Chapter III - Red Like Roses
Blake
As they streaked up the slope, Nora’s weapon firing manically behind them, Blake could feel her blood singing in her veins, the cold scent of the sea touching the air, and she was alive.
She spun backward with Ren and shot off a round at the Death Stalker as Weiss pulled Nora out of harm’s way, blood still singing. In the midst of a fight, there were no distractions. There was only her, precise measures, and the brightness of colors fracturing in prism shards of light as she fought, as she’d been born to.
She was barely surprised to find herself and Ren gradually driven back to the bridge; she cast her eyes wildly around as the Death Stalker flailed out and threw her backward with a grunt. Then there was the sound of a distant rushing— a cry of alarm— shattering stone— and she swore colorfully as she saw the bridge had been demolished by the Nevermore flying through it. As she was distracted, Nora crashed into her. She only had time to let out a single cry of alarm before empty air yawned open beneath her.
She fell spinning, skimming the air like a plummeting star; she streaked through the broken battlements and crenellations, and then she was arcing upward like a fragment of shadow, so swift that wind screamed in her ears and stung her cheeks with a lashing iciness. Blake could only discern the darkness of the Nevermore rushing above her before she grunted with exertion and shot forward, boots slamming into the bony forehead of the Grimm. She only had time to land in a few slashing blows as she skidded downward— the monster seemed impervious to her strikes— and she flung herself off of it just before it wheeled around and rocketed downward, in what would surely have caused her to go plunging to a lethal embrace with the ground. She sailed upward, finding ground next to her partner. Blake braced her feet against the parapet, flicking her gaze down to the balustrade where Weiss and Ruby crouched, panting in frustration.
“It’s tougher than it looks!” she shouted, feeling a stitch in her side as she let Gambol Shroud wind back into her waiting palm. Yang’s eyes flashed. They really were an odd flaw of a color, Blake noticed, a light shade of purple, not unlike the aura that her own weapon shone with.
“Then let’s hit it with everything we’ve got,” Yang spat, eyes narrowing. She threw her fists to her side, golden gauntlets glinting dully as a row of red shells crumbled away and new ammo took their place.
The Nevermore screamed as they sent snaking beams of light soaring and smashing against it. As it wheeled around and set a dulled red glare on their precarious standing, Yang sprang from the rampart and onto the hooked beak, bashing her fist into the gaping gullet that shrieked at her.
“None of this is working,” Weiss growled as she flipped up onto the battlement beside them. Ruby had followed, and she didn’t look angry; her eyes gleamed as the Nevermore circled again. Down below, on the narrow bridge, the other four seemed to be holding their own against the Death Stalker, but they would have to hurry.
“I have a plan. Cover me!”
Ruby swung off the crenellation and flipped end over end to the cracked stone parapets below, beckoning to Blake and Yang as she did so. She gestured to the two columns of stone that stabbed at the sky, and then she looked at the curling length of Gambol Shroud. “Do you think if we got a strong enough launch from your weapon— like, as some sort of vault— with Weiss’s glyphs going up the cliff….?”
Blake understood her plan as she glanced back at the cliffside, the small crags and clots and holds that allowed for a sheer sprint up the side. “You want to take off its head. That would kill it. It’s a good idea.”
“Let’s do it, then,” Yang said, before turning and scaling the the stone pillar. She held out a hand for the other end of Gambol Shroud as Blake hurled it across the rushing void, and it strained taut between them, a single dark thread quivering like a gaunt mark in the wind. Weiss had done nothing more than irritate the Nevermore by opening up inconsequential gashes in its body, and it flew up above the ruins of the towers. It perched, roosting on the cliffside, letting out a fearsome, caterwauling shriek that made the air tremble; Weiss backflipped upward and shot out a blast of ice, gluing it to the cliff.
Blake’s arms tautened as her side of the slingshot strained from Ruby’s scythe bearing down upon it, and she clung all the tighter as a scroll of icy glyphs shot up the cliffs— the strain on the rope increased— her nails stung crescents in her palms as she gripped tighter— and then she almost fell backward as Ruby shot off, falling through the air for the second time in the day. Blake watched, mesmerized, as all in blur of action, she shot to the clifftop, and, with a groaning pop, the Grimm’s head severed and the body scaffolded down, down, down. The dark shadow was formidable, tumbling down the cliff with showers of dirt.
Silence washed out over the ruins as the wind whistled tunelessly. Blake looked over to Yang, who was watching the top of the cliffs with a surprised look on her face.
In the air, red roses swirled, unfettered, shining like sparks of blood in the dawning sun.
“Blake Belladonna. Ruby Rose. Weiss Schnee. Yang Xiao Long. The four of you retrieved the white knight pieces.” Ozpin’s gaze roved over the four of them. “From this day forward, you will work together as Team RWBY, led by Ruby Rose.”
Blake folded her hands in front of her, the picture of diplomacy, allowing a quick glance to the side: Ruby and Weiss’s faces were both rendered pale with shock— but for for very different reasons. As she watched, the shock on Weiss’s face darkened to an acerbic belligerence— one that contrasted her usual austere disposition— before smoothing to a hard blankness; Ruby, evidently, didn’t see it, as Yang crushed her in a (probably deadly) hug.
“Looks like things are shaping up to be an… interesting year.”
The auditorium broke into chatter as Ozpin turned and vanished behind the doors that propped open into the dais. Blake flicked an ear irritably, stirring her bow, before following behind her new team as they filed out into the late summer sunshine. She could have gotten worse, and her team seemed fine, and that— that was okay with her.
The trees were already turning from vibrant plumes of emerald to dark, rich gold, and Blake breathed in. The air was warm, with the barest hint of a briskness that would precede autumn. Sharp rays of bloody, sunset light speared down, dazzling off the quadrants of water that rippled around the courtyard; spires framed the sky, and she longed to explore them further. But she kept pace with her team, contenting herself with discreetly taking in the structures around her. An impressive statue of Huntsmen and Huntresses slaying an Ursai pair. The intricate walls of the academy. Windows that glanced with bright light, sparking back like diamonds of fire. Towering gates. A path slanting away from the courtyard. It was by far more awe-inspiring than the corrugated warehouses and forests of her youth— she shuddered as she remembered Ayran’s calculating leer.
The White Fang can’t find me here, she told herself, and she tilted her head back to let the flaming sunset colors wash over her as they entered the west side of Beacon, where the dorms resided.
Within, the walls were paneled in a golden-honey varnish of wood, and she blinked to focus— CRDL took a spiraling staircase, JNPR took a hall to the right, and her own team— Yang and Ruby were fooling around at the front, and Weiss was still giving Ruby an implicitly graceless look— entered a plain dorm. The scent of jasmine poured through drawn curtains, four beds lined out neatly, and Yang promptly flopped out on the farthest one.
Ruby stared around the room with a look of incredulity and marvel. “I can’t believe we’re really here.” She turned around, eyes wide as she soaked in the surroundings. “It’s amazing.”
“You had better get used to it quickly,” Weiss said, her voice soft as a spider’s fur, venomous frost edging her tone. “Extolling the vaunted-wonders of Beacon isn’t the job of a leader.”
Ruby shot her a bemused look, and Yang sat up and grinned wickedly at Weiss.“Someone’s salty. What’s it to you, princess? Heiress?”
Weiss’s eyes flashed before she stalked to the farthest bed, and threw herself down atop the crisped covers. “I’m going to sleep now, thank you.
Blake sat gingerly on the edge of the bed nearest her partner. She thought Weiss’s priggish attitude was arbitrary— after all, having hubris and assuming that she would be appointed leader of the team, just because she was older, wasn’t that folly in itself?— but then again, wasn’t she herself predisposed to dislike any Schnee? Didn’t that make her just as bad?
Speculating on it as she laid back, eyes on the shimmering lattice of dimming light that wavered across the ceiling, she fell asleep to tangled nightmares of blurred train lights and screams.