Author's Note: I know I usually put a note at the bottom, but I feel like you all deserve to know this before you get to the juicy part: I am sorry. It's been a month since last update and I'm sure there have been questions of whether or not the story was abandoned. It's not! There is so much to come and I think most of it is pretty dang awesome, so please stay tuned. Stress from work has been killing my creative drive, and I'm either getting fired or quitting tomorrow. So.. Good news, more time to work on stories! I would have posted an update explaining all this, but I don't feel right posting a chapter that doesn't have.. something, you know? So here's what I have done for chapter 13, I hope you enjoy it before I get to the finale of the first volume. To those who are following me because of it: The Cyberpunk fic is still on, but it's barely past the planning stages. More updates on that to come! -Fox

Roses & Thorns – Volume 1 – Chapter 13

-Unflinching Resolve-

Amber Pinion tried her best to walk in a straight line as she made her way from the infirmary. It felt as though her skull was attempted to tear apart with each new pain that pounded through her head, prompting her to raise a hand to hold it all together. A particularly nasty flash of agony caused her feet to falter in mid-step, the stumble pitching her forward and smashing a shoulder into the nearby wall. She went down in a heap, letting out a soft whimper as she pulled herself into a sitting position with her back against the surface she had impacted.

Both of her palms were pressed against her eyes, pushing inward as fingers extended and dug into the skin beneath her hair. The ache was becoming too much to bear as she felt the whine of pain slowly morph into a scream. It felt as though her mind was lit aflame, trapped in a loop within the final moments of the Faunus she had murdered back at the docks.

For years she had thought of what life would be like if she was not forced to feel the emotions of every passerby, of every member of her family. For years she had wanted to experience, just once, what it would be like to feel nothing at all. But now she knew, as every limb burned in agony as it was filled with that lingering absence she had felt within the Bullhead's pilot.

Hands, larger and much stronger than her own, tore the palms that covered her eyes away. Her vision was fuzzy, still swimming from the splitting sensation in her head, but it was hard to mistake hair as yellow as the sun, and the wide lilac-colored irises. Yang was speaking to her, but Amber heard no words, she only held onto the brawler's wrists and reached out with her aura in desperation.

Then it came. First was the concern, obviously directed at the state the other student had found her in. Surprise, worry, and a hint of happiness lingering from something that had happened earlier. Her aura touched upon a different source of energy, and another flood of emotion ran through her, driving away the agony and allowing her to regain control of her senses.

Yang came into focus above her as the brawler was pulling her up to a standing position, the girl somehow seeming even more tall when she was actually on her feet. "Amber? Hey, talk to us." Another voice joined the fray, causing her to glance over and find one of her teammates next to the blonde. Dark hair and lovely indigo orbs were enough for her pain-addled mind to form a single word.

"Iris."

The name escaped from her lips in a twisted way, in a sound that was tinged with a sob. That was the first indication to Amber that she was crying, as one of her hands fumbled against a cheek and came away wet with tears. Confusion was all that she could feel for a brief moment before something tightened around her, and a warm sensation permeated through her chest. Blinking and trying her best to clear her mind, she realized that she was being hugged.

It only lasted a second, as Yang pulled away and allowed Iris to step in, the fox-girl running gentle hands down the length of Amber's arms as she trembled in the Faunus' grasp. "Let's get you back to the infirmary, okay?"

"No!" She didn't realize she had yelled the word until the fox ears atop the other girl's head pulled back as if the volume had caused momentary pain, but Amber did not back down as she moved to brush the pale hands of her teammate away. "H-have to talk to our teams." Shaking her head to chase away what was left of the lingering fog, she focused an intense gaze on the two girls in front of her. "I know where those transports went."

Ruby shifted her weight again as she watched her teammates, the two girls conversing in whispers across the small room and privately working out their problems. It had relieved her to hear that Weiss was willing to forgive Blake, but she still worried that the issues that plagued both of the other girls were ones that had no easy answers, and the road back to mutual friendship and trust would be a long one.

She was shook from her thoughts as an elbow bumped against her arm, causing her to start and glance over at the Faunus that had drawn her attention. "You look worried." Claire's brown eyes were narrowed, but carried an almost happy glint to them as they studied her. "I wouldn't be. This is a good first step for them."

Understanding that the words were more of a question than just a simple observation, Ruby gave a nod to the other team leader, unable to shake her concerns from the back of her mind. "I know, but it isn't this. Torchwick's robberies.. And now the White Fang? There's something big going on down in Vale. We need to figure out what it is."

"Agreed. Whatever it is, I think Ozpin wants us to pursue it." That made her glance back to the pondering wolf-girl, watching as the digits of a tanned hand tapped thoughtfully against Claire's bared knee. After a long moment, brown eyes flashed over to her, catching the light in the dorm in such a way that it lit the red amongst the girl's arises aflame. "He hasn't had us brought up to talk about what happened, and-"

Before the Faunus could finish, all the attention in the room was drawn to the door opening, revealing three more of their friends. Yang walked through the portal with all her usual swagger, a brazen grin leaping to her face upon seeing the two girls who had been conversing on the opposite side of the dorm. "Oh, you've made up already? Good, 'cause I got something a whole lot more interesting." Leaning back on a foot and swinging both arms up to clasp her hands behind her head, she tossed a nod in the direction of the door, to the two others she had come with.

Ruby glared at the casual way her older sister dismissed the progress Weiss and Blake had made, but slid her gaze past the loud blonde with no comment given to her thoughts, finding what Yang had wanted her to. A concerned Iris was hovering close by Amber, who looked thoroughly shaken by what had occurred at the docks. Opening her mouth to ask what it was that could possibly be better news that Team RWBY piecing itself back together, she was stopped by Claire rising up and striding in front of her view. "Amber, you're awake." There came a momentary pause in the Faunus' words, one that came with the simultaneous bristling of all four of the rooms occupants at the sudden rise in the tension of the area. "What is it?"

"I-There was.. It was the best plan I had at the time." Ruby rose from the bed and stepped around her sister and the tall wolf-girl, gaining a better view of the redhead that seemed so small compared to all the others in the room. Amber was shorter than even Ruby, barely managing to reach five feet, and the way the smaller girl was standing lent no advantage to her height. "I threw Skia into the back of the Bullhead that the man in the suit escaped on." Crimson eyes flitted from face to face as if they were supposed to be aware of the implications that statement implied, and finally a huff of frustration was given, and the tiny Pinion continued. "Nyx had trackers built into my weapons when I first began training with them. I-I-I kept losing them.. Always threw them too far or forgot to activate my aura before letting them go."

Ruby blinked slowly as the redhead gave a nervous laugh, then grew quiet and seemed to fold further underneath the arm that Iris had laid across the girl's shoulders. "Wait.." Her utterance brought all the gazes of the room to her, but she was not fast enough to finish her own thought, as Weiss spoke up behind her.

"We can track where that Bullhead went?"

"This is a really bad idea." Weiss' foot continued it's incessant tapping as the gathered members of Teams RWBY and CAIN tossed the idea of chasing after their assailants from the docks. Her refusal brought them around to look at her, by the window of the dorm room. "We are talking about going after professional criminals. Killers. Who we now know are backed by the White Fang." Using the name of the terrorist group in such a casual way forced her to look in the direction of the girl wearing a black bow. "Blake. You cannot honestly tell me that this is a good idea, to attack the base where these people are operating from?"

The cat-girl's ears twitched, the movement showing through the silk ribbon that was tied about the fur covered organs atop her head. "She's right." Weiss tried to contain her surprise. A moment ago Blake had been completely on board with the plan to rush off and save the day, whatever that had meant. "Those men we fought at the docks were recruits, the White Fang equivalent of us. If we go after bigger fish, we're going to run into the upper echelons of the organization. I knew some of those people.. We'll be going up against soldiers and assassins, Faunus who are as skilled as Hunters, some of them were probably even trained in Menagerie's Academy."

"Then we'll take them down, too!" Weiss glared as the blonde brawler directly across the circle from her smashed gauntleted fists together and gave a confident grin. "Even a Hunter can't take all eight of us, right? So I say let's be heroes!"

"You cannot be serious!" Stamping a foot against the ground and balling up her fists as she scowled at the larger girl, she tried to keep her cool as best she could. "Heroes? Please! This isn't some adventure, and we aren't invincible. We're just children! Blake was bludgeoned until her aura was broken, Amber killed someone to save us! Am I the only one who thinks we would be better off telling Professor Ozpin about it all and letting the Hunters take care of it?"

"I'm with Yang." Surprise filled her as a more husky voice joined the fray, drawing her gaze to the side, to where disheveled brown hair slowly rose and revealed the contemplative expression beneath messy bangs. Despite being prone to rages, she had thought Claire would be a more levelheaded person than her teammate. "Ozpin thinks we are up to this. Think about it, we've only had contact with one adult Hunter since coming back from a fight that was very public and very much against the Academy's rules, and that was Doctor Sheppard. He's waiting, watching for our next move. If he thinks we can do this, then I say we trust him."

"So let's make that move." Even her own partner was hell bent on this foolishness, it seemed, as Weiss rounded on Ruby. Silver eyes nervously met her own before glancing away, and the younger girl continued. "Torchwick was ready to kill Blake when I attacked him. I could see it in his eyes." It may have been her imagination, but she could have sworn there was a slight tremor in the brunette's voice as Ruby looked in their teammate's direction. "He has to be stopped. The White Fang has to be stopped. It's why we are all here in the first place, to help protect people. We could die, but so could the next person who stumbles across one of the robberies. And we accepted that risk when we chose this life, we all did.."

There was a silence that grasped the room in the aftermath of the youngest girl's speech, a sort of agreement on the course they would take. Weiss herself was inclined to agree, but tried her best to let reason prevail. "Even if we all wanted to do this, we don't have a way to get there. The shuttle down to Vale is shut down for the night, and the beacon is coming all the way from the other end of Forever Fall." Crossing her arms, she took a moment to revel in the self-satisfaction that came with the way the others looked down, their momentum deflated.

"Well.. There is the Bullheads that the Hunters use to get around Remnant.." Iris was the one who spoke up, a mischievous tone hidden behind her words as she felt her tail begin swaying in the wake of the excitement that had come with the thought. "And we have two pilots right here." She tossed her head in the direction of the Pinion twins, the taller of the two giving a confirming nod.

"I'm a fair pilot. I should be." Nyx gave a low chuckle, raising a hand to ruffle through his short hair as he glanced about the room. "Pinion Aero does make them, after all."

"We should vote.." The room again turned it's attention to the youngest present, watching quietly as Ruby chewed on her bottom lip as she thought through her words. Inevitably, she was staring directly into the cold blue depths of her partner's eyes. "This isn't an order, Weiss. This can't be an order, for anyone." She scanned over the gathered students, finally settling her view back on the heiress. "All in favor?"

The first two hands into the air were those belonging to Yang and Iris, both sharing a quick grin in the glance they shared. Next came the leader of Team CAIN, followed by the Pinion twins, then Ruby herself. Slowly, the last two members of the small committee rose their hands to the join the agreement and seal it as unanimous.

"Then it's settled." Blake was the one who spoke up, ignoring the audible groan from Weiss as she looked directly across the circle into the silver orbs that stared back at her. She felt responsible. Ruby had already been thrown into conflict once on her account, and here they were with another chance. She thought of saying that the younger girl should remain behind, or that it was too much of a risk, but doing so would reveal too much. It would shine a light on feelings that she had been pounding down into an abyss since the other brunette had sidled up to her in the infirmary.

In that moment of grim determination to stop the criminals, Blake had never felt more like a coward.

Author's Note: Two in one chapter? Seems like a bit much, I know. This is where I thank you for following, and favoriting. For reviewing and being just genuinely good people. So thank you, you're frikkin' awesome. Please feel free to drop a review with your thoughts, or toss me a private message. I'm always willing to talk! Sorry again that it is such a short chapter after such a long wait, but I had to tell you guys the why behind the delay. I hope to have the next chapter within the week. -Fox