I couldn't stop thinking about how it was all for nothing, how I never had a destiny and every terrible thing I'd ever done had been for nothing the real point is that none of this matters because I was WRONG!" The sheer happiness with which she delivered that final exclamation was emphatic, finally grabbing Yang's flesh and blood hand so she could link both the brawler's limbs with hers and give them a giddy little flap. "It's not that I don't have a destiny, Yang. My trajectory was just off! I didn't have all the pieces I needed to start with so I set myself to the wrong task! This, THIS is my destiny!"

Her elated grin reached its widest point as she threw her arms wide, gesturing to the corrupted interior of the Grimm like her meaning was completely obvious.

When it became apparent it hadn't been, she crossed her arms with a mild eye roll but continued, otherwise undeterred.

"Ozpin. Obviously. He's my white whale, Yang, or I suppose in this instance my dark one. He's the problem I was always meant to dedicate myself to solving! I mean, he's already been my priority virtually from the second I first learned of him, but I saw him as an obstacle standing between myself and what needed to be done rather than the enemy I needed to neutralize. A very large obstacle, but an obstacle all the same. I should've been pouring all my resources into eliminating him from the very start! Had I only known that...!"

The longer Yang and Raven listened, the more being afforded such a raw, unfiltered, stream of consciousness look at this world's Weiss Schnee was making one thing abundantly clear.

She was completely delusional.

To a lesser extent than many of those Ozma had sought out through the years, true. Certainly less so than the likes of the Red Masque. But it was still there. She was a rationalist who'd become so convincing she could find a way to rationalize anything to herself; there was a certain logic to everything she said, to be sure.

But there was also an inherent level of chaos to the world this Weiss's brain just couldn't seem to wrap itself around. The idea that everything she had suffered had been senseless and without purpose, that every ruthless act and betrayal of her principles she ever carried out had been a futile gesture, was too terrible to contemplate. When her first fantasy unraveled herself, she had shattered like fine china only to piece herself back together wrapped in the secondary, more comforting fantasy someone she cared deeply for had offered up in its stead. The fact was that she had been created in a certain image, made to be a distortion of certain traits, values and flaws, and apparently when it came to Weiss Schnee that meant she always had to be the solution to something, always had to throw herself headlong with everything she had into fixing whatever problem or issue she was fixating on, always had to chase that validation that her existence had an intrinsic value that balanced out in positives, not negatives. She couldn't stop herself any more than a shark could stop swimming; if ever it were to try, only one fate awaited it.

It drowned.

Or, you know, maybe she was just too unsteady to explain herself properly. This was all still very overwhelming. She held her hands up with an eager, placating wave, everything she had just stated in her mind apparently making perfect rational sense.

"I know. Look, I know. You don't have to believe me, but there's more. He, Ozpin, when we fought he had this semblance, and feeling its effects explained so much about his nature and I—He made me KNEEL, Yang!" She whined, a sudden pitch injected into her voice.

"He told me to kneel and I couldn't do anything to stop myself! I mean, seriously, with everything you know about me, how the thought of some all-powerful man wielding that power might be an affront to me specifically, the results I've been able to yield thus far—can you honestly tell me you're POSITIVE there isn't some element of fate in play here?! I'm not saying I'm some predestined hero, far from it, I'm just saying we're like... opposing forces! A-and I always saw the threads of my father's same questionable moral fiber in him, you know I did, but I've touched his mind now and it's so much worse, he embodies all that man's most disgusting traits in so many more horrific ways, and-and I could have a real opportunity to cripple his legion here and I mean Yang, what if I'm the only one who can?!"

She finally went quiet, and the sheer weight to the somber air descending over her made it clear she had finally realized that there was a very solid chance that what she was saying, however convincing it may have sounded in her mind, however unequivocally she may have felt that it was true, probably came across as little more than hysterical drivel outside of it.

View attachment 858856

"...I just... when does it stop?"

She huffed, her shoulders sagging, and when she finally looked back up it was a far more level bearing meant to dispense with the waxing poetic and cut right to the true heart of what she wanted to get across.

"How many times is he going to be allowed do this? How many times can he seek out a powerful young woman at her lowest, bend her to his will and begin the slow, agonizing process of grinding her down into nothing because he has unresolved issues with his wife before it's too many? One would've been too many. And it's... it's been so much more than just one, Yang. As I said, I've touched his mind." She pursed her lips, voice mournful as she started to list them off. "Myself. Ruby. Blake's practically given herself over to the process. Cast your eye far back enough and you'll find Maria Calavera, and... and you, Yang. Look at what he did to you. Am I supposed to just... allow that? How can you possibly ask me to run away from this? No."

She shook her head adamantly.

"I'm sorry, but I am not running. Not while I can do more good here. And unfortunately—"

View attachment 858869

The glacial coloration of her eyes was swallowed up by the ominous, malevolent red of Oz, which she coquettishly fluttered her lashes in for Yang's benefit for a few moments before they cooled to their more aesthetically pleasing blue again.

"—I happen to know I can do more good here than anywhere else. Ozma's consciousness is suppressed, yes, but his enforcers will still carry out his will once they become aware of that. So will his Grimm. Vacuo isn't saved; at best, it's prolonged. But if I'm Ozma, secretly conspiring with the kingdom's defense force thanks to your sadsack mother and whatever her stupid soul did to me—" Somehow it was even more insulting that there was actually nothing sharp or scathing about her tone as she glanced over Raven's way, only pointed matter-of-factness.

"—then it's a kingdom in with an actual chance of weathering the storm. Not only that, but with the element of surprise at our disposal it's entirely attainable for us to end the threat posed by him and his army right there and then for good. Now do you see? I hope so. Because those questions I asked, Yang? They were all rhetorical. I'm not going to allow it. I know exactly how many times is too many. And as for when it stops?"

She sneered, pulling her shoulders back and drawing up to her full height as her hands shot to her hips imperiously.

"It stops with me."

Unfortunately, the moment was undercut by the doleful frown her lips suddenly pulled into as she threw her gaze back to Yang in concern.

"Wait, oops. That became a monologue. I'm fairly positive it started life as an effort to comfort you. Did it?"​

When Weiss turned to face Yang, she had one of her hands on her own hip in turn, the other buried in her hair at the side of her head, her thumb scratching circles behind her ear as she stared at the ground. The hand on her hip went up in a hapless shrug as she huffed before she answered.

"I mean, honestly? no, not really."

The tone was at least more wry than despondent, and she dropped bot arms back to her hips as she tilted her head back up to meet Weiss' gaze.

"...Weiss. I'm gonna be honest here, I don't... believe in destiny. That there's some predetermined... job or whatever we get assigned to our soul on its way down here to earth. We just have our choices, some of 'em we make ourselves, some of them that get made for us, and-

Good fucking lord this lady could drone on and on, in even the most damn dire and time-critical situations. The grimm had cleared out, and this world's Ren sure, but who even knew how the rest were faring while this woman went on and on and on and on without any end in sight, to the point it was almost painfully ironic when she started talking about when it stops and how it stops with her. The it being Ozpin, of course. That whole speech was almost unbearable to listen to without speaking up even a single time, but out of respect Raven kept herself from making a sound the whole time Weiss was running her mouth. And not just out of respect for her daughter, and how much Yang clearly cared for this woman. That was not something Raven could say she really understood. This Weiss was completely insufferable and so much worse. Did Yang just not see the worst of this woman, or did she just decide to overlook the worst while trying to scrape out whatever little good there was, deep inside, just because this evil wore a familiar face?

Yet, perhaps it was her own bias on this particular Weiss Schnee, the focus on all the worst and cruel traits that drowned out the good that was in there. Schnee made it very easy in that regard. The constant insults and clear disgust thrown her way from Weiss, if not actual hatred. Not to mention the whole taking advantage of her vulnerability, both physical and mental, all to steal away the power of the maiden and ended up taking some of her soul in the process. Even just now, the woman had called her a bitch, thrown her right through the portal like some toy and when she had returned, insulted her further. Not that Weiss was necessarily wrong, but Raven didn't need to hear it from her in particular. The hypocritical bitch.

Still, perhaps that truly was the case. That neither mother or daughter could truly see Weiss. All the good and all the bad, mixed together in one tiny package. There was good in there, Raven had to begrudgingly admit. Maybe not as much as Yang thought there was, but it was there. The fact that the former maiden was even walking right now was testament to that. Raven didn't share the same concern or affection for this Weiss that Yang did. She would never love this woman in the way friends should love each other. Hell, she doubted she would ever even like this version of Weiss. But after silently listening to that whole monologue, Raven did find that there was some strange respect there.

And in some ways that was more important than liking somebody, as far as Raven was concerned.

What Weiss had just proposed, Raven had to admit that it was pretty ballsy. It took guts, real courage and maybe a sprinkling of some insanity to proceed on something like that. And that much, Raven could respect. She made that much clear when, rather than snap back at Weiss for her insult or try to punch her out or anything confrontational like that, she calmly approached Weiss and held out a hand. The intent was meant to 100% respectfully shake Schnee's hand, but whether it was returned, or the gesture was slapped aside, or just ignored entirely, Raven turned to Yang all the same.

"If you're going to answer, keep it brief. We have to get out of here, you know?!" She just had to make it super extra clear that this was not the time and place for this kind of stuff.

And as if on cue, a moment or two after that was about when Ruby barged into the room so fast that she collided with the ethereal summoned Winter before she could stop herself. Like a true dolt. "Ah!"​

The unspoken implication hardly went unheard by ears as scrutinizing and inclined to read into everything as Weiss's, and though her eyes again narrowed at the proffered hand as if it were an illusion or attempt at deceit of some kind it was little more than a front for the wave of sheepishness and mortification she felt slam into her as she had to remind herself Yang's MOTHER was in the room. And obviously just considered her some sort of blowhard. Ironically, the Schnee standing there on the other end of that one sentence looked far more flustered, rueful, and put-in-her-place than she had at any other point Raven had said anything to her, ever, which came across in the strained response she gave with the faintest of eye twitches after a moment.

Spoiler

View attachment 860478

"What a pointless contribution," she mumbled irritably, pretending she derived any kind of satisfaction from watching Raven fly as her outstretched hand found itself snatched by another summoned Grimm appendage and used as the fulcrum to fire her straight back towards her own portal again. Her own tone was close to apologetic, at the very least explanatory as she forced the words out towards Yang without actually looking back at her. "Obviously it goes without saying we don't have the most time, I was simply using it to put your mind at ease while also... it's hardly some sin of impracticality, I just had a great deal to go over and I talk fast, and, it's a big whale and the only corridor to this room is under observation so excuse me if I thought we could take between one and five minutes to just..."

...Just... Stand around and dither at Yang pointlessly in what may have been her final chance to do so, she supposed. This was hardly her being pragmatic, at a time when that trait was probably required of her more than ever if this plan were to actually succeed and not simply be the latest series of cliff rocks she dashed herself on. She threw her gaze back towards her lookout in Winter, whose own effectiveness had itself just been undercut by Yang's sister (who seriously needed to work on her semblance control when it came to rounding corners, judging from what she'd seen).

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Winter, bearing no particular attachment nor sentimental adoration for anyone in this family the way her sister did, also had no apparent intention of letting its youngest off the hook for such reckless obtrusiveness. Qrow came unnervingly close to bowling the spectral woman over himself as he skidded through the doors, and if the exquisite detail of her features wasn't enough to sell him on the idea that this was actually some personification of Winter then the curtly raised eyebrow as she held the hand Ruby dangled from out for him to accept definitely cinched it.

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"Whoa. Uh, thanks." He gingerly accepted her. "So... sorry to hear about—"

He wasn't sure whether to take it as a sign that the ghostly entity was more, less, or the same amount of Winter she had been in life when she primly stepped past him without further acknowledgment, resuming her post by the door. This prompted Qrow to lean in for his niece and mutter from the corner of his lips, voice assuming a pitch he hoped was soft enough to avoid unwanted (spiritual) notice. "You just got chewed out by a freakin' ghost."

Then he finally looked at the other two, seemingly concurrently with Weiss reaching a snap decision in her head.

"So you're—?"

"Fine," she interrupted, having shoved a finger to Yang's lips right as the poor girl finally parted them to speak in a scene that was beginning to feel fairly reminiscent of Weiss booting them all from Atlas earlier that same day.

"And we're just..."

"Leaving." She kept her return volleys brusque and to-the-point, a far cry from the intense verbosity of before. Yang was spun around like a turnstile by the glyph under her feet so Weiss could plant both hands flat against her back and push, what ordinarily would've been a fruitless (and kind of funny) labor on her end eased by the row of identical glyphs she manifested between Yang and the portal—which the huntress's heels glided across effortlessly no matter how hard she tried to plant them or dig them in. "I appreciate all you've done here, but as unprecedented a phenomenon as this may be Yang's sad idiot mom is actually right. Belladonna is the Spring Maiden now. If anything tips her off to the ruse I may not be able to keep control of the situation, and for all we know she could be making her way towards us at this very moment! Hahaha!"

There was an extremely frivolous, forced, and quite frankly tremulous quality to that misbegotten attempt at a disarming laugh, bearing that of a team leader who'd suddenly remembered she left the oven on mid-meeting and was trying to bring things to a close extremely rapidly. Conveniently before Yang had a chance to get any kind of a word in and prolong this any more. She supposed Blake was both the oven and the ensuing fire threatening to burn down her entire life in that analogy, though had she known the precise nature of the delay the Hand was currently facing the pangs of guilt, self-doubt and genuine fright the faunus was capable of invoking in her probably wouldn't have quite been what came to the fore.

"So while I think—nnf—we can all agree this has been a... productive meeting—" The sudden shift in pitch accompanied her slamming her shoulder against the mass she was attempting to move. "—good lord, Yang, where does all this weight come from?—now that we're all fine, we're refreshed, all our very flattering and sweet fears have been put to rest and there are no reasons whatsoever anyone should be feeling ANY trepidation about the way things-​

​

"-HEY YEA THIS IS GREAT LOVE GETTING TALKED OVER!" She growled at both her mom and Weiss

As happy as she was to see her sister and uncle were fine, Weiss' herculean efforts and glyph assembly would've been hilarious if they weren't so frustrating, and it was at that halfway point that she forcefully spun around back the other way and gripped Weiss' shoulder with a far firmer glare "Stop."

If she had to, she just sort of picked Weiss up and spun back the other way so that she was between Yang and the portal, and only then did the glare return to the more softer, more somber look.

"...Like I was trying to say, I don't believe in destiny, but I'm not gonna try and tell you not to fight if you want to, Weiss. Be kinda hypocritical since, y'know, that's exactly what we're doing back home except we're like, eight grad students and a family chaperone and not Remnant's most powerful CEO with a bonus degree in glyph murder or whatever."

Mostly somber, anyways, as she let go of Weiss' shoulder with one hand to flap it in her uncle and sister's vague direction before she released Weiss entirely to cross her arms and look to the side.

"...Just... is this really the way you wanna do it? Alone? Again? You've... you've done the hard part already Weiss. You took Oz off the board. The grimm aren't that smart on their own, and however strong Blake or whoever is that's still on this stupid.... whatever we're on-" She said with a slightly leery glance out the impromptu window they'd added in the fight. "-they're not Ozpin. You've saved... so many people already, just by doing that. And you could still fight, still help people, just with us instead of stuck here by yourself, surrounded by people who want you dead, or worse. I trusted you last time, and you proved that trust was well spent, but..."

The magic didn't care. Salem's pact was ancient, written into the core of Remnant's soul. It did not ask, it did not accept Yang's rejection of it or what it meant. It followed the young woman as scrambled backwards till her head bumped against the headboard as she pulled her knees against herself, trying to will the magic away from her like it was wolf she could beat off with an imaginary stick. It swirled through her, joining more with her soul every second even as she hyperventilated, the arcane fire spilling from her eyes going from soft lilac to a fiery red that had no place in the chill.

"But you died, Weiss. I don't... entirely understand how that changed, but I got this to prove it." She said, her eyes briefly flaring with maidenfire. "It happened. And if we leave you behind again, and-"

To say she cried out was to say a volcano boiled over. The sound wasn't all that dissimilar to that which had escaped the dragon's lips when the Beast took over, except there wasn't anything unnatural about this. It was too natural. A primal, animal sound; the sort that hadn't been heard on the face of Remnant since even before the shattering of the moon, since humanity had first been born and felt their first pangs of grief and anger, unable to process what was happening to them.

"....and..." Yang trailed off, her eyes drifting towards the hall Winter was standing guard at with a harrowed frown. The sound was barely audible from this far away, easily lost in the menagerie of other noises and growls and cries that made up the natural ambiance of 'Giant Monster Whale Slash Military Carrier'. Yet... she could hear it, as distorted by grief and pain as it was, or maybe because of it, that voice she'd missed so badly these last few months.

That wasn't a sound Yang Xiao Long was ever meant to hear

"...What was-JESUS-"

the sound of a quartet of propulsor jets signaled Penny rocketing through the portal Raven had just been forcefully ejected through, her eyes aglow with something far different than magic as she skidded to a halt at the hallway's entrance, arms planted on the ground in a clear signal that she was going to launch herself forwards, only for those eyes to widen out of determined and into horrified as her scan pinged against the nearest life form not in the room.

"Raven Branwen and the masque- oh my goodness-" Penny started to say as she stood up and whirled halfway to face everyone else, only to stutter in shock as she found herself face to face with Winter Schnee's ghost.

...

She shook her head and continued, tone fraught as she regarded the others.

"Raven Branwen of this Remnant and the masque are stranded with Blake Belladonna and the other Yang Xiao Long, and, and Pyrrha Nikos is on her way here!"

"...Okay, so-" Yang's initial gruff, firm response was going to be something along the lines of 'so we kick her ass and go save them' before she saw how terrified Penny looked. Sure, Pyrrha kicked ass here just like she did back home, but why... oh.

....right. But- okay well she had a whole metal arm and the same trick probably wasn't gonna work twice, but-

She finally got a look at Ruby's own face, after whatever she'd seen in the whale, and... she cracked.

"...God... dammint. Dammit, fine, fine!"

She turned back to Weiss and very gently clasped both her hands in hers.

"...Please be careful. And don't feel like you have to stay here if they start to get suspicious, a-and if you wanna talk just let my mom know and we can find a safe way to do it, and-!"

By that point Weiss, Qrow, saw how urgently this needed to stop and sent her on her way, or if neither of them felt emotionally up to shooing Yang away physically again, Penny physically hoisted the brawler over her shoulder with a surprised grunt from Yang before she boosted her way back to the other side.

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"Look. In a sec you can kill whichever of us you want, I don't care. Nail all three of us to the wall like a cute lil family diorama if you think that'll give you a pick-me-up. Whatever. I'm doing this."

It was a slow approach until it wasn't, arms by her side to show she meant no harm, the part of her that wasn't human demonstratively and rigidly curled behind her back so it was well out of Blake's touch radius. In her mind that gave her the clear to take the last step or two quickly, rushed with fretful eagerness rather than anything insidious. It wasn't even an embrace in the end so much as it was Yang just sort of falling against her, the only pressure coming from her maimed arm resting gently across the faunus's lower back, cheek dully settling against the crook of her neck as she stood between Blake and anyone else in the room just sort of let her feel her warmth and weight against her body, gave her the rhythm of labored breathing and an ox's heartbeat to zero in on.

It was a wordless apology as much as it was an act of capitulation, like a dog crawling back into its owner's lap a few minutes after a scolding. Ren's face was as befuddled as it got (which generally speaking was not at all) as he slowly inched closer, watching what was typically an unhinged storm of darkness and reds fluttering around the Dragon rapidly bloom into a pink as vibrant as cherry blossoms from the moment the contact started, as if whatever the two of them had just been through had unearthed some sort of deep, neglected vein of... something in the depths of her soul. She gave a subdued, dreamy snicker, at least partially to gauge whether she was still alive.

"I get you guys have your whole adorable matching outfits vibe and all, but for the record I like the kitty down under here way more."

Blake already had a new spear tip by that point, was already halfway across the room to Raven, Tiger's interruption nothing but that; an interruption. The brief moment that Blake had turned towards her when the talon had grabbed her shoulders, she saw the look on Blake's face, the one Blake herself didn't truly realize was there; feral tears, spilling freely down her face from shock widened eyes, that were wholly at odds with the hard, determined line her mouth was set into.

She was determined to kill Raven Branwen. As fervent about it as any action she'd taken as the Hand. In that brief moment of eye contact, it was clear Blake would've killed Tiger herself if she got in the way of that.

When Xiao Long caught up to her, it was a different obstacle entirely.

The embrace, gentle and haphazard as it was, took the wind out of Blake's sails like it was a physical blow. Her knees trembled, she had to latch onto the spear with both hands as it planted into the ground like a staff as she fought the urge to sink into the embrace like a patient trying to ward of surgical aenethesia, how violently her soul wanted a moment of comfort and warmth from anyone after what it had been subjected to, how shocking it was that the dragon was the one offering, after seeing what she had lived through, personally witnessing the violent, monstrous presence she'd become even before the The Beast was attached to her arm.

She couldn't. She wasn't supposed to. Comfort was a balm, a weakness, a bane to indulge in behind safe walls. There was a kill to make, an act of violent reaffirmation of her purpose, blood to spill to reharden the molten metal of her heart.

"...Please" she croaked out. "I can do this. She deserves it. Its justice. Don't you want that? After everything?"

 

[MyrtenRose]

Spoiler

"What a pointless contribution," she mumbled irritably, pretending she derived any kind of satisfaction from watching Raven fly as her outstretched hand found itself snatched by another summoned Grimm appendage and used as the fulcrum to fire her straight back towards her own portal again. Her own tone was close to apologetic, at the very least explanatory as she forced the words out towards Yang without actually looking back at her. "Obviously it goes without saying we don't have the most time, I was simply using it to put your mind at ease while also... it's hardly some sin of impracticality, I just had a great deal to go over and I talk fast, and, it's a big whale and the only corridor to this room is under observation so excuse me if I thought we could take between one and five minutes to just..."

but as unprecedented a phenomenon as this may be Yang's sad idiot mom is actually right.

There was no word this woman better represented than the word infuriating.

Trying to show some measure of respect only earned her being thrown back through her own portal again, along with more insults. Seriously, what do you even see in that woman, Yang? I don't get it. At all. But so be it. Rather than try to force her way back through and trade more insults with the annoying Schnee or straight up punch her again, when she was launched to this side again, she stayed on this side to wait. She righted herself with a flip, digging her heels into the floor until she grinded to a halt and straightened back up the moment she did. A quick cursory glance followed, Raven taking in the sight of the unconscious Neo and the likewise out Nora beside her. Her eyes lingered on the latter a bit longer, taking in the scars that decorated much of her upper body. Her gaze lifted after, determining that there was no sign of the other her. Or Masque, for that matter.

Well then.

She pulled her stare back to her own portal and crossed her arms and started to wait.​

Winter, bearing no particular attachment nor sentimental adoration for anyone in this family the way her sister did, also had no apparent intention of letting its youngest off the hook for such reckless obtrusiveness. Qrow came unnervingly close to bowling the spectral woman over himself as he skidded through the doors, and if the exquisite detail of her features wasn't enough to sell him on the idea that this was actually some personification of Winter then the curtly raised eyebrow as she held the hand Ruby dangled from out for him to accept definitely cinched it.

"Hey comeeeeeeeee onnnnnnnnnn it was an accident--"​

"Whoa. Uh, thanks." He gingerly accepted her. "So... sorry to hear about—"

He wasn't sure whether to take it as a sign that the ghostly entity was more, less, or the same amount of Winter she had been in life when she primly stepped past him without further acknowledgment, resuming her post by the door. This prompted Qrow to lean in for his niece and mutter from the corner of his lips, voice assuming a pitch he hoped was soft enough to avoid unwanted (spiritual) notice. "You just got chewed out by a freakin' ghost."

She superspeed wriggled herself out of any further grasping from anybody, just in time for Qrow to lean over. "I..." Chewed out by one and attacked by another ghost of the past. Summer never came back, and...and that...Ruby shook her head. This wasn't the time, and more than that, neither of her family members close by right now needed to know about that. This world had already driven her uncle back to drinking, after all the progress he had made. And Yang...she had so much to deal with as it was. No, they didn't need to know what she had seen. She buried it and forced a smile to the surface. "Yeah, yeah I did."​

"...What was-JESUS-"

the sound of a quartet of propulsor jets signaled Penny rocketing through the portal Raven had just been forcefully ejected through, her eyes aglow with something far different than magic as she skidded to a halt at the hallway's entrance, arms planted on the ground in a clear signal that she was going to launch herself forwards, only for those eyes to widen out of determined and into horrified as her scan pinged against the nearest life form not in the room.

"Raven Branwen and the masque- oh my goodness-" Penny started to say as she stood up and whirled halfway to face everyone else, only to stutter in shock as she found herself face to face with Winter Schnee's ghost.

...

She shook her head and continued, tone fraught as she regarded the others.

"Raven Branwen of this Remnant and the masque are stranded with Blake Belladonna and the other Yang Xiao Long, and, and Pyrrha Nikos is on her way here!"

"...Okay, so-" Yang's initial gruff, firm response was going to be something along the lines of 'so we kick her ass and go save them' before she saw how terrified Penny looked. Sure, Pyrrha kicked ass here just like she did back home, but why... oh.

The smile was quick to vanish, more of that clearly troubled expression returning after Penny soared through and delivered some unfortunate news. Like Yang, her initial thought was much the same, but...well. The whale was vast, searching it for where those two were now could take...she didn't even know how long. Then there was the now confirmed maiden Blake to consider, and the other Yang, and Pyrrha, and...

That face flashed through her mind again.​

She finally got a look at Ruby's own face, after whatever she'd seen in the whale, and... she cracked.

"...God... dammint. Dammit, fine, fine!"

"..."

Ruby took a deep breath and buried the feeling as best she could once more.​

"...Please be careful. And don't feel like you have to stay here if they start to get suspicious, a-and if you wanna talk just let my mom know and we can find a safe way to do it, and-!"

By that point Weiss, Qrow, saw how urgently this needed to stop and sent her on her way, or if neither of them felt emotionally up to shooing Yang away physically again, Penny physically hoisted the brawler over her shoulder with a surprised grunt from Yang before she boosted her way back to the other side.

And rushed through the portal after the others had, making sure she was the last to cross. Once they all had, the short haired Raven sealed off the portal behind them, ending any possibility of second guessing themselves or changing minds. At least for now. Everyone left on that other side of the portal would just have to...fend for themselves for the time being. Ruby's swift look around confirmed that Penny had been telling the truth. Not that she ever doubted one of her best friends.

Raven, the one that lived on this Remnant, was nowhere in sight. Neither was the other her. Yet more than that, the two that had been with them were both passed out. "Nora..." Ruby spoke softly with 30% alarm and 70% concern, one arm reaching out and she took a step closer. But her hand lowered and she didn't take any further steps that way just yet, another concern immediately taking precedence. She turned for wherever Yang was now and strode over in a rush, wrapping her arms around her older sister, just as much for her own sake as it was for Yang's after they both dealt with all that.

Raven stepped up to her own sibling, a hard to read expression on her face before she spoke. "So........" ​

 

[Gus Gungus]

She couldn't. She wasn't supposed to. Comfort was a balm, a weakness, a bane to indulge in behind safe walls. There was a kill to make, an act of violent reaffirmation of her purpose, blood to spill to reharden the molten metal of her heart.

"...Please" she croaked out. "I can do this. She deserves it. Its justice. Don't you want that? After everything?"

It was brief, and so subtle it took an assassin's grasp of human physiology to even notice it, but for a moment Blake felt the soft muscles pressed against her tense up reflexively as she essentially confirmed that flood of unfamiliar memories and experiences hadn't been a one-way thing. On any other day it would've been valid cause for concern, being nestled in the arms of such a violent, remorseless savage whose default instinct to lash out and commit violence had very obviously just been triggered; but a moment was all it was, and when it passed said ruffian's breath came out hot against her collarbone as a snort that somehow managed to hit equal notes of admiration and fond mockery. She shook her head, letting the motion nuzzle her further against Blake's shoulder and neck, some apparent overlap between the Dragon's idea of soothing someone in pain and a therapy dog's.

"No such animal, kitten. Show me justice and I'll show you a fucking unicorn." There was a teasing edge to her voice as she pulled back with a quiet, placating chuckle, though it did more to lessen the gap between their faces than it did to increase the one between their bodies. Among Yang's most intimidating features were her eyes, a fearsome red glare that even at her most exuberant carried all the barely suppressed wrath of a force of nature and an unspoken vow to inflict pain.



So it was a bit surreal to see just how much warmth, devotion and affection waited in those same eyes when they traveled up to meet the Hand's now. Not only that, but how much clarity; it was a difficult thing to quantify, but the red of Dragon's eyes was a much duller, softer color than its customary shade of angry crimson, verging on purple and nearly outdone by the mounting bloom of color in her face as she tried to catch Blake's gaze and hold it steady before it went anywhere else.

"Right now I just wanna feel you."

They were eyes that claimed to know Blake, as fully and intimately as any she had seen before—more than that, they were grateful to. Whatever became of the sad, touch-starved and neglected girl from the memories had apparently never died, just gone limp and stopped struggling over the years as the same yearnings—for affection, for companionship, for feeling wanted and needed—that had made the Yang Xiao Long of one world such a staunch sister and huntress rendered this one nothing more than an easy target for a tribe who spat on such notions as deficiencies. Yet the yearnings remained, and in the midst of whatever nightmare their souls had just been entangled in every single one of them appeared to have woken up, swiveled, and recalibrated with Blake as the center of their crosshairs. The gaze was as much a caress as anything she could've been doing with her hands, and rather than violence the only promise those eyes carried now was one of protection; a silent vow to burn herself up like the sun if it meant keeping Blake safe and warm, to take care of her and do anything and everything in her power to keep her from feeling pain like that ever again.

The horror was still there. The rage was still there, the dark clouds of sorrow and fury and pain she felt watching her kitty be abused like that at the hands of those lesser-thans, watching her just let it happen, all but guaranteed to brew into a violent storm for another time. But she'd always been good at taking a hit, physical or emotional, and it was clear she was deriving every bit as much comfort from the effort to soothe her as Blake herself may have been, if not more. Between the adrenaline, her semblance, and Blake's efforts to restore her body's bloodflow to working order the Dragon was like a furnace, suggesting a less fearsome and more honestly embarrassing origin of the moniker she answered to more than her actual name. She tilted forward, eyes drifting shut as she tried to butt her forehead against the smaller woman's and leave it there, hoping they could take a moment to sort of just bask in each other.

"So... that's over, then."

Ren's voice was as composed as ever and clouded by only a hint of uncertainty as he finally inched close enough to issue his question, weapons still palmed and leveled in their direction. He kept looking over them with a wary frown, like he could see things unbeknownst to them or anyone else, and Dragon found the second intrusion in as many minutes irritating enough to snap her head back up with a vexed growl, eyes whipped towards him flared in warning. He stopped in his tracks, but that was as far as it went outside of Yang shifting the arm she had around Blake to her abdomen, something equal parts carnal, protective and territorial in how she kept it there and stalked the whole way around to the faunus's back with a proximity that ensured their bodies rubbed continuously. By the time she came to a stop behind Blake she was practically spooning her, and frankly doing a killer job of it given she was still only working with half an arm as she dropped her chin heavily in the curve of the faunus's shoulder.

"Want I make 'em go away?" Came her questioning murmur, lips flush against Blake's neck so they tickled her skin and made the query inaudible to all except her. Her eyes, though, stayed on Ren, and a moment later Tiger also found herself recipient of the same dark, threatening smoulder, Dragon sizing her up like a piece of meat she was prepared to rip off the bone.​

 

[Gus Gungus]

When Weiss turned to face Yang, she had one of her hands on her own hip in turn, the other buried in her hair at the side of her head, her thumb scratching circles behind her ear as she stared at the ground. The hand on her hip went up in a hapless shrug as she huffed before she answered.

"I mean, honestly? no, not really."

The tone was at least more wry than despondent, and she dropped bot arms back to her hips as she tilted her head back up to meet Weiss' gaze.

"...Weiss. I'm gonna be honest here, I don't... believe in destiny. That there's some predetermined... job or whatever we get assigned to our soul on its way down here to earth. We just have our choices, some of 'em we make ourselves, some of them that get made for us, and-

That whole angle went over about as well as her blossoming friendship with Blake had, the tremulous frown Weiss's lips had formed slowly tightening into an affronted sneer as Yang got her say in before she could sort of just preemptively usher her out like she had wanted.



"Well that's just dumb! My life has NOT been random! I didn't end up with everything I have, I haven't overcome everything I have, just to be told it all meant nothing! I know this might be difficult for someone like you to understand but I am a Schnee, okay, a real Schnee, I was meant for greatness from the moment I set foot in this world and I will NOT be led to believe otherwise by someHEY—!"

As happy as she was to see her sister and uncle were fine, Weiss' herculean efforts and glyph assembly would've been hilarious if they weren't so frustrating, and it was at that halfway point that she forcefully spun around back the other way and gripped Weiss' shoulder with a far firmer glare "Stop."

If she had to, she just sort of picked Weiss up and spun back the other way so that she was between Yang and the portal, and only then did the glare return to the more softer, more somber look.

"You stop."

The astoundingly petty huff was the product of a Weiss who looked bitter, deflated, and more than a bit dazed after a moment of furious reflexive kicking gave way to her sort of just hanging there, pale legs dangling as she slouched in Yang's grip. She looked, felt, and honestly probably was kind of pathetic, trying to reconcile her irritation at just how many times she'd been manhandled by this gangly idiot today with how little she actually minded it.

In the end, she failed.

"...Like I was trying to say, I don't believe in destiny, but I'm not gonna try and tell you not to fight if you want to, Weiss. Be kinda hypocritical since, y'know, that's exactly what we're doing back home except we're like, eight grad students and a family chaperone and not Remnant's most powerful CEO with a bonus degree in glyph murder or whatever."

Mostly somber, anyways, as she let go of Weiss' shoulder with one hand to flap it in her uncle and sister's vague direction before she released Weiss entirely to cross her arms and look to the side.

"...Just... is this really the way you wanna do it? Alone? Again? You've... you've done the hard part already Weiss. You took Oz off the board. The grimm aren't that smart on their own, and however strong Blake or whoever is that's still on this stupid.... whatever we're on-" She said with a slightly leery glance out the impromptu window they'd added in the fight. "-they're not Ozpin. You've saved... so many people already, just by doing that. And you could still fight, still help people, just with us instead of stuck here by yourself, surrounded by people who want you dead, or worse. I trusted you last time, and you proved that trust was well spent, but..."

Her own arms were folded as Yang trailed off, hand splayed with fingertips resting against her brow in one of the purest nonvocal expressions of a groan any of them had ever seen. She didn't look up, sounding so drained it was her lips were on autopilot when they started automatically forming words, preceded by a short, deadpan snort.

"Running off to meander around the desert aimlessly with your little group is not the most efficient way forward, Yang, thank you. I can't... shy away from putting a hundred percent of myself into this, okay? There's too much to do. I have too much to atone for."

"But you died, Weiss. I don't... entirely understand how that changed, but I got this to prove it." She said, her eyes briefly flaring with maidenfire. "It happened-"

"It wasn't supposed to happen!" She interrupted with a sudden, objecting whine, jolted to life by the sudden onslaught of guilt, indignation, envy and embarrassment she felt as Yang's eyes burst to life and that particular elephant in the whale was drawn attention to. She stepped forward, some minor urgency in how she touched the huntress's arm. "I had this failsafe implanted and—and I was going to use it as leverage but Belladonna is just so desperate to see me brought low and she just triggered it! So it was simply an isolated case of wires being crossed, that's all, and, and I WASN'T THINKING OF YOU IN ANY MEANINGFUL CAPACITY IT WAS JUST A PASSING WHIM! Which is to say, you're the only person I've had a friendly conversation with in quite some time, you see, so of course it'd be you, I-I was just thinking about something funny you said! No I can't remember it now—"

"....and..." Yang trailed off, her eyes drifting towards the hall Winter was standing guard at with a harrowed frown. The sound was barely audible from this far away, easily lost in the menagerie of other noises and growls and cries that made up the natural ambiance of 'Giant Monster Whale Slash Military Carrier'. Yet... she could hear it, as distorted by grief and pain as it was, or maybe because of it, that voice she'd missed so badly these last few months.

That wasn't a sound Yang Xiao Long was ever meant to hear

Luckily her increasingly long-winded and incoherent explanation had the spotlight moved away before it could become too long-winded and incoherent by whatever in the world had made that noise, which gave Weiss the breather she needed to sag into folded arms and pinch her brow with a distraught shake of the head.

"...Gods, Yang. You and your family just need to leave this place."

"...What was-JESUS-"

"—WHO???"

It was more Yang's reaction to the sudden loud noise than the noise itself that had Weiss jolt to attention, but either way she had a hand over her heart and a glower frigid enough to chill Penny's circuits sent her way almost instantly as she rolled her eyes.

"Raven Branwen and the masque- oh my goodness-" Penny started to say as she stood up and whirled halfway to face everyone else, only to stutter in shock as she found herself face to face with Winter Schnee's ghost.

"Oh, delightful. I thought I felt a migraine coming on. Must you always—"

"Raven Branwen of this Remnant and the masque are stranded with Blake Belladonna and the other Yang Xiao Long, and, and Pyrrha Nikos is on her way here!"

"...Okay, so-" Yang's initial gruff, firm response was going to be something along the lines of 'so we kick her ass and go save them' before she saw how terrified Penny looked. Sure, Pyrrha kicked ass here just like she did back home, but why... oh.

Weiss had likewise had enough tact to curtail whatever scathing criticism she was about to level Penny's way when she caught sight of her expression, little to no reaction given to the way Winter stepped up to the android's side and placed a hand on her shoulder for her second attempt. It felt... strange. Real enough, but certainly not flesh and blood; though there was little to differentiate the small, encouraging smile on the summon's face from the one both world's Pennies were familiar with save its more ethereal qualities.

The more corporeal Schnee, on the other hand, pursed her lips together in thought at the information relayed before she flipped her attention back to Yang.

"That—"

She finally got a look at Ruby's own face, after whatever she'd seen in the whale, and... she cracked.

"...God... dammint. Dammit, fine, fine!"

She turned back to Weiss and very gently clasped both her hands in hers.

"...Please be careful. And don't feel like you have to stay here if they start to get suspicious, a-and if you wanna talk just let my mom know and we can find a safe way to do it, and-!"

"Wha—already?! I thought we were having a conversation! I mean... I wanted to have a conversation but there was just a lot to cover in a very short amount of time, and we don't..."

So caught off-guard was she by Yang's sudden acquiescence that she didn't even bother filtering how hilariously unfair, hypocritical and contradictory her subsequent objection was as she completely flip flopped. It was obvious by the third word how little Weiss actually wanted her to go, and by the fourth it was clear that her level of contriteness for spoiling what had every possibility of being the last time her and Yang ever spoke meant it wasn't going to be her who forced the blonde to break; at least, not without feeling like she'd unburdened her at least slightly. She grasped her hands back much tighter, slightly misty eyed as she nodded along rapidly to every word even while subtly trying to steer her towards the portal, opting for guile over brute force this time.

"Yang, from my 18th birthday I practically drove my kingdom's economy. By age 20 I was a tax evader 20 times over; when the news wanted to run a story, they called my office to make sure it was okay first. If the IRS and the media can't make me crack then what makes you think this ragtag bunch of degenerates and lowlifes have a hope?"

She smiled, thinly but in what she hoped was a reassuring way. Something seemed to occur to her as she drank in Yang's eyes for a final time, and her own flew open as the upwards pull on her smile grew a bit less forced.

"Wait, I—! Okay. Midnight, your time. Tuesdays and Saturdays. I can make sure I'm not disturbed, and if there's a piece of information worth sharing—Or even if—" She cast a furtive glance over her shoulder, then leaned in with a hushed tone as if what they were discussing was highly sensitive. "Well, I see no reason it couldn't be perfectly pleasant under the right circumstances. Those circumstances being you, bringing alcohol. I could clear a nice space, we could set out a nice picnic blanket also provided by you... it could be..." There was a sense that she had intended to say 'fun', but she flapped her hand with a slightly jittery cough instead. "You know. Like before? If that sounds palatable enough to you, of course. Just think about it!"

Her hands were a flurry of motion as they finally pulled away and waved off any attempt at a response, stepping back a few times and folding her arms in a dainty sort of way to size Yang up with a thoughtful smirk.

"Oh, and make sure you bring glasses or we'll be drinking from the same bottle." She tapped her chin, and the mischievous squint she gave went a long way towards giving her a mild note of mischief, as if to even suggest what she was about to say were the very height of scandal.



"Unless you aren't opposed to that sort of thing...?"

A beat passed. Her eyes lidded further. Weiss had seen Penny circling, inching closer, and actually timed her step back so it coincided with Yang getting bodied through the portal, not about to surrender the last word and honestly rather looking forward to seeing her get a taste of her own medicine for a change.

Yang certainly did get bodied through the portal. Unbeknownst to all, however, someone else made it there a split-second before Penny did, more ruthless and less willing to compromise in her approach.

Spoiler

A baffled, incredulous "Why???" was the last thing any of them recalled hearing before the portal snapped shut.

Raven stepped up to her own sibling, a hard to read expression on her face before she spoke. "So........"

Qrow was flat on his back, gazing blankly up at the ceiling as he kind of just took a minute and tried to decompress from all that. So blank was his expression, in fact, that it almost looked like he had somehow totally missed all discussion of who was missing, and neglected to do a quick headcount himself.

Then he sat up, and there was a galvanized snarl and clarified purpose on his face now that his two main responsibilities were back on the safe side of the portals as he stared daggers at the spot Raven's gate had just vanished.



"Open it."​