A/N: This will NOT be a one time fic, but it will be getting the full fanfiction treatment. If you want to read more, please be sure to follow the standalone of this chapter. It will also be named Powerless. Much love to all of my followers.

Fluff, smut, or angst: Fluff with a light layer of angst? Or angst with a light layer of fluff? Who knows anymore!

With love,
Korrupted.

DISCLAIMER: Don't own RWBY or characters.

FAQs :

1. "I have a great idea for a fic, do I request them here?"

No, I do NOT accept RWBY quick fic requests on my FF account. Any requests made in the reviews on this fic, or any other fic, as well as in my PMs on this site will be ignored. The place to request these is on my tumblr account, and ONLY during the open inbox period.

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lotus063 asked:

Got another request, Bumblebee Power Rangers AU where Blake is the broken black ranger and dropout also outcast who was forced to kill her own team after they fell to there corruption so she guards a dying Zordon with Winter who was the white ranger and Yang is a a highschool senior alongside Ruby and Weiss who stumble upon the place and become the new Power Rangers much to Blake's anger since she has PTSD and is betting bad memories.

Running. Running. Running. Blake couldn't run fast enough in her fear, her helmet catching the debris that sprayed her from the exploding dirt. Her legs burned from how hard and fast she was moving, but she couldn't stop. She had to keep going. She had to get to the others.

"Coco! Pyrrha!" She shouted through the communications system in her helmet, her voice laced with the panting of growing fatigue. "GUYS, IT'S AN AMBUSH, PLEASE COME IN!"

How could she have been so blind? How could she have agreed to split up like this? If anything happened to them, she would never forgive herself.

The monster behind her roared, making the earth below her feet shake, nearly knocking her to the ground. Blake had to fight, but it would cost her precious time to do so. She wanted to keep running, but combat was inevitable; she could do it now, or hope that she wouldn't collapse when she tried to fight later.

Blake turned, standing her ground as she looked up at the creature, her visor already working to scan for weak points, her hand flexing as she started to materialize her weapon.

"Ahhh... Kitty cat." It grinned at her, a toothy smile of fangs greeting her. "Wanna dance?"

Blake sized up the mutated Roman, barely able to recognize his signature hat and blue eye under the hideous changes. What had Cinder done to her own right-hand man? It was unforgivable.

Suddenly, a yowl of a wild cat filled the air, Blake's panther mecha leaping at her foe. She could feel how it wanted her to keep running, and after a nod to her loyal partner, she heeded it. She still needed to find Jaune, Cardin, Pyrrha, and Coco. She needed help.

"Winter! Winter, come in!" She shouted, heading into the woods that her visor could sense the others were in. "Damn it, Winter! Now is not the time to do your fucking brooding, lone-wolf, Batman bullshit! I need your help!"

"Blake, wake up. Hey, hey!"

Blake shot awake, swinging her fists in a panic, already shouting in fear. "Get away from them! Leave them alone!"

Another set of hands struggled to catch the incredibly fast strikes nearly to fast to track. And yet, they were keeping up with her flurry of attacks. "Blake! It's me," the voice urged, slowly becoming less hazy as the fog of nightmare lifted. "Winter. Blake, you're safe. You're safe."

Blake finally stopped fighting, blinking in her half sat up state, finally seeing the older woman in her dimly lit vision. She could hear how wildly she was panting still, feel her heart pounding violently in her ears, but she could still hear the agonized shrieks of the others over it all. She could still feel her blade sinking into them. She could still see them dead before her.

"Get away from me." Blake hissed, her feline ears flat on her head.

"Lights, on." Winter commanded, leaning away from the younger girl slightly.

The lights came on with surge of power, flooding bright light where the emergency lights had barely allowed sight previously. The pile of blankets that Blake had been sleeping in was strewn violently all over what seemed to be a bedroom, six beds filled the room, their color coded fitted sheets exposed from having their matching blankets stolen. The walls had pictures plastered all over them; some from cameras, others that were hand drawn, and some were posters that seemed to be a mix of various tastes. Both Blake and Winter were in the very center of the room, where a large area of formerly open space had been claimed by what seemed to be a nest of clothes and blankets, Blake atop it all.

"Blake, please," Winter began in an imploring voice. "relax. It's me."

Those amber orbs were ice cold, their gaze haunted and full of distrust. "Exactly. Just go away. Don't you have a happy family to go home and play with?"

Blue eyes narrowed in frustration. "That's not fair, Blake."

"Yeah, well look who's talking."

Winter stood, throwing up her hands in exasperation. "Blake, would you just stop this? I'm allowed to be concerned about you and check on you. I've told you god knows how many times that you would be more than welcome to live in the mansion with me and my family."

"You," Blake spat the word out like venom, "are not my family. I buried my family. I'm guarding my only friend, and he's dying. You lost being able to call yourself my friend, let alone family."

No matter how many times she had heard it, Winter always felt those words like a knife in her heart. "Alright, Blake. I'm checking on Zordon, and then I'll go. I'll be back later to check on you again."

She turned and left the room, entering what seemed to be a command room. The panels and monitors seemed to be flickering slightly, their power tied to the slowly fading life source of their guide. Winter halted in front of a tube of milky glass, placing her hand on it and willing it to become clear.

Inside lay a wizened, old figure, his skin a sickly white, his face covered with wrinkles. She watched his chest rise and fall slowly, recalling how he used to be strong enough to project an image of his face onto that very tube to help teach them how to save the world, guiding them to become better people.

With a tired sigh, Winter removed her hand, the glass once more that opaque, milky hue. If he could regain consciousness, she knew he would be so disappointed in her. She wondered if like Blake, Zordon would be unable to forgive her. Would he take away the power that had been given to her? Strip her of what made her a ranger?

Winter turned back towards the exit, looking at the old spray paint that shouted names at her in various colors. In yellow was Jaune, pink was Coco, Cardin written in blue, Pyrrha in red, Blake in black, and her own name in white. Closer to where her morpher would teleport her back to the cliffs, all six colors were used to write in various handwriting joined into one message; We are the Super Dweebs!

A tiny smirk tugged at her lips like it always did, tinged with a sharp stab of regret. If she could take it all back, she would. She could still remember how Blake looked when she had found her in that cave, crying. She never could forget it, not even after three years of wishing she could.

-Winter walked in a daze through the trees, her white wolf helmet held loosely in her hand as she blankly stared up at the bright, sunny sky. It was such a beautiful day; so warm, and clear. And it was all a terrible lie. If this was a Hollywood film, it would be a bleak, overcast day, probably with a thunderstorm booming around her. But there was no prophetic fallacy in the real world, no matter how much her life seemed like a drug induced action movie.

She didn't want to go to the cave, she truly didn't, and yet her feet refused to change their course. And so she marched on like a zombie, staring at the sky, feeling tears welling up in her eyes. What was it going to be like for her now? What would she do? Hell, what could she do? No one would believe the truth, and nothing could ever change it. Silence would remain the best option.

Her head limply moved to look in front of her, staring at the cave as hot tears finally fell from her blue eyes, leaving trails along her porcelain skin. How she wanted to run from there. Winter wanted nothing more than to flee to her home, and never come out of her room again.

A sob echoed from the cavern, and without a moment of hesitation, Winter dropped her helmet, running into the shallow cave as quickly as possible. She didn't care if it was a trap; she knew that voice. Her legs refused to stop until she came upon the end of the cavern, light filtering in from a large hole in the ceiling to illuminate the scene before her.

Blake knelt on the rocky floor, her body bent forward, her entire posture that of a broken spirit. Her armor was gone, revealing her normal clothes covered in dirt and blood, her body shuddering and heaving with sobs. Even her ears were slightly limp in despair. Laying around her in large swatches of their own blood were the other rangers, their bodies twisted, mutated, covered in what seemed to be veins of red that lay under their skin, helmets strewn around the cavern. The source of the corruption seemed to be from stones that were jutting from terrible wounds, as if they had been violently stabbed with them. What Winter found most horrific, were the eyes of the corpses; they were completely black, soulless. Shells of the lively teens they had once been.

Her boot scuffed the rocks as she took a stumbling step forwards, Blake slowly looking up at her. The tortured, dead seeming amber orbs locked with horrified ice blue, both of the crying teens staring at each other for several seconds. Finally, Blake took in a shuddering breath, her eyes showing just how lost, broken, and utterly betrayed she felt.

"Winter..." She choked out through sobs, the pain in her voice damning to the older woman.-

Winter choked on a sob as she covered her mouth, desperately trying to push away the horrible memories. No matter how much it hurt her, how could she blame Blake for hating her? She quickly walked to where the path abruptly ended, her morpher glowing and encasing her in a white light, taking her to the cliff side so she could go to the Schnee Tech headquarters and bury herself in her work.

Yang walked along her sister and friends, Ruby chattering happily with Weiss as she and Nora debated the finer points of which Mortal Kombat game was a blight to the franchise. While she held fast that it had to be Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, Nora was adamant that it had to be Mortal Kombat Special Forces. To be fair, both had been great ideas gone terribly wrong.

"Ooooh. Look, guys." Ruby called out, pointing at an old cavern. "Isn't that the haunted cave?"

Yang followed the finger, frowning. "Eh... Yeah. I think it is." For some reason, it always filled her with a deep dread. "We should go, though. This place always creeped me out."

Weiss nodded, shifting uncomfortably. "Yeah. I second that."

However, Nora and Ruby scoffed. "But Yaaaang," Nora started, "what's so creepy about a cave?"

Weiss grit her teeth. "It's... not what's creepy about it, but what it's associated with. Three years ago, four high schoolers and a middle schooler went missing from our city." A bit of color drained from her face. "My sister, Winter, was friends with them. She came home one day a mess, crying and saying that something had happened in the cave, and that no one could find her friends. Cops found their blood and really weird crystals in the cave, but no bodies. Winter wasn't really ever the same afterwards."

Yang nodded. "The middle schooler was in my art class. Really quiet Faunus girl. I think her foster family didn't even report her missing for like, a week. Apparently, they hadn't noticed she was gone or something; I can't really remember. They lost the ability to foster after that, if I remember right." She grinned playfully. "Guess the feds don't approve of people not noticing that foster kids are missing like that."

Ruby frowned slightly. "I barely remember that."

Yang scruffled her sister's hair. "You were like... eleven or twelve. It was a lot, and Dad tried to keep you from hearing about it."

Nora blinked. "Wow. I never even knew about that." Her gaze went back to the cave. "That sounds... awful. Finding your friends dead. Or even just losing them."

Weiss worried her sleeve absently, nodding. "Yeah. Winter became really buried in school work, and with Grandpa's company when she finally starting being able to be around other people again. She never talks about it with anyone, not even me, really." Her eyes glanced at the cave again. "We should go. It's really creeping me out."

The others all eagerly agreed, walking quickly from the cave, altering their course to the cliff side.

Blake walked around the command center, her tired eyes looking from monitor to monitor, trying to figure out how to save Zordon. Ever since that day, he had fallen into a coma, and deteriorated steadily over the years. She had to reverse his condition somehow, but she didn't even know what had caused it. How could she save him from an unknown enemy?

Her foot caught on a grate, tripping her slightly. Her mind was filled with images of the cave, hearing the screeches of her team, then grunts of their corrupted bodies as they attacked her. She tried to push herself back up, but she found herself back in the cave, her helmet far from her as her gloved hands shook violently.

Blake turned, seeing Coco walking towards her, the red veins glowing eerily along her neck, face, and her pink armor. Her normally playful brown eyes were black, void of even the whites.

"Coco...?" She whimpered, looking at the others as they started twitching on the ground. This was a horrific nightmare- it had to be.

"No... No, no, please," she begged, backing away from both Coco and Jaune as they drew their weapons on her. "please, guys! It's me! It's Blake! Wake up, PLEASE WAKE UP!"

"Wake up... Wake up..." Blake found herself whimpering in a trembling voice, shaking with Gambol Shroud in her hands, the barrel pointed at no one. Once again, she was back at the command center, wild eyed and afraid. "Wake... up..."

She thought she heard something behind her, turning to be met with Cardin as he bared down on her in the cave, the crystal pulsing as it jut out from his throat, his vacant expression making her skin crawl. The blood colored crystal seemed alive, the shifting reds turning to sickly maroon, then to an unsettling greyish purple. It looked like anime blood gone horribly wrong, and like any other normal person, Blake found herself unwilling to hurt her own friends; even if they seemed like they were going to kill her. "Please, don't... Don't come any closer... Cardin, please? Please, don't..." She sobbed, her weapon almost falling from her shaking hands.

Suddenly, Blake felt something clip her shoulder painfully hard, making her stumble. She glanced behind her to see Miló embedded in the rocks, turning back to see a black eyed Pyrrha straightening up from throwing it at her, the crystal's corruption spreading like a virus over the red armor on her body.

In that moment, Blake knew that Winter wasn't coming. No one was going to save her from her own friends; the people she admired, and considered her family. If she was going to survive, she was going to have to save herself, and to do that, she had to do the unthinkable. The unbearable.

"I... I'm so... so sorry..." She sobbed, looking at Pyrrha through the haze of tears. She was fourteen years old, fighting a battle no one knew existed, and now...

Now she would have to kill her own friends.

Her hands were barely able to hold her weapon, turning to face Coco. "Pl-ple-ease... Forg-g-gi-ve me..." She begged as her barrel trained on her, pulling the trigger with a scream of sorrow.

A shot rang out from the command center, Blake snapping out of the flashback in a blind panic. She spun around almost wildly, shaking and crying as she tried to locate her attackers, finding herself utterly alone in the command center. She fell to her knees, curling her body into a ball as she sobbed. How could she go on like this; always not quite sure what was real or in her head?

A soft metallic clinking moved towards her along the grates, not halting until a hard force gently brushed against her shoulder.

Blake reached out a trembling hand to stroke the cool metal of her zord, the once gigantic creature now only the size of a house cat. Ever since she had lost her team, it wouldn't return to it's normal size, and after so long in isolation, it was her only comfort. A metallic mewl escaped it, and Blake pulled it into her arms, holding it close.

How could this go on? How much longer until she well and truly lost her mind?

In her pain, she didn't notice the flicker of color that appeared in Zordon's tube. She didn't see how they glowed faintly. She didn't see the red, pink, yellow, or blue lights that seemed to watch her as they hovered in the frosted tube. She didn't see how they moved upwards and vanished.

"Yang, just come back, okay? It's really dangerous!" Weiss pleaded, clearly worried.

"She's right, Yang. Just come on!" Ruby called out.

"C'mon, I wanna do it next!" Nora goaded, almost bouncing with energy.

Yang was walking along an old fallen tree, arms stretched for balance as she swayed on the very unsteady wood. It wasn't like she was even using it to go anywhere; the tree just had fallen to lay mostly over the edge of the cliff side, precariously attached to the earth by dead roots, nothing below but the water of the ocean far below.

Yang slowly spun around on the wood, hearing Nora cheer her on while Weiss and Ruby gasped and begged her to come back. Even though there was another few yards of tree left, she felt like she had pushed her luck enough already, slowly making her way back to the cliff. Carefully, she stepped on the creaking timber, halting when her balance left her.

After a deep breath, Yang took three more small steps, and then jumped onto the sturdy cliff, standing up with a grin. "Ta-da!"

"Okay, my turn!" Nora gleefully cackled, scrambling up onto the wood with a wide grin.

Eagerly, perhaps a bit too eagerly, Nora bounced along the wood, not caring how it creaked ominously under her very overly confident footsteps.

"Nora, please stop it!" Ruby pleaded.

Nora turned around and grinned as if she wasn't currently risking a free fall to her own death. "Oh, come on. This thing's been here for-"

"Don't you fucking dare!" Weiss interrupted angrily. "I don't care how long it's been there; it's rotting, and could easily choose today to stop being there for you two assholes to walk on!"

Yang shrugged at Weiss apologetically, "I like the rush." She turned back to Nora. "But seriously, come back. You've done it better than me, okay? You win."

Nora shook her head. "I wanna go a bit further. Just relax, okay?"

"You are walking on a rotting, dead tree that is hanging off the edge of a cliff, pushing your luck against gravity, and the fucking ocean." Weiss snapped, her voice high pitched with fear as her arms gestured wildly. "It's pretty hard to fucking relax!"

Nora waved her off absently, taking another bouncing step towards the end of the log, whistling cheerfully.

A sudden cracking sound made all of them freeze, horror choking them before the three on the cliff started screeching at Nora in near unison.

"Nora, move it!"

"Hurry up, you dolt!"

"Please hurry!"

Nora turned and dashed back as fast as her balance would allow, jumping as the log snapped in half, plummeting down into the ocean below. Her feet hit the grass near the edge, and Weiss' hand grabbed her shirt to pull her even further onto land, both of them falling over from how hard Weiss had yanked. For several moments, nobody said anything, until Nora started laughing almost gleefully. "That was fun! I wanna do that again!"

Weiss growled before lunging at her, slapping her arms and shoulders in fury. "You fucking dolt! You could have died, and you want to do it again?! Are you dense, or just have a death wish? Never, ever, ever, ever do that to us again!"

"Awww, but I like doing that!"

"What, giving me a damn heart attack?!"

"Okay you two." Yang sighed as she pulled them apart, Nora still giggling. "That's enough insanity for one day. Who wants to go get ice cream?"

Ruby and Nora instantly brightened up. "Ice cream!"

"Awww yeah. Ice cream, baby!"

"Fine." Weiss seethed, giving Nora one last slap on her shoulder.

Nora threw on an overly dramatic look of agony, holding her arm. "She beats me! Domestic aboose!"

"Come on, you two act like an old married couple." Yang teased, watching Weiss use a humorless deadpan glare at her, Nora distracted by something drifting in the air in front of her. Probably a bit of some plant, or a feather. "Last one to town buys the ice cream."

All of them leapt to their feet, racing towards the path that would take them down to the town again. Ruby pushed herself to try to gain a lead against Yang's long legs, finding instead that the distance only grew by the second. Why did her sister have to be the tallest of them?

"Gangwaaaaaaay!" Nora called, her voice approaching at an unnaturally fast pace.

Everyone looked back to see Nora haphazardly flying through the air, the large half ring of bark flying behind her telling everyone that she had tried to use it to surf her way down the grass. And, it was also clear that she had failed horrifically. Ruby dove out of the way of the bark, Yang watching her friend in dumbfounded shock as Nora flew towards her, arms milling uselessly. When they finally collided, they both hit the ground and rolled a few feet before coming to a halt, groaning in pain.

"Yang!" Ruby called, hurrying to her sister.

"You fucking dumbass!" Weiss shouted in exasperation, stumbling over to Nora. "Are you just that desperate to die today?!"

Nora hissed as she sat up, nursing her left arm with a wince. "Yeah… I guess you're right. Not a great idea."

The moment Weiss gingerly touched the injured arm, the other girl flinched and hissed from pain. "Yang, I'm not a doctor, but her arm could be dislocated, or sprained. Or broken."

"Not broken. Done that before. I think I jammed it on the ground from my totally amazing and planned landing."

Yang sat up and glowered at Nora slightly. "That's what you get for being a damn chaotic neutral."

"Better than a neutral good any day."

Ruby sighed irritably. "Okay, this isn't a campaign, guys. Party alignment aside, you need a doctor." Nora booed at the remark. "So ice cream is postponed, I guess."

"Won't somebody think of the children?!" Yang gasped mockingly.

"Uhhh, guys? What's that?" Weiss questioned in a confused tone.

Everyone looked at her before following her line of sight to a strange multi-hued light in the trees. "Ummmm, I got nothing." Yang admitted. "It looks like a ball of Christmas lights, don't ya think?"

"Yeah, I guess." Ruby nodded.

The lights twinkled at them almost invitingly, then split into four different colored lights quite suddenly, the four girls all very apprehensive at what it could mean. For a moment, all was still, until the lights zipped towards them at an irrational speed, all four of them trying to hide behind their hands or arms from any possible harm.

It took several moments of waiting for any sort of impact before Ruby realized that nothing had happened to her, slowly peeking out behind her arms to see the lights blinking around in front of them at an insane speed. She barely registered the others also growing both bold and curious enough to look as well as she watched the lights. They blinked to life in front of them, each one in front of a different girl for only a moment or two before vanishing again, only to reappear in front of a different girl. It was as if they were appraising each of them for something, trying to find something before moving on to another one.

The red one blinked back in front of Ruby, but this time, it stayed visible, floating in the air quietly as the other lights continued to flit from girl to girl. Finally, the yellow light came to rest in front of Yang, leaving the blue and pink lights to flicker between Weiss and Nora. The blue light paused before Nora one last time, as if deciding on something, before it flashed back to Weiss, the pink one taking its place.

The lights glowed brightly in front of them, hovering in the air before them as if simply waiting, but none of them knew what they were waiting for. Each of them glanced at each other for reassurance, as if trying to double check that they weren't insane.

"I'm gonna touch it." Yang whispered cautiously, as if worried that the yellow light would somehow hear her and attack.

"Yang," Weiss hissed back, "be careful."

Very hesitantly, Yang reached up and gingerly wrapped her hand around the light, exhaling the breath she hadn't known she had been holding. She felt it solidifying in her grip, flattening. When she opened her hand again, it was a clear yellow stone disc, edged in gold instead of the bright light. The others followed suit, each perplexed as the orb of light transformed into the discs of stone, looking at them intently.

As Ruby held her red disc up to the sky to look through the jewel like stone, she heard Nora chuckling a bit nervously. "W-well… That was a bit anticlimactic."

Suddenly, a sharp tug hit Nora in the chest, causing her to double over slightly, aggravating her already battered shoulder.

"Hnnn!" She heard Yang grunt, knowing that it wasn't only her.

A soft glow wrapped around each of them, each light the color of the gem they held, and in a flash, they were gone.

Winter sighed in her meeting, listening with only half interest to the members of the board, uncaring of how the company stock value had climbed sharply in the last month. The only thing she cared about hated her, and she was incredibly tired from fighting off several armed robbers the night before as the white ranger. If it wasn't frowned upon, she would be more than content to simply doze off in the meeting room.

A sharp tug hit her chest, causing her to openly flinch. The room went silent as the speaker paused, all eyes on her. "Miss Schnee, are you alright?" She inquired.

Winter frowned, blinking as she fought the pull of her morpher to the command center. It took her a few moments to get control of herself before she gave them a polite smile. "Forgive me, but I feel unwell. I must go. I trust that you have everything in hand?"

They all nodded and assured her valiantly as she collected her paperwork, giving them a final nod before leaving the room, heading to her office. If her morpher was calling her, then it might be Blake. Her blood went ice cold; something could have happened to Blake, and she had to get to her fast. She was always the one that was using it to morph and to quickly get to the base at night when she felt the tug in her soul from Blake having a nightmare; it had been years since she had felt a tug like this.

Winter passed her secretary as she marched sternly to the oak door of her office, watching her perk up. "Melissa, clear my schedule for today, if you don't mind. I'm feeling rather ill, and I just received an urgent message from my sister." She lied calmly.

"Right away, Miss Schnee. Shall I call your driver?"

"No, that won't be necessary. Klein is taking time off, and I can get a taxi. The air might do me some good." Winter smiled kindly, casually ignoring the fact that the city air smelled like hell.

If Melissa also thought of that same point, she never acknowledged it. "Of course. Do feel better, okay?"

Winter didn't answer as she entered her office, closing the door behind her for privacy. Hurriedly, she reached to the back of her skirt for her morpher, the small power coin and holder hidden in plain sight on her belt. She gripped it and gave it a firm pull to remove it, holding it in her hand before lifting it into the air. There was a bright flash of white light, and then Winter was gone.

It took only a few moments before she was in the command center of the ancient craft, frantically looking around. "Blake? Blake? Blake, where are you?"

Ruby had never been more afraid in her life as she was now, kneeling on what seemed to be metal grates, trembling as she looked around her new surroundings. She could see her sister and their friends also nearby, clearly just as lost as she was at this strange turn of events. There was a huge glass tube amid monitors, control panels that had writing in a very odd language set inside of metal surfaces. She half expected an alien to walk out at any second and demand them to take it to their leader.

It was utterly bizarre to see such movie set like objects around them, and Weiss was half wondering if this wasn't all some incredibly elaborate prank. But who would have the desire, let alone resources, to employ such a prank on them? It wasn't like Vale was a particularly wealthy city, and her family was easily one of the most prominent in at least a four state radius. There was no one that she could even consider being the culprit.

"Guys?" Yang whispered nervously, motioning for the others to come to her location.

Weiss felt like her footsteps were far too loud in the metal grates, ducking behind the control panel by the blonde with her friends. "Where are we?" Her voice was shaking so badly.

"Hey, it's okay." She heard both Nora and Yang reply soothingly. It didn't help her to calm down at all.

"Yang," Ruby hissed, "how are we gonna get out of here?"

"I'm not sure. But we'll be okay. I promise."

Weiss knew that Yang had no right to make such a promise, but all that she could do was try to calm them down.

A bright flash of white light lit the far area of the grates before footsteps tapped the surface. All of them hid closer to the panel, scared.

"Blake? Blake?" A voice called out in worry. "Blake, where are you?"

Weiss knew that voice, standing up quickly. "Winter? Winter!"

Winter froze at the voice, jaw slightly agape as her sister came bolting out from behind one of the security panels to hug her tightly. "Weiss?!"

"Winter, did you get trapped here too?"

Winter leaned back slightly even though she had her arms wrapped around the smaller frame. "How did you get in here?" Others stepped out from where her sister had come from, the elder girl clearly even more confused. "No one is supposed to be able to get in here."

"These stupid lights brought us here. Well, they're coins now, but they were lights." A voice she recognized as Nora's grudgingly answered.

Winter felt her body go ice cold, shaking her head. "No... That's impossible. The coins were... they're lost. You need to show me them, Weiss."

Weiss pulled away from her sister. "What do you mean? You're familiar with this place?"

Winter held her hand out, her blue eyes full of panic. "The coins, show me! Now!"

As Ruby began to hold hers out, a second voice made itself known from the shadows.

"Don't move. I will shoot, and I have very good aim."

A cat Faunus stalked out with a deadly gleam in her amber eyes, her ears flat against her head as the strange gun remained leveled on Weiss. The only one who moved was Winter, planting herself between the girl and the group of frightened teens.

"Winter, move." The girl hissed in a dangerous tone.

"No."

The gun remained fixed in position, though now it was directed at Winter. "Just move, Winter."

"Blake, I will get them out of here as soon as I figure out how they got in. You must have felt the pull like I did."

Yang looked between the two other women, frowning in confusion, her limbs trembling in fear. "What's... what's going on?"

For a moment, the Blake girl looked among the four girls, and she seemed to back down. But her gaze locked onto the coins in their hands, her keen eyes spotting them easily in the low lighting. Her gun was once again locked in place, her expression both dark and hurt. "Where did you get those?"

No one could answer her fast enough and she took a furious step closer, now clearly enraged. "Where did you get them from?!"

"They just came to us, we swear it!" Ruby cried out in fear, cowering as the gun jerked in her direction before Weiss openly flinched, spooking the already frazzled Faunus.

They knew that she was going to shoot, and there was nothing they could do to stop it.