Chapter Text
Yang didn’t want to deal with the harsh, sterile light and the incessant beeping sound, so with a groan she burrowed down into the bed and pulled the sheet up over her eyes. Which was surprisingly difficult actually, she had a really hard time getting traction with her body to maneuver around the bed. As she stubbornly resisted the calling of the conscious world, she began to become aware of more things. The bed was really uncomfortable, much more so than even the shittiest cot she’d ever slept on. Her right leg felt strangely numb, not just in the ‘sat on it too long’ way, but… something else she couldn’t quite describe.
When she realized that she couldn’t feel her team’s minds in her head, she shot awake and sat up in a panic.
Yang discovered that she was obviously in a hospital bed, the small curtained room an unpleasant set of beige colors, and full of machines that sported various screens and tubes and that all seemed to be making noise asking for attention. A couple of the tubes, and an array of wires, ran down and went inside the thin cotton gown she was wearing. Lastly, a very startled orderly was staring at her from beside her bed.
“Oh! You’re-you’re finally awake!” a young female voice exclaimed.
Yang groaned again. “W-Where am I? What’s going on? And… where is everybody?”
The orderly could have no idea what she actually meant by her last question, but seemed game to try and address the first two. “Well, you’re in Atmos Central Hospital here on Atlas, you’ve been in a coma ever since you got here four days ago, and…” she looked down at the large scroll she was carrying to double-check something. “...someone from the military will be by to explain everything else shortly.”
“What-Atlas? The military? What’s going on?” she growled in frustration, but the orderly was already backing out of the room.
“Like I said, someone will be by real soon to explain everything. At least, I’m presuming they’re explaining everything…”
“What?” Yang barked. “What do you mean ‘presuming’?”
“Got to go!” The orderly disappeared into the hallway, shutting the door behind her. Yang stared after her for a moment before deciding fuck this, I’m getting some answers… especially about why I can’t feel my girls or my sister! Before doing anything else, she reached up and felt her neck. No, no collar… but this does feel a lot like when they put that damn thing on me in jail…
Someone had taken her weapon bangles, but even unarmed, Yang knew she was formidable. Determined to answer her questions, she slung her legs over the side of the bed and took a deep breath before standing herself upright.
That’s when she noticed that something was very wrong.
“Umm… aren’t I supposed to have two legs?” she asked herself curiously. Her left leg appeared as normal, but her right leg… just wasn’t there. Peeling the sheet back, what she saw refused to register in her brain no matter how long she stared at it. There was a little bit of her thigh left, but then it ended in a bandaged stump.
That’s not right…
She sat and stared at where her leg should have been for she didn’t know how long. Yang was still staring when her door swung open, and a familiar figure walked in.
“Winter?” she said, an empty tremor in her voice.
“That’s right, Yang. How are you feeling?” Weiss’s sister sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Winter, where’s my leg gone?” Yang asked.
Winter sighed. “Right to it then.” She muttered. “Yang, you’re safe in Atlas now, okay? You’re safe. But what do you remember about Beacon?”
Images of destruction, of fire and pain, and screaming flashed through Yang’s mind as her whole body tightened. “N-nothing good, why?” she asked. “I remember there was some kind of disaster…”
Biting her lip and nodding, Winter explained. “Pretty close. There was a terrorist attack, the White Fang are claiming responsibility. Amity Arena… was destroyed. Along with all of Vale.” Yang gasped at the revelation. “At the same time,” Winter continued, “the individual known as Cinder Fall, whom I believe you previously encountered in the Emerald Forest, attacked, seeking-” her voice quieted substantially, “-the Maiden Powers from Pyrrha Nikos.”
More memories began to filter in to Yang’s head. An Atlessian battleship filling the sky. Falling, so much falling. And a madly laughing woman in black, surrounded by flames… and threatening a uncharacteristically vulnerable-looking Pyrrha. “Wh-what happened?” she asked quietly.
Winter continued. “From what the people who brought you in were able to tell us, you tried to fight Cinder, and she cut off your leg.” The simple, yet incredible, pronouncement sank slowly into Yang’s mind as Winter continued. “The evacuation of Vale was… it was a mess. There was no order to it, ships just took off with who they could carry and flew to wherever they could reach.” She paused. “My ship was heavily damaged and retreating to Atlas when a medical transport carrying you, unconscious, caught up with us.”
“And my team? Blake, Weiss, Ruby?” Yang’s voice trembled as she recited their names.
Winter’s voice softened as she shook her head. “Unknown. The CCT has been destroyed, we haven’t gotten any word from the other kingdoms. You were brought in by…” she pulled her scroll out and tapped at it. “A Lie Ren and a May Zedong?”
Yang nodded. “Ren’s on my sister team, and May’s from another team in the games.”
“Well, they’re waiting for you at the Academy, when you’re healed up enough to go.”
Pursing her lips, Yang asked the obvious question. “And when’s that supposed to be? I’ve got to go find them!”
“One thing at a time, Yang.” Winter smiled remorsefully as she patted Yang’s good leg. “But, when and if you’re up to it, I do have a plan.” Yang cocked her head. “I’m putting a team together…”
∘₊✧──────✧₊∘
Blake moved deftly through the subterranean living room of the Vacuo condo her little group of refugees was living in. Being below ground kept the space cooler, safe from the scorching rays of the Vacuo sun. She smiled as she waved to her friends; Nora from JNPR; Octavia Ember from Team NDGO, and Scarlet David and Jessica Cruz from SSNJ were gathered around the dining table, slurping the thick and rich Vacuoan coffee. There were more refugees about town, but that’s who had been on their airship.
Pyrrha was there as well, but she was siting quietly in the corner not responding to anything. That’s all she had done since they’d arrived a week ago; Blake had gathered that she’d had to see Jaune die, and it had been exceptionally brutal.
“Hey Blake, what’s up?” Jess asked.
Blake picked up a cup and filled it with warm water before dropping a tea infuser in. “I thought I’d go out and look for work, actually. This refugee stipend we’re getting isn’t going to last for long.”
Octavia nodded. “Central Market should have job boards for you to look at.”
Blake grimaced. “Although I suppose I’ll have trouble claiming any of them since, you know, none of us are licensed hunters.”
Octavia giggled, and all of them looked at her quizzically. “Oh, you fancy Valeans and your techno-wizardry!” she laughed. “When I say ‘job board’, I literally mean a board with jobs nailed to it. No one here cares how tough it is or how good you are; deciding whether you can handle it or not is your own damn problem. Just find a listing and rip it down.” She shrugged.
“Oh, can we fight a Blind Worm?” Scarlet asked excitedly. “I hear they’re massive!”
“They are, and you DO NOT want to fight one!” Octavia shook her head as she replied. “I wouldn’t take one of those on unless I was shooting at it from an airship… and it was very high up.”
“Sounds like a good idea, Blake.” Nora said quietly. She’d been very subdued since their escape, and Blake knew that losing Jaune had also hit her hard. And she was missing Ren.
Nope, not going to start thinking about missing people, Blake thought as she tried to drive out the anxiety. She hadn’t been able to feel any of her girlfriends since their connection had abruptly gone dark the night of the fall, and if she let herself focus on how lonely she was and how much she feared for them, she’d be consumed.
She drank her tea quickly. “See you all later then,” she waved again as she headed outside. While she climbed the stair to street level, she finished wrapping the off-white bandanna she wore over her head across her face. Even with her darker skin, an unprotected person could sunburn in minutes under Vacuo’s sun. Weiss, I wish you were here… and not just so you could pay for everything and I didn’t have to go out in this miserable heat! She thought, then giggled. Plus, you’d be redder than a lobster constantly in this place.
Still laughing at the thought of an indignant lobster Weiss to keep away the feeling off how much she missed her, Blake climbed the stairs and headed down the street.
∘₊✧──────✧₊∘
“Weiss Schnee to the quartermaster’s office.”
Setting down her autohammer, Weiss wiped the back of her hand across her sweaty brow. It was a stark contrast to the chill of the mine.
Shit.
Getting called to the quartermaster’s office was bad enough. Nothing the guards had in mind would be good for the faunus prisoners of the Rura Penthe labor camp. But potentially even worse for Weiss was being marched through the mine with everyone seeing her and knowing her name.
It wasn’t like her imprisonment was a secret; her hair and bushy tail were more dirty-white than white now, but they were still quite distinctive. Which reminded her, she really ought to trim her hair; it was impossible to keep it clean and manageable in Rura Penthe, and she didn’t want to end up with one solid dreadlock. Despite her being imprisoned in this dreadful place as well under the Atlas edict that all faunus were considered terrorists and were subject to arrest and deportation from Atlas, many inmates were openly hostile to her, no thanks to her father. Weiss already slept with one eye open fearing some kind of attack; this would surely make it worse.
She’d tried to make friends in The Pit, but it wasn’t easy when everyone was miserable. She had managed to meet a blonde monkey faunus named Sun Wukong who, incredibly, she’d found out had been Team SSNJ’s missing captain. Neon, one of the competitors from the Vytal Tournament, was also here. Apparently not even being in Atlas’s Hunter Academy had been enough to save her when the military police had come to arrest her; she’d bitterly recounted how, with Sienna Khan and Ghira Belladonna both missing in the catastrophe that was Vale, Adam Taurus had somehow declared himself the leader of all of Menagerie, and all faunus his soldiers in a ‘War of Liberation’. Which had promptly resulted in Atlas turning on all its faunus citizens and beginning sweeping arrests. Idily, Weiss wondered if dog guy from the Ace-Ops would end up here eventually, and if that’d be enough to make him regret his loyalty to Atlas. Would he think of the night he handed a traumatized Weiss over the guards of Rura Penthe?
A trauma not made any better by not being able to feel her team. The damned aura suppression collar, which every prisoner who’d unlocked their aura was wearing, had apparently shut down their connection. Weiss desperately wanted to feel warm again as she snuggled into Yang’s strong arms, and here she was not even knowing if they were alive.
Having ignored the dirty looks and muttered malevolences as best she could, Weiss came to the quartermaster’s door. Steeling herself, she walked inside.
“Sir? You wanted to see me?” She’d learned fast to exercise utmost politeness with the guards; the two faunus bodies hanging in one of the main mineshafts taught that lesson well.
Three guards turned to look at her, and the leers on their faces put a dread feeling in Weiss’s stomach. “Took you long enough!” the portly man behind the desk snarled.
I can only get from the lower south branch so fast! No, don’t say anything; it’s not worth it.
The dread feeling only got worse when one of the guards stepped behind her and locked the quartermaster’s door.
“So, Miss Schnee,” the quartermaster began with a mocking tone. “How are you finding your stay here at Rura Penthe?”
Weiss opened her mouth and closed it several times. What kind of a trick question is that? Be honest and get called a troublemaker and punished; pretend everything is fine, and get called dishonest and disrespectful.
“Heh, animal’s too dumb to even talk!” one of the guards laughed. “Probably doesn’t know what to do now that she’s not at a fancy party eating pastries and drinking champagne!” He butchered the pronunciation, and Weiss winced.
“I always hated those things,” she muttered.
“What was that?” the other guard exclaimed as he slapped her. “Not even grateful for what she was given?!”
“Calm down, Thad,” the quartermaster said as he made a placating gesture. “We don’t need brains for our little… experiment… today.”
Not-Thad brushed her braid aside and loudly sniffed the back of Weiss’s neck, sending a shiver of revulsion through her. He laughed.
“I suppose not,” Thad agreed. “Doesn’t take much for us to find out if rich girl pussy is really that much better than the normal kind.”
No.
No no no no!
Beat me or something, but not this!
Weiss shrank back against the wall, trembling. “I- I’m not rich!” she stuttered. “My father- he’s the one who sent me here, he disowned me!”
The quartermaster glowered as he rounded his desk. “Well shucks, guess we’re a little off then.” He shrugged. “Oh well, meat still marinated in fine wine plenty long time before we got our hands on it.”
Not-Thad chuckled. “But not too long! Want it young and tender, not old and tough.”
Thad looked at him, eyebrow raised. “You’re a sick bastard, you know that, right Puckard?”
Not-Thad, or Puckard, grinned. “Like you weren’t thinking the same thing!”
Thad shrugged and chuckled. “True enough.”
Weiss sank to the floor, trying to hold back her tears as the men loomed over her. “Aww, you can go ahead and cry,” the quartermaster sneered as he unbuckled his trousers. “You’re gonna be by the time we’re done anyways.”
Weiss’s eyes widened for a brief moment as she saw a dark figure separate itself from the shadows behind the men. The wet ‘schlunk’ of a knife sliding through flesh sounded twice in rapid succession, and the quartermaster and Puckard silently dropped to the floor. Thad barely had time to mutter “What?” before a dark arm sank a blade into his chest and drew across sharply, putting him down as well.
Gasping, Weiss stared at the space where she thought her savior must be standing, watching as the form of a young woman came into view.
“Wait- Ilia?” Weiss cried in shock.
“Don’t act so surprised, Snowflake.” Ilia snarked as she bent down and wiped her knife blade clean on the quartermaster’s shirt. “Just because I want you dead doesn’t mean I’m going to let any woman suffer that.”
Weiss couldn’t help but splutter as every question she had tried to bubble up at once. “But- but how?”
Ilia raised an eyebrow. “Well, after you lot let me go, I tried to make my way across the countryside towards Vacuo, figured I could disappear there.” She shrugged. “Got picked up by an Atlas patrol and learned the world got even shittier, no thanks to Adam’s grimmshit.”
“I mean-” Weiss shook her head. “How did you vanish like that? You’ve got an aura-suppressing thing on too!” She gestured at the hateful collar around Ilia’s neck.
“Oh, that?” Ilia grinned. “Actual faunus trick, no semblance involved!” As Weiss watched wide-eyed, Ilia’s skin shifted color again, until she practically blended in with her surroundings. “Now, I suggest we get out of here? This shit,” she kick Puckard’s body in the ribs, “probably didn’t make a log entry of their afternoon plans, you ought to be able to slip away back into the crowds easy enough… but I’d rather not hang around and push our luck.”
Weiss took Ilia’s proferred hand and pulled herself to her feet. “I- thank you, Ilia. Sincerely.”
Ilia flashed her a thin smile. “I still don’t like you, Schnee, but… now we’re even at least. Now let’s go!”
Quietly, the two faunus slipped out the quartermaster’s door and hurried back into the mass of workers.
∘₊✧──────✧₊∘
With a groan, Ruby woke up.
Still the same. Head still hurts. Still chained to the wall in my underwear. Still no aura… and still no connection to anybody.
It was still pitch black, too. Just like it had been for the past… actually, she’d lost track of her sleep cycles a long time ago. Not that that was very accurate, considering as I started from unconscious… what the fuck is Neo planning to do with me?
Ruby’s memory of the events leading up to her getting knocked out were clear, but that didn’t leave her with any more ideas about what was going on. She was terribly thirsty though, even pressed against the cold stone of… wherever she was.
The cuffs of her chains clinked and groaned as she shifted around, trying to stretch. Her arms were secured above her head, and they were getting very sore.
The light when the door was thrown open honestly was still dim, but after so long in the dark it was still blinding to Ruby. She cried out and curled up in on herself, burying her face against her knees, but she had a good guess who’s heel boots were clicking against the floor of her prison.
“N-Neo?” Of course, there was no response. Ruby finally managed to force her eyes open enough to see the pink-and-white leg of the crime princess’s tightly-tailored pants. “Neo, what’s going on?”
Strong hands pulled her head up and back, forcing Ruby to close her eyes again as a cold water bottle was roughly pressed against her lips. Greedily, she drank, heedless of how much was spilling on her. By the time the bottle was pulled away, she was able to crack her eyes open and stare up at her captor.
“Neo?” she asked again.
The other woman sneered and dug out her scroll. ‘You’re going to pay for what you did’ was written in blood-red pixels across the screen.
“But- what’d I do?!”
Neo slapped her and wordlessly stepped out of the room before closing the door. Trapped in the dark again, Ruby choked back a sob. Suddenly, a series of spotlights flashed on, making it apparent that she was in a small closet, or something. Some of the spotlights were illuminating hastily-scrawled words like ‘MURDERER’ and ‘BETRAYAL’, but many other were shining down on pictures of Roman Torchwick. They were candids, showing him smiling and making goofy expressions. One was of him eating a bowl of ice cream; another showed Neo playfully smearing a dollop of ice cream on his nose.
Oh.
“Neo… that’s not what happened!” Ruby cried, but she got no answer.
Outside, staring at the cell door, Neo grimaced. Her plan to drag out Ruby’s demise and make her suffer… wasn’t going that well, honestly. Sitting down heavily, she glared distastefully at the tray of sharp torture implements she’d set up. Several times, she’d picked some out and prepared to go visit the young Huntress with them; but every time, something in her head told her no, and she’d found herself with no desire to hear the screams Ruby so deserved. It was strange, it wasn’t like she hadn’t tortured people before and had never had a problem with it, but now she just… didn’t want to?
Grumbling to herself, Neo idily toyed with the fancy cane she’d found as she’d hauled her victim to the safehouse. Even if she couldn’t tell what all the minute cogs and gears were for, it was obviously very well-made, with materials that should have put it in a gallery or even a museum instead of everyday use. She figured she’d start carrying it; Hush was ruined, and who knew when she’d be able to make repairs?