Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

    The memorial to Penny always had a nice smell. Thousands of people, mostly from Mantle, stopped by to leave flowers next to the spray painted image of the girl who brought the message to the stars. As Blake walked by, she gave her a respectful nod. While she still missed Penny, there was someone else she had to see. She rounded the corner. In an alley behind the Penny memorial was another, much smaller memorial.
    Blake laid her hand on the wall. She knelt and looked at all that remained of her best friend. Long, tousled hair, lilac eyes, and a lopsided smile overtook her vision. She had spent hours trying to get the prosthetic just right. She let the tears run down her face. It had been nearly a year, but she still missed her.

    She still thought about that moment on a daily basis. Everything looked like it was going to work, the evacuation was running smoothly. It seemed like it was going to be the first risk they had ever took since coming to Atlas that would work out.
    But they never accounted for their enemies. Neo seemed to come out of nowhere, parasol pointed directly at Ruby, a scowl of vengeance on her face. Only Yang was quick enough and close enough to react. She had made the mistake of activating her semblance, putting her in the state where she was both her most powerful and most vulnerable.
    Neo tore through her aura, hitting her jaw. Her momentum carried her across the platform, bouncing once before falling. 
    Blake ran as fast as she could and threw Gambol Shroud, trying to catch Yang by the boot. It was too little, too slow, too late.
    The girl that had broken into her life and turned it upside down fell into the void, never to be seen again.

    Everything afterwards felt like a blur. Before she knew it, she was in Vacuo with Ruby and Weiss. Penny had been slain by Jaune, and Winter burst out of the portal with him dragging behind seconds before it closed.
    Their gamble had worked at a terrible cost.

    After that, things were just... busy. Atlas refugees had to be taken care of. Grimm. The remains of the Atlas military had to be recontacted and reorganized. Grimm. The Vale refugee situation had to be taken care of. Grimm. The new Spring Maiden had to be found. Grimm. Amity had to be converted into a carrier. Grimm. Thousands of civilian airships had to be retrofitted. Grimm. Grimm. Grimm. 
    
    And yet through it all, the remnants of Team RWBY had managed to find the time to paint this memorial. Every day when she was in the city, Blake had found the time to visit it. Sometimes Ruby and Weiss came with her. Sometimes she was alone. Every time she thought she wouldn't cry. Every time, she was wrong. It was her ritual. Arrive, look at Yang, cry for a little, maybe leave an offering, maybe chat a bit, leave.
    This time, she had something special. She pulled a small candle out of her bag. Under the strict Dust rationing and the inefficient Vacuan power grid, lighting had become a luxury. Blake was lucky to have an extra candle for this. She lit it and stepped back, looking at the mural. She just wished she could hear her laugh again. 

    "Hey, I can't believe its been almost a year now. Yeah, Amity is still under construction." she said to the mural. At first, she felt silly talking to the painting, but it did genuinely make her feel better. Part of her was expecting to be laughed at when Ruby first found out, but she was actually really kind and understanding. Apparently, Ruby did the same thing at her mom's grave while she was growing up. It made Blake feel just a little less alone.
    She just chatted for a while. About missions, about Ruby and Weiss, about life. Yang responded with the same lopsided smile and prosthetic in the v-for-victory pose.

    "Yeah, I still miss you." Blake finished. She took a second to take a breath and recompose herself. "Thanks for listening." She left. The life of a huntress is ever busy.

    Blake ran over to the Shade hangar. She had lost track of time. Ruby and Weiss had already started the startup sequences, and now were waiting for her to arrive. It wasn't a super big deal, the mission was only a routine patrol, one of several per day, but Blake still felt bad for making them wait.
    She squinted and covered her eyes as she entered the hangar. The open hangar doors were extremely bright compared to Shade's dim sandstone corridors.
 Weiss was in the cockpit, going through the startup sequence while Ruby refuelled the helicopter's Dust bay.

    The helicopter was a product of necessity. Gravity Dust was difficult to manufacture, and most of the naturally occurring veins had to be sent either to Amity or to the remains of the Atlas air fleet. And so, a new breed of airship, one that used a different type of Dust was born. The common name for them was Rotary Wing Airships. The pilots and crews preferred the term helicopter. Team RWBY had voted unanimously to name their helicopter Yang. Ruby had said that as long as they are together, Yang would be with them too.
    Yang had been painted a standard coyote brown to blend in with the desert, but she had nose art spelling out RWBY on her left, and all the teams emblems on her right. Blake was proud of their handiwork. She helped to load the stub pylons with missiles.

    Patrol was boring as usual. It was a simple, slow rhythm. Fly across the desert while looking for flying and surface Grimm. Land at one of the predesignated spots, place down and set up the seismic scanners to look for Grimm beneath the sand. Pack up the scanners when they almost inevitably found nothing in the area. Fly across the desert. 
    Blake was thankful for the boredom. If it was boring, it means they were doing everything right and the city was safe. 
    Weiss was flying this time, meaning Blake and Ruby were sitting in the back. The three were having a discussion about time loops, and what they would do exactly if they got caught in one, and how they would attempt to break out.
    "I mean, I guess it depends on what kind of time loop I'm in. If you just loop back after you die, and there's no set time you loop back from, I can just live my life and not have to worry about it. When I die, I just get reset back to the loop point. I guess I would be basically immortal in this situation." Weiss said.
    "It would still be weird though. Imagine being the same age biologically as all your friends, but you have lived for like 70 years longer. Also, on looping back, all your friends wouldn't remember your old life, even though they were in it." said Blake.
    "Hold up, do you see that? It's over by the Atlas memorial. It looks like some kind of burning tower?" said Ruby.

    They were about half a kilometer away from the place where the portal from Atlas had opened up. A short monument now stood there, with the names of all who were lost embedded into the stone. Blake looked over at where Ruby was pointing. Sure enough, there was some kind of tower standing close to the monument. It was an ellipse, partly sunk into the sand. Around its edge was something that looked vaguely like flames.
    "Wait, that's not a tower. It's a portal. Like the one that brought us here. Weiss, bring us closer." said Blake.
    "On it" Weiss replied.
    Blake readied Gambol Shroud. She saw Ruby do the same with Crescent Rose. Salem had the relic of creation, she could very well be using the portal for an invasion.
    But just as fast as the portal appeared, it vanished. Weiss kept flying closer. Blake nearly dropped Gambol Shroud as they crossed the final dune.

    Standing by the monument, protecting her eyes from the sun, was Yang Xiao Long in the flesh.

Chapter Text

    Ruby was the first to act. In a swirl of petals, she burst down to the desert sand, scythe at the ready. Blake found herself stunned as Weiss landed the helicopter, kicking up a sandstorm as it descended, obscuring Ruby and Yang. 
    Feeling a thousand miles from her body, Blake stepped out of the helicopter, slowly. In her peripheral vision, she could see Weiss leap out of the cockpit before the dust could settle, disappearing into the orange haze. As the sandstorm died down, she saw Ruby and Weiss readying their weapons, prepared to strike down the girl Blake thought she lost.
    "Who are you, and what are you doing here?" Weiss said. She failed to mask the small warble in her voice.
    Blake finally got a good look at this thing that looked like Yang. It was identical. It looked shocked, those lilac eyes wide, robotic hand over her mouth. A single tear dripped down the side of its face. Finally, it spoke. It sounded like it was about to cry. "Ruby? Weiss? B-Blake? You're still alive? You're still..." It even sounded exactly like Yang.
    "Yang Xiao Long is dead." said Ruby. Her words told of conviction but her tone betrayed her true feelings.
    The imposter slowly raised its hands in surrender, one meat, one metal. "Rubes... It's me..."
    Blake finally found herself standing next to Weiss. Her hand shook so hard she thought she was going to drop Gambol Shroud. The thing wearing Yang's body looked over at her, eyes full of fear and betrayal. "Blake? You... You believe me? Right?"
    "I want to." she responded, her mouth a million miles away. Her hands quivering, she pointed her gun at the thing. "But I can't."
    "I-I can explain. Capture me. Take me prisoner. Please." it begged.
    "I don't want an explanation. I want you to stop wearing my sister." Ruby snarled.
    It looked at the ground, eyes full of regret. "Then I'm so sorry."

    Before anyone could react, it was already behind Weiss. As it burst forward, it ducked down into a slide, right before jumping up and grabbing Myrtenaster straight out of her hands. As it flew over her, it grabbed the strap running along her shoulder, pulling her Dust satchel off of her in one fluid motion. Immediately after landing, it ripped its leg around, hitting the back of Weiss's knees. Her legs were swept under her just before the doppelgangers fist rammed into her chest. Her aura shattered as she hit the sand. It looked down, sadness on its face. "Weiss... I really wish it didn't have to be this way." It said, carefully placing down Myrtenaster and the satchel next to her.

    While the real Yang had been strong, this imitation was on another level. Even so, Blake and Ruby had gotten stronger too. Blake activated her semblance and got hit by the still strange feeling of being fed the sensory inputs of two bodies at once. One of her bodies ran at the thing while the other stayed back, running around the side, trying to find a good angle. The false Yang feinted upward, forcing the closer Blake to duck down directly before sweeping out its leg and hitting her directly in the stomach. The body disappeared as the her two positions collapsed back into one. She opened fire as Ruby burst out from above in a storm of petals, scythe arcing towards its chest.
    With one arm, the thing wearing Yang's face deflected Blake's barrage as it sidestepped Ruby's strike. It grabbed the handle of Crescent Rose in an attempt to disarm her, only for the girl and the scythe to dissolve into petals and move away.
    However, the thing had expected her to do something like this. As Ruby dashed away, it followed her, using the recoil from its gauntlets to keep up.
    As Ruby began to reform, the false Yang reached into the whirlwind and grabbed her still forming neck. Her eyes widened as she realized what was happening. It crushed her into the sand, still moving just as fast. The ground ripped through her aura. It only dropped her once her aura broke. It knelt over her as she caught her breath. It looked pained as it stood up. "Ruby. Weiss. Blake. I know this is a lot.. just believe me. Please." It sounded like it was fighting back tears. "I spent so much time to be back here. I-I'm so sorry."
    
    It fell over onto its knees. Behind it, Ruby emerged out of the sand. She stayed far away from it, vulnerable without aura or semblance. Despite this, it made no move to attack. Weiss had grabbed her satchel and weapon. She had ran to the helicopter and was preparing for dust-off. If she couldn't fight on foot, she would fight from the safety of the vehicle. The blades had just started spinning when the rumbling started.

    "Shit. We didn't scan the area yet." said Weiss over the intercom, seconds before one of the dunes exploded. Blake covered her face as a major Wyrm the size of a building burst out of it. The sand thrown up began to blot out the sky above. It was large enough to swallow the helicopter and RWBY without noticing. It opened its maw, and from holes between its teeth poured out dozens of minor Wyrms. They ran towards the group with a strange, skittering gait, screeching a high pitched war cry.

    "Forget about Yang!" screamed Weiss. "We need to get airborne, now!" The sandstorm kicked up from the helicopter was dwarfed by the rain of sand from the Wyrm.
    
    Blake began running towards the helicopter. She threw out Gambol Shroud ahead of her, hooking it onto the landing skid. She jumped and pulled herself onto the helicopter as the skids left the ground.
    Ruby was not so lucky. She folded up Crescent Rose and ran towards the helicopter as fast as she could. With her semblance, it would have been effortless, but that was not an option for her. The Grimm filled sandslide caught up to her. She tripped, and was sucked in up to her legs. She tried pushing herself forward, but the sand was too fast. She clawed desperately, trying to break free, as the sand engulfed her completely. The last remaining part of her was her hand, grabbing blindly for salvation.
    Blake threw Gambol Shroud. It hit the sand just after Ruby disappeared. Too little, too slow, too late.
    
    The noise of the helicopter and the Grimm was drowned out by a scream. Blake looked over to see the false Yang had stood up. As soon as she did, the consistency of the sand changed as it began to... bubble. The minor Wyrms were swallowed by the dune as it collapsed, the sand moving like water on the ocean. Like a champion swimmer, the false Yang dived into this gritty soup filled with Grimm. For a few agonizing seconds, nothing happened, save for the major Wyrm spewing Grimm out of its mouth.

    Suddenly, Yang burst out of the sand, carrying Ruby in her arms. Her eyes burned with the flame of the Maidens as she hovered above the sand. Ruby clung to her, coughing dust out of her mouth. She flew up to the helicopter and carefully deposited Ruby into Blake's arms. "Don't worry, I got you." she said.
    

Chapter Text

    "Move away and gain altitude. Now. I'll handle the Grimm." Yang said to Weiss. "I can explain everything later." 
    Weiss gave an affirmative nod as she turned up the collective and pulled back on the stick. The helicopter flew up and away. Yang dived down in the opposite direction, towards the bowl of sand and Grimm soup. A minor Wyrm snapped at her boots as they grazed against the bubbling ground. She hovered about a meter above the ground as the bubbling of the sand became more and more violent. Weiss turned up the collective a little more to fight against a downdraft.
    Yang stared at the major Wyrm, eyes burning purple. It returned the glare with its many eyes, filled with empty rage. A shadow fell over the desert as the low rumble of thunder echoed across the dunes. Unable to attack the floating target, the Wyrm pushed forward and dove down into the sand once more to flee. Yang stared at the long dark mass burrowing into the sand as the wind changed direction.
    Weiss scowled at the controls as the downdraft turned into a gale force wind filled with sand. Blake gripped her seat until her knuckles turned white so she wouldn't get flung off as Weiss struggled to regain control of the vehicle. Ruby was still ejecting sand from her lungs as she was thrown about her chair, prevented from falling out by the seat belts. 
    A sudden change in the wind knocked the helicopter to the left, and Blake's hands gave out. She activated her semblance, one body grabbing onto the skid, the other falling down. With her falling body, she threw Gambol Shroud up at the helicopter, letting it hook around the landing skid. With both bodies, she hung on for dear life. The helicopter got hit by another gust, and the upper body lost grip, plummeting to the sands below. 
    She deactivated her semblance, collapsing down into just the body grasping Gambol shroud. She heard Ruby attempt to scream over the intercom, voice gravelly. "Blake... No..."
    "Ruby, I'm ok. I'm just hanging off the skid. Stay in your seat, I'll be ok." she responded. She looked down, seeing a few minor Wyrms snapping at her from below. She ignored them.
        
    Down here, she had a better view of Yang and the Wyrm. She felt her aura protecting herself from the sandstorm, but it would eventually wear down. Yang was like a beacon in the deep brown murk of the storm. From above, the rumble of thunder boomed. 
    Still hovering, Yang looked to the sky. The light from her eyes surged. A bolt of lighting descended, leaping from the clouds into her body. Her body crackled with electricity, static shocks jumping from finger to finger. Another bolt hit her, then another. Waves of lightning burning blue crackled down her hair. Bolt after bolt after bolt hit her. Blake averted her eyes from the light.
    As suddenly as the lightning storm started, it stopped. Yang hovered above the Wyrm and the dunes. Electricity surrounded her in a sphere. It stained the entire sandstorm blue.

    She rose up as the sphere of lighting surrounding her was absorbed into her body. At the apex, she was dark. Then, she fell. As she fell, she burned white, brighter than a dying star. She touched the sand, and the lightning coming from her blasted across the desert, ripping from one dune to another. The head of the great Wyrm burst from the sand, twitching and spasming as Yang's lighting ran up its body. It fell limp and began to dissipate. The minor Wyrms were fried instantly, not even leaving a corpse.

Blake looked down at the lightning below her. She was low. Too low.
     A smaller bolt leapt from one dune to another, jumping through the air into Blake's leg and out again. She grimaced in pain as it ripped up through her calf, shattering her aura. She screamed in pain, but her grip remained solid. She looked down, seeing two black burns on either side of her leg. She bit down, trying her hardest not to scream more.
    
    Just as fast as they formed, the clouds dissipated. The sand, however, remained in the air, turning the desert sky a light orange color. Yang landed at the center of a massive flower made of strands of glass, formed by the lightning fusing the sand together. This flower was cut in half by a great valley as the Wyrms dissipating corpse created a cavity that was instantly filled by the dunes above.

    A distant part of Blake's brain wanted to stare in stunned silence, to truly take what happened in, but all she could do was focus on the intense and very present feeling of immense pain radiating up and down her leg. It was apparent that Weiss was in a similar situation, her thoughts most likely redirected towards keeping their vehicle airborne. Over the intercom, Blake heard her voice. "Blake. I'm going to fly low down, let you drop onto the ground. I'm going to land a few meters away so as not to crush you. Got that?"
    Blake refused to open her mouth, lest she start screaming. She responded with a grunt in the affirmative.
    "Sounds good."

    On setting foot on the ground, Blake immediately collapsed into a sitting position. She covered the burns with her hands so as not to get sand in them from Weiss's landing. After touchdown, Weiss and Ruby ran out to check on her, getting an eyeful of the painful black welts on her legs. "What happened?" asked Ruby. Her voice was still a little crusty from the sand.
    "Are you ok?" said Weiss.
    Slowly, speaking through her teeth, Blake responded. "Too low. Shock passed through leg."
    As Weiss began tending to the leg, Yang flew over the closest dune. Her eyes widened as she took in the swelling angry burns on Blake's calf. She looked horrified as she processed what happened. She landed. "I'm... I'm so sorry. I should have given you-" 

    She was interrupted by Ruby jumping onto her, pulling her into a hug. "I can't believe you're alive." Ruby said. "I don't want to lose you again. Ever."
    Slowly, Yang pulled Ruby close. "It's good to see you Rubes."

    Blake let out a gasp as the topical painkillers kicked in. The pain in her leg dissipated from an all consuming rip to a distant throb as Weiss finished wrapping the burn with gauze. "That's all we can do for now." she said. "We can talk to Jaune later to patch you up."
    Yang knelt down next to her. "I'm so sorry. I-I don't want to ever hurt any-"
    Once again, she was cut off, this time by Blake putting her hand on Yang's mouth, tracing her cheek. "It's just... I never thought I would see your face again. Hear your voice."
    This close, Blake could finally look at Yang in detail. She looked almost exactly like the girl who had fallen into the void. But not quite. Her hair was streaked with white, and she held herself in an almost imperceptibly different way. But above all, she just looked... exhausted.
    Blake didn't care. It was Yang, and she was here. That was all that mattered. She pulled the girl who she thought she lost forever into an embrace, as tight as she could. "I missed you. Every second of every day. I never stopped thinking about you." She said.
    "I missed you too. I can't believe you're still here." responded Yang. 
    The two pulled apart, looking at each other, fingers interweaved. 
    "I still have so many questions" Blake said. "Where were you?"
    "How did you do that?" asked Weiss, gesturing at the glassy lines running up and down the dunes.
    "Why do you have that?" finished Ruby, pointing to Yang's back.
    Strapped onto Yang's back was a flowery pink and white parasol.
    Yang took a breath. "It's... It's a long story."