Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Weiss coughed a few times, trying to clear the ash from her mouth, her lungs.

Chapter Text

It was 12:23 when Yang and Neon returned to Beacon Academy, walking Bumblebee through the campus to avoid irritating everyone in the dorms. While Yang had originally anticipated the overflow of students here for the festival would make everyone stay up and out later, the looming presence of the Atlas ships left you with the pervading sense that you were being watched.

Yang wondered if it was always like this in Atlas. Did security bots wander the streets at night? Did an attachment of ships constantly hover over the school, a warning that no Grim could understand?

Ever since the incident with the train, Yang was glad for the military’s presence. But it had only left this vague threat in the air: some people would like to see this place burn. Pro-faunis or not, the White Fang had aimed to attack civilians, faunis and human alike.

Yang sighed. She had hoped the tournament would cast her hanging doubts away, but when she wasn’t fighting or training, they yet remained. Ruby and Weiss seemed to have moved on quickly, but Yang could still see a tension in Blake, though she’d been resting more and finishing her food.

“Hmm? You all right?” Neon asked, cocking her head to the side. Bumblebee sat between her and Yang, and the distance had left her a little more quiet.

Yang shrugged, but made a point to look over and smile. “Oh, yeah. I was just thinking about how much easier this walk would be with roller skates.”

That put a smile on Neon’s face. She walked with her hands in her pockets, but there was a little more pep in her step immediately. “Every walk is easier with roller skates, once you get good enough. Cobblestone’s terrible, but I barely even notice with my semblance.”

Neon’s comments about Yang’s semblance, even if they’d been rude, had made Yang wonder what could result in a semblance like hers. It was so flashy. Had Neon really just been born like this, born for pastel tattoos and roller skates? 
“So, I have to ask, how did you come up with your fighting style? I mean, until I met Sun, I thought nunchaku were pretty ridiculous. But the roller skates, the dust, where’d that all come from?”

Neon started laughing as soon as Yang brought up the nunchaku, but waited for her to finish before going in. “Well, basically, I was the worst when I got into the academy. I don’t even know how I got in; I hadn’t discovered my semblance, and while I’m pretty good with nunchucks, I couldn’t spar for crap.”

Yang just raised her eyebrows, surprised to hear Neon confess to having been bad at anything, ever. After dancing with her, Yang had been pretty convinced that she might not actually be bad at anything.

Neon seemed to read the look, “No, yeah, I wasn’t agile, I couldn’t get through anyone’s aura, and like hell could I ring anyone out. And I was pissed, thought I’d flunk before I even got to fight a Grim. My team was cool, and all, but I was a total drag on them, even when Flynt made me the weapons I use now.”

Yang’s eyes turned forward along their path, trying not to make her pity visible. Yang knew she had joined an exceptional team ever since she was assigned, but she hadn’t felt like a drag. After being chosen for the doubles round, she could be pretty sure no one else - the group had chosen her unanimously to be the person to go into the singles. It was like talking to a girl Jaune, only improved on almost all fronts.

“So, what changed?”

Neon gave a shrug way more casual and dismissive than normal, and said as if it were no more than a tack-on, “Joined a roller derby to let off steam, unlocked my semblance, and immediately got banned.”

Yang blinked. “Just like that?”
And Neon nodded in reply. “Just like that.”

But then, a grin broke out on her face. “But, like, I didn’t tell anyone at first, especially seeing as I had so much trouble getting it to work without skates. Flynt found out why I got banned, though, and he made me some special shoes with wheels in them. I used them during a sparring match and stomped the dude I was sparring against. Never knew what hit him.”

Yang snorted, as the image she had of Neon was suddenly restored. “Yeah? And when did you develop taunting as a battle tactic?”

Neon made a little show of pointing finger guns over at Yang, then cocking them as if she were pumping a shot gun (which fairly prompted a giggle), and said, “Nah, hun, that bit’s just for you. You’re hard to resist.”

Yang rolled her eyes, just as they made it to the parking lot for student vehicles, which was really just an extension of the airfield near the dorms.
“Good to know I’m so ‘top heavy’ that it makes me a target even in battle. I was really hoping that was a bar-specific sort of thing, but no; maybe even the Grim will eat me for it.”

Neon pulled her hands out of her pockets and placed them on her hips, allowing a short beat before finally replying, rather quietly, “Well, if I were a Grim, I’d definitely eat you.”

Yang pursed her lips, but wasn’t sure how to respond without trapping herself again.

Yang decided to walk Neon all the way back to her team’s quarters under the firm logic that ‘she knows the campus better’ and ‘she has shotguns on her arms’. However, Neon had one final counterargument: they would have to take the stairs. Yang didn’t really mind, but they had only gone up a few flights before she thought to ask:
“Wait, why exactly didn’t we take the elevator?”

Neon was already on the next landing that Yang was making her way to, but she paused and turned back at this question. “Because it’s a steel box of death, that’s why,” and then she continued up the next flight before Yang could quite catch up.

“You . . . don’t like elevators?” Yang asked, quickly starting to not dig the stairs. If she weren’t worried about the destruction of school property, she could probably launch herself upwards floor-by-floor, but these steps were just so annoying.

Neon’s next response was a whole flight ahead; “Can’t say I’m a fan!”

And Yang decided not to press it, instead deciding to pick up her pace and catch up to Neon. How did this girl have so much energy? She had fought that afternoon, danced for about two hours that night, and still her tiny legs shot her up these stairs? How?

Neon was leaning against the door onto (apparently) her room’s floor by the time Yang arrived, embarrassingly out of breath from her attempts to catch Neon. The way Neon’s massive, bright-red hair spread against anything she leaned against looked like huge ears, though, and Yang’s panting quickly turned to laughter.

Although she couldn’t possibly know what Yang was laughing about, Neon folded her arms and scowled. “Hey,” she said, her tone scolding in a way it had never been before, “you’re ruining my suave moment.”

“Oh?” Yang stood up straight, patting her jacket smooth as part of regaining her composure.

“Yeah,” Neon replied, turning her head to the side. It took Yang a few seconds to realize that her offense was facetious.
Neon slid Yang a side-eye. “I was going to ask you to kiss me. But first, you totally missed our race to the top, and then you come here and laugh at me while I was trying to give you the face.”

“Hmm?” Yang leaned forward, her hands on her hips. “The face?” She wasn’t sure how else to evade the pseudo-question.

Neon nodded, turning her forwards. “Yeah, the face. The kiss-me face. It’s like this,” she said, taking a few seconds to close her eyes, relax her face, then open her eyes very slowly, giving her a heavy-lidded look that set her eyelashes over her eyes. After a second she inhaled deeply, her lips parting  while her chest expanding pushed her body slightly up the wall.

Yang immediately got what she meant about ‘the face’, but she wasn’t going to be so easily drawn in. She just blinked, clearing her thoughts and impulses, and replied, “It looks sort of like your ‘I’m going to punch you’ face.”

And, without missing a beat, Neon pushed off the wall, planted her feet, and slugged Yang in the shoulder.

Neon’s eyes popped open, and she pursed her lips in intense contrast to the expression she’d just been making. “Good read,” she said, and leaned back against the door, this time pushing it open.

Yang felt a twinge of guilt, but at the same time, she knew she wasn’t ready. She had kissed enough people at Signal to know that it could be meaningless, but there was a part of her that wanted to like this girl, and she wasn’t going to spoil it for herself.

Before Yang even managed to make it back to her dorm, a new message appeared on her scroll.

Neon =^.^=: i’m asking you out tomorrow, btw

Yang: As in tomorrow you’re asking me out, or you’re asking me out now for tomorrow?

Neon =^.^=: yes

Yang rolled her eyes at that, but she couldn’t pretend that, well, it was really, really cute. She wasn’t sure whether it was Neon herself, or just her unflagging interest, but something was getting to her.

Yang: Sure

Neon’s last replies didn’t come until Yang was in the bathroom, in her pajamas with her scroll on the sink.

Neon =^.^=: amazing. you’re adapting to the turbulence of high-speed bonding with remarkable ease.
Neon =^.^=: i’ll see you after the matches tomorrow. you can take me downtown!

And although she hadn’t expected it, Yang liked that idea very much.

Yang: You would be amazed what I can adapt to - and I look forward to it :)

Chapter Text

There was a rule in RWBY dorm: don't set any alarms. Ruby is your alarm. If not Ruby, Weiss's loud insistence that Ruby leave her alone so that she can go back to bed would be your alarm. That morning, though, Weiss was gone, which left Yang with only one option:
Being shaken awake by tiny, tiny hands on her shoulders.

"Yang? Yang! Get up!"

"Ruby?" Yang had enough experience with this to not freak out - which was good, because these moments used to result in Ruby getting launched into the ceiling with only her aura keeping her nose intact. Instead, she opened her eyes just enough to confirm that, yes, her pajama-clad sister was looming about a foot over her, her hair wet from a recent shower.
Yang's eyes slid over towards the window, and discovered just enough light filtering in to confirm that dawn had come. Ruby had been having nightmares again.

"Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy" Yang groaned, sinking her head forcefully down into her pillow. She'd been asleep for maybe five hours. She was not ready to get up.

Ruby refused to take the hint, as always. She plopped down on the bed, drawing the covers so tight over Yang that she scooted over, trying to free up more space to wrap herself in. To show how serious she was about falling back asleep, she flipped around, burrowing her face into the pillow now.
Ruby wasn't fazed. "You have to tell me about your date! I was asleep when you got back; what happened?"

Yang let out a nasal grumble, muffled through it might be. She wondered if her irritation could cause enough flame to get Ruby off of her bed. If Blake weren't sleeping on the bunk above, Yang might give it a try.
Yang gave up completely when she heard the huff of Zwei jumping up onto her bunk, though, the tiny depressions of his paws alerting her just seconds before he climbed onto her back. He didn't even find it a decent resting spot - he just wanting to paw around like a jerk.

Yang was awake, and there was nothing she could do about it. She cocked her head to the side, leaving her face mostly enshrouded in her hair but giving her some more room to breathe.

"I told you last night. We went dancing, then we came right back."

"That's not what I meeeaaannn," Ruby said, poking her sister's cheek through the veil of hair. Maidens, it was like living with a toddler. "I mean, how was Neon? Was she cool? What did she wear? Is she a good dancer? What do her tattoos mean? Do you like her? Does she like you? Are you-"

"Ruby," Yang interjected, raising her hand slightly. "My turn."

Ruby offered out her hands, ceding the conversation.

Yang sighed, trying to more accurately recollect her thoughts. What came to mind about Neon?
She was a bad fighter.
We're going out again.
That face.

"Yeah, uh, Neon's cool. We're hanging out again today. She's like, super forward. But, I don't know. She's cool."

"Forward?" Ruby asked, clearly confused. Then, with a sharp intake of breath, she asked, "Ooo did you guys kiss? Huh?" She poked Yang again on 'huh', but Yang's hand shot up and smacked the probe away. Probably a little harder than necessary.

"No," Yang replied, defensive. This conversation was clearly getting the better of her. She didn't like it.

Yang pulled up a little, prompting Zwei to bail from her back to her bed, which was now incredibly crowded for surface space. Yang drew up her legs and sat up, leaning against the wall. She wiped at her face, feeling smudged from planting her face in the pillow, even if she hadn't slept with makeup or anything to actually get smudged.
Ruby was pouting. Clearly, she'd wanted tales of a far more adventurous, romantic, or at the very least irresponsible night. It's not like previous experience with Yang hadn't taught her to expect that very thing - it's just that, usually, Yang was the one pushing these things along. Now here she was, being pursued straight out of the gate, and it left her uneasy, cautious. Not her.
But still . . . she was already looking forward to that second date.

"Well?" Ruby started, face expectant. "You're hanging out again - do you like her?"

Yang's leg was propped up against her chest, and she lowered her face down onto her knee. "I don't even know her," she replied. It wasn't really an answer, even if it was the truth.

"Well, the Vytal festival's going to end soon . . . you should get on that." Ruby blinked, realizing something; "I guess you are."

Yang's lips pursed, serving only to smoosh her face worse, what with her cheek puffed out on her knee. "But, like. If she's about to go back to Atlas, what's the point?"

Ruby gave a full-body shrug. "I mean, it's never a bad time to fall in love."

Yang rolled her eyes, then raised a fist to her crown, extending a finger in the air as if she were trying to imitate Blake's ears. "One, Ruby, what do you know about love? And two, have you brushed your teeth yet? Your breath stinks."

Ruby flushed red with the readiness that only her sister seemed to possess. "I, uh . . . nothing. I mean, I watch movies and stuff and . . ."
Ruby was rapidly becoming overwhelmed by this first question, and Yang was yet again struck with how adorably hopeless she was. Ruby was going to have to learn how to hide her feelings a bit better one of these days, or else someone other than Yang might catch a peek at them.

Yang leaned forward and shoved her sister's shoulder, almost forcing her off the bed entirely. "You. Go. Brush your teeth. Let me get up and shower if I have to be awake."

"Ugh," Ruby whined, though she stood immediately. "Fine." She grabbed her bathroom stuff and made her way to the door, opening it up before turning back towards Yang. "But I'm still going to bug you later!"

"You always do!" Yang replied, waving her sister away dismissively before she closed the door behind her.

Yang planted her feet on the floor, sighing into the fresh silence. She felt the fight from yesterday even more than she had last night, and combined with the dancing and lack of sleep, her body ached. Physical training had long since stopped leaving her with any pain, but the fire that boiled her blood, the frantic pumping in her heart, the surging, synergistic wave of her body and soul becoming one - that, that never stopped hurting. The singles round would begin tomorrow. She hoped she wouldn't be competing - she didn't want this heavy feeling going into another fight. It was going to be tough enough to manage on her date.

She stood and grabbed her toiletries as well, making her way to the door. A shower would help ease the ache, she was sure of it.

She stopped in her tracks, feeling eyes on her back. She pivoted slowly, and saw Blake's bright amber eyes on her. She was curled up, her blanket still over her, her head just cocked to the side from her pillow, but her eyes were wide open. She didn't say anything immediately, so Yang thought she might just be waking up.

"Hey," Yang greeted softly.

It was a few seconds before Blake replied, but it was much higher and neater than it would be if she'd just gotten up: "Did you have fun?"

Yang shrugged. "I mean, yeah."

Blake blinked slowly, but her ears twitched underneath her bow. Then she replied, "That's good."

"Yeah."

Weiss was kind enough to grace everyone with her presence a little after breakfast. She was a lot like Ren, constantly getting migraines after fights and sleeping as much as possible. Normally, she'd just swallow some pills and try to pretend it wasn't happening. This time around, though she just opened the door with an exhausted sigh, didn't respond to anyone's 'hey's, and dropped into her bed. Total aura depletion would do that to a person.

After a few seconds, though, Ruby was not so content to be totally ignored.
"Weeeiiiissss?" she asked hanging down from her top bunk.

Weiss only groaned in response.

"Are you going to the fights today?"

"No," she replied, straight into sounding exasperated. Despite the fact that it couldn't be doing anything for her comfort, Weiss still had her hair up in a tight ponytail, although she was still in the pajamas the gang had brought her yesterday. Apparently, even being ill left her with standards.

"Just going to nap today?" Yang asked. They still didn't need to leave for another thirty minutes for a ferry, even if they were looking to get good seats, but Yang had been sitting and brushing her hair for the last ten minutes. Getting any more ready than that would leave her feeling like she had to leave immediately, but she was couldn't settle down enough to just chill out and play video games or something. Even though she wasn't fighting today, nervousness was bubbling inside her.

"Yes."

"Can't you just like, use your time dilation and just skip your way through a nap and go with us?" Yang wasn't quite certain why she wanted Weiss to go so much, and from the look Ruby was giving her, she wasn't certain either.

"That's literally not how anything works."
Weiss turned her head towards the center of the room, catching Yang, Zwei, and assumedly Blake in the look.
"Who's even up today? I didn't hear who went after us."

Yang shrugged, but Blake was always much better when it came to details: "Team SSSN went yesterday, and so did Emerald's team. Team . . ."

There was a short pause, but Yang quickly felt the same weirdness as Blake. What was her team name? There was Emerald, Mercury, Cinder, and . . . who was the fourth girl? She never hung out with them.
"I, uh, I don't think we ever learned their team name, actually," Yang offered after a few seconds.

"Well, team JNPR's up today. Jaune and the others came over for video games while Yang was out last night - Pyrrha and Nora are fighting today. It should be a sweep." Blake sounded bored, disappointed. She must have been hoping for a less surefire team. Then again, anyone + Pyrrha . . . how close could a fight even get?

"That sounds . . ." Weiss struggled to find the right word for a moment, then, "Actually, that sounds awesome. I'll try and stream it."

"We'll get out of your hair," Yang said, planting her hands on her bed to practically fling herself off of it. "Try and get some sleep."

Blake plopped down to the floor and was quick to follow, but when Yang opened the door, she turned back to the interior of the room. "C'mon, Ruby, that means you too."

"Egh, fine, all right, just let me get my shoes on."

It was a sweep.
When Yang found out she had chosen to advance into the singles, she'd started reviewing the matchups from previous days of the tournament. She had seen the fight with Emerald's team in the Teams matchup. It had been a slaughterhouse, humble though she might have tried to play it. And this? Pyrrha and Nora versus two kids from Mistral? This was over even faster.

Blake, Yang, and Ruby were quick to get out of their seats to go congratulate them, but they weren't quite quick enough. Almost as soon as that final matchup was decided and RWBY were out of their seats, Blake tapped on Yang's shoulder.

"I think your second date is about to start," she said, pointing across the battlegrounds.

Yang quickly noticed what she meant. Neon's rainbow blur was making its way around the arena, and it was going to make it here much quicker than they'd be able to make it over to JNPR. Yang stopped in her tracks, a little amazed at the tiny zigzags she was making, dodging people that Yang couldn't even see as distinct entities at this distance.

Then Ruby, the only one to have made it to the stairs yet, suddenly gasped. She turned around, nearly blocking Yang and Blake as they squeezed by people at their seats.
"Wait!" She exclaimed, "Does this mean we get to meet Neon! I really want to meet Neon, please tell me we can-"

But Blake grabbed Ruby's wrist as she passed her, dragging her down the steps ahead of Yang.
"Come on, Ruby, let's go say hi to Pyrrha and Nora."

"But I-"
"Bye Yang! See you tonight."

Blake turned as she neared the bottom of the steps, waving to Yang. Yang smirked and waved back.
"See ya!" She called, and made her way down the steps, waiting to greet Neon down on the sidewalk.

Yang had a whole gag ready. She knew Neon would reach her before she could pull off anything too clever, but she was at least able to cross her legs and look really, really bored, as if Neon had been keeping her waiting. She'd show up and they'd have a laugh about Neon being tardy. Ha ha.
No. Because of course not. As Neon zoomed closer, Yang smirked, standing up straighter to start.

"Took you long e-" but Neon wasn't stopping. Instead, she was hurtling straight towards Yang, a rainbow blur with her arms outstretched in front of her, something in her hands offered forward. Yang didn't even have time to see what - only thanks to the years of practice dealing with projectiles did she even manage to pivot, grabbing the sides of Neon's hands. The momentum as Neon left her semblance was far, far too much, though, and Yang toppled right over, her grasp on Neon only serving to pull her forward.
If Neon had been going much, much slower, they might have just awkwardly tumbled onto each other. Instead, Neon screeched as she was flung over Yang, properly belly-flopping onto the pavement. Luckily, she didn't crush anyone on her way down, as people seemed eager to avoid the rainbow streak, but now both Neon and Yang were sprawled out in the middle of the walkway.

"Oww, oww," Neon moaned, picking herself up.
Meanwhile, Yang rolled over, thoroughly convinced that she was concussed if not actively dying at this moment. Was she bleeding? Maybe? Her scalp was super warm for sure, but that could just be pain instead of blood.

"Why," Yang asked, not yet able to pick herself up, "why didn't you stop?" Everything in her vision was pulsing. Was it supposed to be doing that? Was the sun pulsing? It probably wasn't intended to do that.

"I thought you would stop me!" Neon whined, pushing herself up just enough to sit cross-legged beside Yang, who was still working on that "having functional limbs" thing. "You're really strong - I just thought I'd stop in my tracks or you'd lift me and it'd be cute."

At this point, people on the cement had realized that this accident involved two cute girls, and Neon started to shoo them away. It was even worse when they realized that they were tournament participants, but Neon just cradled her scraped face in her hand and told one of the random strangers, "Dude, I'm gay, leave me alone," as if that were more important than her healing factor.

Yang finally managed to get enough feeling back to push herself up to her feet. She immediately stumbled, but caught herself, lifting her arms higher when somebody tried to grasp her upper arms to support her. "I'm strong because of my aura, and I don't just - are those roller skates?"

Neon looked around, initially confused at the question until she realized that her hands were empty. She finally caught sight of a pair of roller blades a few feet off to her side, then quickly scrambled to her feet to go and retrieve them.
"Dammit! Yeah!"

Maybe it was because the physical manifestation of her soul wasn't busy fixing all the damage done to her brain yet, but this left Yang so confused that she didn't even move from the spot she was in - including leaving her arms raised above her head to keep anyone from touching them.
"Why do you need a second pair of -" and then it clicked, and Yang lowered her arms as well; "Oh."

Neon rolled back on over to Yang, much more slowly this time, offering out the skates again. "They're for you."

There were a few questions that rolled through Yang's mind. A really great one was: you're taking me roller skating? But such a reasonable, well-paced question is not what escaped her mouth. Instead they were just left with, "How did you get the right size . . .?" because, on brief inspection, they were the perfect size, assuming roller skates followed ordinary shoe sizes.

Yang was immediately embarrassed by the question she actually managed to vocalize. What she hadn't been expecting was that finally, finally, Neon looked a little embarrassed herself, her face turning down to avoid Yang's eyes.
"Aha, well, so," she said, briefly stalling while offering the skates again.
Yang took them, and Neon continued, "Flynt stopped by to see Schnee yesterday - I think that whole geyser trick really won him over yesterday. Anyway, he kind of got her scroll number -" Yang blinked and almost interrupted at this development, but Neon only started talking faster, "- and I sort of immediately abused this resource to ask her what your shoe size was because I thought you guys were friends and she'd know what your shoe size was and she did."

Yang scratched her head, running her fingers through her hair where she had been concerned about bleeding. Cool, no blood, all good. "Oh, um, that's cool." She had no idea if it was normal for friends to know each others' shoe sizes or not. She didn't even know Ruby's.

There was a beat, and Yang decided to try and salvage this whole conversation.
"So, you're taking me roller skating?" she asked, holding up the skates as if Neon would have forgotten them.

Neon shuffled in place, and Yang grinned as she realized that her legs left smaller rainbow streaks every time she did so.
"Well, I mean, it's more like you're taking me roller skating. I don't really know downtown very well, but, well, I hear this ice cream shoppe-"
"Pete's?"
"- yeah Pete's but I haven't found it and I want you to take me."

Another beat, and then Neon pouted, placing her hands on her hips as she shuffled her feet. "And, you know what, normally I would have capitalized on that double entendre but my face honestly hurts and I didn't even wink or anything."

Yang decided to ignore that last comment, instead evaluating the skates, then Neon, then the skates again. "Okay, wow, yeah, that actually sounds great!"
Yang flipped her hair over her shoulder, then grabbed the skates with her off hand before reaching out, grabbing Neon's hand. The poor girl barely had time to look pleased or shocked before she was suddenly being dragged down the sidewalk.

"Look who's forward now!" Neon called, as if the sudden acceleration suddenly deafened them. Yang started jogging through people, making sure not to swing Neon into any of them.
"Oh shush; everyone's getting on the ferries and downtown's gonna be flooded! We've got to go fast!"

"If you say so!" Neon replied, but when Yang looked over her shoulder, she was grinning.

There was something about their brutal collision that made things click into place. Yang stopped playing on the defensive and finally got some flirty comments of her own in - like when Neon tried to tease her about them holding hands, and Yang shut her down with a, "So, I wanted to hold hands with a babe - sue me," which got a smirk but no further contest.

They kept it up until they were almost to Pete's, and Yang remembered exactly where it was. Now she remembered why she hadn't gone recently - it was in the square where the Grimm had burst through earlier this semester. There was still a sectioned off area indicating where the train had blown a hole in the city, although all of the infrastructure itself had been repaired that same day.
Yang got a little quieter when she noticed where they were, and Neon picked up on it just enough to scan the area.

Upon noticing the sectioned off square she asked, "Oh hey! This is where the Grimm attacked, right? I wasn't in Vale so I only heard but . . ." she didn't quite seem to know how to finish the thought.
Yang shrugged. "Yeah, that's the spot. And you didn't miss much - it only took us like fifteen minutes to kill them all."

"Us as in Vale or . . ." Neon shot Yang a side eye, and Yang met it with a shrug.
Neon's eyes popped, "No way! You were there?!"

Yang smirked, turning into the doorway of Pete's while an old bell on the door handle let everyone know they were coming. "I, ah, actually, team RWBY was on the train that burst through here. Weiss is the only reason we're not all a red stain on the bottom of the street."

As they rolled up to the counter, Neon's eyes were rapidly becoming in danger of shooting rainbows themselves. When they finally reached the counter and Yang braced herself against it, Neon shoved her futilely. "You didn't tell me you were awesome! Why were you even on a train?!"

Yang laughed nervously, not sure how much she should disclose. Plus, the girl at the counter was giving them a weird look thanks to the roller skates, so Yang decided it was best to try and act normal through this sale. It was hard enough just from the fact that the skates made Yang so much taller that she towered over the girl at the counter, and the counter was only at about waist height.
"Um, a large double fudge please. In a waffle cone. And whatever she wants," she said, tilting her head towards Neon.

Neon shot her another look, but this time instead of looking excited she just looked uncomfortable.
"You don't have to pay for me, you know. Like, I have money."

Yang hadn't even really thought about that. It was just her automatic assumption that on a date, she would be paying. There had been some guys at Signal who really didn't like that and would insist against it, but Yang hadn't had any trouble paying for girls before.
"Oh. Yeah. I know that. I just . . ."
Come to think of it, Yang really didn't know why she just assumed.

Yang shrugged. "I just like it."

Neon's eyebrows shot up in an almost sarcastic appraisal that lingered. Then she simply replied, "Weird kink," before turning her attention back to the girl, who looked deeply uncomfortable to be dealing with these two; "I'll do a medium rainbow sherbet. In a cup. Thanks."

While the girl set about getting them their ice cream, they rolled by the glass case filled with all the different flavors down by where you pay. Neon used a bit of her semblance as she arrived, swiveling around in a rainbow blur before rolling the rest of the way backwards.

"So, train? Adventure? Epic beatdowns in the streets of Vale? Spill."

"Eh, it wasn't really that exciting-" it totally was "- and I'm not really supposed to talk about it -" true "- but basically some people rigged explosives on an abandoned train to lead Grimm into the city. We technically foiled them and got the guy, but team CFVY and some teachers from Beacon were there so we just kinda became like, a foot note."

"So, let me get this straight," Neon said, leaning up against the wall, delicately balancing so that her skates wouldn't shoot out from under her, "you were on a train. Filled with explosives. Being chased by Grimm. When you smashed into the underside of the city. And Weiss Schnee saved your skin."

Yang's eyes scanned the room while she scanned her own brain for a way to qualify that summary. But no. That was pretty much exactly it.
"Basically, yeah."

The girl came up to the end of the counter, and Yang traded her custody of her credits for the cone. Neon picked her cup up from the counter while the girl worked on issuing change.
"I seem to have made a mistake," Neon said before pushing off the wall, rolling towards the door. "Schnee is the cool one. I should have asked her out. I wonder if me and Flynt can still trade." The door jingled as she grasped the handle, stopping herself from another untimely collision.

Yang rolled her eyes with a "Pfft," accepted her change with a 'Thank you', and decided that she shouldn't bring up how she got her ass handed to her by a girl Neon's size with a parasol. Then she rolled on after Neon, who held the door open for her.

"Sorry girlfriend," Yang answered properly as the door bell jingled, "I'm nonrefundable."

"I'm okay with that," Neon said with a smile, and offered out her hand.

Despite the fact that they had technically held hands earlier, nervousness immediately sunk into Yang's stomach. "If - if we hold hands, how are you going to eat your ice cream?"

Neon looked down at her cup and spoon. "Okay, quite honestly I didn't think this far ahead, but now I'm committed so . . .?" she tilted her hand up to make it prime hand-holding real estate.
And Yang just couldn't shoot something that cute down. Her heart softened, and she reached out. "Here, to save you any embarrassment," and they laced their fingers together.

Neon beamed.

As they started off, more slowly than before, along the sidewalk, Neon started up again, "But yeah, that sounds so cool! I wish I could have beaten up a Grimm horde attacking the city like that. Foot note status isn't too bad for a seventeen year old Huntress. Hunter. Hm." Neon's lips pursed. "I'm not sure what to call you."

Yang snorted, but again, she appreciated that Neon even made it a thought. "Let's just . . . stick with Huntress for now. Hunter sounds like the awkward kid in class whose hair is never combed and who's allergic to deodorant." Yang licked her icecream, trying to look thoughtful. "Besides, if the White Fang keeps up like this, a lot of us are going to end up as foot notes."

Neon grinded to a halt, and Yang found herself jerked back. In her effort to stabilize herself, she clenched her hands - the one keeping her attached to Neon was a good idea, but the other only managed to crush her ice cream cone, coating her hands in a freezing chocolate mush.
"Shit!" Yang cried, referring to only too many things from the last few seconds. "Super strength!"

Neon's voice was flat, flatter than Yang had ever heard her: "It's a waffle cone, I don't think you need super strength. Did you say the White Fang? What do they have to do with . . ." she trailed off, but Yang could see from her eyes that she was working it out.

A long string of curses started to pour through Yang's mind at her clumsiness (physical and verbal), but all Neon said in response to these thoughts was, "Did the White Fang set up the train? Like, this was an attack?"

Yang really wanted to deal with the icy soup all over her hand, but with Neon still holding onto her hand, she didn't have a lot of room to go find a napkin or a bathroom or anything just yet. Neon had only responded to Yang's tightened grip by tightening her own.
"I . . . um. I don't." Yang's eyes darted around, looking for a way out. She wasn't good at lying. She had never been good at lying. "I mean, it could be? I don't really-"

"Bullshit," Neon replied, and Yang flinched at the harshness. "The White Fang attacked Vale during the festival? Seriously? And we haven't heard about it?"

"I mean, I think they just didn't want people to-"

"To panic?" Neon asked, interrupting Yang. She dropped her hand, looking very thoughtfully down at her sherbet. Her voice quieted down as she said with a hint of disgust, "I guess Vale is just like Atlas, huh?"

And Yang didn't know what to say to that. She wasn't really sure there was anything to say, because as far as she understood, Neon was completely right. She had already said more than she was allowed to - in fact, she had said precisely the thing that she wasn't supposed to by connecting Torchwick and the White Fang. But, for right now, she just needed to fix her ice cream hand.
"Yeah . . . I mean, I mean I guess. But, um . . . could you get me some napkins."

Neon blinked. And then, "Oh!" She snapped back into her regular self, "Yeah, sure, totally! Wait right here. If you're worried about any of your clothes just take them right off; I'll carry them for you."

"Ha. Ha," Yang replied, but neither of their hearts were in the banter for the moment. The looming doubt embodied by the airships overhead had returned, and now she had the opportunity to share it with a pretty girl. Wonderful.

They were much more quiet when they resumed their skating downtown, though they quickly left the site of the attack in hopes of dashing it from their minds. Chatting about the shops and, more importantly, reviewing their selections and customer service proved to be much more important, especially interspersed with Neon curving in front of Yang while jabbing a spoon of sherbet at her face in hopes that she'd eat it. Finally, though, on the fourth or fifth try, Neon ended up just spattering the goop on Yang's nose, which finally got her to laugh.

"I'm so sorry!" she said, though she was practically cackling. "Your body just can't resist Pete's ice cream."

"Egh," groaned, disgruntled wiping it away with her palm before lapping it up. It couldn't look pretty, but it had to look better than her face being in sherbet. "I'm going to need to take a shower after this. And it's all your fault." She made sure to shoot Neon a bemused glance so she'd know she was playing. With her non-gross hand, she checked her hair and confirmed that yes, despite all the skating, it was still wet.
"My hair's not even dry yet," she whimpered, knowing full well that it usually took a full day, even spending it outside.

"Couldn't you just, like, do your fire thing to dry off?"
The question was so innocent, and yet so off the wall that Yang just had to laugh. Neon swiveled around and started to skate backwards in response, clasping her hands behind her back and leaning a little forward. Show off.

"I don't know about you, but I'm not big into using my aura for stuff like that. Plus, for some reason, I'm down a lot of aura right now." A pointed look at Neon only prompted a mischievous grin. "Besides, most of my aura techniques are based on how I'm feeling. If you'd played a little more fair you probably would have beaten me instead of pissing me off."

"Well, so's my semblance, but I still manage to use it for fun."
That seemed to give Neon an idea, though, because she stood up straighter and began to decelerate, prompting Yang to follow suit.

"What is it?" Yang asked.
"I . . . you wanna get your hair dry real fast?"

Now that was a weird question. "What? How?"

As a response, Neon just looked both ways down the street, then dropped down from the sidewalk into it. She skated out into the middle before turning around, offering out a hand to Yang. "Come on," she said.

Yang glanced down the road. "Are you sure that's safe?" she asked. She figured she could take getting hit by a car or whatever, but she wasn't so sure a car could survive a hit from her.

"Does it matter?" Neon asked in reply.

Yang let out a hollow chuckle, but Neon just shuffled back and forth, tiny and cute and jittery and bright-eyed and oh all right.

Yang dropped down from the sidewalk and made her way over to Neon, clasping their hands together. The nervousness bubbled back up inside her gut.

"Hold on tight. It's going to feel pretty weird."

Yang nodded her head, and then they began to skate down the street. A perfectly normal speed, then a little fast. Even when they had to make a turn and Yang was a little nervous about the speed, Neon just kept her eyes focused forward, starting sprints that Yang could only keep up with because of her longer legs.
And then, everything around her vanished as they lurched forward, and her vision was consumed with radiating colors. She knew she was going fast, faster than she ever managed with Ember Celica or Bumblebee, but she couldn't see where she was going - everything was an incoherent prism, beautiful and nonsensical.
But they didn't hit anything. All Yang could hear was the wind and a rush of noises she couldn't identify, and her own whooping as she ceased to be afraid.

She had no idea they were at the docks until the rainbow suddenly disappeared, and Yang realized she was flying forward. She was decelerating but everything seemed faster now that she could see how the ground disappeared underneath her skates, and the only thing keeping her from spinning out and smashing her face into the ground was Neon's hand. She hit some tiny bump in the road, such a small detail that she never could have noticed, but as she toppled over, as her legs gave out from under her, she was yanked forward. Then she was spinning, around and around, and at first she didn't even realize that Neon was holding her as they spun out. Neon was laughing. This was just easy for her. This was just fun.

As they finally spun to a stop, Yang was able to plant her skates safely again, hold her own weight again. Neon's arm was around her waist, and they were both laughing, light-headed from the speed and the dizziness.

Yang wasn't sure what she said, or what Neon said. She could only remember what she thought.

We should kiss, she thought, despite the blazing sun and despite the sticky feeling on her hand and nose from all the ice cream.
We should kiss, she thought, watching Neon's tail twitch with delight as she laughed.
We should kiss, she thought, as they both quieted down and looked at each other, fully aware that they were thinking the same thing.

The moment lingered, and it was warm, and it became stale.

Neon sniffed, as if suddenly becoming aware of where they were. "That's . . . clam chowder. And tuna!"

"Oh, maidens," Yang said, they're embrace breaking so she could put her hands on her hips, "you're just like Blake."

Neon coughed out an awkward laugh, but they both immediately understood how much that was the wrong thing to say. Neon's smile was so, so fake, the warmth in her eyes dying away too fast again.

"Yeah, I don't think I'm really in the mood for seafood though." She shuffled around again, her hands behind her back. It was getting too easy for them to touch. Too easy too fast. "Maybe we should just get like, campus food."

It's not that campus food was bad. It's not like going back to campus meant they had to stop hanging out. But Yang knew, if they did that, the date was over.

Yang shook her head. "Nope. Sorry. Date's not over."
She reached out a hand again, along with her best attempt at a curtsy in roller skates.

And maybe it wasn't as bright as before, but Neon still smiled. After a second of hesitation, she untangled her hands from behind her back and grabbed Yang's hand again.
"Where to?" she asked.

When Yang brought Neon to the forest of Forever Fall, she wasn't entirely sure what she intended. Although it was technically filled with the malevolent presence of Grimm, small groups of people were unlikely to be detected without a lot of negativity. Seeing as it was only about two miles from campus and many upperclassmen had vehicles, the cliffs of Forever Fall overlooking the ocean had proven to be a popular date and hookup spot for students of Beacon. Yang thought of it as a change of scenery, as the prettiest place around, but there was so much expectation, so much context to the place, that it was hard not to let her thoughts wander about bringing Neon here.
She wondered if Neon knew what this place was. She wondered if she knew its reputation. She wondered if she was thinking the same thoughts, too.

They lay side by side near the cliffs, and they could hear the breaking of waves every so often below them. Empty paper bowls sat on either sides of them, remnants of a Forever Fall syrup cereal that a lone man had been selling on the side of the road in. They'd left Bumblebee with him, leaving him with a bit of a grin as they disappeared into the forest.
It was much cooler here than in Vale, with the slightest ocean breeze and the cool touch of the grass. The red-brown leaves scattered even this far from the treeline, and they smelled sweet like the tree sap, and Yang was worried that her hair would get sticky and gross. It reminded her of the time in elementary school, long before the years at Signal, that a boy had stuck gum in her hair; she cried when she had to cut it, even though it wasn't that much.

Neon had pulled her hair free of its ties, seemingly unafraid of the mess it would become as it spilled out, red as the leaves on the grass. Neon lay on her side, and her hair was poofy and wild, much too wide for how it was long. It looked silly. Yang wanted to touch it, but she still didn't want to be 'that guy'.

"So, I guess the White Fang's a big thing here too, huh?" Neon's eyes were big and empty, without the disdain or anxiety from the first time they'd been brought up.

Yang lay with her head in her hands, fingers laced together into a pillow. "I mean, yeah. Aren't they kinda big everywhere?"

Neon did her best to shrug, despite being on her side. "I didn't think they were anything here like they are in Atlas. I never thought things could be worse here."

"It didn't used to be like this," Yang replied, but she didn't know that. Things had been bad ever since she started at Beacon. They'd seemed bad before. Maybe she had only been too much of a child to see how bad things were between faunis and humans before.
"I . . . I've heard things are really bad in Atlas," she continued. While she'd certainly heard that, she'd never known any of the details until Weiss and Blake got into an argument about the Schnee Dust company. Mention of the company, even in connection to the White Fang, had been a forbidden topic for months now. "Attacks on businesses, political assassinations, jailing of suspected White Fang members. I can't even imagine."

"I don't know," Neon said, turning to lay on her back now. "I guess you just try not to think about it."

"I don't get that. Isn't it scary?"

"Oh, it's scary. People just don't want to admit how scared they are, like that makes it real. But they're so scared they'll do . . . they'll do some pretty messed up stuff to feel safe." Her voice was a little shaky when she said that. She gave a hollow laugh after it, but the words themselves had felt heavy. They sounded scared. Yang hadn't heard it before.

Now it was Yang's turn to turn on her side. She got her first clear look at Neon's profile, the red and pink too messy to quite frame her face. Her nose was so pointed and her lips were so small, and Yang wanted to pet her. She wondered if that would be soothing. She didn't want to ask. She'd gotten far too close to asking Blake when things had been getting rough, but she knew it was stupid.

"What do you mean?" Yang asked.

Yang watched the tiny saccades of Neon's eyes as she thought, lips still pursed as she swallowed deeply. A few seconds later, she asked lightly, as if changing topic, "You remember what I said about elevators?"

Yang wracked her brain for a few seconds before remembering when it had come up; "Oh, that they're tiny death boxes?"

"Yeah," Neon replied.
At first, Yang thought that that was it, but then Neon continued, "And you know that guy I beat up when I got my semblance?"

Yang just nodded in reply, but she could tell Neon could see it.
What she didn't expect was the way that Neon's eyes widened and refused to blink. It was a familiar look, like when Ruby talked about her mom.

Yang felt her gut clench, but not out of nervousness, out of concern.

"Yeah, so, um. Like, this one time, he and a bunch of guys kinda . . . ambushed me."
Yang rolled a little more, now onto her stomach, but she stayed quiet, her eyes trained on Neon's own that refused to blink.

"I don't really know what was up with them, exactly, but they were pissed, and they didn't hurt me but they locked me in one of the lockers. You know, like the rocket ones you guys have here. And I thought they were just going to launch me somewhere - people do that sometimes, I mean, like, as a prank - but they just left me in there."
Neon's fingers dug into her own clothes, looking for something to grasp but there was nothing solid enough. Yang reached out and grabbed one of them, squeezing as hard as she could.
Neon squeezed back, acknowledging that Yang was there, took a deep breath, and continued.

"I thought they would just leave, but they stuck around for a while. One of the guys made sure nobody came in but the rest stayed. They said that I didn't belong at that school, that I was part of the White Fang. They asked me if I was happy about this train that had been attacked that had been in the news - some White Fang thing where a bunch of people were injured or killed. And I told them no, like of course I wasn't happy - people died - but there was this fucking guy, I didn't even know him, he kept saying that I liked it. That I liked that humans were dead."

Yang wasn't sure what to say. What she should say, or what she could say.
She said, "And you've been claustrophobic ever since?"

Neon's eyes finally slid over, though they still weren't blinking very much, as if she just remembered that Yang was there. The way she held Yang's hand let her know she hadn't forgotten at any point, though.
Neon said, "I mean, I guess? I just meant, like . . . people get so scared. I would have been scared with them - it's not like faunis didn't die on that train, too. But they just . . ."

And whatever words Neon was trying to say curdled in her mouth, and she choked on them. Her skin flushed redder with fury, or shame, or something, but it was warm and toxic and she squeezed Yang's hand as tightly as she could.

Yang thought she might know what those words were. "They caged you like an animal."

And Neon blinked once, twice, breathing deeply. Her teeth were gritted together so that her breath became a teeth-baring smile, barely letting out a "Yeah."

Neon didn't cry. Yang would have felt better if she cried, but instead her eyes just just flickered about, as if she were still back then instead if here, now with Yang.
Yang sat up, scooting herself next to Neon before dragging her into her lap. Neon complied as well as she could, lifting herself and sitting down, letting herself be enveloped in Yang's arms, gripping the sides of her jacket. And Yang combed her fingers through Neon's hair, hoping that it would comfort her.

"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault."
"But people are hateful, and I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry, too."

Why does she trust me? Yang wondered. The days where Ruby let her pain show through, where she let Yang hold her, those days had passed. And yet here was this honest stranger in shambles.

"Yang?" Neon asked, after a long pause.
"Yeah?"
"I still wanna know about your semblance."

And Yang gave a snort in response. "How about just one of us breaks down at a time, okay?"

A beat, and then, "Okay, that's fair."

"Someday," Yang said, "I promise."

Chapter Text

"Think about it; I'm in no rush."

Qrow gave a two-fingered wave from his temple as he walked through the door of Yang's dorm and closed it behind him.

Yang had no idea what she was supposed to be feeling right now. Her mom had never been closer, more present than she felt right now, not since she left her and Dad so many years ago. Only a few weeks ago, she would have taken Bumblebee and been gone tonight. But now, with Raven's message delivered and Yang's relationship with Beacon already feeling so precarious, ambivalence consumed her. On one hand, she had never had this opportunity, and with every hour that passes, Qrow's tip on how to find her becomes less likely to pan out. On the other, she had no guarantees, even if she found her, that her mother would speak to her, that she'd have a home to come back to, that she would be proud of who Yang had become. She clearly loved Yang with some type of love - a love that felt alien and cold to Yang, maybe, but love nonetheless. But could that ever become the thing Yang was looking for?

Thoughts of Raven brought stinging embers over Yang's skin. Thoughts of her rarely failed to burn themselves out, eating away at her aura like molten candle wax. If she had had any aura to spare, she may have sat there for hours ruminating, but she was already depleted. She needed rest. She needed a nap. And she needed, absolutely needed to not do is think about how much it hurt that Blake had doubted her when even Weiss hadn't, or how tenuous their trust now was.

She was asleep for such a short time she didn't think she'd fallen asleep at all. She blinked awake to the buzzing of her scroll beneath her pillow.

Neon =^.^=: how are you doing?

Yang: Shitty.

Neon =^.^=: were you disqualified?

Yang: Yes.

Neon =^.^=: damn. i'm sorry

Whatever. Yang wasn't in the mood to talk through things with yet another person. She knew that Neon was trying to be kind, to not make Yang out to be a monster like the media had been so quick to do, perhaps even give her the benefit of the doubt about her intentions. But if she had to feel her own feelings for a minute more, she was just going to melt like that wax, unable to hold herself together anymore.

Yang just stuffed her scroll back underneath her pillow.

A minute later, Neon texted again anyway.

Neon =^.^=: could you use some company?

That's exactly what Yang didn't want.

Neon =^.^=: we don't have to talk about the match or anything. just... company

Yang: Company?

Neon =^.^=: there's bad feelings in the air. I can feel them like a Grim, kinda, or i guess just like a person
And I know something that helps is being near someone
I don't know if you have someone with you, like blake or weiss, but
Neon =^.^=: like i could just be there with you for a while

Neon was trying so hard. Yang couldn't fathom why she cared, why she'd bother checking in after watching her shoot Mercury's legs like that. But it softened her heart, just a little.

Yang: OK
Yang: but honestly, all I want to do is lie in bed and pretend nothing is happening. Can you deal with that?

Neon =^.^=: i think so
Neon =^.^=: wait like cuddling??? or do i just sort of chill out nearby

Yang: I would be OK with being a little spoon if you're up to it.

Neon =^.^=: i am
Neon =^.^=: what's your dorm #?

It had been initially awkward, what with Neon showing up, glancing inside, asking, "No one else here, huh?", Yang feeling like she'd arranged a booty call, and them awkwardly configuring themselves on the bed. Now it was mostly nice with a large side-order of strange, both because Neon's body felt so unfamiliar and because Neon was a good head shorter that Yang. Her version of big spooning relied a lot on having her legs fit closely behind Yang's, but she couldn't get her head near Yang's in that case, instead setting her head against the back of Yang's shoulder.

They lay there for a long, quiet moment, probably close to half an hour. Yang easily could have fallen asleep (much to Neon's credit, considering how nerve-wracking it was to share her bunk - especially when the others would return as soon as Pyrrha's match was over), but some part of Yang couldn't ignore that this might be the last and only time she had to spend with Neon alone like this. Everything with her had been a blur - fun and exciting and charged and more emotionally intimate than she'd anticipated. Nevermind the whole mess of feelings she'd been having about Neon's quick perception of her ambivalence - ambivalence about her gender on one hand, and ambivalence about her feelings for Blake on the other. The fact that Neon saw what Yang felt, what she'd been feeling and been unable to say herself, made her so much more confident that it was all real. And if Yang didn't hold onto these feelings, these certainties, they would slip between her fingers. Just like these last hours with Neon.

Neon's arm hung loosely around Yang's side, neatly dodging her bare midriff. Despite all her forwardness, she was doing her best to not seem like a creep, especially right now. That was appreciated.

"I'm sorry," Yang said, "If this isn't what you had in mind when you asked me out."

"It's not," Neon confirmed. Her thumb stroked along the bottom of Yang's chest as she spoke. "But I wouldn't trade this, either."

Yang said, "You know, I don't really know what I was looking for when I took you out. Like, I wasn't trying to hook up with you, or date you, really. But I also wasn't really trying to become friends with you like I normally do. I think . . ." she trailed off for a moment, thinking. "I think I wanted to learn how to be more like you, maybe."

"Oh?" Neon asked, clearly flattered. "You wanted to be super pretty, but like, kind of a bitch?"

"Nooo," Yang groaned, much to Neon's giggling delight. She flipped around and propped herself up on her arm so they could actually look at each other. "Like . . . like, in our fight, you picked out how easily I get frustrated when things get hard. And how I kinda . . . just . . ."

"Punch until there's no more problem?" Neon offered.

Yang shrugged. "I mean, yeah? It's like you said, it's such a big part of me that it's my semblance. But you seem just like the opposite. Like you don't get bogged down in anything."

Neon offered a small smile, encouraged that Yang was finally talking. She reached up and pushed some of the hair in Yang's face back - there's no point in trying to tuck it behind her ear, but Yang recognized the gesture.

"It's how I know how to survive, I guess," Neon says. "Don't let anything stop me. Don't let anyone keep me down. Never miss a beat, and no one can find your flaws. Being a girl, being a faunus, being queer . . . it doesn't leave a lot of room for error. And when I make one, if I let that stop me, I'll only make more."

That whole framing was nonsensical to Yang. When there were problems she couldn't punch her way through, there was no such thing as 'not letting that stop me.' Being disqualified from the tournament, hurting Mercury (even if he deserved it, even if he had tried to attack her), Raven being gone and untraceable all these years - these weren't things you could just move past.

"I . . . I don't get that at all," Yang said, dropping back onto her back (Neon had to scoot back a little). She hummed for a second, thinking, then said, "You know, we found out my semblance when I was really young. Like . . . I started training when I was six, after some Grim nearly got me in the woods outside of Patch."

Neon was doing a poor job of hiding her rapt interest in this topic, but Yang was finally past caring about how weird it was that Neon was so interested in her.

"It was a few months after we unlocked my aura. My uncle, Qrow, he was helping teach me. And one night, he gets drunk, and he starts talking about his sister, my Mom. What she used to be like at Beacon. What a brat she was on missions . . . stuff like that. And for the first time she left, I didn't just miss her. I realized that she left me and Dad because she wanted to. When I heard how she used to treat Qrow, and my Dad, and Summer, I realized that she just abandoned us because she didn't care. And that just made me so mad. Like, Summer left because there were people who needed protecting, but Mom just left. And my aura . . . just sort of burst. I broke our porch, shattered the windows. I felt like my skin was on fire . . ."

Yang held a hand up to see it better in the light. Her aura wasn't burning now, but she remembered exactly what it was like that day, how freaked out Uncle Qrow was until he realized what happened, how sad Dad looked when he figured out what revealed her semblance.

"A lot of people who fight me, and my teammates, even - they think my semblance is all about rage. And that's part of it, yeah . . . but when I need to set it off, I don't think about losing. I just think about Mom. It's not the anger that makes me strong. It's the pain, inviting in again and again. I can take more every time." Yang rolled her hand over, remembering the giant mech Torchwick hit her with. And how she had just hit back. "But I can't move past it. If I did, I'd just be . . . empty."

Neon lifted her hands up and shrugged slowly. "I'm not going to say my way is right, Yang. I'm not you. But you're somebody whose feelings become much more than feelings . . ." Neon reached out a hand and lay it over Yang's. She squeezed tight. "And I think there might be other ways for you to be strong."

"Maybe," Yang said through a brief, fake smile. "Maybe one day I'll find another way, like you. Or, something . . ."

"And Yang?" Neon asked, her eyebrows raised.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you for telling me."

The smile was more real this time: "I told you, I can adapt to high-speed friendship."

"And you've done so beautifully," Neon said, planting a quick kiss on Yang's cheek. "Queer kids. Talking about childhood trauma is basically second base."

Now it was Yang's turn to quirk her eyebrows curiously. "Is that so?"

Neon nodded. "I speak from experience."

Yang said, "I think that means we missed first base."

Neon looked confused. "There isn't really a queer first b- oh."

Realization struck Neon once Yang lifted her hand, imitating the same brushing-hair-back move Neon had done to her, and Yang did her absolute best to make The Face. She hesitated for only a second, then rolled over, sliding one leg up between Yang's thighs as she pulled herself closer, and they kissed. It was warm and soft. Yang had never kissed anyone else as anything other than a girl (even if being with boys, she felt like so much more of a boy than she did with Neon), but Neon was the first person to make her want to be a girl, to not have her defenses up as she felt another person on top of her.

Yang was more eager than she'd expected though, and when Neon broke their kiss, Yang grabbed her hips and pulled her back close, fingers tracing her sides. She did her best not to giggle once Neon's tail began to swish happily back and forth, tickling her a little.

Eventually, Neon sat up, straddling Yang's leg, panting quietly. "I wasn't expecting that, she said."

Yang shrugged. "I just wanted to smooch a babe, y'know. Sue me."

Neon slipped back into her higher, sarcastic voice, "Oh my god, what a coincidence - me too! Do you know where I could find one, I was just looking for-"

"Oh, shut up," Yang said, and Neon immediately cut off to kiss her again.

After kissing a little longer, Yang felt flushed, finally distracted, and more than a little turned on. She asked, "Is there . . . anything else you were hoping to accomplish when you asked me out?"

It was bait, and it was obvious bait, but what Yang did not expect was for Neon to blush, quickly descending into genuine embarrassment. "Um . . . actually . . . yeah."

Yang had been expecting she'd get seduced after that, but Neon looked like she had other ideas. "Such as?"

Neon bit her lip, which was honestly just adorable. After a moment more of hesitation, she pressed her hands together as if in prayer and said, "I'd actually really like to brush your hair. Like. If you'd like that."

Neon was, underneath it all, actually kind of a cute dork. Yang wasn't sure if it was the kiss, or the invitation, or if she'd just been thinking about this the whole time, but the veer into hair brushing was hilarious, and she couldn't help but laugh. That only made Neon redder, but she just stuck her tongue out at Yang for her rude response.

When Yang settled down a little, she smiled and said, "You know what, though? I'd love that."

Yang looked off the side of the bed - "I think I've got a brush down-"

"I BROUGHT ONE!" Neon exclaimed, rolling off of Yang and catching herself on the ground. She went straight for her backpack and pulled out large red hairbrush with bits of Neon's dyed hair tangled along the bottom.

Yang just blinked. "You . . . brought your own?"

"Look, your hair is like, really pretty. And a lot of faunus have grooming instincts so you can't even pretend it's that wei-"

Yang waved Neon's excuse away before she could even finished, giving a good-natured grin as she sat up. "No, Neon, you're adorable. And I'm flattered." She bunched her hair up behind her back as she turned around, laying back down on her stomach.

Neon straddled Yang's back, laying the brush down on the bunk. She asked, "Is this comfortable?" softly, in that voice Yang hadn't known existed until last night. Yang nodded, then felt Neon's fingers along the edges of her scalp, trying to get all of her hair going the same way. Once she was satisfied with her work there, she dragged her fingers through the last few inches of Yang's hair, carefully undoing the tangles along the ends. Once the worst of them were out, she brushed the ends until they were nearly straight. It had always annoyed Yang that she could get into an honest-to-god fist fight with Grimm without pain, but brushing her hair always ended up tearing some out painfully. She tried to keep a straight face for Neon anyway.

Finally, once Neon had gotten through the prep work, she brought her brush up to the middle of Yang's hair and started to brush more slowly. It still caught occasionally, but once Neon ran through a section with her brush, she'd run her fingers through Yang's hair, gently, until there were no more tangles. Then she'd keep stroking anyway, petting sometimes accompanied by her nails dragging along Yang's back (though usually over her shirt).

As Neon was slowly working her way up through all of her hair, Yang relaxed again. Maybe not sleepily like before (the feeling of Neon on top of her didn't really give her 'sleepy' feelings), but still, the process was soothing. There had been no one who would just sit and brush her hair like this in so long . . . not since Summer died. At another time, those soothing memories might have been another breakdown about another lost mother, but right now, Neon felt too present for Yang to slip back into the past like that.

"You know . . . ever since the first night we went out, I've really wanted to play with your hair . . ." Yang said quietly. "I just . . . didn't want to be creepy."

"That's appreciated." Neon stopped brushing for a second, leaning down to whisper just behind Yang's ear, "But I'd be down if you wanted to play with my hair when I'm done with you."

Yang shivered in anticipation of something that was almost certainly just her imagination while Neon went back to brushing her hair.

Neon kept brushing until she could run her fingers smoothly through all of Yang's hair, then took a few minutes, delighted, to just pet her. "It's so pretty, how it catches the light," she'd say, or "How do you keep it so soft?" - but these didn't demand any sort of response. Yang loved her hair. She put a lot of time into it. People were quick to pick up on that, and quick to be creeps about it. But in a safer context, having someone admire it so much, and touch her so softly . . . it was nice. It was very nice.

Eventually, Yang said, "It's your turn."

Neon cleared some of the hair away from Yang's face, kissed her cheek, and said, "Okay."

Neon climbed off her while Yang sat up, running her own fingers through her hair. It felt so much softer when someone gave it serious attention. Yang hadn't found the time for it in years.

It took Neon quite a while to get all of the clips and hair ties out of her hair, but when it was finally down . . . it was kind of hilarious. Neon's hair was long, for sure, about as long as Blake's, but it had more volume than Yang was sure she'd ever seen. It was a lot frizzier without all of the tension in it, and it just sort of ballooned out half a foot behind her neck. It was every bit as floofy as Yang had dreamed and more.

"Oh my . . . your cool vibes just vanish right into thin hair, don't they?"

Neon glared.

Yang continued, "For real, you're adorable, you're in a league of hair own. You're a cut above the rest."

Neon put her hands on her hips and said, "I'll put it back right now if you keep making all these hair puns. I'm absolutely a-paw-lled at your behavior."

Yang pouted. "But - but Neon! I'm hair-larious."

Yang's face froze in utter delight while Neon's eyes rolled into the back of her head.

Neon said, "Alright, the hair's going away, privileges revo-"

But Yang pounced as Neon raised her hands to bunch up her hair, taking advantage of her exposed belly to start tickling her sides, which made her absolutely jump. "No - no I'm so ticklish you can't -" but by then she was already doubled over, and words just gave way to frantic giggling.

"Nooo, let me brush your haaiiirr," Yang whined, until finally Neon caught her wrists and made her stop.

"OKAY you JERK!" Neon complained. She sat up, placed her hands on Yang's cheeks, and pecked her on the lips before turning and falling back down on the bed.

Neon's hair was a lot harder to work with than the few girls whose hair Yang had done before, but she started with the same approach, getting the ends straighter and smooth, working out the knots. Unlike her own hair, though, Neon's didn't really sit down better when it was straighter - the poof was insurmountable. Yang couldn't wait to run her fingers through it . . . but patience.

"Do you have any more claw-some cat puns?" Yang asked, keeping a normal speaking voice, absolutely avoiding the sultry bullshit Neon had pulled on her.

"Hmm," she hummed, "Not really. I'm such a terrible pro-cat-stinator, I never follow through on making one." She paused for a second, then asked, "What's Blake's favorite cat pun, then?"

Yang shook her head. For once, she didn't feel weird talking about Blake - the tension between her and Neon felt so much easier to manage now, since they kissed. "Oh, Blake doesn't hold a very paw-sitive cattitude about cat puns. Or puns at all."

"Oh? Then this must be a very special mew-ment for you."

Yang snorted, swiping hair away from Neon's face to look at her more closely. "Mew-ment? That's so cute." And she pressed a kiss against Neon's cheek, leaving a smirk on Neon face when she sat back up. As she started brushing again, she added more softly, "Also . . . it kind of is."

They both smiled softly, but let the conversation die into near-silence while Yang slowly brushed Neon's hair. It took a long time (and a lot of loose hair thrown into the garbage) before Yang was able to draw the brush from Neon's scalp down to the tips, but no sooner had she done so then she let her fingers gingerly settle on the back of Neon's head, running them smoothly down the length of her hair. 

After a few more minutes of brushing Neon's hair out, of soft petting and small kisses in her hair, Neon finally said, "Y'know . . . I'm . . . sad this is ending so soon."

Yang kept brushing. After a delay, she nodded and said, "Yeah . . . me too." She hummed to herself for a moment, then said, "But, you know, you have my Scroll, we can keep in touch . . . and there's another festival in two years."

Neon nodded back. "Mhm. And, like, as soon as it isn't a literal crime, I'll send you so many nudes. But like, exclusively in class so it's really inconvenient."

"Oh yeah?"

"Mmmhmm," Neon replied with a self-satisfied smirk.

A few quiet minutes passed, and Yang watched as worry grew on Neon's face. Then, worry twisted into sadness, and Neon became more and more unresponsive to Yang's touches.

Finally, Yang asked, "What's wrong?"

"I just-" Neon started, but immediately cut off, as if struggling to get the words out. She suddenly looked like she was about to cry. "I just get this terrible feeling that this is the end of . . . this." Neon rolled over, looking up at Yang's face. "I feel like I'm never going to see you again - and that . . . that kinda sucks, you know?"

"Hey . . . hey," Yang cooed, although Neon's fear was quick to seep into Yang as well. She leaned down, and Neon wrapped her arms around Yang, and they held each other tightly. "We've still got a week . . . and even then, you'll see me again, I promise."

Even if she didn't believe it was true, Neon's fears for the future made Yang feel more sick than she felt was reasonable. She was going to miss Neon. There was some possibility here that would, almost certainly, never be realized. She was just doing her best to deny it while she still could.

Once Neon had checked the time and realized that the later rounds were starting, she put her hair up, while Yang just sat and admired the precision she had with her hair. She was just finishing the touch-ups on her makeup as well when she paused and said, "Something is wrong . . ."

Yang looked over from where she was sitting on the bunk and tilted her head. "Why, what's up?"

Neon turned around, and Yang realized she'd misjudged the severity of Neon's words - her eyes were wide with fear, and she was trembling. Unlike her flashbacks, though, she was looking around the room, looking for something. She said, "I think . . . I think my team is in trouble." She finally looked at Yang and said, "I'm sorry, I have to go."

"Oh - oh, shit, okay, if you give me a second, I can-"

Neon shook her head. "No, like, I have to go right now." As soon as Neon had her shoes on, she opened the door and waved, "See you, Yang."

"See you late-" but Neon had already closed the door behind herself, and an instant later Yang could hear the rush that came with Neon's semblance.

It took Yang a few seconds to pull herself out of a daze and think. Then, If team FNKI is in trouble . . . something could be going on at the stadium.

Yang pulled out her scroll and just typed in 'Vytal festival news.' She found a livestream and tapped it.

"-This was not an accident.

This is what happens when you hand over your trust, your safety, your children to men who claim to be our guardians."

The stream showed a wide frame of the stadium. In the center was one fighter, who looked like Pyrrha. There was something else on the stage, but Yang couldn't see what it was clearly. Rubble from the previous match, maybe?

"But are, in reality, nothing more than men.

Our academies' headmasters wield more power than most armies, and one was audacious enough to control both.

They cling to this power in the name of peace-"

Who in the hell was talking? She sounded so familiar. She definitely wasn't one of the typical announcers - she spoke more slowly, so . . . sinister. What was going on? Why was Pyrrha just standing there?

"And yet, what do we have here?:

One nation's attempt at a synthetic army - mercilessly torn apart by another's star pupil."

The camera switched to the other side, and much closer. And that camera zoomed in, closer and closer, until Yang could finally make out what the debris on the stage was.

Her clattered harmlessly to the floor, while the woman on the stream kept talking.

"What need would Atlas have for a soldier disguised as an innocent little girl?"

"Penny . . . ?"

It was just a flicker now, but Yang could feel her skin burning, melting away like molten wax.

And that was the last time she would see Neon for a long, long time.

Chapter Text

Never miss a beat, never miss a beat.

Where is Yang? She wasn't supposed to go this far, and yet Neon couldn't find a sign of her or Blake anywhere. Except for the thankfully few dead, she'd seen little but rubble and Atlesian Knights since she left the courtyard - the Grimm had already been drawn towards the fleeing and fighting. Most of the corpses belonged to the White Fang - that's what you get for air-dropping Grimm into the city alongside your ground troops.

Never miss a beat, never miss a beat.

The Knights were thankfully slow, but there were a lot of them, and freezing them or destroying them was running her low on resources just as fast as trying to speed past them was. Realistically, she needed to turn around if she was going to make it back to the courtyard in one piece. But Yang and Blake were still out here, somewhere . . .

Never miss a beat.

At least, their corpses must be. Any second now, she would -

BANG!

BANG!

That wasn't the automatic fire from the Knights, and it wasn't Yang's dust shells, either. Someone else must be out here, fighting.

Shit. Neon pivoted towards the sound as soon as she reached an intersection, riding along the walls to get over the broken hulls of a dozen or more Atlesian Knights. Someone was definitely fighting near here, and recently. Just-

"YANG!"

From a nearby alleyway, Blake Belladonna came limping, clutching her guts with one hand, the other dragging Yang by the waist. Yang wasn't walking on her own at all - either her legs had given out, or she'd fallen unconscious. And-

"Fuck, Blake!" Neon shouted as she dropped down into the street. "What happened to her? Her arm; is she-"

Blake barely seemed to process Neon was in front of her; she paused for an instant, glanced back down the alley, then rushed forward against as a loud BANG followed them, tearing through a wall on the other side of the street. Ballistic rounds, not dust. Whoever was shooting was shooting to kill.

"Shit, okay," she said, "I'll cut them off. Just get Yang to-"

"Don't," Blake cut her off, reaching back and grasping her shirt. Her hand was covered in blood, fresh enough to begin soaking into Neon's clothes. "He'll kill you. Run."

Neon traced the line of Blake's arm back down to her stomach, and saw what she had been covering - a stab in her stomach was actively bleeding, and even the brief second she'd released pressure made it worse. Blake immediately doubled over, dropping her hand back to her belly.

The facts clicked in reverse. Yang was missing an arm and Blake had been stabbed. Both of their auras were gone. Someone beat them both. Making the wrong call meant they were all dead.

"Okay," Neon nodded. "Keep going. I'll cover you." 

As she said this, she cracked her nunchucks until they glowed bright, then made a wide swipe across the ground. A low wall of ice split the street - not enough to stop whoever was following them, but maybe something to give them pause.

Neon and Blake's panic had more than one man following them, though - they'd barely made it back to the intersection before Neon spotted Grimm on the rooftops, watching them like carrion birds.

The wall had maybe been a bad use of dust, but there was no time left to think about that. "I'll keep them back. Just keep moving."

And with that, the street became a blur again.

Never miss a beat, never miss a beat.

A scream unlike anything Neon had ever heard ripped through the sky, and she didn't even get to stop and watch as a literal mountain was ripped apart.

They made it back in pieces, but they made it back to the courtyard. By the time they arrived, everyone else had made it back as well, except a couple of students from Beacon: Jaune Arc and Pyrrha Nikos. Pyrrha at least was a name Neon recognized - the Invincible Girl. The one who had ripped that mechanical girl apart. The last Neon had seen of her, she'd been all by paralyzed, but apparently she never evacuated, and Jaune had gone after her.

Ruby, Yang's sister, arrived just a second ago, frozen as Neon had been at the sight of Yang lying unconscious with a heavily bandaged Blake beside her. Just two injured among dozens, while a massive Grimm circled the school. Neon needed to focus on other things.

"Neon? You still with us?"

"What?" She asked, her attention snapping back to her teammates. 

"It's evac time. We can't afford to stay here any longer," Flynt said flatly. "The school's lost."

Neon shook her head. "That's not the point - they're . . . they've got friends inside still."

"Who?"

"Team RWBY, can't you . . . ugh," Neon groaned. Now was not the time for confusion about her having better hearing than her teammates. "They're still waiting for two people. Pyrrha and Jaune."

"Not to be the guy with bad news, but they're dead. That thing just keeps dropping more and more Grimm - if they're not out by now, they're gone."

Ruby and Weiss waved goodbye to their friends, then turned and started running towards the school.

"Neon, just stay, the ship will be here any - NEON!"

It only took her a few seconds to catch up to Ruby and Weiss, but as she did, the dragon screamed. Like a summons, dozens of grim climbed from the pools of black ooze it dropped over the school, encircling the courtyard. Not too many, but everyone was running low.

"Team RWBY!" Neon called as she came parallel to them. "What can I do?"

They didn't break stride, but Ruby was surprised. "Neon . . .?"

Without any further clarification, though, Ruby continued, "Just keep the Grimm back - I'm going to climb the tower."

"You're going to - to . . . ARE YOU GOING TO GO FIGHT THAT THING?" Neon pointed at the dragon, which took off and began circling once again a second later.

"Pyrrha's at the top; I don't have a choice. Just - fight!"

And with that, there was no more time to explain. Weiss and Neon split up, clearing at the Grim as quickly as they could while Ruby provided supporting fire. As soon as there was a lull, Ruby called, "We've got to hurry!"

Weiss nodded as Neon regrouped with them, then started forming glyphs along the side of the tower. "You can do this," she said quietly, and Ruby was gone without a moment of hesitation. Her semblance was enough to get her a few stories up, and from there, she just sprinted to the top.

"The dragon's looping back . . . is she going to make it?" Neon asked, more to herself than Weiss.

"She has to."

And she did - somehow, Ruby made it to the top in seconds, while the dragon simply landed on the side of the tower and called forth a new wave of enemies.

"Don't die," Neon said, testing her aura for a second. She had maybe one hit left, and then her speed would be gone as well. No more chances for mistakes. 

Never miss a beat.

"You either," Weiss replied.

Before either of them had a chance to split up again, though, a flash of white light spread from the top of the tower, out through the courtyard, blinding them both temporarily. When her vision came back, Neon found the Grimm around and above them frozen in place, as if they'd become stone.

"What the hell was that . . ."

Neon didn't get to find out what that flash of light was. As soon as the Grimm were frozen, her team came and extracted her, as did Weiss's companions from another team. Hunters arrived, and everyone agreed to wait for Ruby and Pyrrha's retrieval inside the safe zone while the most critically injured were taken further to receive medical attention. That of course included Yang and Blake, and yet . . .

"I'm not going," Blake said, stepping back from everyone.

"What - what do you mean? Blake, you're hurt, you have to-"

Weiss reached out to touch her, but Blake swatted her hand away. "Don't. I'm staying. You need to leave, okay? Get Ruby and get out. But I'm not going."

Blake turned and started to walk away, but Weiss followed her. Neon only watched from a distance.

"You can't be serious. You'll be killed - you get that, don't you? You already nearly were. Just come with us and-"

"And WHAT, Weiss?" Blake shouted, spinning around. "Get you killed? Get Yang and Ruby killed? I'm not coming with you, end of story."

"Blake, I don't know what you're talking about, but I-"

"Shut up. Shut up shut up SHUT UP! Leave me ALONE!"

And this was finally enough. Without another word, Weiss turned and walked away, and Blake did the same.

Not that it was hard for Neon to catch up with her.

"Running away?" Neon asked, coasting to a halt in front of her.

Blake stopped in her tracks, then crossed her arms over her chest. "The opposite. Why do you care?"

Neon shrugged. "I haven't had much time to have a reason, okay? But your teammate is right. Going off on your own to keep fighting is suicide. You're not stupid - why are you doing this?"

Neon had not been entirely sure that Blake even made facial expressions. Right now, she wasn't having any trouble expressing rage.

"Because - because he's OUT there, okay? I wasn't joking when I said he'd kill you; he's coming, and he's going to keep coming until everyone I . . ." she reached up and touched her face as if to wipe away tears, but she wasn't crying - probably too in-shock to cry. "I don't have a choice, okay? Thank you for helping me get Yang back to everyone, but please, get out of my way. I have to do this."

"You don't," Neon shook her head. Blake wasn't making any sense - if there really was someone out to get her, then the safest place for her and everyone else must be together, right? "Whoever you're talking about, together we can-"

Neon stopped talking as Blake's gun unfolded into a short sword.

"No," Blake said. "Stop talking."

And like Weiss before her, Neon got out of the way.

Unlike Weiss, she couldn't pass up a parting shot: "WHAT ABOUT YANG, HUH?"

Blake finished scrambling onto a rooftop, immediately gripping her stomach in pain once she was at the top. She turned back towards Neon on the ground and shouted back: "I'M DOING THIS FOR HER!"

And then she was gone.

Neon didn't get another opportunity to see any members of team RWBY before leaving Vale, and once she was gone, there was no CCT to communicate through anymore. That didn't stop her from sending texts to Yang - about one a day at first, then every so often, just in case the messages one day sent when the Tower was restored. Weeks, then months ticked by, and Neon stopped sending messages. The CCT was overrun for the forseeable future, and it was best for her to forget the people she met in Vale. Chances are, after all, that she would never see them again.

She did try, once, sending a hand-written letter through the mail. Her chances were slim, given that the only place she knew to send it was "Patch." She knew it wouldn't reach her. And by the year's end, she stopped hoping for a response.

That is, until a day one year later, where she was pulled from sleep by her scroll vibrating under her pillow. She pulled it out and stared at it cross-eyed for a second, too sleepy to really put in the effort.

Then, the picture came into view, and she gasped.

"I have to take this," she whispered in case she'd woken up any of her teammates, then hurried out into the dorm hallway, aiming straight for the bathroom.

Yang, it read simply.

She clicked Accept and held the phone to her ear.

Chapter Text

Neon: hey yang. I know the towers are down, but once you're in a place you get reception: are you okay? u were looking pretty bad last I saw and I didn't really get a chance to see if you were okay.

Neon: it looks like we're evacuating today. i heard that you got in a fight with the White Fang. i'm so glad you made it out alive

Neon: i'm back in atlas. from the looks of things, they're not going to have the CCTS up for a while, so i guess you won't really get any messages, but just in case, i thought i'd send you a text

Neon: okay i know this is a little pathetic but i got super psyched out yesterday that you actually, uh, died, but they finally came out with the final list of casualties from the fall of beacon and it looks like you're not dead! which is great. if you head anywhere with a CCTS, i'd like to hear your voice!
Neon: i hope that wasn't weird of me to say, srry. i think i'm just anxious
Neon: i would like to talk if you're up for it though! just whenever you get the chance

Neon: still no CCTS. this sucks. how's life?
Read 9/17

"What the?" Neon muttered. She rolled around on her bunk as if that would give her a clearer look at her scroll, but the text remained unchanged.

She read it? What the fuck? That was only 3 days ago.

"You've gotta be kidding me!" Neon huffed, dragging her knees up from under her to actually sit up.

Neon: hey Yang did you get close to 

Flynt's voice came from the bunk beneath hers, "You good?"

"No! Uhhhhhh," she stalled to finish typing out her message:

Neon: hey Yang did you get close to a CCT? Where are you?

"What's up?"

"Goddamn - it's nothing. Just. Yang got my messages," Neon replied, physically holding her hands still to avoid sending a whole barrage of texts. If Yang read all of those messages, she was probably freaked out enough by the number Neon had already sent - there was no need to pile it on. And she'd immediately asked where Yang was, like a stalker, instead of something casual like how she was doing. Also it could not be more obvious that Neon was checking her unreplied messages literally a year later given that she'd noticed the Read tag.

"Yang? Was that, uh, the blonde chick from Team RWBY?" 

"Yes."

"The one you went out with a couple of times?" Flynt was clearly remembering, and that was not a good thing at the moment.

Neon stuffed her scroll underneath her leg and crossed her arms over her chest. "Yes."

"The one you were all hung up on after we left Vale?"

Literally which other blonde from Team RWBY that I dated could I possibly be referencing?!?!?!

Neon hung over the edge of her bunk so she could look into Flynt's. In typical style, he was smirking while sitting in the back, reading some novel with the overhead light on. It was late enough in the morning that everyone else had already left the room, but both Neon and Flynt were not ones for leaving for class any earlier than they had to.

"Okay, first of all, I was not hung up on her. She got her arm literally cut off by a White Fang member - I was worried, as a reasonable, caring human being would be. And two - don't play dumb. You know who I'm talking about."

He shrugged. "Okay, so she is that Yang then, got it. And why is it such a big deal that she got your messages?"

Neon yanked her phone from under her (harder than you might think given her position), opened up the messages, and held it out. "Because she got my messages three days ago. That means three days ago she was in Haven, Vacuo, or-"

"Or Atlas, yeah.

"Yeah. So that means she's like, fine, maybe. But traveling for some reason. Vale is a total dead zone-"

"-Like, I know-"

"-but there's still a chance she could respond. Or, you know, be here."

Flynt quirked his eyebrows. "So what if she is? If you're so totally not hung up on her, I mean."

"I actually don't know for certain if they actually are still using she/her pronouns; like, it seemed like they were in a very transitional period of their life when we met so maybe she isn't even right now. Oh, and to answer your question: to make sure they're okay. After the, you know. Mutilation and loss of kingdom and school and contact with the outside world."

The amusement sunk back into his face. "Neon, you're turning purple."

"Yeah, uh, being upside down this long sucks actually," she said, pulling herself up straight.

After a minute or so of silence, Flynt called up, "So you're not into this girl anymore?"

"Not a girl! I remember that much at least. And I didn't say that, I just," Neon huffed, trying to get her words in order. "I just. Things ended so messy, and I yelled at the girl she liked a bunch like, right after she got stabbed, and like, I really didn't want to leave things like that. This isn't me trying to get my dick wet or whatever."

"Oh, I never said that," Flynt replied, unconvincingly.

Neon couldn't help but hang off the edge of her bunk again to glare at him. "You think I'm a slut, don't you."

He shook his head. "Nah, Neon. I'm your teammate, I'd never think something so blatantly untrue."

He went back to reading his book. Then, after a beat, "I know you're a slut."

"Fuck-" Neon yanked off a rubber band from her wrist and took aim, "-you-", shooting it straight for his face. Unfortunately, he just used the book as a shield and kept reading.

"Asshole." She made a little heart with her hands before pulling herself back up, hoping that would conceal her genuine annoyance.

Whether it was the faux sweetness that got to him or the hurt, Flynt cleared his throat after a moment and said, "But for real, it's okay if you still like her. Them. Whatever. It's harder to get over people you never got closure with."

"You say from your wealth of experience?"

"I say from living in dormitories with about 100 other teenagers and young adults. I really don't think it's the number of relationships that teaches you about romance; it's paying attention to people and what they want. And I think you want some closure."

Neon sighed, defeated. "I guess."

It always became pointless to bicker with Flynt once he started the 'real talk.' He was way more emotionally intelligent than most boys their age . . . probably most of the girls, too. Something about being a middle child. Or was he a youngest child? She couldn't remember.

"Well, chances are I'm never going to get to, so I should just. Not care so much."

"I don't think not-caring is your strong suit, Neon. That's a fine thing about you."

And now he was being nice.

"Ugh, thanks. But no thanks."

Yang: Hey Neon! So I'm kind of actually in Atlas right now. Actually, I've been here for about two weeks I guess, but I just got a new scroll and I realized I never responded to your messages back at Haven! Things were super busy back then.
Yang: Anyway, I thought I'd let you know I'm actually at Atlas Academy staying in the dorms right now. My team and I kind of maybe stole an airship and snuck into Atlas, but it's OK, General Ironwood cleared us and we're super not-illegally staying here now.
Yang: PS thanks for all the messages. I was in kind of a rough place around when you sent them, so the thought's appreciated! I hope things have been okay for you. Maybe we could meet up sometime soon or something? I'm kind-of-sort-of starting to have a little bit of free time between Huntress work.

Of course, as fate would have it, Neon was already asleep when these messages came in. It wasn't until dawn when she finally awoke to the sensation of her scroll vibrating under her pillow, opening it purely through reflex that anything stuck out to her.

First, the picture. She gasped as Yang's face slowly came into her blurry-eyed view, then pushed herself up onto her knees. It was cold in the room, but she was already out of bed, unwilling to delay to put on something warmer.

"I have to take this," she said as she opened the door to the hallway, then made a beeline for the bathroom.

Yang, it read simply.

She clicked Accept and held the phone to her ear.

Chapter Text

Neon: "Yang! Hey! What's up?"

Yang: "Oh, Neon! Awesome, I thought I was probably too early for you."

Neon checked the time - 5:45am. Absolutely too early for her. But that also meant that the bathroom was empty, so Neon just hopped up onto the sink counter and hoped no one would hear her through the walls.

Neon: "Nah, you're good. But, more importantly: what's up?! Where are you - how are you calling?"

Yang: "Oh, I'm in Atlas! I guess you didn't get my texts?"

Neon: "I guess not?"

A quick check confirmed that she did, in fact, have three unread messages from Yang, but bringing up that she definitely had not been awake to read them wasn't going to help her in this situation.

Yang: "Ah, well, yeah, I'm working in Atlas right now. Actually, I'm staying at Atlas Academy. I just thought I'd try and give one last shot at contacting you before I'm out of the CCT range for a few days."

Neon: "Wait, what? You're leaving Atlas?"

There was laughter from the other side, followed by some muffled talk as Yang covered the speaker.

Yang: "Nah, I'm just heading out onto the Tundra. I got a job hunting some super aggressive beowolfs that have been interrupting military transports. Just making myself useful, y'know."

Wait . . . she's 'working' in Atlas, and took a 'job' hunting Grimm . . . does that mean . . .?

Neon: "Wait, hold up a sec. Are you a HUNTRESS now?"

Yang: "Haha, I guess I am. Feels weird though."

Neon: "Uh, yeah! I thought you were a first year! And you didn't even finish!

Yang: "Yeah, that's kind of why it feels weird. But I did kind of fight my way through Sanus and Anima and the Atlas military to get here, so I guess that means I'm a professional now?"

Neon groaned loudly, but the fact that she was talking to Yang, who clearly sounded happy, made her tail swish in satisfaction. Gently now, she asked,

Neon: "How are you? How have you been? It feels like so long."

There was more muffled chatter from Yang's side.

Yang: "Ah, crap, I've actually got to go. But I'd like to get caught up with you soon if that's cool. Maybe when I'm back we can . . .?"

Neon's heart jumped straight into her throat, which made her respond a little too quickly:

Neon: "Yeah! Let's do it. I'll show you around a little, to thank you for showing off Vale."

Yang: "Aw, thanks! Should I be bringing roller skates to this?"

Neon flushed, suddenly very glad that Yang could not see her bedraggled, makeup-less, and bright red reflection.

Neon: "Nah, um. Shoes are fine."

Yang: "Haha, okay. I'll text you when I'm back, okay?"

Neon: "Sounds good!"

She did her absolute best to put a smile in her voice, to be the same girl Yang met back during the Vytal Festival.

Yang: "Awesome. See ya around, Neon."

Neon: "Bye, Yang."

Yang: "Bye-bye."

As Neon collapsed her scroll, she deflated a little, bringing her knees up to hug them.

How, after all this time, am I still so . . .

Neon had changed plenty in the past year, and she'd finally managed to convince herself that she had changed this part of her, too. But she could already tell that closure was not what she was looking for from Yang. Not in the slightest. And the fact that Yang was now employed in Atlas, and that Blake had run off that night, both left a bad aftertaste in her mouth. She shouldn't be feeling this excited. This . . . hopeful.

Even when she went back to her room to try and get the last few hours of sleep, she couldn't quite stop herself from catching those little sparks of hope.

Yang was not the first member of Team RWBY that Neon encountered, however. Two days later, her team had one of the largest holo-training fields booked for about two hours. Everyone else had classes immediately beforehand, so Neon ended up with the job of kicking out whoever was inside as soon as their time was up and getting things set up for practice.

At exactly 2:00pm, Neon opened the door to the field and took a step inside.

. . . and nearly got split down the middle by a giant phantom sword that stuck itself into the ground a step ahead of her.

"Oh! I'm so sorry!" came a voice from further inside the field, but Neon was frozen in place until the sword dissipated, and the two people on the field turned towards her.

Neon spotted Winter Schnee and realized the mistake she'd made. "Oh it's no problem! I'm totally fine! Sorry to bother you Miss Schnee!"

Neon spun around, planning to just wait outside for as long as it took for them to clear up, but two voices chased after her:

"Thank you," came Winter's, cold and authoritative, clearly understanding the gesture.

"No, really, it's my fault he got disarmed; is it your turn now? I lost track of the time." This second voice was far less confident, like a young student running into an upperclassmen.  Something about it was familiar . . .

"Tch," Winter clicked her tongue so loud Neon could hear it from the doorway. "You're right, it's 2. We should clear out. No need to flee Miss Katt."

"Winter," the other girl whisper-shouted. "You can't just call someone that - that's so rude."

This was a familiar misunderstanding, so Neon spun around before Winter was forced to correct this desperately stupid first year - no doubt harshly, given that she'd so casually used her first name.

"No, no, it's all right - my name is Katt. It's Neon Katt. Are you new?" Neon sped over as fast as felt appropriate. It was so weird that she didn't recognize a student here, even if they were a first-year. It was nearly the end of second semester, after all!

Neon was surprised to find Winter's gaze even icier than normal when she arrived - and that gaze was directed at her, not the rude student.

"Actually, Weiss is a licensed Huntress-"

"-but like, just licensed, easy mistake to make-"

The explanation clicked into place just a little too late, and Neon immediately started talking over both of them: "Ohshityou'reWeissSchneeI'msosorry-"

"Can we not all talk at the same time?" Winter interrupted, and Neon and Weiss both immediately shut up.

Winter huffed, but plastered on a small smile. "Right. Miss Katt, I take it team FNKI has this room at 2pm?"

Neon nodded. "Yessir."

Winter shifted her attention to Weiss. "Shall we go then?"

"Yes, please. I'm starving."

"Excellent. Best of luck on your training, Miss Katt."

The two of them breezed past Neon, but a voice in her head just started yelling: She's in Team RWBY! She's in Team RWBY! She's in-

"Um, Miss Schnee! Er, Weiss!"

As soon as Weiss looked over her shoulder, Neon followed after her in a rainbow flash. Then she immediately regretted moving that quickly, because now she didn't have time to think about what she was going to say.

Weiss tilted her head curiously, her huge braid whipping to the side in a way that was honestly tantalizing, but Neon did her best to ignore it. "Yes?"

"Has - has Yang said . . . anything about me?"

Weiss blinked, clearly stupefied. "Oh, I don't . . . think? . . . so? . . . Why, are you two friends?"

Neon's mouth hanged open, too mortified to even come up with a clarification.

"Now, don't be rude," Winter chided her sister, "You and Miss Katt faced each other during the Vytal Festival, and I know for a fact the two of you fought together in the Battle of Beacon. I'm fairly certain she rescued Yang and Blake from the center of Vale during that attack."

It was no surprise Winter had heard all of that. Following Team FNKI's report of the Battle of Beacon, General Ironwood formally thanked Neon for her 'valor' and 'quick thinking that saved the lives of civilians of classmates.' The fact that she had been repeatedly told not to do these things didn't quite count, given how the chain of command had broken down when Atlas's ships and the Atlesian Knights went out of control. She couldn't quite put her finger on it at the time, but Neon felt awful receiving that acknowledgement.

Roughly as awful as she was feeling at the fact that Weiss still clearly didn't recognize her.

"Oh! Well that's . . . awesome, thank you. You were so helpful, I appreciate it. I don't think Yang has mentioned anything, but I'm sure she's thankful, too."

Beat. Neon's heart managed to sink further.

Weiss continued, "Would you like me to give her a message? She should be back this evening."

"No, that's . . . all right. I'll probably see her around."

"Well, it was nice seeing you," Weiss said, her chipper tone clicking back into place.

"Yeah, you too."

Weiss and Winter turned once again to leave, while Neon's posture slowly deteriorated.

On one hand, it was obvious that Weiss just didn't have the best memory, so her recollection of last year didn't weigh all that heavily in terms of what Yang had said or done. But that fact wasn't enough to keep Neon from telling herself, She never even mentioned me to her friends.

And that managed to spoil her memories of Yang just a little.

Just enough that she wasn't really excited when she got Yang's text later that night.

Yang: Hey! I've got some time free tomorrow if you're free. Probably around breakfast is easiest, I know you've still got classes and training going on. Lmk what time and we can get coffee or something

Neon sighed after finishing reading, knowing she was sure to respond and yet hesitant.

"Romance or school work?" came Ivori's voice from the other side of the room. Kobalt was at his desk and Flynt was working on . . . something in his bunk, but Neon was pretty sure Ivori was just texting, as was she.

"Neeeiiither," Neon groaned, bringing her scroll back up to her face to read the message again. "Just Yang."

"So, romance," Flynt said.

"Shut up. We're just getting coffee."

"Coffee?" Ivori asked. "Isn't that a little tame for a date?"

"It's when she's free, and she's trying to be considerate of my schedule. Also she's a Huntress now, I don't think an industrial rave is quite where she wants to be seen anyway."

"I thought your first date was literally a dance club hidden in an industrial district?" said Flynt.

"Ugh, and why do you remember such specific details about my life, huh?"

"You seem awfully touchy about this Yang ch- . . . person."

Neon didn't bother to banter with Flynt any further - it wasn't getting her anywhere, and talking about this afternoon with Weiss was just going to get her unreasonably upset over nothing.

Neon: hey you. how about you meet me in the main hall at like 8:45 and I'll take you somewhere to get coffee?

"It's nothing," Neon finally said, now so separated from context that it just fell right into quiet again.

It took less than a minute to get a response.

Yang: Sounds good!

It was 8:49 and Neon was playing games on her scroll instead of looking around incessantly for Yang to show up. That did not manage to keep her from noticing as soon as a set of heavy bootsteps started making their way towards her, but it was at least enough to keep her head from snapping up to look.

"Neon!"

Neon finally let herself look up, collapsed her scroll, and smiled.

"Yang!"

Yang was striding right towards her with her arms already open for a big hug, so Neon just rolled with it, launching herself forward with characteristic speed right into Yang's arms. She'd lost weight - that much was obvious just how much less arm it took to wrap around her waist and how much less it felt like Neon was ramming into a wall of cleavage whenever they hugged - and Neon could feel the tough metal of her new arm in the hug, but at least the pressure wasn't crushing. She must have gotten used to it already, not some new Atlesian toy she just got.

"Oh, it's so good to see you!" Yang said, hoisting Neon up in an even tighter hug, immediately provoking a little 'squee' of delight.

"And - and your hair!" Yang said as soon as Neon was back on her feet. "Did you cut it? And - wow, did you get a face tattoo?" She held Neon at arm's length, but very noticeably did not drop her hands from Neon's waist just yet.

"Oh, this?" Neon asked, pointing at the red heart on her face. "Nah, I just drew it on for some fun. And my hair's a little shorter, but I've mostly been styling it differently. But what about you! You - you have so many zippers now! And are these military-grade overalls?"

"Hah, I guess," Yang said, finally taking a step back, making a sweeping gesture over her outfit. "After seeing so much of Haven and Atlas, I thought it was about time to change up my style a little. And I like the country look. It's homey."

How do I already want to kiss her this bad.

At the first dip in the conversation, Yang scratched the side of her head and asked, "So, coffee?"

"Yep, that's the plan." They started walking while Neon continued right on, "Gotta keep your energy up for all that Huntress-ing you're doing. Is it still Huntress?"

"Hm?" Yang hummed, clearly not following the question. Then, "Oh! Yeah, I guess so. I've actually been feeling way more girl lately than like, ever before. So like, especially Huntress now I guess? What about you? Still reppin' the cis life?"

Neon snorted. "Okay, fair. But also yes. It's been pretty solidly 'girl' the whole time. But, whatever, that's just - I mean, like, how have you been? It sounds like things have been so crazy for you."

"I mean, yeah, a little," Yang said, pressing a metal finger to her chin in thought. "I mean, there was like eight months where I wasn't doing much. The most exciting things got was like, physical therapy and my old professors super weirdly hanging out at our place sometimes. And then I guess I biked like a thousand miles or so? I - oh shit, like, I met my Mom if you can believe it, and-"

"Wait, hold up, hold up. This is the Mom who like, bailed on you as a kid?"

"Yeah, that's the one! Her name's Raven. We met, and it turned out she had like, kidnapped Weiss-"

"-holy shit-"

"- I KNOW, RIGHT? and then we ended up in Haven Academy and met up everyone. Then, get this - we got jumped by the guys who attacked Beacon-"

"The White Fang?"

"Oh, them too! Except Blake's family actually showed up and pulled a coup against Adam, and; oh holy shit, jumping ahead a bit, big spoiler, we bested the former leader of the White Fang in mortal combat, which is even crazier than it sounds because, get this, he's the guy who cut off my arm."

Neon was just holding the sides of her head, trying to keep all of this information in. She had expected a story or two of big excitement and danger, but she'd had a few of those in the past year too. But this was . . .

Neon made a big 'boom' motion with her hands. "You - what - holy. Fuck. Yang, WHAT? Holy shit dude, high-five!"

Neon immediately held up her right hand, and Yang did too, the paused.

"Uh, actually," Yang paused, "maybe we should do this left-handed so I don't break your hand."

"Sounds good to me," Neon replied, and they high-fived as hard as they could with a very satisfying SLAP!

"Dude, that's the raddest shit I've ever heard, are you serious? No wonder they made you a Huntress just like that, damn. I don't know any hunters who could have taken someone like that on one-on-one."

"Hah," Yang laughed, but her voice immediately shrank. "I mean, it wasn't actually one-on-one. It was me and Blake, and I did like, hit him with my bike first. By. Launching it off a 100' cliff directly into his face."

She got a big, goofy grin on her face as her voice picked up, "Nah, you're right, that IS the raddest shit. Totally worth the cost of the bike, because I super lost it."

"Noooo, Bumblebee is gone?!"

"Yeah, RIP."

Neon gestured at a sign they were approaching: "Marvolo's"

"This is the place."

It took Neon these few seconds of quiet while they walked inside and got in line for her to process some critical textual information: Yang and Blake had reunited back in Haven Academy. Following the rough timeline Yang had provided her, this was when her messages said Read - and no wonder Yang had been too busy to respond. She was actively fighting terrorists and re-assembling her old team. Giving Neon updates had to have fallen pretty low on the list of priorities at that point.

Once Yang had her coffee and Neon had her cocoa and coffee cake, the two of them sat at a high table for two, where Neon's legs were too short to even reach the foot supports. She liked being able to swing her legs a little while she talked - it helped her focus.

"So, what about you?" Yang asked, "What have you been up to for the past year?"

Neon shrugged, taking a sip of cocoa. "Oh, you know, clocking Huntress hours, parties, watching my home rapidly devolve into a military dictatorship, that sort of thing."

"Oof." Yang only held her coffee with her left hand, cradling her head in her metal palm with her elbow on the table. "Is it really that bad?"

Neon's eyes went buggy for a second, but it made sense that Yang wouldn't really know what was going on.

"I mean, yeah. I was never really planning on joining the military, but now like half the class is looking to become independent huntsmen - all of Team FNKI is. Jailing political opponents is the fast-track to becoming hated by the public, and Ironwood's done it to our own teachers, nevermind the folks down in Mantle living in one giant prison shaped like a city."

"Not to mention the, you know," Neon started counting on her fingers, "1) Massively increased surveillance and policing, 2) militarization of the police, 3) active status for the entire Atlesian fleet, 4) constant propaganda in newly-installed video boards that could be used to fund literally anything else, and 5) the semi-public-but-not-quite unveiling of a military android made to look like a teenage girl? Now I'm just out of fingers, but you get the picture."

Yang cocked her head to the side. "You mean . . . Penny?"

Neon rolled her eyes. "Yeah, that's the one. P.E.N.N.Y. Like that's so cute. And isn't it just so cute? Fucking disconcerting is what it is."

Neon raised her cup to take a sip while Yang made an uncomfortable, pinched-lips expression.

Yang said, "Uh, yeah . . . my sister is kind of her best friend I think."

Neon nearly spat out all of her cocoa, but, so fearful at the idea of spraying it on Yang, just choked instead.

"Are - are you okay?" Yang asked, starting to get out of her seat.

Neon held up a finger to stop her while coughing into a napkin until she was totally sure her lungs were not going to be filled with hot chocolate.

Neon held her own face in her hand while balling the napkin up. "You just have. The craziest life. I thought you were like kind of mysterious and had a lot going back at Beacon, but now. What."

Yang's eye were wide as she nodded knowingly. "Yeeaaahh, that's kind of the feeling I have all the time now. I try not to think about it too much."

That finally helped Neon put her finger on what was so different about Yang, besides the obvious.

"Despite all this craziness, it seems like you're doing . . . better. I know you were having kind of a rough patch when we first met."

Yang nodded again. "Yeah, I think you're right. It's been hard, but especially since we got the team back together, I've felt like there's always somewhere to go, something that needs doing. And that's really been helping me. Can't miss a beat and all that."

Neon couldn't help but crack a smile at that. "Never miss a beat. It's an instruction. But I'm glad."

There was another lull in their conversation while Neon started in on her coffee cake - which was one of her favorite treats, so half of the cake was gone by the time she got around to her next question.

"So . . . how's your team?"

Yang blinked, then paused for just a second too long. "Team RWBY?" she asked, as if there were some other team.

Before Neon could confirm, she just said, "Oh, they're good. Real good, I think. Weiss is happy to see her sister and be back in a real city, and Ruby is happy to be a Huntress, slaying monsters and all that."

Yang took a very deliberate, obvious pause to drink her coffee. When she didn't immediately follow up with the obvious progression to her storytelling, Neon felt compelled to ask:

"What about Blake?"

As was typical when the conversation came around to Blake, Yang turned a little pink and put on a thoughtful pose.

"Oh, Blake?" she asked, as if it weren't clear. "She's . . . good. Her hair's short now, and I think she's like, third-in-command of the new White Fang? And . . . um."

The confused, shifty eyes, the rising blush, the way Yang started to ever-so-slightly cover her face with her hand - what the 'and' was was obvious. And somehow it still managed to take Neon by surprise when it actually came out of Yang's mouth.

"We're kind of dating now?"

Yep. There it is.

Of course.

Of fucking course.

Neon did her best to make her eyes bright and her smile wide, but she knew she was overdoing it. "Oh! That's . . . so cool. I know you were really into her so that's . . . great."

Whatever was on Neon's face, Yang was clearly reading it, because she suddenly switched gears to, "Oh, gosh, I didn't . . . this probably seemed like a date and I hadn't mentioned-"

Neon waved her hands quickly in an X, the loudest 'no' she could manage without literally shouting it. "-No, no, you're fine! I totally didn't think that!"

YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP YOU FUCKED UP

Yang's expression quickly shifted from embarrassment to curiosity, "Oh? That's good then, I-"

Before Yang could get her explanation out though, Neon jumped right into hers, "I actually, um, I actually am dating someone right now. A boy. A boyfriend. I have a boyfriend who I am currently. Dating. Also. So that could not work out more . . ." Neon giggled with horrible fake casualness, ". . . perfectly."

"Oh?" Yang gave a very awkward smile back through her teeth. "That's cool. Um. Who is- uh. What's he like?"

Of course, as it would so happen, Neon wasn't actually dating a boy right now, nor any girls. She had been dating a boy named Iris up until a little over two weeks ago, but their relationship had lasted less than two months and made no lasting impression on Neon, the same as every person she'd dated in the past year and a half or so. In fact, Iris had so spectacularly failed to leave an impression that Neon couldn't even come up with enough interesting details about him to pretend to be in love with him, which she absolutely needed to be if she was going to look secure in her fictional relationship next to Yang getting the girl she'd been hung up about for literally longer than she'd known Neon.

That left Neon in the sticky situation of either telling the truth (including the fact that she'd just lied) or begin rattling off a series of lies she'd have to clean up later.

Lie. Just lie.

If you're honest it's only going to make this situation really uncomfortable and you'll ruin the whole date meeting.

Lie lie lie lie lie lie lie 

You're good at lies - just do it!

Yang was clearly waiting for a response, so after a quick breath to brace herself, Neon said:

"Actually, sorry. It was super reflex, but that was a total lie. I was dating a boy, but we broke up because there was nothing really there and also he was going to join the military. And I. Called him a bootlicker."

Yang snorted. "Knowing you, it was probably in a variety of creative ways, too."

Neon couldn't help but smile at that, even if she was still actively fighting back the embarrassment of the admission. "It was . . . I like. Completely wrecked the dude."

There was still a bit of a lie through omission there, so Neon just rolled with the honesty, "Okay, so, actually, I called him a bootlicker, we got into a fight, then we had sex and then I broke up with him nonchalantly but like, the bootlicking is what did him in."

To Neon's genuine surprise, Yang didn't just give a little chuckle at Neon's expense - she just started laughing, and then laughing harder until she slapped the table with a terrible metal-on-metal thud.

"Holy shit," she said. "I forgot how funny you were. You're so awesome."

Neon wanted the take the compliment fully, but there was still too much dragging it down. She managed to keep her smile up and say, "Thanks. I'm the best, after all."

Yang didn't say any thing, just gave her wide, goofy grin until Neon was forced to grin just as big.

They settled down after a moment of giggling, and Neon finished off her coffee cake.

After a lengthy lull, while uncharacteristically staring at her coffee cup instead up looking up, Yang said, "D-do you. Want to... talk about what happened last year? Between you and me? I know it must be kind of weird now, but I just . . ."

Yang trailed off, clearly at a loss to describe what she was feeling, or what it was exactly that she wanted.

Neon could sympathize with that feeling. Perhaps a little too much.

"Um . . ." Neon took a sip to buy time.

"Like . . ." she trailed off. Then sighed in frustration. This was hard and it sucked and why did things have to go this way?

Neon nodded. "Yeah. I think that would be good. But I have like, a condition, I guess? Or a boundary?"

Yang again looked surprised and curious, probably at the phrasing. Neon had been working on her relationship communication skills over the past year, which had probably helped her end so many relationships so quickly instead of slowly turning into a worse and worse girlfriend until people broke up with her.

"I, um. Could we do that later, maybe over text? Or a call if that's better, either is fine. I just. Um. T-B-H I might cry a little and I don't want to make you deal with that."

"Oh." Yang replied. "Oh. Um. Okay. Yeah, whatever you need. Let's just . . . chat for now, I guess?"

Neon nodded. "Yeah. That sounds good."

After the sparring session with the impromptu-named Team JNOR (Junior), Neon, Ivori, and Kobalt were searching for which sandwich shop Flynt had ended up in (there were three on the main thoroughfare of campus). Neon had to hold onto her fro-yo without eating it, given that one hand at a time was dedicated to holding an ice pack over her eye, and it's already tricky enough not to spill anything when you're on roller blades.

They'd been walking quietly since they left the shoppe, but finally, quietly, Kobalt asked, "She was one of theirs, right?"

"Hm?" Neon and Ivori both looked to him (in Neon's case necessitating that she skate backwards for a second).

Kobalt was engrossed in thought - even moreso than usual. Still, he continued, "That famous girl from Beacon. The one who died in the battle. What was her name?"

"Oh," Neon said as she recalled: "Pyrrha. They were Team JNPR before."

"Oh, so this Oscar kid," Ivori jumped in. His thoughts tended to run tangential to Kobalt's. "He's not even a Huntsman then, is he?"

Neon shook her head. "No. I know I didn't see him at the Vytal Festival, and Beacon isn't accepting new students . . . obviously. Maybe a student from Haven?"

"Maybe," Ivori said

But Neon doubted it. Oscar stood out in some way she couldn't fully articulate, beyond how unusual his name would be for anyone living in a major city. You don't commonly run into people without a color-based first name (or with a color-based surname) very often unless you're out in the boondocks. Which, to be fair, Team RWBY and JNOR certainly had been.

Kobalt's mind hadn't strayed, though. "I remember watching Pyrrha and her team during the Vytal Festival . . . they were favorites to win, right? And Pyrrha's the one who tore the P.E.N.N.Y. up."

Neon nodded. She'd needed to pick most of this up from context, but from what she remembered of that night, Pyrrha had been fighting alongside everyone else until she suddenly vanished up into Beacon while it was infested with Grimm. That was when . . .

"Do you remember when I ran off that night? To go fight with Team RWBY?"

It was directed at Kobalt, but he and Ivori both nodded.

"That's who they were going after. Her and Jaune, although, I mean, clearly Jaune turned out fine."

How he'd ended up fine was a mystery to them considering everything that had happened that night, but Neon didn't really feel like digging into the specifics of why one kid had died and not another. The topic brought a somber tone to their talk, but that was kind of what Kobalt was best at. Grounding them, even if it was in unfortunate realities.

It was impossible for Neon not to entertain thoughts like, If we'd been a little bit faster, but Kobalt didn't seem interested in that line of thinking.

"They really have come a long way since then. Literally, but also . . . they really beat us, even with some kid in Pyrrha's place."

Neon nodded again, dropping her ice pack from her face to feel like she was taking the conversation more seriously. "The Beacon kids have had to grow up fast. Too fast, I think. But it's obviously put them a step above students."

Without really meaning to, Neon glanced over her shoulder, where the Atlesian fleet stood waiting just outside of view.

". . . the world really is becoming a scary place."

Ivori scoffed, speeding up to catch Neon and ruffle his hands through her bangs - the only part of her hair that could still be ruffled.

"Come on, now. That's why we gotta flip the council this election, get things going in the right direction ag-"

"YO, CHECK THIS OUT!"

All of them turned to look and quickly realized why they hadn't found Flynt outside the sandwich shop they'd just been checking out - he was waving them down in front of the video board across the street, where the giant torso of Jacques Schnee was speaking. There were a few students standing around it, so Neon and the others were quick to just join the crowd with Flynt.

Neon put the ice pack over her eye so she could see a little less Schnee.

"I hope you ask yourself before the vote-

Can you trust anyone else to stop Ironwood?

Will Robyn Hill be able to get your jobs back?"

A bunch of reporters filled the screen with noise, so Neon just looked at Flynt with a big '?' of a face.

"He said he's closing up all the Schnee shops until the embargo's lifted - and laying off most of the work force, I'm guessing."

"All of them?" asked Ivori.

There was a murmuring among all the students having their own conversations, which was more unpleasant for Neon than the others, so she gestured further down the sidewalk for them to talk.

After stepping over, Flynt continued, "Well, he said all the Schnee operations that were non-essential, so-"

"-so all the non-military work. He's just pissing on civilians, got it."

This was such classic Schnee shit it was infuriating. Neon would so gladly beat him to a pulp if she ever found him walking alone on the street one night. Not that it would be hard - a guy like that would crumple even under Ivory's whip, nevermind her fist.

"What about Weiss?" Flynt asked. "She might know what the fuck his deal is. Aren't the two of you like, friends?"

That wasn't entirely right, but it wasn't entirely wrong. Neon had run into Weiss a number of times around campus lately, and although she clearly couldn't remember Neon for the life of her, she was at least becoming increasingly friendly as Neon acted familiar. She was always on her way someplace though, never having much rest - like the rest of Team RWBY and JNOR, as Neon gathered.

"She might, but I'm pretty sure she's like, no-contact with her dad."

Everyone in the group nodded sagely, probably suspecting that Neon meant this was a queer thing. She hadn't actually found out why Weiss had disowned her dad, but it probably had more to do with him being an absolute shitbag of a human being than Weiss being gay. Probably.

Flynt shrugged. "I mean, whatever. We'll dust this fucker tomorrow, and then we'll see how much he likes this idea then."

He and Neon made a quick fist bump, careful not to spill her fro-yo.

"We should head in for the night," Kobalt said, looking up and down the street. Things were almost calm on campus right now, but Neon could feel the charge in the air, and she didn't want to get caught up in it if things were going to explode. Not this close to elections, and not this close to graduation.

"Yeah. Let's head back."

"Hey, why don't you invite Yang?"

Flynt's question caught Neon off-guard, so it took her a few seconds to get why he would ask that.

"You know . . . dancing. With us," he clarified.

"No, I understood what you meant," Neon said, trying to quickly diffuse the unpleasant shock of that idea. "I just. Um. She's actually dating someone, now. A member of her team."

"Blake?" he asked.

She turned in her chair to look at him, the unpleasant shock definitely made it to her eyes this time. "How'd you know?" 

He laughed from back in his bunk. Neon was sitting at the desk on their side of the dorm, maybe an hour into getting ready for tonight (and with another hour to go - she had no intention of coming back to the school until the elections were announced). To no one's surprise, Neon still hadn't found the right time to talk to Yang about last year, and their texting had just been a stilted few messages over the past week.

"Process of elimination," he said. "Plus, she posted a pic on social media."

Neon didn't even get as far as asking why Flynt followed Yang's social media before he texted her a picture, and she opened her scroll to check it out.

It was a selfie. Just a selfie of Yang and Blake - Yang with her signature goofy smile, and Blake sporting a shy smile Neon had never seen her make before. Clearly a new couple. Clearly not totally comfortable with couple-levels of touching yet. But still.

"Yeah, so. If you saw this, why are you asking that?"

"'cause they're cool, that's why. Plus you invited them to party back at the Vytal Tournament, remember?"

"Uuuugggghhhh fine! But I'm inviting the whole team."

"That does mean she'll bring Blake."

"I know that!" Neon snapped, already opening her messages with Yang.

Flynt's voice was starting to get high and mocking; "Didn't she threaten to stab you one time?"

"Only implicitly," Neon replied, as defensive a tone as probably possible. "And it's not like she could have. Her aura was all dried up and she was traumatized and like whatever. Shut up. I'm inviting them."

"Alright," he snickered. "Your funeral."

Neon: hey yang! team FNKI and I are heading out to a dance club tonight instead of getting caught up in all of this election drama (we already voted, don't worry). wanna bring your team?

Yang shot back a message a few seconds later.

Yang: Sounds cool! Ironwood gave us the day. Let me ask everyone.

Neon: ok! ^^

This would be okay. Weiss would be there, and she'd be fine, and Ruby was . . . probably chill, and talking to Yang and Blake couldn't honestly be that bad, and

Yang: It looks like Ruby is going to Robyn's party tonight b/c it looks like she's gonna win and Ruby likes her. It'll just be me, Weiss, and Blake - that cool?

That s not that much of a loss, I don't even know Ruby.

Neon: totally

Then,

Yang: Oof, okay. Weiss just ditched us to go to the movies. Still cool?

GOD. FUCKING. DAMMIT.

Neon: yeah of course :3

Chapter Text

Most of Team FNKI was just hanging out in a circle on their phones until Yang and Blake arrived in the main hall of Atlas Academy. This time Neon didn't even pretend she wasn't listening, so as soon as Yang's heavy footsteps appeared from a nearby hallway, Neon put her scroll away and raised her hand to wave. Yang appeared a second later with Blake in tow, and FNKI picked up on what Neon was doing a few seconds later and followed suit.

They absorbed Blake and Yake into the circle with a lot of 'Heys' going around. Then Neon introduced everyone in turn: "FNKI, meet Yang and Blake. Yang and Blake, Flynt, Kobalt, and Ivori. And I guess me - I'm Neon. We never properly met," Neon gestured between herself and Blake.

Blake started aiming a smile at Neon, so Neon quickly looked down towards the hall.

"We should get going right away of we want to make the next shuttle."

They all started walking in a loose cluster, with Blake all the way to one side and only Flynt to buffer Neon from Yang.

"Sooo," Yang started, "what type of club is it?"

"Oh, you know, it's a lovely ballroom scene," Ivori responded, poorly suppressing a smirk.

The look of terror that crossed Blake's face could not have been more obvious, which makes Flynt laugh.

"As if," he said. "It's mostly EDM, although there's a little bit of pop thrown in. Neon had the genius idea to go somewhere a little more intense, but we didn't want to take ya'll newcomers anywhere too wild.

"Intense?" asked Blake

Before anyone could clarify, Yang replied, "We can handle whatever," clearly a challenge.

Ivori laughed and said, "Oh, it's not really about you two - Kobalt doesn't really go for raves."

"Pfft, I don't either," Flynt interjected. He swiped his hands over his silk shirt and vest and said, "I don't like getting other people's sweat on me, and that's the least of raves' grossness. No thank you."

"I mean, I'd like to go to a rave sometime," Yang said, clearly enthused. Blake shot her a weird look, but Yang was clearly paying too much attention to FNKI to notice.

That weird look from Blake was all it took for Neon to cement that she didn't like Blake. It was obvious, even to her, that that was a stupid, jealous conclusion to make over something so small, but Neon hated it when people acted like having interests different from them was weird or shameful. She really hated it.

They arrived outside the club about a half hour later, the sound of dance music pulsing half a block away, a heartbeat on an otherwise dead street. Blake slowed as they approached the line, her brow furrowed, cat ears pulling down. She entered the line last, saying, "I've always avoided places like this because of the noise . . . I get migraines."

"Oh," Yang replied, "Ummm-"

"I've got similar problems," Neon said, turning in line to look at the two of them. "I have to wear headphones, otherwise I can't be in loud spaces for more than a few minutes."

Blake blinked. "Headphones? That play music?"

Neon rummaged around in her bag, pulling out the four earplugs she'd prepared for this. "Not music . . . they're sound-cancelling. I'd offer you mine, but I don't think they'll fit on your head, so I brought these for you instead."

She offered them out with an open palm, but Blake hesitated, glancing between Neon and Yang. "Doesn't it ruin the point if I can't hear the music?"

Neon shook her head, saying, "In a place like this with music this loud, you can feel the music in your body. Plus, even with ear plugs, you can still follow the beat and enjoy the music. Promise, I've been doing this for years."

"Ah, okay . . ." Blake tentatively reached out, picking each earplug up individually, then bowing her head slightly. "Thank you."

Blake smiled at Neon again as she started trying to fit plugs into her cat ears, and this one Neon returned, even if it was fake.

Dancing was fun despite Neon's initial sour attitude, and while Blake was a hopeless dancer, it was really fun having everyone show her their moves and watching her trying to imitate. After her first time getting rudely groped, Blake started using her shadow clones to escape and then slap people who tried. That was fun the first two or three times, but it became obvious after about half an hour that the club was overwhelming for her, and as her energy diminished, so too did the fun of trying to help her dance.

After about an hour of drinking and dancing, Blake pantomimed a complaint about having a headache and finding somewhere quiet. Yang nodded, but when Blake turned to go and she followed, Blake shook her head and yelled over the noise: "You keep having fun! I'll be back in a little bit, promise!"

"Her hearing is even more sensitive than mine I think!" Neon shouted over the music when Yang re-joined the group, only getting a little nod in response.

Within minutes, the rest of Team FNKI managed to make themselves scarce, leaving Yang and Neon approximately alone under the relentlessly flashing green and violet lights.

What's their deal? she silently fumed. Do they want me to cheat?

The two of them kept dancing for a while, but the energy was far from what it had been (either earlier tonight or the first time they went dancing). They were both clearly distracted, and despite the effort to make it more fun, Neon could tell they weren't getting anywhere. Yang kept looking around in the crowd, as if hoping to see Blake return to the dance floor. It was annoying, certainly, but something about it also softened Neon's heart.

She reached out and touched Yang's shoulders. "Go check on Blake! You're worried about her."

Yang only replied with a curious (maybe a little concerned?) glance, but Neon immediately shook her head. "Go, I'll be fine."

There were a few seconds where Yang stood still on the dance floor, clearly mulling it over, before she nodded.

"Yeah. Thanks, Neon," she said, and disappeared towards the edge of the crowd.

Even if she said she'd be fine, Neon didn't really want to dance alone tonight. After a few minutes had passed and Neon admitted to herself she wasn't feeling it, she made her way to the bar, where she suspected her party had been hiding ever since Blake left. Alas, she didn't find them there, and her frustration with them only grew.

The bar had two TVs running, both silent. One screen was playing footage from some e-sport competition Neon didn't recognize, and the other had a live display of the election results. There were several positions up for election tonight, but the one on everyone's mind was the Internal Kingdom Council seat. It was apparently on the media's mind too, because it seemed to show up twice as often for twice as long. The less-popular candidates apparently hadn't even reached the single digits, such that their names and photos weren't even being displayed. Jacques Schnee was apparently on the climb at 41%. The last she'd checked, he'd been below 35%, and the size of the swing surprised her.

I can't believe people are actually falling for his dirty tactics. A guy like that doesn't help anyone but himself.

There was no getting around it. Her dancing mood was soured. Worse, she didn't feel like getting drunk and embarrassing herself tonight, so she settled for the objectively worst option - sneak out while everyone else is busy doing other stuff and go listen to election commentary on the street.

Neon hadn't made it much further from the club than it took for the music to become nonexistant before she pulled off her headphones and started looking around for a video board. As soon as her headphones were off, though, she realized she could hear some ineffectually hushed voices coming from a nearby alleyway - and one of them was definitely Yang. She approached the corner cautiously, picking up Blake's voice a second later.

Blake: "I'll seriously be back in just a few minutes - you can keep dancing with FNKI, I'll be fine.'

Yang: "Then you'll probably also still be fine if I hang out here with you for a few minutes, right?

Blake: "I . . . guess. But don't you want to hang out with them? This is much more your scene than mine."

Oh, great, they're talking about us. She told herself that was the only reason she was sitting down next to the corner, as close as she could be without likely bringing herself into view.

Yang: "I mean, eh, yeah, they're fun, even if kinda annoying at times.'

Well that stings.

Yang: "But I like hanging out with you."

Blake sighed, and there was a short pause.

Blake: "Yang, it's totally okay if you want to hang out with Neon. I'm not upset, and I'm not going to be. I'm the least-fun right now."

As she expected, it appeared 'FNKI' mostly meant 'Neon' in this conversation. Figures, given Neon was pretty sure no one else in FNKI had spoken to a member of Team RWBY other than Weiss.

Yang: "What are you talking about?"

What, playing dumb? Neon said scathingly, if only in her head. At least Blake was being directed about things.

Blake: "The two of you had like, a whole thing back in Beacon, and you haven't gotten to see each other since then. You must have missed hanging out with her.

Well, someone's keeping it real!

Yang: "I don't . . ."

She started, but quickly trails off.

Yang: "But, we're . . .?"

Blake chuckled, and Neon couldn't quite tell if it was sardonic or genuine.

Blake: "Dating? Are we?"

Yang: "Well I . . . thought we were."

There was a bit of rustling, probably from them holding hands or something.

Blake: "Whether we are or we're not, it's still okay for you to be close with other people, Yang. Even if you have or had feelings for them, I don't . . . I want you to feel like there's space in our relationship without my jealousy getting in the way. I don't even know if I feel jealous."

Oh.

Yang: "I'm not sure I get what you mean."

Another sigh from Blake. Not frustration, more like . . . gathering herself.

Blake: "Yang . . . when I was with Adam, even when I didn't realize I was doing it, I would minimize how close I'd get to other people, especially boys, because Adam said it made him feel insecure. Like he wasn't enough for me somehow. And I felt bad, you know, for making him feel that way. But eventually, that insecurity just turned into resentment, and I withdrew from everyone so I could try and be a good girlfriend. He was so jealous, but it always felt like I was doing something wrong."

Poor girl.

Whether she liked Blake or not was immaterial: hearing about someone's abusive relationship always made Neon's heart break a little. That sense that helped her see when people were in love always made her ache when she knew that love was being betrayed. Corrupted love is a hard thing to look at, but Neon had spent a lot of time looking at it on her friends' behalf over the years.

Yang: "I'm sorry."

There was a short pause, and then,

Yang: "I don't think I know what a relationship is without jealousy though. I'm so used to that being part of what defines love, I guess. I don't know what one would look like without it."

Blake: "I don't either."

Blake: "But I don't want to be like him. Not even a little bit. I don't want us to stop connecting with other people.

Blake's voice began to crack. "No matter how much I . . . I love you, I don't want that for you."

Neon realized that there were tears on her face and wiped them away. She didn't think it was from jealousy or hurt, per se, even if hearing that definitely made her feel those things. Her bad feelings towards Blake were weakening as fast as they'd come on that night. Yang's feelings were still tough for Neon to read sometimes, but it was obvious how important Yang was to Blake. No matter how much she thought she liked Yang, it was rapidly becoming apparent that it was time for her to move on. She sure as shit wasn't going to do anything to upset this bond, even if it meant just going home and crying for a while.

She rose to her feet, reaching up for her headphones.

Yang: "I love you too, Blake."

The words made her flinch, but she still put the headphones on without listening to anything more.

Funky Chat

Funky Cat: i'm going to go for a little walk to get out of the noise. try not to miss me too much. i'll be back in a little bit.

Funky Brat: aight

Neon didn't feel like going more than a few blocks, so once she reached the edge of where she felt was probably safe, she just established a perimeter she'd walk for as long as she needed to. Her sweatshirt was good for managing the cold, but she very foolishly made the hood too small to put over her headphones and too cute to put up without attracting unwanted attention, so it had to stay off for now. She wished she had her weapon walking alone in Mantle at night, even if she wasn't authorized to use it - the sight of a lone faunus girl was very different than a lone faunus girl with nunchaku that can set you on fire or freeze you.

Her time at Beacon had been brief and it ended pretty traumatically, but it had nonetheless been some of the greatest fun she'd had in her four years of Huntress school. The tournament matches, the food, the Vale climate, the dating pool not primarily composed of the same people she'd known since she started combat training at 13 . . . it was nice. And Yang had been a particularly bright spark amidst it all, but it was time to let that go. Every time a replay of those memories threatened to make her cry, she took a deep breath and told herself, Just let it go. It happened. It passed. Now let it go. Keep moving. Never miss-

And then, incredibly stupidly, somebody thought it was a good idea to grab her shoulder from behind.

She widened her stance, took a step back, and elbows them in the gut as hard as she could without even needing to think about it. She spun around, fully prepared to follow up on whatever creep she'd mercilessly elbowed, only to find Yang doubled over, clutching her abdomen and wheezing.

"Oh, shit, I'm so sorry!"

Yang shook her head while wheezing, "My - bad. Shouldn't have - scared you."

Neon pulled her headphones off, then buried her face in her hands - in part to hide that she'd been crying.

"No, no, it's totally my fault. I'm just really, really stupid."

Yang's eyes were quick to snap up in response to that. After a shimmer passed through her aura, she stood up straight again, took a step forward, and huggled Neon tightly. Neon did nothing in response but stand dead still, not wanting out of the hug and not sure how to be a part of it, either.

"Neon?" she asked softly, "what's wrong?"

Neon shook her head, slowly dropping her arms back down to her side without breaking the hug.

"There's nothing wrong, I just . . . feel like I'm in the way. Or that I'm just flattering myself to even think that."

Yang rest her chin on Neon's head and asked, "In the way of what?"

Neon squeezed her eyes tight, frustrating quickly boiling to the surface and still somehow making her want to cry more.

She choked it down just enough to say, "Please, don't play dumb. Not right now."

"I . . ." Yang trailed off, then sighed. "Okay."

They just sat awkwardly in that hug for a long moment, but even that tiny drop of cooperation was enough to weaken Neon's paralyzing resolve. She wrapped her arms around Yang's waist and held on tight, preparing herself for the inevitable. The point of no return, probably.

Once the hug ended, Yang asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"

Neon shrugged. "I don't know."

"Okay."

Neon sighed, deflating slowly with her arms crossed over her chest. It was just too cold out for this conversation, but she'd be damned if she was going to go have it where people could hear.

She said, "Look, the cleanest way I can find out of all this awkwardness is to be honest, but I'm definitely gonna cry. Are you okay with that? I know you were already having a tough conversation, so I get it if now's not the time."

At first, Yang just shrugged. But then she said, "Yeah, no, you're right. Let's just try talking. Honestly."

The weight of the time they'd spent apart fell heavily as Yang spoke. The last conversation they'd had before the Battle of Beacon had been one of simplistic, but touching honesty. After a few days of trying, they'd found an ease in talking, in touching, in communicating. And all of that was gone now.

After a pause too long for her to feel comfortable with the silence anymore, Neon said, "I guess . . . I'll start."

Another pause while she tried to collect her thoughts.

Then, "I think I'm a distraction. Being your friend does sound fun, and I think you're cool, but I know that's not what I really want here. And you for-real love Blake. And I've never even . . ." she held her hands up, somewhere between a shrug and a surrender, ". . . felt something like that. For anyone."

Yang's expression was quietly distressed; her bright blue eyes looked like they were searching for something, some answer in Neon's face. After a moment, her gaze dropped to the ground, her hands slipping into her pockets. Defeated, maybe? It was always hard to get a read on Yang's thoughts.

She said, "I don't know what I'm supposed to do here. I don't even know what I'm supposed to think. I've never . . . done this before. Not with people I cared about, at least."

Neon's need to mirror Yang's posture was ruined by her tragic lack of pockets, so she was stuck with just holding her arms and hoping to stay warm. Why did she design a sweater without pockets?

She said, "It's not always about what you're supposed to think. And what you think doesn't always have to make sense. Just . . . try."

Slowly, Yang nodded. She took a deep breath, and began:

"You came out of nowhere in my life. Regardless of how I felt about Blake, I didn't think I had a place for romance at Beacon knowing what my life was going to become. And you picked up on all the weirdness I was feeling about my body and my identity just like (snaps) that. You brought a lot of things I thought I had to ignore to the forefront of my mind, and that made me feel . . . different. Good - lovable, if you want to really dig in deep."

"The Battle of Beacon for me was a fight to keep all this new stuff. My friends, and my feelings, and my home . . . and I lost it. I lost Blake and Weiss, and really Ruby too, even if that was my fault. I lost Beacon, I lost my arm, I lost my pride, and I lost everything you brought into my life just as quick as it came in. And I was content to just be empty for a while. A long while, I guess. And when I had to go back to being a person, I decided to make myself out of less fragile stuff. Somebody who wouldn't get broken again."

That idea was very familiar to Neon. She spent her early years away from home getting hurt over and over again, whether it was heartbreak, or fights, or just the day-to-day bullying and humiliation. When you get hurt like that, you just want to become someone who can't be hurt. For her, that meant convincing herself she was either perfect at something or useless at it, so either way it wasn't her job to struggle for it, and somebody's else's problem if they didn't like her performance. It was even why she incorporated the cute cat gimmick and all the flamboyant colors into her outfits - if people saw how proud she was to be a queer faunus, then they wouldn't be able to leverage that to hurt her. 

Yang continued, "I got my friends back, but we had all changed. And there was so much hurt and anxiety between Blake and me, I just . . . didn't know what to be to keep that from hurting. And it just kept hurting until we faced Adam, and we . . . we killed him. Together. And it was like so many of the broken pieces of me got glued back together again. Like, like . . . are you familiar with kintsuji?"

The whiplash from talking about murdering Blake's ex-boyfriend to that question caught Neon super off-guard, but one of those things felt much easier to ask about.

"Um, no?"

Yang started talking faster now, like she was picking up the thread of an idea she'd had for a long time. "It's a pottery technique - repairing broken pieces with lacquer mixed with precious metals. It's like, really beautiful. And lately, that's how I've . . ."

Yang pressed her metal hand to her chest, struggling to finish the thought.

Quietly now, she continued, "But even if it's beautiful, I still feel too fragile. I still feel like I could lose everything again. Like somehow the feelings I had for you back then were asking for too much, and letting them come back could mean disaster."

Yang clutched at her shirt now, her whole body trembling. Neon had never seen her tremble before, even with all the awful things that had happened before. She wanted to say something in comfort, some clarification that pairing those totally separate events was ridiculous and unfair, but Yang beat her to the punch.

"I know that's not true. I know you were nothing but good in my life, but I'm still so scared." She swallowed and finished, "Everything feels out of my control."

That's when something critical clicked into place for Neon. She stood up straight, nowhere near as tall as she needed to be the big, comforting presence she wanted to be, finally recognizing the real reason they weren't going to fit together.

Yang needed a mentor. Someone to help guide her to a new way of being beyond the paradox of being indestructible and fragile, and Neon could not be that person. Neon wanted a peer to love, someone she could be soft and open with, and Yang couldn't be that person for her, either. Not right now.

Neon nodded to herself, affirming that thought to guide her.

She said, "I can't begin to know everything you went through, Yang, but I've felt that way too. And eventually, I did come to find something inside myself to hold onto, to move forward even knowing that things are just going to keep breaking, and I won't always be able to put them back together again."

She took a step forward and cupped Yang's cheek with her palm, and Yang's eyes rose up to meet hers.

"Your strength has been coming from those broken pieces for a long time, Yang. I saw that when we first met, and you saw that so young - when you found your semblance. But I think you'll find a new way to move forward, too. A new well of strength to draw from."

There was a strange flicker of color in Yang's eyes, and embers glowed in her hair. The beauty of it took Neon's breath away, and she could not help herself but to say, "Maybe someday, when you've found it, we could be-"

"NO FUCKING WAY!"

The two of them had been so enraptured by their conversation that they failed to notice that shouts were breaking out all around them. As they broke from their reverie, they realized that small crowds had gathered around the various video boards. They were packed in so dense that the two of them couldn't see what the commotion was about, beyond the fact that the screens were dominated by two large pictures of Robyn Hill and Jacques Schnee.

"THERE'S NO WAY HE CAN FUCKING WIN. WHAT - IS- HAPPENING?" A human man in his thirties, dressed far more warmly for the occasion, was shouting in front of the nearest board, making Neon flinch.

Yang looked worried, the color of her eyes nothing but still blue again. The moment was over.

Neon gestured to one of the boards that did not have a screaming man next to it and said, "It's fine. Let's see what's going on."

When they made their way over, Yang asked, "What's going on?" while trying to get a good look of the screen.

Surprisingly, a good chunk of the crowd turned, then made room for them to join while a young human woman explained, "Schnee's taken the lead in the last few minutes. His votes have been climbing like crazy; I think somebody must have rigged a machine or something. It just doesn't make sense."

"Hm."

They didn't ask anymore questions, and no one provided anymore commentary. They watched as the last few minutes ticked by, watching as Jacques percentage rose to 53%.

Bullshit. There's no way that's legitimate.

It wasn't until the :30 second mark that a hush fell over the street. There couldn't even be enough people left in line to pull out a last-second win for Robyn. It was all over.

And thirty seconds later, in bold, bright lettering, the screen read, "JACQUES SCHEE WINS INTERNAL KINGDOM COUNCIL SEAT."

"BULLSHIT!" Neon cried out, and she wasn't the only one. The street erupted with the sounds of protest, sharper and more sudden than Jacques threats had the night before.

It might have continued to escalate just as quickly if the screen had not suddenly cut to black, coming online a few seconds later to read, "LIVE AT ROBYN HILL'S ELECTION CELEBRATION." It took the crowd a few seconds to recognize what they were seeing, but Neon recognized the scene as immediately as only being a Huntress can teach you. Half a dozen bodies were strewn across the floor. People were fleeing from every exit on screen, as well as past the camera person, who was doing their best to hold a stable image despite the chaos. 

And at the center of it all, beside a Robyn Hill still not on her feet, is P.E.N.N.Y., its swords framing its body like a flower, a look of shock on its porcelain face.

Yang's fists clenched with an audible scraping sound. "No . . . not again," she said, "this can't be happening again."

Neon only muttered, "What did it do . . .?" trying to understand the full scope of the damage. There was so much off about the image, from the Happy Huntresses rising unharmed on the stage, to P.E.N.N.Y.'s clean swords, but the scene was no less gruesome for it.

Yang grabbed her shoulder, turning Neon to face her. Her eyes were furious crimson, her hair already filled with smoldering embers, and Neon had her first moment of recognition of what Yang's real anger looked like up close. It scared her.

"She didn't do this," Yang stated, her voice surprisingly cold. "This is Salem - I know it is."

"Who . . . is Salem?"

Yang's lips pinched into a flat line, but before she could respond, the piercing howls and shrieks of flying Grimm echoed overhead. Without hesitation, she let Neon go and opened up her bag, pulling out her gauntlets while the people around them started to panic.

"We can't use our weapons in Mantle!" Neon warned sharply.

Yang only shook her head. "No, you can't. I'm a Huntress. Call your team and make sure they all stay safe, but I need to keep this street safe until I can regroup with my team."

Neon reached out as Yang's gauntlets flared to life, extending out and beginning the low churn of dust rounds inside. She grabbed ahold of Yang's arm and said, "Yang, you shouldn't fight alone."

There was barely recognition in Yang's eyes that Neon had even spoken.

"Fight with me, or go back to your team. This starts now." She pulled her arm free of Neon's grip and emerged from the crowd, already scanning the skyline for Grimm.

Neon nodded and took a deep breath.

"THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE CIVILIANS - WE ARE HUNTRESSES, HERE TO HELP. PLEASE STAY AS CALM AS POSSIBLE AND MOVE TO THE NEAREST SAFE BUILDING. WE WILL PROTECT THIS STREET!"

Neon's voice could carry when she needed it to, and while not everyone seemed to hear her, enough people's eyes were drawn to Yang's glowing, flickering form, that they got the message.

Neon opened up her Scroll, then the Locker app, following close behind Yang. It might be illegal for her to fight, but right now, she couldn't see any other choice.