RWBY||Rising Phoenix

Chapter 20: No Brakes

3rd Person POV

City

"Zwei!"

Groaning, Phoenix blearily opened his eyes. Glancing over, he saw Zwei rushing off, Ruby grabbing her scythe and rushing after him.

I'd better go make sure she doesn't do anything... stupid, he thought. Gently extracting himself from Weiss's embrace, which he found completely amusing and knew he could use as more ammo against the heiress, he strapped his weapons on his back and snuck after Ruby.

Teleporting to the top of the building, he saw Zwei marking his territory at a pile of rocks while Ruby chastised him. "Zwei, this is a wasteland! You literally could've done that anywhere."

Zwei just barked, and Phoenix sighed. Before he could go back to the campsite, he froze as he heard the sound of voices.

"What was that?"

Flattening himself against the top of the roof, Phoenix looked down and saw a pair of White Fang guards walking down a street perpendicular to where Ruby was.

"What was what?"

"I thought I heard a Beowolf or something," the first guard replied.

"Let's just finish our patrol and get back to base," The second guard huffed. "This place gives me the creeps."

Guess we found the Fang, Phoenix thought. Before he could go wake the others, he spotted Ruby sneaking after the guards, Zwei following. He facepalmed. "Of course, because my job can never be easy," he muttered and jumped after them, following quietly from the rooftops.

Seeing Ruby peak around a corner and use Zwei as a periscope, Phoenix groaned. "Does she have any experience stalking at all?"

Shaking his head, he watched the two guards enter a doorway and close the door behind them, the sound of a lock clicking echoing across the abandoned street.

"This is it, this is it!" Ruby said excitedly.

"What is it?" Phoenix asked, jumping down and smiling in amusement as Ruby yelped in alarm.

"Ah! Phoenix, where did you come from!"

"Well—"

"Don't answer that."

Phoenix chuckled. "I was going to say that I caught you sneaking out. Speaking of." He cuffed her over the back of the head. "You're not supposed to go on awesome missions without me," he chided.

"Sorry," Ruby said sheepishly.

"Look," Phoenix said. "Instead of going all crazy heroic and getting ourselves killed, why don't we act semi-crazy heroic and call the rest of the team."

"Good idea." Ruby pulled out her scroll, only for it to cancel out. "Ah, man, low signal."

"And this is why I rarely use scrolls," Phoenix sighed. "Guess we'll have to tell them ourselves."

"Yeah." The two of them made to walk back toward the others, but as soon as they stepped off the sidewalk and onto the street, the ground cracked below them.

"Huh?"

Before either of them could react, the ground collapsed under them. Luckily, Phoenix acted quickly and lashed out, grabbing onto the edge with one hand and snagging Ruby with the other as the young huntress grabbed Zwei.