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The sky was ironclad grey above them, rolling with lightning and thunder. Not an auspicious beginning to a mission, but it was the one that they had.
They stood together, four across, the colors of their clothes looking unusually bright in the dull surroundings. Yellow, blue, and orange—that was Jaune, fiddling with his sword to make sure that everything was set. Pyrrha stood next to him, blazing red and gold, her spear and shield slung over her back. Nora bounced next to her, an impatient puff of pink and black. And last, clad in green and as calm as ever, was Ren.
The airship they had been waiting for roared out of the sky with an almost alarming suddenness. A face appeared in the doorway, grinning down at them. “Sorry we’re late, guys! We got a little hung up getting here.”
They boarded the airship together, hands gripping the metal railings as they soared back up into the air. The four girls already on board looked a little worn at the edges, tired after the mission they had just come from, but that was why you called for reinforcements. Everyone needed to rely on friends sometime.
“How are things out there?” Pyrrha asked. Blake shook her head in reply, violet eyes worried.
“There are a lot of them. More than Ozpin was predicting.”
Silence stretched out, filled only with the rumble of engines. Three years of working together off and on had brought the two teams to a comfortable understanding, but they were still only students. Huntsmen in training, even if graduation was only a few months away at best now. Jaune exhaled, leaning over to look out at the ground below with a grim expression.
Noticing, Ruby brightened a little. “Let’s finish this up quickly and get dinner in town, okay? I think there’s a new diner open that serves waffles all night long.”
“Sounds good!” Nora cheered, letting go of the railing to pound a fist into her palm. “Let’s make it a bet, the one who kills the least Grimm is the one paying up!” Ren had to reach out to grab her arm as the ship tilted, and she stumbled sideways.
Yang grinned, her answering reply of “You’re on!” getting almost lost in the roar of engines.
They jumped from the ship in a neat formation, one team taking each side. The battlefield spun below them crazily as they fell, growing bigger each second. Nora let out a whoop, catapulting herself forward on the momentum of a bullet as she dove into the fray. The rest of her team was fast on her heels as they hit the ground, letting bullets and blades fly out into the fray.
Huntsmen risked their lives every day. It was an elegant kind of routine to jump into battle like this. Jaune and Pyrrha moved together, taking out a Deathstalker in two quick motions: she launched herself up into the air to take out its stinger, while Jaune ran interference and distracted it with a quick flurry of blows to the eyes. It was a far cry from the awkward fighting that their initiation had consisted of. A few feet away, Ren and Nora twirled in concert to take out the two heads of a King Taijitu simultaneously, slamming back down to the earth as the massive body disintegrated.
The four of them swapped places. Pyrrha and Nora dove into a pack of Beowolfs, bashing in heads and slicing pelts to ribbons. Together, Ren and Jaune brought down a trio of Ursa. The boys turned just in time to see Nora catapulting up into the sky toward a Nevermore, hammer at the ready; Ren let loose a salvo of covering fire.
She came back down to earth with a grin. “And that makes an even twenty!”
“Nora…” Ren shook his head at her before he took off running, headed for the next enemy.
Clearing out the Grimm was grueling work. But they did it together. Each shot was perfectly measured, the result of hours of long practice together in arenas and on battlefields. They had already gone through their slipups of friendly fire and overzealous attacks together, shared the scars of years together as a team. As friends. As a family.
At some point, Jaune gave the order to split up, to take out a few smaller packs of Grimm. By the time that they regrouped, a light drizzle had begun falling.
“There are still more of them incoming,” Pyrrha warned, skidding to a stop. She didn’t look tired, not yet, just worried. “It looks like we might have to bail soon. A herd of Goliaths are headed this way.”
Jaune frowned, narrowing his eyes in the direction she had come from. “Alright. Go and warn Ruby’s team, and tell her to call the airship.”
“Uh, Jaune?” Nora looked behind her, worried. “Ren’s not back yet. We’ve got to find him before we leave.”
“I know.” He shook his head, giving Pyrrha a wan smile. “We’re gonna go find Ren. Meet back up here in fifteen minutes?”
“Got it.”
They took off running in three directions, Jaune and Nora fanning out to hunt through the woods. Nora was the one who found him, slumped on the ground beneath a tree. Her subtle signal to Jaune was a shriek, even though the words weren’t aimed at him,
“Ren!”
Jaune turned, pelting in the direction of her voice. He reached them a few seconds later, finding Nora kneeling down, one gloved hand pressed to Ren’s cheek as she hovered over him. Her expression was enough to turn his blood to ice for a moment, fearing a sudden and terrible worst scenario. The blood spattered on the ground near their friend mirrored it.
Huntsmen risked their lives every day. They knew what they were signing up for, every time they dove into battle.
“What happened to…” His question trailed off as he finally registered the scene past the gore. The exasperated expression on Ren’s face, his feeble attempts to fend Nora off as she fluttered there helplessly.
“I’m fine, Nora,” Ren was in the middle of saying. “Get off of me and let me up.”
“Your leg is broken!” The relief that flooded her voice was mirrored in Jaune’s exhale of relief. “You can’t get up by yourself like this, you’ll only make it worse. Don’t make me worry like that, I thought something finally got to you!”
“What?” He narrowed his eyes at her, and then sent Jaune a pleading look. “Please tell Nora I’m fine.”
Jaune looked at him, then at his watch. “Uh, Nora, if Ren says he’s fine, he probably is. We should probably, uh, go, though?” He had become a less flustered leader over the years. It showed in how fast Nora rose to her feet, pulling Ren up with her and slinging his arm over her shoulders to carry his weight. One leg hung awkwardly beneath him as they stumbled back to the meeting spot, but they made it together.
“Ruby said that the airship would be here any—is Ren alright?” Pyrrha greeted them with a worried stare, shifting her grip on her spear to hold it at the ready.
Ren rolled his eyes and sighed. “He broke his leg,” Nora informed Pyrrha. “I found him just lying there. Jaune, don’t ever let him wander around on his own again. I think I nearly had a heart attack because of him.” She made a motion that looked like she was attempting to elbow Ren in the ribs, something made more difficult given that she was currently supporting most of his weight.
Pyrrha cracked a smile at that. Yang came into the clearing at a sprint, with a whoop and a cheerful, “Sixty-three! A lot of Beowolfs, but beat that, Nora!”
“Huh?” Nora blinked at the blonde, and then look skywards with a cry of dismay. “Oh, no! I lost count halfway through!”
“Well, without any numbers, you’ll be the one buying us dinner tonight.” Yang grinned. “Let’s go, guys. Airship’s here. Ren, are you okay over there? You look a little pale.”
They trooped back to the ship together. And maybe they had to convince Pyrrha to make them waffles, and eat them in the infirmary under the disapproving glare of the nurses. But they tasted a little better that way, with too much syrup and a bag of chocolate chips that Ruby had elbowed into the batter at the last second.
Later, when people were trickling out to go to bed, Jaune paused by Ren’s elbow. And he paused, and shifted between his feet, and said, “You really gave us a scare. Be more careful, okay? I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
Ren gave one of his small, rare smiles. “Don’t worry. We’ll always be a team.”
“Yeah.” Jaune laughed, a little awkward, shaking his head. “Of course.”
“Goodnight, Ren.”