RWBY Through Worlds

151: Even in the Darkest Night

Ruby got them all back to the cafeteria, which was the biggest room on the bottom floor.

Oscar was already there, drawing the drapes over the window--like that was going to help.

Glynda was outside, trying frantically to put things back together as fast as the Hoppers tore them apart--which was a losing battle. [Kind of like her whole existence on the show is.]

Jaune found them right after that.

"I tried to stop them," he said, "but I can't catch any of them fast enough to matter, and they aren't attacking people... I'm confused."

Pyrrha, Shine and Wally joined them a few moments later, with a few townspeople who all just hid in the back of the room.

"Where have you been?" Yang asked, just as if she'd not been angry at them earlier that day.

"Fishing," Wally said.

Shine laughed.

Tai was outside, trying to shoot the things down.

Watts was doing nothing, as usual, just standing by the back wall.

"Can't you make them leave?" Ruby asked Shine and Wally.

"So far that hasn't been the most effective method of stopping these plagues," Shine said. "I thought you all didn't want us to help anymore?"

"Is this the time to be petty?" Jaune said. "They're destroying Beacon again!"

"The Relic is still here," Shine said.

"It wouldn't have mattered," Oscar said, gravely. "I think she would have anyway."

"This is your fault!" Ozpin burst out, without any warning. "If you had left well enough alone, she might have just kept looking for it like before. Now you'll have this kingdom destroyed also."

"That's rich coming from you, the person who put those things here to begin with," Wally said.

"'Who made you judge over us', right?" Shine said. "Well, Beacon can't take much more of this. We have plagues of grasshoppers where I come from also. They eat everything in a matter of days. Then they leave. Just like A Bug's Life."

"So how do you get rid of them?" Yang asked.

"You can't," Shine said. "Unless you have pesticide, maybe. Which is bad for your health."

"So we're doomed?" Neptune said.

"These aren't real grasshoppers," Shine said. "Salem is just ripping off the plague of--"

"Locusts," several people said.

"Penny mentioned it already," Neptune added.

"The point is to make us weak," Shine said. "She separated us and is wearing us down. If we were to leave, she could pin us down by now, the Relic will make it easy."

"So you've trapped us," Ozpin said

"Oz, will you shut up?" Oscar said in his own voice. "I'm sorry, I can't control him like before right now... After Cinder hit me, and he used his magic, he got stronger. And if...I keep up, another spasm could happen."

The others winced.

"I can handle him," Shine said, "if you are all right."

Oscar did not look all right.

"So Oscar is broken, and we're all trapped?" Yang said.

"If you believe you are," Shine said.

"What?" Yang said. "What does that mean? Aren't you supposed to be able to fix this?"