Chapter Text
The memorial to Penny always had a nice smell. Thousands of people, mostly from Mantle, stopped by to leave flowers next to the spray painted image of the girl who brought the message to the stars. As Blake walked by, she gave her a respectful nod. While she still missed Penny, there was someone else she had to see. She rounded the corner. In an alley behind the Penny memorial was another, much smaller memorial.
Blake laid her hand on the wall. She knelt and looked at all that remained of her best friend. Long, tousled hair, lilac eyes, and a lopsided smile overtook her vision. She had spent hours trying to get the prosthetic just right. She let the tears run down her face. It had been nearly a year, but she still missed her.
She still thought about that moment on a daily basis. Everything looked like it was going to work, the evacuation was running smoothly. It seemed like it was going to be the first risk they had ever took since coming to Atlas that would work out.
But they never accounted for their enemies. Neo seemed to come out of nowhere, parasol pointed directly at Ruby, a scowl of vengeance on her face. Only Yang was quick enough and close enough to react. She had made the mistake of activating her semblance, putting her in the state where she was both her most powerful and most vulnerable.
Neo tore through her aura, hitting her jaw. Her momentum carried her across the platform, bouncing once before falling.
Blake ran as fast as she could and threw Gambol Shroud, trying to catch Yang by the boot. It was too little, too slow, too late.
The girl that had broken into her life and turned it upside down fell into the void, never to be seen again.
Everything afterwards felt like a blur. Before she knew it, she was in Vacuo with Ruby and Weiss. Penny had been slain by Jaune, and Winter burst out of the portal with him dragging behind seconds before it closed.
Their gamble had worked at a terrible cost.
After that, things were just... busy. Atlas refugees had to be taken care of. Grimm. The remains of the Atlas military had to be recontacted and reorganized. Grimm. The Vale refugee situation had to be taken care of. Grimm. The new Spring Maiden had to be found. Grimm. Amity had to be converted into a carrier. Grimm. Thousands of civilian airships had to be retrofitted. Grimm. Grimm. Grimm.
And yet through it all, the remnants of Team RWBY had managed to find the time to paint this memorial. Every day when she was in the city, Blake had found the time to visit it. Sometimes Ruby and Weiss came with her. Sometimes she was alone. Every time she thought she wouldn't cry. Every time, she was wrong. It was her ritual. Arrive, look at Yang, cry for a little, maybe leave an offering, maybe chat a bit, leave.
This time, she had something special. She pulled a small candle out of her bag. Under the strict Dust rationing and the inefficient Vacuan power grid, lighting had become a luxury. Blake was lucky to have an extra candle for this. She lit it and stepped back, looking at the mural. She just wished she could hear her laugh again.
"Hey, I can't believe its been almost a year now. Yeah, Amity is still under construction." she said to the mural. At first, she felt silly talking to the painting, but it did genuinely make her feel better. Part of her was expecting to be laughed at when Ruby first found out, but she was actually really kind and understanding. Apparently, Ruby did the same thing at her mom's grave while she was growing up. It made Blake feel just a little less alone.
She just chatted for a while. About missions, about Ruby and Weiss, about life. Yang responded with the same lopsided smile and prosthetic in the v-for-victory pose.
"Yeah, I still miss you." Blake finished. She took a second to take a breath and recompose herself. "Thanks for listening." She left. The life of a huntress is ever busy.
Blake ran over to the Shade hangar. She had lost track of time. Ruby and Weiss had already started the startup sequences, and now were waiting for her to arrive. It wasn't a super big deal, the mission was only a routine patrol, one of several per day, but Blake still felt bad for making them wait.
She squinted and covered her eyes as she entered the hangar. The open hangar doors were extremely bright compared to Shade's dim sandstone corridors.
Weiss was in the cockpit, going through the startup sequence while Ruby refuelled the helicopter's Dust bay.
The helicopter was a product of necessity. Gravity Dust was difficult to manufacture, and most of the naturally occurring veins had to be sent either to Amity or to the remains of the Atlas air fleet. And so, a new breed of airship, one that used a different type of Dust was born. The common name for them was Rotary Wing Airships. The pilots and crews preferred the term helicopter. Team RWBY had voted unanimously to name their helicopter Yang. Ruby had said that as long as they are together, Yang would be with them too.
Yang had been painted a standard coyote brown to blend in with the desert, but she had nose art spelling out RWBY on her left, and all the teams emblems on her right. Blake was proud of their handiwork. She helped to load the stub pylons with missiles.
Patrol was boring as usual. It was a simple, slow rhythm. Fly across the desert while looking for flying and surface Grimm. Land at one of the predesignated spots, place down and set up the seismic scanners to look for Grimm beneath the sand. Pack up the scanners when they almost inevitably found nothing in the area. Fly across the desert.
Blake was thankful for the boredom. If it was boring, it means they were doing everything right and the city was safe.
Weiss was flying this time, meaning Blake and Ruby were sitting in the back. The three were having a discussion about time loops, and what they would do exactly if they got caught in one, and how they would attempt to break out.
"I mean, I guess it depends on what kind of time loop I'm in. If you just loop back after you die, and there's no set time you loop back from, I can just live my life and not have to worry about it. When I die, I just get reset back to the loop point. I guess I would be basically immortal in this situation." Weiss said.
"It would still be weird though. Imagine being the same age biologically as all your friends, but you have lived for like 70 years longer. Also, on looping back, all your friends wouldn't remember your old life, even though they were in it." said Blake.
"Hold up, do you see that? It's over by the Atlas memorial. It looks like some kind of burning tower?" said Ruby.
They were about half a kilometer away from the place where the portal from Atlas had opened up. A short monument now stood there, with the names of all who were lost embedded into the stone. Blake looked over at where Ruby was pointing. Sure enough, there was some kind of tower standing close to the monument. It was an ellipse, partly sunk into the sand. Around its edge was something that looked vaguely like flames.
"Wait, that's not a tower. It's a portal. Like the one that brought us here. Weiss, bring us closer." said Blake.
"On it" Weiss replied.
Blake readied Gambol Shroud. She saw Ruby do the same with Crescent Rose. Salem had the relic of creation, she could very well be using the portal for an invasion.
But just as fast as the portal appeared, it vanished. Weiss kept flying closer. Blake nearly dropped Gambol Shroud as they crossed the final dune.
Standing by the monument, protecting her eyes from the sun, was Yang Xiao Long in the flesh.