99

Black Rose Blooms SilverCyberQueen_Jolyne

Chapter 99

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

"Okay… everyone ready?" Ruby asked, looking out at the assembled group of her friends and family (and Penny!) standing before her on the cliffs of Beacon, all of them having taken places around her on the very same cliff that they'd done their Initiation on so many months ago (or, like, a year and a half ago now for CMNE and not at all for Team SSSN). "This is everyone's last chance to back out. There's no guarantee we're going to find anything useful, and there's no guarantee of success. I can't say that no one's gonna get hurt, either one of us or one of the White Fang. But we need to figure out what the White Fang is doing, and we need to make sure as few people as possible get hurt."

"If they're planning something, we need to stop it. And… if possible, convince people to try something else," Blake spoke up next, then paused and chewed her lip as she went over her own words. "... And by something else I mean less mass murder and more… like… regular riots instead."

"Y'know, I can't help but feel like our messages here are getting kinda mixed but also I can't say it's a bad idea to stop the plot of a deranged terrorist asshole who's probably planning on the mass murder of dozens, if not hundreds of innocent people," Emerald pointed out idly, crossing her arms as she finished her weapon checks and slung Thief's Respite back to the small of her back, ignoring the way that Ruby eyed the kama-revolvers almost hungrily. Her baby cousin could work on them later, but now wasn't the time. "Everyone ready?"

"One sec, just making sure Talaria's tight," Mercury called out, tightening the locks on his gunboots and kicking experimentally to make sure everything was in the right place and nothing was rattling weirdly. "Fuckin- damn, coulda sworn I had these dialed in. Are my legs getting skinnier or something or am I just stupid?"

"Probably just stupid," Cinder snorted, swapping Midnight from swords to bow form a few times before sheathing them onto her back, Neo fading into existence with a jaunty twirl of Hush- the revolver slotted into place so her parasol had its proper handle again. "Neo, you good? Great. CMNE's ready to go, baby corgi."

"Bleh, don't call me that! I'm not a baby anymore!"

"You're still short and you're still a baby to me."

"Weh!"

"Team RWBY is ready to roll," Yang cut in before Ruby and Cinder could get into a childish contest of who could blow the biggest raspberry, Ember Celica clicking and sliding into place as she activated her gauntlets and anklets. 

Weiss and Blake both nodded, slotting their weapons into place as they stood ready.

"JNPR… uh… give us a second here!" Jaune called out, fiddling with his sword belt and cursing as he struggled to belt it on in the dark. "Friggin- belt loops. Knew I shoulda gotten better jeans for this while we were in Argus-"

"Argoz, Jaune."

"Argoz, right."

"We're just waiting for Jaune's belt to cooperate," Pyrrha stated dryly, Ren and Nora completely ready and waiting while Pyrrha held up her scroll and turned the flashlight on to help Jaune see a bit better. "Sun?"

"Team SSSN's been ready to rock for like, an hour now!" Sun boasted, sauntering up with his team as Neptune, Scarlet, and Sage all crossed their arms and stood in formation around their leader, the four of them looking like the very picture of a boyband that was trying just a little too hard to make each member stand out instead of being interchangeable pretty boys. 

"I hope I don't get bugs in my hair," Scarlet muttered, eyeing the cliff edge warily. "And… how are we gonna get to Vale anyway?"

"We're gonna fly- you'll see in a sec," Ruby answered, then turned to Penny. "Penny?"

"Oh, yes! I'm combat ready!" Penny saluted cheerfully, grinning wide as she raised all thirty eight of Floating Array's swords at once- the four pods on her waist opening at the same time as the pod on her back and releasing the main thirty six, with two extra, slightly shorter and more robust swords deployed from her sleeves for ease of melee combat. She let her blades spin around in circles for a moment, then retracted them with a smile. "Systems are all green, wishing star!"

"Okay, good. Right- here's our plan," Ruby started, holding up her scroll and projecting a map of the area into the air, spinning around slowly before focusing on a wireframe display of the Beacon cliffs where we are now. "Step one- Uncle Qrow's gonna disable the grimm alarms on campus for five minutes while I transform. Once I'm transformed, we'll fly up on a 45 degree incline until we're above the city's sensor grid. From the specs on the sensor grid, they can only locate grimm to an altitude of about 800 meters above the walls. Thankfully, most grimm flying above that net never come down to attack, and those that do are taken care of by the air defenses. With our incline, I'll be able to get us to 900 meters, after which I'll fly over the city on a linear flight path until we're over our drop zone about two miles away from the meeting place. Once over the drop zone, I'll swap back to human form and all of us will enter freefall-"

She paused, switching the hologram on her scroll to a diagram of the area where they were landing in Vale- an open park that had been scouted out earlier that month. "-over the Valiance park. While in freefall, everyone has to link hands. This is why we're all wearing light up wristbands by the way, so anyone who's not good at seeing in the dark can guide towards the others."

"I was wondering what these were for," Jaune muttered, idly prodding at the bright white bicycle light strapped to both of his wrists. "So… what happens once we're falling? Cuz uh… I don't think any of us are good at landing from that high up. That's… higher than any of us have fallen before, I think."

"Eh, nah, I've fallen from higher… friggin Atlesian aerial defenses, thinking I'm a friggin Sphinx …" Ruby muttered, then shook her head and continued. "Anyway! Once we're all linked up, I'll grab us all and sweep us into Petal Burst! I managed to make it so that you guys won't feel the uh… crushing, gnawning sensation of all the grimm stuff in my body clawing at your souls, so really it'll just be airsickness, motion sickness, and a lot of dizziness. We'll take a ten minute break after I land us in the park in order to work off the sickness, then head into the meeting place. All in all, our entire trip should take about a half hour, with a quick walk from the park to the warehouse where the White Fang meeting is happening. Should be easy peasy."

"... Right… okay, great, okay, really glad I brought extra water and airsickness pills, then," Jaune muttered, shuddering a little as he pulled a small bottle from his pouch, popped two pills into his mouth, and washed them down with a quick swig from his bottle. "Okay. That'll do me for… a little bit. Please tell me it's gonna be a smoother ride than the airship to Beacon?"

"... Probably not, we're gonna be hitting a lot of turbulence depending on the weather conditions around here, Beacon's really windy in the immediate airspace, we just don't feel it cuz of… physics… or something? I dunno, I'm not a climatologist," Ruby shrugged, rolling her neck as she looked around. "Is everyone ready to fly? Wristbands on? Batteries charged? Neo- your illusions are strong enough to handle wind pressure now, right?"

Neo nodded, forming what looked like a plate of glass in front of her before knocking on it and letting it shatter.

"Okay, Neo's gonna ride front and make a windshield so you don't get blasted with bugs and stuff. Cinder, Yang, ride with Neo and use your Semblances so no one gets frosted over on the way up, it's gonna get pretty cold," Ruby continued her instructions, pointing at Neo and her sisters in turn, then turning to the rest of the group. "Everyone else… stick close together. I'm gonna be doing some weird stuff with my grimm goo so do not freak out if you start sinking into my back once we're all seated. Jaune… please don't throw up on me."

"I make… no promises," Jaune sighed, palming his face as the rest of the group snickered a little. "Yeah yeah, I'm working on the airsickness thing… jerks."

"What's the plan once we get there?" Pyrrha asked, raising her hand. "We only have maybe four people who can actually infiltrate the meeting itself, the rest of us are rather out of luck, I think."

"Neo and Emerald can use their Semblances to let you sneak into the upper levels of the warehouse, or pop in through a skylight- we won't be able to get you in the front because of how tight the crowd on the ground might be, but if everyone sticks to the walkways or window sills, then it'll be easy," Cinder answered in lieu of Ruby, taking the lead as she stepped up next to her baby sister. "Mercury, you can still act like a cartoonishly jerkish misanthrope with a grudge, right?"

"Tch, of course I can- what, you think I joined Signal's theater club for nothing?" Mercury snorted, rolling his eyes and slouching as he pretended to put on a mask and sneered with such vitriol that it actually sounded like he was a misanthropic piece of shit using a freedom fighter group turned terrorist organization as an excuse to murder other people because of his assorted issues. "Humans are trash."

"... Well, that answers that. Ready Rubes?"

"Ready, Cinder!"

Cinder nodded, then pressed the send button on her scroll, sending out a message to Qrow. Silently, the alarm system around Beacon went dark, and Ruby took that time to turn around and change . Her body rippled and grew, shadows lengthening and crimson patches opening like veins along her body, wings sprouting from her back as her form became that of a massive Nevermore- one with a very conspicuously smooth back compared to the mess of jagged feathers on a regular Nevermore. And also a big red collar around the neck.

".... Y'know, somehow, I feel like I should have expected this but I still kinda feel like peeing my pants seeing her do that," Neptune muttered quietly, though with the sudden silence that had taken over the group, everyone heard it.

"... Please don't pee your pants while you're riding on me, Neptune," Ruby grumbled, lowering herself down and extending a wing out to form a ramp. "Okay, everyone on. Penny?"

"I will ride in the best seat, wishing star!" Penny grinned, hopping onto Ruby's neck instead of onto her back like everyone else. "I'm flight ready!"

"Alright- let's go!"

Notes:

This is the start of an arc that will be... slightly more introspective and darker than before. It's not going to change much, but this is the point where the plot really kicks in, and I really get to derail canon