章 1969: 199
Chapter Text
Atlas.
Just as cold as Ruby remembered it last.
Their trip had been remarkably smooth, all things considered. Probably because Ruby had personally flown Team RWBYP up at a speed that no airship trying to not attract grimm could match. Nevermores were fast, it turned out, and Nevermores propelled by the internal combustion mechanisms that let Sphinxes and Manticores breathe fire were even faster to the point that she'd had to all but swallow her girlfriend, sister, and sister's girlfriends into her body in order to keep them safe and sound from the sheer wind pressure buffeting her giant, birdy body.
Still, though, aside from some turbulence and also having to hollow out a room big enough to house five people inside of her Nevermore body (which, once again brought questions of if she was the person in the body or the Nevermore flying), everything proceeded quickly, efficiently, and with no extra muss or fuss from airship security or luggage carousels or ticket pricing or whatever.
Really, all she had to do was to fly towards a specified landing zone in the Solitas wastes for the military caravan to pick all five of them up instead of landing in Atlas directly and causing a scare. Because, y'know.
Giant Nevermore the size of a large military transport.
If she'd gone anywhere near Atlas or Mantle city limits, she would have gotten shot down again. Like that one time she'd visited with Uncle Qrow and tried to take a night flight only to wind up getting targeted by the grimm sensors and blasted from high above Atlas to nearly putting a crater in in Mantle by a giant anti-air cannon.
Ahem.
Regardless.
"So… we're gonna be landing soon," Ruby mentioned idly, using her avatar inside of her own body to speak as she opened up some translucent view ports in the sides of her Nevermore body. Hm… trippy. "I'd say we're… about a half hour out? Should be fine. We just passed the hard part between Anima and Solitas, and we'll be heading out… bout a half hour's drive from Atlas. Maybe a little further? About ten kilometers from the Mantle walls. General Ironwood said there'd be a transport there waiting for us, and that we should ideally hit the really big target they drew out on the ice for us instead of actually trying to land properly in this form. I don't know why , but… y'know. I can guess."
"Giant Nevermore the size of a double decker bus, I assume," Yang deadpanned, idly shuffling a deck of cards and reclining on a sofa made of… well. It probably wasn't viscera or anything gooey or organ-y but it had about the same color as blood and the same texture as crushed velvet and was vaguely warm and pulse-y so Yang didn't really wanna think too hard about the fact that she might have been reclining on her sister's nonexistent gooey spleen. "Not a lot of soldiers could hold their nerve in the face of something that big, and Atlas has a history of firing first and asking questions never."
"They're not… that bad," Weiss protested, clearing her throat and shaking her head as she sat at the table, which kind of looked like a protruding, carved vertebra. She would have said something about the table, but honestly Ruby looked really happy to indulge in the weirder aspects of her shapeshifting so nobody said anything. Except for Penny, who just requested a nice armchair so she could cuddle Ruby the whole time while recharging. She was still glowing bright green from several places on her body, actually, which meant that she was at full charge and plugged into power and was bleeding off excess in the form of light. "I mean, yes, they'll shoot first, but they'll ask questions later, not never."
"That's… not entirely better. Yang, do you think we have enough time for another game of Go Fish?" Blake asked, sitting across from the weird bony table from Weiss whilst slurping on a cup of instant noodles that Ruby had, apparently, cooked and then shoved into her grimm mass and then kind of forgot about. It had still been steaming hot and fresh when retrieved from the walls of Ruby's nevermore form, which made Blake question reality given that it must have been stuck there for weeks. Oh well. It was still food, so whatever. It even had little chicken bits in it. She would have preferred fish, but Ruby wasn't in the habit of eating raw fresh fish for sashimi. Raw, bloody steaks, sure. Actual fish, not so much.
"Eh, probably not? Might as well just sit around and shoot the shit while we can. And also probably talk about whether or not Ironwood's going to do something stupidly unethical while we're here," Yang shrugged, setting the cards away (and ignoring that Ruby all but ate them into her darkness once they were set down) before leaning forward and looking at each girl in turn. "Because, like it or not, a whole lot of people have been telling us that General Ironwood's whole lift Atlas into the sky plan is suicidal, stupid, and would likely lead to the deaths of thousands , maybe even the entire population of both Mantle and Atlas combined."
"Yeah… there's no way they won't have to deal with the high altitude grimm," Ruby mentioned, biting her lip and looking vaguely upwards with her Nevermore eyes, keeping track of the nearly invisible, glassy grimm that hovered like jellyfish above the stratosphere. There weren't many , but there were enough that if they really tried… there'd be no way to stop them. Not if they attacked a newly released and ascended Atlas. "Oh yeah, did you guys know there's grimm up there? Super weird, right? They're apparently so good at hiding that they don't even have a name! Though, they're not super common? They kinda hover over the Kingdoms. Don't do much, though, so whatever."
"I'm sorry there's WHAT!?" Weiss shrieked, slamming her hands on the table and giving Ruby a horrified look. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE'S GRIMM UP THERE!?"
"... There's grimm up there. Kinda like… big, gassy jellyfish snake things? They can't come down unless they pop, and if they come down they have no way of regaining altitude or controlling their fall so they kinda just… splat against stuff. It's kinda rare, but there's a reason why sometimes you'll hear rumors about buildings randomly collapsing out of nowhere even if they're supposed to be up to code," Ruby shrugged, tilting her head. "I mean, not every building collapse is one of them, but there's enough floating up there that if a Kingdom or a settlement gets too intensely emotional, they might pop themselves just to see what happens. I dunno, they don't really bother anyone or anything and it's kinda hard flying up that high because it's like, gosh, almost all the way up in the mesosphere? Not really worth the effort for something so… bleh. I mean, they're big but also they're big in the same way that a big balloon is big, y'know?"
"Oh, you can see them too!" Penny gasped, continuing to cuddle Ruby in her arms as she woke up from her charging nap, arms tightening around Ruby's waist as she sat up straight and disconnected herself from the fleshy charging cable she'd been attached to prior. "I thought I was seeing things when I kept seeing optical distortions whenever I looked up! But they're real!"
"Mhmm! I kinda forgot they existed, honestly," Ruby chuckled, shaking her head. "But yeah, they exist and they don't really have anything going for them except their weight and their teeth, and if they pop their gas bladders they just… splat on contact with the ground. Not really a threat. What is a threat is… uh… the fact that Nevermores can reach up that high, or higher."
"... So Atlas is fucked if the General's plan goes through," Blake summarized.
"Yup."
"Cool, so… what do we do?" Yang asked, tilting her head as she slid off the sofa and over to Weiss and Blake, looking over at Penny and Ruby with a questioning gaze. "Like, are we gonna fight 'em or what? I mean… we gotta figure out what's all going on, right?"
"Yeah, we need to do recon first. Figure out what's going on in Mantle, do our best to help whoever we can, whenever we can," Ruby answered, nodding resolutely as she outlined her ideas for the coming school year. "We're gonna also need to keep up on top of our studies- it should be light thanks to the fact that we'll be running missions too, but keep an ear out on anything you think is useful. Oh- and make sure that General Ironwood never gets Neo anywhere near the Staff as long as possible. And that Winter is on our side with this. I think she is since she's friends with Robyn Hill, but we better check just to make sure."
"Robyn is good people," Weiss nodded. "Reliable. Honest. She's a politician for the citizens of Mantle, not for her own self interest. I think that… as long as Robyn isn't agreeing with General Ironwood, we should be fine. What about my father?"
"If he comes near you or threatens you I'll pop him one in the head," Ruby deadpanned, Crescent Rose appearing from her torso as she drew it forth. "From halfway across the city, if need be."
"... I don't think that's entirely necessary, but if we end up having to kill my dad… eh. As long as the rest of my family is safe," Weiss shrugged.
"Well, that settles that. Recon, studies, politics, kill Weiss' dad, stop General Ironwood from doing something really stupid, help as many people as possible," Yang nodded, looking around. "Anything else we need to cover?"
Nobody said anything, just shaking their heads as a negative.
"Alright then! Let's make this Atlas trip a good one, then! Banzai!"
"BANZAI!"
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