Hey everyone RoseSaiyan2 here again. I hope everyone enjoyed last Chapter! With Nova x Ruby officially coming to fruition last chapter, I will tie a loose end I neglected to mention last chapter. Obviously, since it involves her sister, Yang would want to see what Ruby is up to. She's the sort that would be snapping thousands of pics on her scroll concerning what happened between our story's main pairing last chapter.
Also, I know I have hinted at Tarro training both Nova and Turuk, but I haven't touched on it yet... it's just been implied. I plan on fixing this as the story enters volume 3.
Enough of that, onto the story!
Disclaimer: I don't own dbz/kai/dbs, Black Clover, or Rwby and their characters. The aforementioned series belong to Akira Toriyama/Toei Animation, Yuki Tabata/Studio Peirot, and Rooster Teeth/Monty Oum respectively.
The only things I own is the OC's with special permission from My friend ComparedDreadx to use the characters of Daikon and Tarro, those are his two characters.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Mountain Glenn: Protecting What Matters Most
Part I - What the Others Saw
Location: Mountain Glenn | Before Dawn
Yang had excellent instincts about when things were happening that she should be paying attention to.
She had been awake for approximately twenty minutes before she went to the window, which was long enough to have considered and dismissed the excuse that she was simply getting water. She arrived at the corner that overlooked the windowsill where Ruby and Nova had been sitting and looked around it with the practiced casualness of someone who was absolutely not doing what she was doing.
What she saw was not what she expected.
Which was to say, it was exactly what she had expected, but expecting a thing and witnessing it were different experiences, and the witnessing arrived in her chest as something considerably warmer than expectation.
They were kissing.
Not dramatically. Not with the theatrical quality of something performing itself. Just the specific, quiet intimacy of two people who had found each other and were expressing this in the most direct available language.
She pulled out her scroll and took photographs. This was not something she was particularly proud of, but she was also not going to stop doing it.
From behind her, Weiss made a sound that was small and involuntary and then immediately followed by the sound of both hands covering a face that was definitely not going to look away.
Blake, from the other side, allowed herself one small and private smile that she did not share with anyone.
Turuk stood with his back against the wall and his eyes closed and his expression carrying the compound warmth of someone who has been waiting for a specific thing to happen and has found that its arrival is better than the anticipation.
Finally, he thought. About time, brother.
When the two at the window eventually became aware of the world again - in the gradual, reluctant way of people who have been elsewhere and are returning to the room by degrees - Ruby was leaning against Nova's shoulder with her hands in her lap, and Nova's arm was around her, and Zwei was sitting between their feet with the complete satisfaction of a dog whose instincts have been proven correct.
Nova looked up and found Turuk watching him from across the room.
Turuk raised two fingers in the salute he used for things he approved of.
Nova exhaled. His expression did the specific thing it did when he was feeling something too large for his usual economy of expression.
Yang had already retreated to a position of plausible deniability and was looking intently at a wall.
Weiss had removed her hands from her face. Her cheeks were still pink, which she was managing with the focused composure of someone who has decided that dignity is a choice she is actively making.
Blake was reading.
She was not reading. But the book was open.
"So," Yang said, to the wall. "How's everyone feeling about watch rotations?"
"Perfectly fine," Nova said.
"Great," Yang said. "That's great."
"Yang," Ruby said, from the window.
"Mm?"
"I know you took pictures."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Yang."
"Your scroll camera makes a sound," Nova said.
Yang looked at her scroll. Then at the ceiling. "Okay, well," she said, "when you're older you'll understand that some moments are worth documenting for-"
"Yang."
"They're really good pictures," she offered. "Very flattering lighting."
Part II - The Way Things Settle
Later, when the camp had rearranged itself around the new configuration of things - which was to say, the same configuration but with one specific aspect of it named and therefore solid - Nova sat with Ruby at the window and they talked in the low register of people who have said the large thing and are now saying the smaller things around it, which were no less significant for being smaller.
"You called me Rubes," she said.
"I know."
"Can you do it again?"
He looked at her. "Rubes."
She did not quite smile and was not quite blushing and was something in between those two things that did not have a cleaner name.
"Yeah," she said. "Like that."
He reached over and pressed his lips briefly to her forehead, which was the specific gesture of someone who has discovered a language and is using it with the particular care of something new.
Ruby looked at the moon through the broken window. At the ruins below them and the road ahead of them and the very large world that was going to continue being very large regardless of what had just happened in this particular corner of it.
"Nova?"
"Mm."
"Can you stay for my watch? Just awhile longer."
He had been about to excuse himself. He had told himself it was reasonable - they both needed rest, there were missions tomorrow, the sensible thing was to-
"Yeah," he said. "Of course."
She leaned her head against his shoulder.
He looked at the ruins, and at the moon, and at the sleeping forms of the people he had come here to protect, and at Zwei who had curled up between them with the complete contentment of a dog in the right place.
This, he thought, is what strength is for.
Part III - Before Sleep
Yang was awake.
She was lying on her back with her arms under her head and the fire's diminishing light moving across the ceiling, and she was thinking about the kind of things you think about when a day has contained too many things for sleep to arrive immediately.
"Blake," she said.
One eye opened. "Mm."
"Why do you think Oobleck asked us those questions?"
"He was taking our measure," Blake said. "Seeing what we're made of."
"You think?"
"People who want to give you something important ask what you're capable of first. He's deciding whether to trust us with the truth of what's out there." She paused. "Or he was simply curious. Both can be true."
Yang was quiet.
"Weiss," she said.
A sigh. "Yes."
"You still awake?"
"Obviously. You're talking."
Yang turned her head toward the heiress. In the fire's diminishing light, Weiss looked different from the way she looked in classrooms or corridors - less armored, in the way that people are less armored when they're lying down and the dark has removed the audience.
"What you said earlier," Yang said. "About the Schnee name not starting with your father and not ending with him." She paused. "That was-"
"I know what it was," Weiss said.
"Good."
A silence.
"I meant it," Weiss said. "In case that wasn't clear."
"It was clear," Yang said.
Another silence.
"Blake," Yang said. "You said you ran away. Multiple times. That your semblance was built for running."
Blake was quiet.
"You haven't run in a while," Yang said.
"No," Blake said. "I haven't."
"That seems important."
"It does to me," Blake said.
They were quiet together, the three of them, in the specific way of people who have said things that needed saying and are now letting the said things settle into the dark.
From the other side of the room, Turuk's voice arrived - quiet, almost to himself: "You all have good heads on your shoulders."
"Were you listening?" Weiss asked.
"I was on watch," he said. "Sound carries."
"And?"
"And you have good heads," he said again. "The things you're fighting for - they're real. Not abstractions. That matters more than most people know."
Weiss looked at the ceiling.
"Go to sleep," Turuk said, which was not unkind.
They went to sleep.
Part IV - Iron and Glynda
Location: Beacon Academy Docks | That Same Night
The city of Vale, from the cliffside docks, had the quality it always had at this hour - the specific beauty of something large and lit and indifferent to the specific concerns of the people looking at it.
Ironwood had been standing in this exact position for some time.
"Trouble sleeping, General?" Glynda asked, arriving at his elbow.
"Arm," he said.
She looked at him - at the way he was gripping his shoulder with his other hand, at the specific quality of someone who has dressed completely and come to a specific place with a specific thing on their mind. "Of course," she said. "So naturally you dressed yourself and came here to gaze into the distance."
He exhaled. "I can't help feeling that he's keeping us in the dark."
"He isn't," she said.
"Which makes it worse. The man I've trusted for years, responding to a genuine threat to everything we've built-" He stopped. "Passively. Like he's watching a clock."
She put her hand on his shoulder briefly - not long, just long enough to acknowledge something. "You are a genuinely good person, James. You've always done what you believed was right for the people, even when the people didn't ask for it and wouldn't have chosen it." She let her hand fall. "But there is a difference between doing what you believe is right and trusting someone who has been right longer than you've been watching."
He looked at her.
"Ozpin has experience we don't," she said. "That's not a criticism of us. It's a fact of the situation. And I think-" She paused. "I think it's worth remembering that the reason we're standing here, with the people we have and the resources we have, is partly because he's been making calls we didn't understand at the time."
Ironwood was quiet for a long moment.
Below them, Vale continued its night.
"I know," he said.
"Then stop talking about trust," she said, "and start showing it."
She walked away.
He stayed at the railing a little longer, looking at the city, and then he went inside.
Part V - The Find
Location: Mountain Glenn | Early Morning
Zwei had opinions about where he needed to be, and one of those opinions was that the direction Ruby was sleeping was not the direction he was supposed to go, and he expressed this with the focused determination of a dog who has identified a priority.
Ruby came awake the way she came awake when something had disturbed the particular specific silence of a place - not gradually, not reluctantly, but with the immediate alertness of someone who had been training long enough that her body now treated unusual sounds as a separate category from ordinary ones.
Zwei was on his feet.
Heading toward the door.
She picked up Crescent Rose and followed.
The ruins in the pre-dawn had a different quality from their afternoon character - the shadows were larger and less specific, the emptiness more thorough. Ruby moved through them with Zwei leading, and her scan told her the immediate area was clear, and then Zwei stopped at the base of a ruined wall and produced the specific body language of a dog who has found something and wants credit for it.
She looked around the corner.
Metal doors. Heavy. Recently used - the frame had the faint scuff marks of equipment being moved through it repeatedly.
She crouched and pulled out her scroll.
No signal.
She looked at the doors. Then at the scroll. Then at the darkness behind her, where Nova was presumably still awake on some variation of watch.
She thought about what Nova would do.
He would, she decided, contact the others and wait for backup. He would not go in alone. He would trust that the information was valuable enough to hold until he had the team with him.
She was about to turn back when she heard footsteps - the specific, measured footsteps of a patrol, moving toward her position.
She pressed against the wall and held still, Zwei's head tucked under her arm.
Two White Fang guards, moving in the unhurried way of people at the end of their shift who have seen nothing interesting all night and expect to continue seeing nothing interesting.
They went through the metal doors.
The doors closed.
"Did they go in?" she whispered to Zwei.
One bark.
"This is it," she breathed.
And then a voice, immediately behind her: "What is it?"
She turned.
Nova.
She had not heard him at all. He was simply there, in the way he was sometimes simply there - present, composed, completely unsurprised by what he was looking at.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi," he said. "What are you doing?"
"Following Zwei."
"To the entrance of a White Fang facility."
"That part was unplanned."
He looked at the doors. At the scuff marks on the frame. At the general architecture of a heavily used entrance that was meant not to be found. His expression did the thing it did when he was adding information to a picture that was getting clearer.
"Your scroll?" he said.
She held it up. Low signal icon.
"Right," he said. He closed his eyes briefly - the specific quality of someone going somewhere internal - and then opened them. "I'll contact Turuk. You stay here and do not-"
"I wasn't going to go in alone," she said.
"Good."
"I was just going to get a better signal by going up the wall a little and-"
"Ruby."
"It was a very small wall."
"Stay here," he said, in the tone that was not a command but had all the structural confidence of one.
She stayed.
He contacted Turuk.
Turuk appeared approximately ninety seconds later with the rest of the team, moving with the specific efficiency of people who have been woken from light sleep by a message that contained the words found something and hurry.
Oobleck materialized beside them with the particular quality of a man who had not been asleep in any practical sense.
"Ah," Oobleck said, looking at the doors. He looked at Zwei. "Well done." He looked at Ruby. "You found this by following a dog."
"I found it by following my instincts," Ruby said.
"Which led you to follow the dog."
"The dog had good instincts."
Oobleck looked at Nova.
"She makes a compelling argument," Nova said.
Part VI - The Underground
What lay below the doors was not what any of them had quite expected, which was to say it was exactly what the evidence had been suggesting for months and the specific experience of seeing it assembled in one place was still arresting.
A cavern. The bones of the old subway system running through it, extended and repurposed. White Fang soldiers moving with the organized efficiency of people who had been here long enough for this to be routine. And on the tracks, train cars loaded with things that did not belong to an ordinary freight operation - Atlesian Paladins, crated weapons systems, and what appeared to be enough explosive materiel to have very strong opinions about several large pieces of infrastructure.
Ruby counted. Stopped counting.
"We have to stop that train," she said.
"I mentioned that already," Nova said.
"I know, but-" She looked at him. "I mean now. Before it moves."
"It's already moving," Blake said.
They all looked.
The train was, indeed, beginning its slow and deliberate acceleration toward the tunnel at the far end of the cavern.
Ruby moved.
Nova had exactly two seconds of watching her go before the specific knowledge that she had left her scythe on the surface assembled itself into urgent action.
He reached her in three strides, picked her up, and said: "We need to catch it."
"Yes," she said, from his arms, in the specific tone of someone who has opinions about the method of transport but is prioritizing the outcome.
"Hold on," he said.
His ki ignited around them both.
They went.
The train car's roof received them with the specific sound of footsteps landing on metal, which the White Fang soldier standing watch had not expected and which resulted in a very brief encounter that ended with him sitting down involuntarily.
"Sorry," Nova said. "We really are in a hurry."
The others arrived behind them in sequence - Oobleck with the speed he reserved for situations that required it, Yang with the energy she brought to everything that involved forward motion, Blake and Weiss and Turuk moving with the practiced coordination of people who had been doing this together long enough to have stopped thinking about it.
"Right then," Oobleck said. "We must reach the front and-"
He stopped.
Looked down through the hatch.
"That," he said, "appears to be a bomb."
Everyone looked at the hatch.
"Right," Yang said. "Okay."
"There are dozens of White Fang soldiers ahead," Ruby said, having just processed the scene.
"We've got baddies," she confirmed, which Nova had already come to the same conclusion about, having been looking in the same direction.
Oobleck straightened.
"Miss Rose," he said. "Master Belladonna. Miss Xiao Long, Miss Belladonna, Miss Schnee, Master Belladonna." He looked at each of them in turn with the specific look of a man who has spent considerable time wondering whether this particular group was ready for this and has just arrived at an answer. "Today is a job. Not a story you'll tell later - a job. Do it."
They moved.
Part VII - The Train
The train was doing several things simultaneously, all of them unpleasant.
The cars were detaching in sequence, each one falling away with the specific purpose of a plan that had been constructed to cause maximum cascading damage. Each detachment opened another hole in the tunnel wall. Each hole admitted another wave of grimm.
Nova had processed this by the second detachment.
"He's using the bombs as breach charges," he said to Turuk, over the noise of the engagement. "Not to destroy the train. To open the tunnel wall."
"To let the grimm in," Turuk said.
"To lead them toward the city."
They looked at each other.
"He's a lunatic," Turuk said.
"He's a lunatic with a plan," Nova said, "which is worse."
He opened the mental link.
Daikon. New development.
What is it?
Torchwick is detonating cars on the train in sequence - breaching the tunnel walls to admit grimm from the cave system. He's creating a corridor from Mountain Glenn to downtown Vale.
A pause.
How many grimm?
The cavern had a significant population. All of it, potentially.
...
Daikon.
I heard you. How long until the train reaches the city?
We're slowing it but not stopped yet.
Contact whoever you can. Any Huntsman, Huntresses, military. Make it fast.
Already on it. Scarlett is with two Huntresses now.
Good. And Daikon-
I know. Send everything.
The link closed.
Below deck, Yang was having the fight of her immediate evening.
Neopolitan was everything the name implied - small, impossibly fast, and fundamentally uninterested in the rules of engagement that most opponents used to structure a fight. She moved through the narrow train car with the quality of someone who had been using this space as a weapon before Yang arrived, and the early exchanges had the flavor of a person who knows the terrain fighting one who is learning it.
Turuk stayed back.
Yang had told him this was hers. He believed in honoring that.
He was also watching Neo's eyes, which were the only part of her that reliably told the truth, and her eyes had been doing something different since she spotted him - a particular quality of attention that was not entirely about Yang.
Unfinished business, he had said to Yang.
Neo attacked. Yang blocked. Neo redirected. Yang absorbed and used the momentum. The shard-glass illusion shattered and reformed and Neo was already somewhere else.
Then Yang went into the ceiling.
Turuk was moving before the sound of impact completed.
He put himself between the downed blonde and the approaching figure with the specific certainty of someone who has made a decision and is not revisiting it.
Neo looked at him.
He looked at her.
She attacked.
He blocked. Redirected. Used the narrow car the way she'd been using it, and the fight that followed was brief and technical and ended when he drove her into the door with enough force to make the point without doing permanent damage.
She got up.
Looked at him.
Considered.
The door at the end of the car burst open.
The masked warrior came through it with the specific authority of someone who is used to arriving at important moments and has long since stopped being dramatic about it.
Neo saw her, assessed, and made a decision that could be characterized as tactical withdrawal.
She disappeared.
Turuk looked at the masked figure.
Black hair beneath the mask. Red and black clothing. And the specific quality of movement - the way she held her weapon, the way she stood - that was the compound of someone he had spent considerable time around.
He took it from the wrong angle initially.
"You look like a much older-" He stopped. "Actually, it's the other way around, isn't it."
The woman removed her mask.
"You protect well," she said.
"She's my-" He searched for the word. "She's my person," he said, which was the most accurate thing he could find. "She'd have done it herself if she'd been conscious."
"I know what she is," the woman said. There was something in her voice that was not quite warmth but lived in its general neighborhood.
"You're her mother," Turuk said.
The woman looked at him for a moment. At Yang, still coming back to consciousness. At Turuk, standing between the downed blonde and everything.
"When she wakes," the woman said, "tell her: I saved you once. Don't expect the same courtesy twice."
"I'll tell her."
She produced a portal - red-edged, the specific unsettling quality of something that shouldn't exist and does anyway - and moved toward it.
She paused.
"You're interesting," she said, to Turuk. "I can see why she values you."
The portal closed.
Turuk looked at it for a moment. Then at Yang, who was sitting up, one hand pressed to her head, the other finding the floor.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
"Like a train hit me," she said. "Which is apt." She looked around. "Did I miss something?"
"Your mother saved you," he said. "She says don't expect it to become a habit."
Yang was very still for a moment.
"You talked to her?"
"Briefly."
She looked at him. Something moved through her expression - the compound of surprise and the specific, complicated feeling of a person who has been looking for something for a long time and has had it appear in a form they weren't prepared for.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"I-" She stopped. "Yeah. I will be." She stood, and her legs cooperated, and she looked at Turuk and found him watching her with the expression he used when he was paying complete attention.
She stepped forward, closed the distance between them, and kissed him on the cheek.
Which was, she decided, a reasonable way to say several things at once.
He turned very red.
"Yang," he said.
"Turuk," she said.
"There's a time and place-"
"There's always a time and place," she said. "We'll find the right one later. Right now there's a train to stop."
She walked ahead.
He followed, managing his expression, and thought that he was going to need to find the right time and place sooner rather than later because this specific person was doing things to his equilibrium that he was running out of ways to manage.
Part VIII - Ruby and the Mech
Location: Top of the Train
Oobleck had demonstrated what he was capable of when he felt the situation called for it, which turned out to be considerably more than he had previously demonstrated. He moved through Paladins with the specific velocity of someone who had been a huntsman for long enough to have stopped being impressed by intimidating things, and the thermos he carried turned out to be a weapon in addition to a beverage container, which Ruby found specifically satisfying.
Two Paladins remained.
Ruby had Crescent Rose in hand - Nova had retrieved it from the surface before the others came down, and there was something specifically right about holding it again. But there was also something different. She was different, two months into training that had changed the way she moved and the way she hit and the way she thought about the space between herself and what was in front of her.
Nova appeared beside her.
"Together?" he said.
"Together," she confirmed.
They moved in a way that had the specific quality of two people who had been training together long enough that the coordination was below conscious thought. Ruby gathered ki between her hands - the blue-gold of it, brighter than it had been two months ago - and Nova moved into the space that her motion created, and the exchange that followed had the quality of something that had been rehearsed without ever actually being rehearsed.
The first Paladin went off the train in three exchanges.
The second one lasted longer, and in the middle of it pointed its weapons directly at Ruby, which produced in Nova a very specific and instantaneous response.
"Don't," he said, which was addressed at the mech and not technically a command a mech could receive, but the kick that followed translated the sentiment very precisely.
Ruby, from his left, drove her ki-infused fist through the center mass while he broke its defense.
The Paladin came apart.
They landed.
Oobleck, who had been watching with the focused attention of a man who takes notes, said nothing for a moment.
Then: "I have been doing this for a significant number of years. What I just saw does not fit any category I have established for student combat."
"We've been practicing," Ruby said.
"I can see that," he said.
"Is that a problem?" Nova asked.
Oobleck looked at him. Then at Ruby. Then at the space between them that was a very different kind of space than it had been at the beginning of the mission.
"Not at all," he said, with the specific warmth of a man who has taught enough students to recognize something worth recognizing.
Part IX - The Breach
The train hit the wall at the end of the tunnel with the specific authority of physics applied at velocity, and the impact that followed was loud and comprehensive and wrapped everything in a temporary white that resolved into the specific chaos of a city that has just had something go wrong.
Vale. Central.
Civilians.
And behind them, through the breach in the tunnel wall, the things that had been waiting.
Ruby came back to her senses to find Nova's arms around her - he had gotten between her and the brunt of the impact the way he always got between her and things - and the first thing she saw was the sky above Vale, which was the wrong color for a morning that was supposed to be ordinary.
She looked at her teammates.
Yang. Blake. Weiss. Up. Shaken but present.
Turuk, helping Yang to her feet.
She looked at Nova.
She kissed him on the cheek, which was the most direct available way of saying thank you for being here.
"Does that answer your question?" she said.
"Yes," he said, which came out slightly unsteady, which she found specifically endearing.
Then she turned.
The grimm were coming through.
Not in ones and twos - in numbers that had the specific quality of something that had been accumulating for a very long time and had finally found an opening. King Taijitu. Beowolves. Things she didn't immediately have names for. Pouring through the breach with the relentless certainty of creatures that have identified an opportunity.
The screaming of civilians.
The alarm blaring from somewhere above them.
Ruby looked at all of this.
Her expression went through fear and settled into something else.
She had been a child who wanted to be a hero because heroes did the beautiful, romantic thing of standing between people and the things that wanted to hurt them.
She was standing here now.
"Nova," she said.
"I know," he said.
His ki was already blazing - the clear, specific white of it, wrapping around him with the specific warmth of something that was becoming more itself every time it was used.
She looked at her teammates. At Yang with her hair already burning gold. At Blake with both weapons drawn. At Weiss with Myrtenaster at the ready and something in her expression that was pure, clean resolve. At Turuk, who had his sword out and his ki lit and was watching his brother with the specific expression of a person who is exactly where they need to be.
She raised Crescent Rose.
"Let's protect our home," she said.
The screen of the world went bright around them as they moved.
★ END OF CHAPTER SEVENTEEN ★
Next: Chapter Eighteen - "Breach: Protecting Vale"
Hey guys, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. You'll notice I changed a few things from the cannon episode this was to make it a little different while sticking somewhat close to the cannon story of Rwby.
Since Nova and Turuk are with Team Rwby, there were things that had to change. I thought you guys would appreciate some more bonding between Turuk and Yang since I haven't touched on their eventual and budding relationship in awhile. The scene with them in this chapter I foresee is what would take place due to Yang's personality lol. One thing Yang is finding out about Turuk is that he is very respectful of her and has certain boundaries she's willing to cross that he's just not.. ready for yet lol. Also I kind of dropped a bit of a bombshell concerning the relation between the Reinhardt sisters and Nova and Turuk. It will be fully explained in coming chapters, but it was something that I'm sure people saw coming.
I figure the other teams will come in and help next chapter so it may be a little bit of a shorter one. Anyways that's it for now, I'll see ya in the next one!