章 1902: 132
Hey."
"Hey Jaune," Blake murmured, standing in the doorway of the Xiao Long household, holding a mug in her hands as she looked back and forth from the four people standing outside, to the four people still packing inside. "They're almost ready to go. How… are you sure this is the right thing to do? To… y'know."
"To go on a quest to find a bunch of relics that might be capable of defeating an ancient, mysterious evil that humanity has been fighting in the shadows for thousands of years? I have no idea. But… Ruby's not waking up. Penny's in Atlas. Vale is rebuilding and the grimm in the area have started surrounding Ruby's castle thing instead of attacking the city so… figure we might as well," Jaune answered, shaking his head a little as he checked his sheathed blade- upgraded into a full railgun form at some point with help from Ruby before everything went to shit, thank gods he'd only needed to modify a few things on his own to tune it to something he could use without knocking himself over- and toed the ground. Behind him, Pyrrha, Nora, and Ren stood awkwardly in a sort of half circle behind their leader, looking around and seeming a bit… muted. As if the weight of the world was on their shoulders. "Professor Goodwitch will be with us, so… y'know. Should be fine, I think."
"Not Professor Ozpin?" Blake asked, ears drooping slightly at the thought of the headmaster of Beacon- had she seen him lately? She hadn't been keeping track of the news and he'd largely gone missing… was he even okay?
"He's dead," Cinder cut in, stepping past Blake and patting her on the shoulder gently as she exited the house and breathed in the cold, winter air. "Good thing this whole thing counts as an extended mission; if we come back alive and report in to Dad by the end of next year, I might actually graduate on time."
"Professor Ozpin is dead!?" Blake exclaimed, looking at Team CMNE and Team JNPR in shock. "Since when!? Shouldn't we have known that earlier!? It's been two months!"
"We only found out last week," Mercury answered as he brushed past Blake, camping pack in one hand as he rolled his neck and prepared for the long trek out, Talaria having been given its winter configuration that kind of made it look like a pair of snowboarding boots than Mercury's normal thing. "But yeah, he's dead. We kinda thought he was, but we actually got confirmation. Found his body beneath the tower and everything."
"He left us a message on his scroll, that's why we're going," Pyrrha spoke up then, frowning heavily and looking away as she trembled ever so slightly and seemed… Blake had to say almost traumatized . Had… Had Pyrrha been there to find the body? How horrible. "He… he was pinned beneath a lot of rubble that we couldn't move or get access to. I'm not sure how the CCT didn't collapse, honestly, but… Professor Ozpin was crushed and he told us to head to Mistral- to Haven. He said that he'd find us there somehow, that he'd explain… but… I'm not sure just what he could possibly explain when he's dead. Whatever the case may be, we're heading to Haven. Will you come with us? We could use some extra hands since flights and ships in and out of Vale have been grounded for the time being."
"N-n… I wish I could. I mean, we'd all like to, but…" Blake winced and looked back inside the house before looking back out at the group of people that had come to be called Team RWBYP's sister teams. "Yang and Weiss and I are leaving for Menagerie soon. We're… taking Bumblebee and some luggage and driving down to the closest international port that's still open. Weiss' father has been trying to find her, so… yeah. She's not going back, and Yang's just about healed up enough to move now so… we're leaving once her legs are fully back to normal."
"Y'know, every time I kept saying to break someone's legs, I never actually thought it'd be Yang's legs that'd break," Nora spoke up then, attempting to tell a joke before quailing a little from the awkward delivery. "... She just seemed like she was indestructible, y'know?"
"Yeah, we all did. I'm just glad she's okay," Blake sighed, shaking her head and pursing her lips as she took a sip of her tea. "It's… I don't know. There's a lot. We're all trying to get better as we can. We've left a note for Ruby as it is, and…"
"Honestly, I kinda hope she doesn't wake up before you come back," Cinder mentioned idly, letting a ball of fire roll between her fingers as her eyes lit up with a brilliant orange-yellow set of flames, granting her an unearthly appearance as she spoke. "As much as that sucks… I want us all to be here when Ruby wakes up. So that she doesn't ever wake up alone… so that… y'know. She knows that we didn't move on without her."
"... I was gonna say something sarcastic but yeah, mood," Mercury cut in, clearing his throat as he shuffled around and looked over the entire group. "So uh… we all gotta go. Soon, right?"
"Yeah, we gotta head to the port if we're gonna make it in time for Professor Goodwitch's personal transport," Emerald nodded, then walked over and gave Blake a hug, ruffling her hair for a moment and giving her a soft smile. "Take care of yourself, Blake. Take care of Yangles and Weiss too. And… come back? I know we're leaving too, but… y'know. Don't wanna miss Ruby waking up."
"Yeah… take care, you guys. Cinder… please don't let Jaune fall off a cliff," Blake responded, chuckling ever so slightly at her joke at Jaune's expense.
"Wh- hey, I'm not that bad!" Jaune pouted, crossing his arms and grumbling quietly as he huffed and looked away. "I'll probably end up falling off a bridge with my luck, though."
"Let's… hope you don't fall off of anything. Or that if you do, you can climb back up," Ren deadpanned dryly, rolling his eyes and punching Jaune's shoulder idly as he stepped forward and shook his head. "We'll keep safe, about as much as we can when we're hunting six highly trained assassins."
"Can't be that trained if they fucked up just about everything they tried," Mercury deadpanned, crossing his arms as well, only for Neo to bop him over the head with her parasol. "Ow- hey! I'm just saying! I fought off three of those bitches on the Colosseum, how fuckin tough could they be?"
"Considering you directly said they were trying to get past you more than they were trying to kill you, probably a lot harder to fight than we'd think," Emerald pointed out dryly. "Neo, hit him again if he decides to underestimate a team of assassins just because he was an assassin at some point."
"Assassin in training, wasn't it?" Cinder asked, shamelessly ganging up on her cousin before pausing and pursing her lips. "Also- Merc, are you sure you're coming with us? Don't you need to, y'know, take care of Yatsuhashi?"
"Nah, Yatsu knows. Soon as the whole embargo on airship travel lifts, Yatsu'll join us in Haven with Team CFVY," Mercury answered, completely ignoring Cinder's jab in favor of actually answering the real question. "We're gonna have a lot more backup than you'd think, especially once the CCT Tower goes back online."
"Well, that's good. Hopefully we'll be able to manage everything in as timely of a manner as possible… even if we're probably gonna have to cross most of MIstral by foot at this point," Cinder nodded, then sighed as she realized that Mistral's air travel was… worse than Vale's by a longshot, especially since there was far more in the way of impassable, hard to fly over mountain ranges on the continent of Anima than there were in Sanus. At least they wouldn't have to cross Solitas on foot if it came to that…
"Speaking of crossing Mistral on foot… there's a few places Nora and I would like to stop, if at all possible," Ren spoke up again, his voice taking on a… strangely serious quality. "It's… important to us."
"Uh… sure? I mean, your team is making the plan, we're just coming along for backup," Emerald shrugged, tilting her head. "What's so important in Mistral that you need to make stops along the way like that?"
"... Family business," Nora finished, clenching the grip of Magnhild in her hands as she looked far away into the distance. "Really important family business."
Jaune sighed. "You'll understand when we get there."
"... Well. Alright then."
Cinder paused, then sighed as she patted Blake's shoulder one last time, then rejoined the rest of the team with a last wave over her shoulder. "See you around, Blake. Tell Yang-"
"I'll let her know you've left when she wakes up. And Weiss too," Blake nodded.
"Okay. Cool. Seeya then."
"Safe travels."
"Heh… right back at you, Blake."
Notes:
Yeah, I'm kinda scrambling stuff from the other volumes around at this point, so uh... start of V4! sorta!
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