Chapter Text
Ruby likes to think of herself as a pretty optimistic person, mostly by forcing her thoughts onto that track. That’s why she’s not shifting gears to what do we do when the train derails just yet. But jeez. There must be a whole roost of Manticores up the mountain, because they just keep descending on the train, drawn down by the encouraging roars of a Sphinx.
Fighting in the beginnings of a snowstorm on top of a moving train is already tough, too. It takes Aura to deal with the lashing frost, and the sleek metal so eager to send them tumbling with just one misstep. They’re dancing on the razor’s edge, against Grimm with claws as big as her torso.
She’s in her element!
The issue is that despite being a Professional Huntsman, isn’t that right ladies, just-Dudley isn’t very prepared. Things are looking worse and worse for the actual passengers, even if Ruby is confident the Grimm aren’t going to kill her Huntresses. When they come up on a tunnel, Ruby snatches Weiss away from the stone and ducks into the gap between the back two carriages.
While Weiss hurries ahead to regroup, Ruby lingers. The blasted-out tunnel has swallowed all of the light cast off the milky sky and bouncing off the fluffy snow, and turned the wind and clatter of the chugging wheels into a howl split with thunder. It all surrounds her, until she feels like it blurs the line between her cold-numb fingers and the air. Her hair lashes at her cheeks and neck, grown too long in her time in Anima. And…
Why is it now… That the hairs on the back of my neck are standing on end?
Ruby knows to trust her instincts by now. She knows the way her stomach climbs into her throat has to mean something— She just wishes it was a little more clear. There’s no pressure behind her eyes that says big scary Grimm, and no ashen smell on the air to make her think Cinder. It’s never that easy.
Ahead of her, Weiss lingers in the carriage. She calls back “Ruby?!” Shouting to be heard over the noise of the train. Her curious look turns intense as she holds Myrenaster in a ready grip. Looking at her, Ruby feels like her sight is narrowing into tunnel-vision. It’s like she’s a kid again, scrambling up the stairs after turning the basement light off to avoid the dark.
With a rush of her Semblance, Ruby surges forward and slips past Weiss, to the other end of the carriage. She yanks open the door, and Weiss gives her a concerned glance but still heads through quickly. Ruby sends one last glance back before moving forward, through the empty cabin and the half-open door on the other side. I could swear…
But there’s nothing there, and Ruby darts into the next carriage. She’s met with a lot of yelling. Oscar is not-loud-enough at Qrow, who is yelling at that for-hire Huntsman, who is loudly groaning in pain. Jaune glances at her, face momentarily exasperated. Then they both look back at— Well.
“I said turn them off! I don’t care if we’re safer, all those civilians are in danger!”
The mercenary grips at his purplish mess of an arm, hissing through his teeth. “I’m on hire, I’m in charge, got that? And I say—”
Ruby bites her tongue to keep from looking to exasperated. Qrow’s right, obviously, but this is becoming two big strong Pro Huntsmen having a macho-off. She steps forward and eases Qrow off him, with Jaune right behind her to help him. “Please turn them off. We can handle the Grimm.”
Jaune murmurs something else similarly affirming. Ruby doesn’t really pay attention. Idly, her eyes are on the soft glow of his Semblance helping heal the mercenary, but even with the noise of the train and the conversation she still feels a ring in her ears, and the raised hairs on the back of her neck.
Nora’s saying something, her high and positive voice piercing Ruby’s scattered thoughts. “Ren, could you conceal the people on this train?” He gives her an odd look, and she continues, “I know there’s a lot of them, but with Jaune…”
Oscar’s fretful glances change. His shoulders straighten, and his eyes get just a little flinty. By now, Ruby is starting to catch it before she even hears the change in his cadence. “We should move the civilians to the front.” He walks forward, shifting his grip on his cane and curling his offhand’s fingers around the Lamp. “If we decouple—” He whips around to look at Ruby.
A moment later, she realizes it’s past her. She feels it, too, the darkness swelling at her back. They’re still in the tunnel, dark slate blurring by at her back. But she knows, just the same as Ozpin, and it makes her feel stupid. She’s not fast enough to ready Crescent Rose; she’s barely even fast enough to turn. Her torso is in motion, one foot still pointing towards the center of the conflict. She’s facing the window when glass explodes inwards.
She squints against the shards, which bounce against her Aura harmlessly, only a little sharper than the nip of the snowstorm on top of the train. The part that really hurts is the boot. She’s not fully turned, so it catches her in the shoulder. In a moment that stretches on painfully long, as if in slow-motion, she feels the way the impact slams into her Aura, pushing her left arm near to the point it leaves the socket in the moment of impact. Then she’s flying backwards, slamming against the booth-side of the carriage and tumbling haphazardly over the uncomfortably angles of someone else’s luggage and bedposts. Crescent lies uncomfortably under her back.
She can see the features start to resolve into a full figure. The boot and the motorcycle jacket and the black driver’s gloves. Before it does, Qrow is already there, bringing Harbinger down. The figure spins like a breakdancer, compensating for the kick and spinning around to knock Harbinger away with their heel. There’s the tiniest lull, where their hair whips around, out of their face, and they’re finally one coherent thing. Mercury Black, with his stupid incredibly complex weapon-prosthetics, and his tactical pants, with a flight tag and a few odds and ends on his belt, and no exposed skin but for his eyes, with his tight black top crawling up his neck and a gaiter covering his chin and nose.
“You!” Yang snarls. Ruby can’t see her from here, but she hears Ember Celica cock. Ruby tumbles into a ready stance as quick as she can. Compared to what Mercury just did, she feels pretty sloppy. It’s easier to throw her weight around with a thirty-pound counterbalance!
Mercury tugs the gaiter down, revealing a knife-sharp smile. It doesn’t reach his eyes, which is not too surprising because his eyes always look a bit sunken and full of gunmetal intensity. “Me,” he says cheerily.
Ruby puts one hand on the doorway of the booth, and the other on Crescent. She takes a split-second to take her eyes of Mercury, and look towards Jaune and his teammates. He meets hr eye, and takes a step back towards the next carriage forward, which they both know is full of civilians. Emerald could be there. Neo could be there, for all I know, or Hazel, or Tyrian. And even if they aren’t, it’d still be easier to deal with Mercury and cut the cars, if Ozpin was saying something important.
Qrow sneers at Mercury, and he takes a cautious half-step back. “You’re awful cocky, dropping in on all of us.”
Mercury barks out a laugh. “Are you kidding? I’m not interested in a fair fight with you nutcases.” Mercury leans on his back foot, floating the front one. It makes him a little more space, and threatens to snap out like a viper. “But this isn’t really a fair fight, with the civlians…” He juts a thumb over the back of his shoulder. “Because of the kitties back there…” His thumb switches to an index finger jabbing at the Lamp. “Because of that.”
Ozpin bristles. Qrow’s head snaps around to look at him, and Ruby can’t really blame him, because, well, she does too. It’s just that Mercury closes the distance faster than he has any right to, and nearly knocks Qrow’s jaw off. He manages to put Harbinger in the way in time, but it’s a close thing, and the noise reverberates through the carriage. Yang is the first to lash out, but Mercury back-handsprings away just as quickly as he attacked.
The mercenary squeezes his hands, probably missing his weapon in the snow a few miles back. “What’s that psycho talking about?!”
Ozpin opens his mouth, like he’s going to say something, and Qrow is a little faster, something dismissive already halfway out his curled lip, but Mercury is snappier. “Dudley Tweed, right?” Dudley (that was his name!) goes still. “See, I needed to know everyone who might cause a problem, and so I know all about you, and your partner.” He doesn’t quite look over his shoulder, but his eyes trail to the side. “Bit of a waste of time. I’m above your pay grade, got that?” He smiles like a shark, and Dudley flinches back.
“We’ve got time before we leave the tunnel,” Weiss scoffs, “it won’t take much to beat you.”
Mercury rolls his eyes. “Of course not!” Then he glances forward, and there’s something in his gaze. Ruby hadn’t noticed before, but he’s the one positioned to keep an eye on the carriages further ahead. She doesn’t hear the crying baby, which she only just barely realizes. They moved forward. They’re… cutting the cars! She looks back at Mercury, realization dawning with fury, or maybe terror, but whatever it is is like brambles in her gut.
“That’s why there’s a bomb in the front car.” Mercury waves a detonator in the air. It looks a bit improvised, like he stuck it together himself, but there’s still a threatening silvery switch, protruding wires, and an antenna. Blake snaps into action, aiming to blast it out of his hand, maybe. When she fires, he bends his knees, leaning back and dropping under the path of the bullet entirely. He tilts his head from where it rests less than two feet from the ground. Then he clicks his tongue. “Careful. You could hurt someone.”
But right there… He’s far, sure, and more than capable of snapping into action. None of them will get that detonator out of his hands no matter how much they shoot their weapons or push their Aura. Unless they’ve got a super-cool speed Semblance. And Mercury is fast, but unless his Semblance is weirdly subtle, she doesn’t think he’s trained like she has. So in that lingering moment, when he got to be off balance, Ruby is petals on the wind, and in a blink…!
Well. It’s sort of weird. Usually she’d regain her weight with a surge of inertia. Force equals mass times acceleration, and all that. Her cloak snaps out behind her, and she’s whirling through the air, but then up and down get all messy, and she can’t actually bring Crescent to bear. There’s a lot of dull pressure on her Aura at her arms and legs— Not as hard as Mercury kicks, she knows that. The world spins, and for a horrible moment she wonders if he set off the detonator, and the whole carriage, and all those civillians—!
Then she hits the floor, and she feels the steady rumble of the train’s wheels under her cheek. She tries to move, but she’s stuck. Her arms and legs are caught up in a tangle, and there’s a weight on top of her, like competition fighters grappling around each other. There’s a lot of shouting that she can barely make out with her face smushed down. She tries to wiggle and can barely move. She figures out that there’s two legs coiled around her, and she’s got her hand on Crescent but there’s too much weight to budge it, and her other arm is uncomfortably far behind her. She starts to wiggle again, and knuckles knock against her head.
“Ah-ah-ah,” Mercury chides, “Stay right there.”
She hears Yang, yelling loud enough Ruby can make it out. “If you don’t get the fuck off of her, I’ll—”
“What, detach your arm at me?” Mercury scoffs. “Maybe you get the detonator, or you stop me from unloading my boots into your precious little leader, but I really doubt you get both.” There’s a tense silence. Ruby really wishes she could see anything other than this stupid carpet, and the stupid wood panelling. “Now, you’re all going to move into the next carriage, and then I’m going to knock her out, and if either of those things doesn’t happen, every civvie on this train is going to die, and you’re all going to be nice pickings for the Manticores.”
Ruby can’t tell them any of the ways around that. That if her arm was free, she knows that hand he hit her with has the detonator. That if Weiss could mask a summoning Glyph, or Blake could use a Shadow, that might make the difference. So she grits her teeth, hoping they’ll count on her, and hoping Qrow’s Semblance doesn’t do anything funny with the bomb they need to not go off. And nobody’s speaking, again. Boots start moving. Probably Dudley. She wants to squirm, just to move at all, to feel like any of it matters, but she can’t. Because she made a huge mistake.
She’s so angry, she just yells. She’s surprised when it comes out as a full sentence. “Why are you even doing this?!” She strains, and then falls, and her cheek rests against the floor again. “Cinder’s dead. Why do all this? For Salem!”
Mercury shifts. She feels his fingers dig into her arm, and the way his body tenses by the legs bruising against her and how his face curls close enough that she can just feel his breath against her chill-nipped ears. He laughs, and it sounds a little like a dying animal. “You’re real slow on the uptake, Red.” His grip stays as tight, but he leans back up. He snarls out another ragged taunt. “I’m an assassin. It’s not complicated.”
Maybe something’s wrong with her. Ruby’s first thought is that those words, in defiance of some unspoken issue, are a lot like how Weiss used to talk about her family. The thought is disspelled pretty quickly when the carpet and wood panelling bask in light. The other side of the tunnel!
Mercury snickers. She can imagine his stupid grin sliding back into place over whatever ugly look was there before. “Alright, that’s enough stalling. You better go deal with those vicious monsters, or this one is going to kill more people then they could dream of.”
There’s more noise that she can’t place. Then she hears Weiss, voice thick with fury and fear, “just hold on, Ruby.” A moment later, they must be gone. Mercury’s posture shifts, and outside, she can hear gunshots and Grimm roars. Maybe they’ll pull off some plan to free her, but even then… She hears a lot of roars, and even Qrow could only keep the Sphinx at a standstill. If they did free her, they’d have to contend with Mercury at the same time, and she’s not sure any of them have even had a straight fight with him.
Hold on. Not ‘kick his ass’ or ‘you’ve got this.’ If I could just move my fingers another few inches… Crescent’s recoil would probably give her something to work with, but the distance between the grip and the trigger or mechashift components feels like an ocean.
“Now, I hate to cut this reunion short, Red, but it’s gonna feel so good to do Callows’s work better than he can.” His arm curls under her neck, like a constricting Taijitu. That detonator curls in front of her face, and she glares at it and the gross threat it poses. A bomb is so much more man-made and independently cruel than the Grimm. She notices something funny about it, though. It’s not really a built-in safety, but the way the wires curl around to a little sliver of spare Lightning Dust could, generously, give her a few seconds.
His arm tightening under her neck makes it harder to breathe. She feels her pulse in her jugular struggling against his motorcycle jacket. In all the movies, this sort of thing only takes a few seconds to work. So, the brilliant plan… Is to throw him off, get free, and shut off the detonator, all in a split second. Better than whatever Salem wants with her, Ruby decides. She chokes out a few words at a time, in shallow breaths. “You’re— an only child— aren’t you?”
Mercury laughs a lot more than she expects him too. Then, in the middle of it, he asks, “what makes you say that?”
Ruby responds by craning her neck into his arm, to get close enough to bite down on the meat of his hand. He has his Aura up, but it’s not very focused, and certainly not as focused as her gleaming canines. He snatches his hand away, cursing, and the way his weight jolts back is all she needs. Crescent’s trigger clicks.
The bang and the recoil throws him off her, because he probably doesn’t want to be bisected by the wide arc of the blade, and she uses her Semblance to chase him down. This time he’s on the back foot, and she knows he’s expecting her to try to snatch the detonator. He yanks that hand back, which would be fine to do if he was right. Instead of a grasping hand, all she gives him to work with is the business end of Crescent. His Aura protects his hand, but the massive caliber of the bullet blasts the detonator out of his hand. It lands between them, and they stare at each other.
It’s then, panting a pace apart from each other, that Ruby realizes she’s tasting his blood. She spits it into a red mess on the red carpet. Then she gulps down another breath, and grimaces at the lingering taste. She can’t help but laugh at the look on his face, still confused and now twice as shocked. “I say it because you learn to bite, when your sister is twice your size and you want the remote.”
Mercury laughs too, a little bit. “You’re fucking crazy.”
Ruby shrugs. “I wouldn’t have done it if Qrow was around…” She keeps an eye on him, but her gaze lingers back, towards the front carriages. “But I can hear how far up the Sphinx is. You’re a big, scary assassin, sure. I’m a Huntress.”
Mercury grits his teeth. “I was hoping you wouldn’t do something like that, but it’s never simple with you. Had to catch you in the hallway, had to get left with your sister’s damn arm.” He pushes his wild hair back with one leather-clad hand. “Damnit, Rose, now I’ve gotta have a big, bloody fight with you.”
Ruby knows better than to drop the spring-wound tension in her shoulders, but she she softens her gaze. “You could always surrender.”
“No,” Mercury sighs, “no, I can’t.”
On a cliffside of the Mistrali tundra, battered by the bitter cold that skims up from the valley below, there’s a stubborn little bird’s nest, which persists on the eroded-smooth rocks. It’s made of twigs and stray feathers and just a little refuse from the train that passes below. The train is so loud it rattles every twig, and startles the bird inside from its nest. A few moments later, a stray Dust round rends it apart.
Talaria is angled up, spitting Wind another Wind Dust blast which could only very generously be called a bullet. Ruby thinks it’s quite interesting— For just a moment, she glances away from Mercury’s eyes, and towards the mechanism of his greaves, where they’re locked in place by the top of Crescent’s blade, caught under his ankle like a prybar.
Ruby fled on top of the train with the detonator, and he chased. It’s only now that she worries this might be more his element. The train was just wide enough for Ruby to bring Crescent to bear, but the walkable space of the aerodynamic metal is unforgiving. Mercury’s uncanny balance and bowling-ball heavy shoes are dangerous, here.
There’s also the matter of the bomb they’re fighting over, obviously. Ruby pays for glancing away from his face; she might’ve caught the twitch in his expression before he changed gears, but instead she’s caught off-guard when he puts more weight on Crescent to snap his other leg up and kick a flurry at her with no grounding. He doesn’t have any leverage in the air, but she’s got a white-knuckle grip on her beloved scythe, and when combined with Aura… Force equals mass times acceleration. His kicks are as quick and sharp as the icy wind cutting across her face, even though they should be blunt, brutish things. She tumbles backwards, punching the spike at the base of Crescent’s snath into the roof like a piton. Her offhand guards the detonator, which she’s clipped to her belt.
If she just had a half-second, she could disarm it. She’d have to be careful about triggering the Dust component and giving it all a positive surge, but it’d be the kind of careful that makes up children’s games of Jenga. But that half-second would be the end of things, because Mercury fights viciously for every inch of space he can take, and his claws are sunk in when she pushes back. Even with her at the back of the train, he doesn’t relent, surging forward with the icy wind at his back. In her months in Anima, she’s fought far more Grimm than people, but he forces her to remember every trick. His footwork is too quick and lethal for anything less.
Crescent spins wildly, spitting out spent shells onto the train tracks behind her. She’s trying to conserve what she can— Even modified, sniper magazines aren’t big. Still, spinning the snath in tight circles, like a baton dancer, with it swimming across her back or across her forearms tight enough to bruise, she’s not fast enough without the aid of the recoil. Each time she tries something, whether taught or beaten into her, it’s barely enough to dissuade one of Mercury’s vicious kicks, and then he adapts. The second time she tries to jar him by yanking Crescent into the opposite spin, he kicks the air out of her lungs, and she loses another half-step trying to keep in the fight when her body screams at her to double over and puke.
It feels like the exchange of blows is endless. For every time she forces Mercury to be just a bit careful, and earns a step forward when he dodges away from Crescent’s lethal edge, he pounds into her with a dozen blows that each knock her back an inch. Even her well-loved boots can’t find purchase like his can. It’s just not a winning fight.
It’s funny, but she’s stretched so thin she barely notices before he does. She’s clinging to every inch until relief looses her grip just a smidge, and Mercury’s boot catches her jaw. It sends her reeling, but it’s a snap of his leg, not the sort of Aura-infused guillotine that she expects his axe kick would be. She twists from the force of it and lands hard. Her offhand plants itself desperately, finding the lip of the roof.
Even over the wind in her ears, she can hear Yang yell. “Nobody touches my sister!” Mercury doesn’t have time to kick Ruby off the back of the train; not when Yang’s launching into his space with a vicious haymaker, Ember Celica roaring as it crashes straight towards Mercury’s jaw. Ruby winces, already worried. Whether it’s just a matter of getting Mercury’s attention or she’s that pissed off (and Ruby can make an educated guess that it’s both), Yang is fighting aggressive in the exact way Mercury knows.
Talaria snaps up, and with his back foot planted, he catches Yang in the side, twisting away to turn her opening blow grazing. She’s sent tumbling, and he capitalizes by lunging into her space. Yang hunkers down, matching every one of Mercury’s vicious kicks with blocks and parries. Yang is giving ground, receding towards the other side of the roof, but even as a few of Mercury’s lightning-quick blows batter against her Aura, the determination writ on her face never flinches away.
Not again. Not against him. Even in the space of an engagement, Mercury filled any space she made with flashes of metal, just like his namesake. She never got away with the same thing twice. Ruby knows her sister is strong, and that her Semblance could make short work of Mercury, but she’s afraid of what’ll happen if Yang makes the mistake of trying to meet him blow for blow.
So she intervenes. In a flurry of petals, she catches up to them, already lashing out. She swings a wide, threatening arc with Crescent, trying to force Mercury into Yang’s fists. Yang’s eyes widen and move to her, and Mercury notices. He doesn’t twist his body into another brutal kick, like she expects. Maybe he knows caught between the two of them, he just wouldn’t be fast enough. Instead, he drops backwards, a move that’s wholly counterintuitive. The whirling blade of Crescent grazes his nose, and he catches himself on his gloved hands in a full backbend.
Yang steps forward, eyes blazing as she puts her whole body into a fist angled to slam into his gut and leave a crater in the plate-metal roof. Mercury twists back onto his hands, spinning like a breakdancer to send kicks and blasts from Talaria at both of them. He doesn’t extend so far as to send a full-force kick to either of them, but the whirlwind still forces both of them a step back. Then he twists so his stomach is parallel with the roof, and sweeps out his legs at both of their ankles. Ruby barely hops away, while he catches Yang’s foot and she drops harshly onto one knee.
Ruby’s back foot lingers where the roof begins to slope off, again. She doesn’t let herself glance back, despite the instinctual fear her brain wants to give into. Instead, she watches as Mercury launches to his feet, and Yang entirely cedes another few feet to escape more of his attacks. Even with help, he’s still keeping them at a standstill. Echoing across the cliffs, carried by the wind, Manticore roars fill Ruby’s ears. She watches a snarling grin spread across Mercury’s face. Even though the wind lashes his hair around his face and neck, he doesn’t even squint.
He shouts to be heard over the wind. “I gotta say I’m disappointed!”
Yang snarls. “Give us a minute to clean up the Grimm, and we’ll—”
“Not that, blondie!” Mercury rolls his eyes, then throws a lazy hand towards the massive shape of the Sphinx carriages ahead, which Qrow battles to a standstill. “I mean, Red crosses a continent with him, and—” He shrugs, snickering back at Yang. “Well, I guess the other twin isn’t very talkative.” Her eyes flare red, but Mercury continues. “I’m just a bit wounded that you still don’t know about me.”
Ruby blinks at him, squinting against the wind. It hurts to yell back; she can already feel swelling blossoming up her jaw and across her cheek. “You fought uncle Qrow? He’d kick your ass!”
Yang doesn’t take her eyes off Mercury, but he looks back at Ruby. He gives her a very unimpressed look, with one raised eyebrow. There’s a glint of genuine curiosity in his eyes, but he’s still curling his lip when he croons, “he’s not any more impressive than you are!”
Ruby feels a fierce look spread across her face, defiant against the wind. “Sunrise!”
Mercury glances from her to Yang as they start moving. “Oh, that’s cute—” He’s forced to control his breath as Yang barrels into him. Their duo move was always a bit underpracticed compared to the other ones, but they’re still sisters. Mercury is dangerously agile, threatening to keep them at bay with his whirlwind, but this move is more about the collision. She remembers a younger Weiss’s stuffy Atlesian accent.
“It’s brutish, is what it is. If you smash two trains together, it’ll make lots of noise, am I meant to be surprised?”
It’s a narrow dance that has Ruby grinning. Yang’s got fury writ on her brow, her teeth bared. Mercury’s forced to give up the game of maintaing his space between them, but he won’t escape unscathed. Sunrise was always about putting something through the wringer, scythe swings and uppercuts twisting around each other like braids. Instead, Yang lunges forward. Ruby can’t maintain the formation from behind her, and tries to use her Semblance to keep the pressure on, but when she lands on Mercury’s other side, he’s already putting a flurry of kicks across Yang’s gut. When Ruby swings at him, he doesn’t flatten himself to the roof. Instead, he bounds over her, landing gracefully at the edge of the roof.
“How long do you think you’ve got before the rest finish up with the Grimm?” Ruby shouts at him.
Mercury narrows his eyes. He doesn’t yell— She can only barely make out his words, because she’s used to reading lips and hearing words over gunfire. “This really is taking too long,” he growls. Then he throws his arms wide. “You’re right! Taking a fight with Huntresses using Grimm as backup is a little half-baked, huh?” He drinks in a deep breath. “But I don’t know, Red, they must think your friends are easy prey, if they’re not turning their eyes on this fresh hell!”
Ruby hunches her shoulders warily. Yang puts a hand on her shoulder, but she doesn’t expect it, and jolts away. “What are you talking about!” She shouts at him.
“Don’t I bring back bad memories? Or did you block it out!” Mercury jams a thumb into his chest. “I framed your sister, made her think she was crazy.” His cruel smile doesn’t reach his wild eyes. In fact, even his lips are trembling. “I’m the reason your little girlfriend is dead!”
It’s instinctual. It’s fast. Crescent is a quick scythe, but a sniper round is faster. She just has to angle it a bit, and Aura is rending the freezing air, an angry crackling red blitzing through the storm. Mercury dodges so slimly that it tears one of his piercings out of his ear. She lunges while he’s off-balance, Crescent slashes across his chest. It’s the first time she’s managed to strike him head-on, and his Aura flares bone-white, lingering at the gash in the synthetic leather like frost. Crescent roars twice and spits two shells like a big ugly thing at the end of the bar in the moment after the slash. That lets it spin across her spine, the blade whirling up with its point slicing up the front of Mercury’s jacket and towards the tender underside of his chin.
He strains backwards. More than just the backbends, like before, because he doesn’t have the time or space for that. He grits his teeth and wrenches his head back so hard he probably gives himself whiplash. He can’t arrest his momentum, and falls not-so-gracefully into the space between the carriages. Before she can fall on him, there on the coupler, Ruby hears roars.
Up ahead, there are plenty of Manticores. The others have done a good job of batting them away, and staggering their attacks, so they’re never fighting more than one or two at a time. Weiss gives Blake Glyphs to flip off of. Qrow shoots at a Manticore about to blast Oscar with flame in the narrow moments between the Sphinx’s attacks. Still, a dozen or so heave their mighty wings to keep pace with the train, glowering at the group. It’s only now that a few seem to notice her and Yang, at the back. They snap out their wings to catch the snowstorm winds, and the train is delivering her closer to the glaring Grimm.
Ruby looks down. Mercury’s gone, and the next carriage door rattles in the wind. I’ve got the detonator now. It’d be stupid. Unless we missed a passenger and there’s a hostage, unless he attacks Weiss or Blake with the Grimm at just one bad moment, unless he steals the Lamp from Oscar.
Ruby looks back at Yang. She’s angry, at the Grimm and at Mercury, but her fists are tight. She stands firm. Ruby is just a bit envious of that self-assuredness. Fighting Grimm fits in her, that adrenaline is like a key in a lock. Ruby realizes her heart is in her throat because she’s already decided where her fight is.
“You’ve got this!” Ruby shouts. She dives into the next car with Petal Burst before Yang can call back. Before she can shout ‘wait’ like Ruby knows she would, and put doubt in her mind.
Back inside the carriage, it’s quiet. The thought is silly— It’s loud, really, with the clatter of the train’s wheels and the wind whistling in the door behind her. But compared to the roaring wind and open air, Ruby feels like she’s been thrown fifty feet underwater. The Manticores and Ember Celica roaring at each other are distant and dreamlike. The car itself feels dull, too. The wood and carpets are so dull compared to snow glowing in the pale light of the overcast sky. She doesn’t see Mercury when she lands, and her adrenaline-drowned senses drink in every booth and shadow.
Maybe it’s just being back in the warmth; that bit of cold air teasing at her back. There’s an itch, near the crown of her skull, and gooseflesh down her back. The slight pressure of being watched, the strange feeling of shifts in the air pressure against her evenly-focused Aura.
Mercury drops from the ceiling, bringing down his heel viciously. Ruby twists, but not fast enough to slash at him. Instead, she can barely catch him with the snath of Crescent, and Talaria fires. The Air Dust unfurls against her sternum, and she tumbles a few paces before catching herself on her hand and knees. It’s a struggle to drink in breath again, and she barely kept her grip on Crescent.
There’s no time to recuperate— He’s too fast. Especially when he’s not talking. His face is a blank mask, no grin swallowing it up, with his chapped lips parted just enough to breathe between strikes. His eyes are wider than before, drinking her in. Wary. It strikes her as a sort of respect, for a fighter to look at her like that. Isn’t that strange, for a self-proclaimed assassin?
There’s no time to turn the question over in her head. She moves desperate and quick, trying to catch him off guard like she did before, but this time he’s inside her guard before she can fire, and his snappy kicks strike against her with cruel intent. The liver, the kidneys, the sternum, anywhere that blooms pain through her nerves or seizes her breath. It’s all she can do to block and deflect the worst of it, but her Aura is still chipping down. Meanwhile, he’s far less conservative with ammunition when he’s not on top of a moving train. Each blast threatens to throw her off balance, or push around Crescent’s weight, and any mistake is punished with a brutal kick.
On the roof above them, a Manticore lands with a heavy thud, and Ember Celica pounds against it, relentless as summer heat. Below, Ruby struggles for every inch. Engaging on Mercury’s terms is a losing battle, and she keeps pushing backwards. At least this time that means she’s going further up the train, until her back is to the door.
Talaria lashes out in a tornado of twisting kicks. Their wide arcs keep Ruby from ducking to the sides, and she can respond to even fewer than before with no space to spin Crescent. What blows she can deflect pound like thunder against the wall. Mercury is a storm unto himself. What was the difference before? How did I hit him before? The question clings to her, no matter how many times his blows made her bones rattle. Her grip on Crescent never falters.
She sucks another breath into her battered lungs. “Yes, you killed her!” Mercury’s lip curls, and he aims a kick at her jaw. This time, she’s the one who recognizes a trick. She ducks under the blow, lunging into his space. It’s too tight for Crescent to spin around her, but there’s still space for the spike on the butt of the snath to force him to tumble back. With his overextending swing, he has to disengage with a handspring. Ruby yanks the door open with the slim moment it bought her, then surges forward with her Semblance. She’s still barely quick enough to clash with him.
“You killed thousands of people, and hollowed out Mistral, and want to kill thousands all over again!” He deflects each blow, but she rallies with the reach advantage, swinging wide and dangerous over and over again. “You kill!” clang! “And kill!” clang! “And kill! You hollowed me out! What do you want me to do? Snap? Break down? I’m still standing, Mercury! You can’t change that I’ll fight!”
Somewhere in there, something caught him off guard. Her blood is pounding too hot in her ears for her to even notice, really, until he’s an instant too slow, and Crescent is extended in full Grimm-hunting swing. She barely suppresses the instinct to feed it recoil, and the blade catches the crook of his shoulder. Rather than cut deep, it rends away his Aura and sends him another few paces back. The flickers of white splinter down across his chest, bisecting the emblem over his heart.
Ruby pants, gathering breath before she musters to lift Crescent again. Across from her, Mercury heaves himself to his feet. No fancy kip-ups this time. Talaria’s weight shows, when he deliberately lifts and plants each step to get his feet under him. “Of course you’ll fight,” he says. His voice splits, with his heaving breath. She can’t tell if his rasp is morose or mocking. “Huntresses and Grimm. Which do you think I’ve got more in common with, Red?”
She flinches back at his strange grin. It’s out of place more than ever. She itches to rip off that mask and find out what’s underneath, but his shaking hands move into a ready stance again. “But why,” she pleads.
He squeezes his eyes shut. “The only difference between a Beowolf and a Black is the skin. If I don’t have this, I’m nothing.”
Ruby leans forward, searching his face. He looks down, hair spilling over his eyes. “You’re not nothing—”
His head snaps up. “You’ve got no idea what I am!” He darts forward again, and she hesitates, stupidly. Even though he’s headlong and careless, she doesn’t keep him at bay, and he gets a few good kicks in before she can make the slightest bit of space. She swipes at him, and he tumbles under Crescent, lashing out with a few kicks to send her towards the back of the train. She meets the blows head-on, swinging Crescent. He has to abort his attack, handspringing backwards. He’s on his feet again, but stands in the doorway, and can’t maneuver anywhere but further back when she swings at him. He grits his teeth, hands raised and ready. She’s wary to push through the narrow doorway with Crescent, and they both know it.
Then the other train car’s door swings open. Their names burst from Ruby, elated and fearful at the same time. “Weiss! Blake! Ozpin!” Mercury’s gaze snaps between them, wide-eyed. His lip twitches. Ruby opens her mouth to ask about the Grimm. Weiss doesn’t look away from Mercury, but she smiles. “Qrow and Yang should be finishing off the Sphinx. The rest are gone.” Myrtenaster’s cylinder clicks another Dust canister into place.
“Time’s up, Mr. Black,” Ozpin adds.
Mercury stands, tense as a spring, on the coupler. He swallows thickly, and then that grin spreads across his face again. “I hear time’s always on Her side.” His hand flexes. Blake aims Gambol Shroud’s pistol. “But even if it wasn’t…” He narrows his eyes back at Ruby. “It’s always just those few seconds I steal from you.”
Ruby knows she shouldn’t; that it’s bait. But she’s so mad at him, and now her friends are here to make it matter, to unite and make him shut up. She lunges towards the doorway. Weiss mirrors her. Blake’s small-caliber round glances across his flickering Aura.
He doesn’t even kick. He just grins at her, and the roar of Talaria’s wind fills the space between the cars. She winces back, and Weiss stumbles on her heels. There’s a nasty clattering sound. Ruby glances down and realizes it’s the coupler, half-splintered, and Mercury’s ankle wheels around to smash into it. His aura crackles white when he does, warping the metal around the point it snapped. Ozpin lashes at him with Long Memory before he’s out of reach, but it’s not enough to do more than bruise.
Ruby lashes back out at him, too, but Mercury leaps up too the roof. She makes to follow him— It’s only on the way up that she realizes her mistake. Surging upwards in petals, she passes a clip of Air Dust rounds meant for Talaria. This time, when she solidifies into a tangle of limbs, she’s got a better sense of how it happens. She’s heard the words triangle choke before. She can’t get away from the carriage as Mercury wrestles her onto the cold metal.
Beneath, all those rounds burst under the brutal metal of the train wheels. There’s so much more force than the winter winds; more than the roaring, there’s a whistle. The tracks give way to compressed air, the ice splinters upon splinters in a rush that sounds a bit like the world ending, and a lot like leaving the kettle on too long. The roof shakes violently beneath her. The wheels slam louder, or not at all. She barely hears Weiss shout her name over the wind, and can’t gather enough air to shout it back.
Ruby swings Crescent backwards, but Mercury must catch it, the way she’s suddenly fighting for control of that, too. There’s a horrible creaking, and Ruby fights with everything she has to pull forward. She tips up off the metal, dragging Mercury, as her stomach drops from under her. As the cliffside drops under them, the train skirting off the rock and tumbling towards a snow-blanketed gorge.
Mercury doesn’t bother to choke her, then. She still has no leverage, and the other train is already so far, so her Semblance is near-useless. She angles for her landing strategy, but the carriage is still just inches under her feet, and Mercury lashes a kick at her just for trying.
She’s out of time. She leaps as far as she can, squeezing her eyes shut and not sparing a worry for Mercury. Then the world goes white, in a swell of snow and a crash that swallows every one of her senses.