Storm
“Alright, orders form Ozpin. We’ve got four targets. Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao-Long.” A blonde man said to three other people in the room with him.
“Schnee? Jaune are you sure?” A tall redhead asked. She looked over the list again and focused on the image of the Schnee heiress.
“She’s not natura Pyrrha.” The blonde, Jaune, shrugged. “Her sister is, which is odd.”
“Generations are either natura or not.” The shorter redhead said. She looked to the others for a moment. “Has there ever been a mixed generation before? Ren, have you heard of anything like that?”
“No Nora. there has never been a mixed generation.” The second man in the group said. “What are Ozpin’s orders?”
“We’re to recruit them if possible. He wants us to try and do it before they reveal the natura to the public.” Jaune said. He slammed a case shut and walked over to a truck. “Don’t bother bringing anything long range, no way we’ll beat them in that fight.”
“Four teens who’ve never been trained.” Nora scoffed. “Right, cause they’ll have a better sniper than us.”
“The shot that downed the Redwing was made while in a mach one point one truck at a fighter jet going at nine hundred kilometers an hour with an estimated bullet speed of just over mach ten.” Pyrrha looked up from her scroll. “So no Nora, we really don’t want to fight them at range.”
“How the hell did they manage that?” Nora said, recoiling at the idea of a rifle managing that.
“If I had to guess they integrated some of the rail gun technology form the Blackbird’s main gun.” Ren said, looking to Jaune for confirmation. The blonde nodded and Ren went on. “Which means we can’t let them get their hands on any Dust.”
“Ozpin’s boys estimate a maximum bullet velocity on the rifle she used at being a thousand times faster than sound.” Jaune said. The blonde shouldered a bag. “So yeah, don’t let them get Dust.”
“Do we have a means to track them down?” Ren said, closing his own case. Jaune grinned and pulled out a glass container holding a single rose petal.
“This is one of Ruby Rose’s petals, normally they either reunite with her or dissipate.” Jaune shook the container lightly. “So long as they have an inflow of energy they remain and try to reconnect with her. It might lead us straight to her.”
“If the power source on that fails.” Ren said. The small red petal fluttering about, always going back to one side.
“We’re lost, yeah.” Jaune said, he looked down at the containment unit before looking back up. “Everyone in the truck, let’s go.”
“And remember, we’re trying to bring them in peacefully.” Pyrrha said as she climbed into the passenger side of the truck. Ren and Nora climb into the back while Jaune goes into the driver's side. “Ozpin wants us to bring them with us.”
“And if they fight us?” Ren looked to the font, his other two teammates keeping their eyes on their leader.Jaune watched the rose petal flutter towards the north.
“Then we fight them.” Jaune gripped the steering wheel and put the truck into drive. He had a mission and nothing would stop him from achieving it. They pulled out of the garage and quickly pulled onto the highway. Jaune kept glancing at the rose petal on the dash and making sure they were going the right way. Pyrrha looked to her partner, something was off about this case. Something she couldn’t quite understand.
“Jaune, you seem oddly attached. You're usually joking and having fun.” Pyrrha said. She watched as Jaune’s grip on the wheel tightened.
“Just, I used to know Weiss, she shouldn’t have been involved in this.” Jaune’s eyes narrowed. “I need to know what they did to her.”
For a moment Pyrrha saw the anger in his eyes. She knew that her partner wouldn’t stop for anything along the way, he wouldn’t take not knowing. Pyrrha leaned back in her seat and thought it over. If Jaune was invested in the only human in their group then they may face problems but more than that she didn’t think Jaune would get the answer he was looking for.
She hoped he didn’t get the answer he was looking for. Pyrrha glanced over her shoulder to find Nora glaring at the back of Jaune’s head. The other girl always had some kind of issue with Jaune and no one would tell Pyrrha what.
Nora continued to glare at her leader even as the truck pulled out. Her partner looked worriedly at her the whole ride while flicks of lightning danced over her skin. She knew this mission would go poorly, Nora Valkyrie was many things, wrong was rarely one of them.
Three years ago
“Nora Valkyrie!” A voice called over a loudspeaker. A teenage girl looked up from where she was standing, squinting through the rain. “Put the explosives down!”
“Oh but mister, I don’t think you want me to do that.” Nora said, grinning and looking up at the helicopter, the ones hse knew had general James Ironwood in it. She tilted the device ever so slightly to reveal the pink bolts of electricity arcing between her and it. “I let go and it goes boom. Exactly as you planned right?”
There was a flash of lightning in the distance, one that made those around her flinch and Nora’s grin spread wider. This was what she lived for, that jolt of energy, the spark of life, the raw untouchable power of nature's strongest bolt. She could feel it, the lightning in the air, the static clinging to everything around her. She felt it through the water soaking her clothes, through every breath, every shift in her weight.
All she had to do was wait.
“Valkyrie, come peacefully.” Ironwood said, his voice carried over the megaphone just barely above the storm around them. “I’m sure your family misses you, we can help you!”
“Oh save it for some other poor sap.” Nora said, a distinct angry growl now in her voice. “We both know this is only going to go one way!”
There was another flash of lightning and a crack. Closer now, so very close to her. One of the armed guards around her took a step forward, Nora let go of the device with one hand and they all froze. Nora grinned, lightning dancing in her eyes as the soldiers all backed up.
“You’ve made your point Valkyrie, you know you're not walking away from this no matter what happens.” Ironwood again. Nora looked back up at the helicopter. “So just give up, end it here.”
“Give up?” Nora laughed and watched lightning cut across the sky, gathering above her. “Oh Ironwood, you know my people don’t give up. Especially not after what you’ve done.”
“Valkyrie, enough.” Ironwood called over the growing storm once more. “Your grudge holding is hurting innocent people.”
“Innocent like my parents?” Nora shouted, a crack of thunder spitting the sky somewhere behind her. “Like the dozens of others like them? Like I was before your people came along? Fuck your innocents!”
A bolt of lightning, nearly two feet across slammed down on her. The current on the device she was holding overloaded and collapsed. With the current broken the device did its job and exploded. The small section of bridge being bathed in fire and shrapnel. Officially this is where it ends, the tragic tale of Nora Valkyrie, the girl who died far too young.
In reality the smoke was blasted aside to reveal Nora, perfectly fine. Pink electricity arcing along her body and filling her eyes. She took a step forward and the ground cracked. Several guards backed up. She leaned forward and seemed to vanish, moving faster than the untrained could see. Leaving a trail of broken earth and residual electricity, the girl laughed as she beat the soldiers to the ground.
When she finally stopped most of those who had cornered her were dead and she was left looking up at Ironwood, a manic smile spreading. For the first time in his life of chasing the augmented down Ironwood felt true fear. He shakily brought a hand to his ear and radioed the only one he knew could hellp.
“Ozpin, you were right. Send your people in.”
Present
Summer Rose lay on the ground, gasping for breath and gripping her leg. Raven stood over her with a cocky smirk on her face. Summer glared up at her. Raven leaned down and helped the other woman to her feet, offering her shoulder for her to lean on.
“You almost had me there you know?” Raven said, earning a laugh from Summer. “No Sum seriously, six hours is no joke and the fact that you managed at all let alone put up a good fight is ridiculous.”
“Oh hush, you're just a flirt.” Summer said wincing as she put weight on her leg.
“I’m telling the truth here Sum, at one point I was worried.” Raven snorted. “Really, I actually thought ‘Oh no, this is it, I’m going to lose to my just barely recovering wife. She can’t even fight properly and I might lose.’”
“Your reputation would never recover.”
“Please, everyone knows that if anyone can beat me it’s you.” Raven smirked. “The Nevermore being bested by a lone little Beowolf.”
“I thought we agreed that I’m not the little one anymore.”
“Ruby’s almost as tall as you.” Summer paused.
“Is she really?” Raven smirked at her. “Of course she is, my little pup all grown up.”
“Leading a revolution and everything.” Raven said. Both of them broke out in laughter at that, Summer wincing slightly.
“We both knew she would.” Summer said, her eyes seemingly losing focus. “It had to happen at some point.”
“On the bright side, she’s a runt so your wolf will always be bigger.” Raven said, both of them laughing. “They’ll be alright Summer, we just need to trust them.”
“Trust them, our kids.” Summer said, scoffing at the very notion. “Raven by the time we see them again they’ll probably start some kind of revolution.”
“Hello and welcome to the show to end all shows!” A man sitting behind a desk said. “Tonight we have one hell of a story. Remember Ruby Rose? Girl killed by terrorist not too long ago, turns out she’s not as dead as we thought.”
“It’s such a crass way to put it but this whole thing is just as ridiculous as you make it sound.” A woman seated next to the desk said. “But if we look at things, we saw her take a bullet to the head earlier this year and yet here she is.”
“Sniping a jet out of the air and then flying up on top of two others.” The man said. “Now Dr. Gwinsin, your a geneticist right?”
“Best in my field.”
“So is this possible genetically?” The large monitor behind them shows the news clip of Ruby rushing up at one of the Greyhawk’s in a storm of petals. “Cause I’m no expert here but I really have to know, why weren’t you involved in Ironwood’s so called genetic experiments?”
“That’s what clued me in originally, the leading expert in genetics and I wasn’t involved at all? Something didn’t make sense but you know, there’s been genetic discoveries without me so I wasn't too suspicious.” Dr. Gwinsin said, leaning against the desk slightly. “But then she flew without external appendages? That control over the rose petals, even the speed she went, none of it is genetically possible so I knew something else was up.”
“Well if it’s not genetic what else could it be?” The host said, letting out a laugh. “Special effects? Highly advanced technology? Aliens?”
“Well the footage was live so while special effects are possible albeit nearly impossible on this scale. Technology is also an impossibility, the kind of tech they’d need is nearly a century more advanced than what we have today.” Dr. Gwinsin smiled at the host. “Aliens is a good guess, was certainly my first one but I got my hands on their records and unless something’s changed in the last year they are most certainly not aliens.”
“That’s interesting, so if none of that is possible what could it be.”
“What’s that old saying? When you’ve eliminated all other possibilities, whatever remains no matter how improbable must be the truth?” Dr. Gwinsin paused the repeating footage on the moment the cloud of petals formed. “Well all that remains is highly improbable. Magic Mr. Sigler, I believe it’s magic.”
“That sounds hard to believe, almost like a fever dream.”
“Oh no, it’s a very real possibility.” Dr. Gwinsin smirked, her eyes seemingly glimmering with purple light. “I think we’re coming up on interesting times Jackson. Very interesting times.”