RWBY: The Son of Salem: Volume 1-3

Chapter Twenty-Four: Revolution Part Three

Beacon's infirmary was large by many school's standards, and functioned almost like a miniature hospital in some cases. This was also where Yang was taken after Mercury had shot her. The tournament had been temporarily suspended due to Mercury's unprovoked attack to prevent the spread of negative emotions from attracting Grimm, so Team RWBY were gathered around her and were silent for the most part.

Mercury had been barred from ever competing in the Vytal Festival tournament ever again and was promptly arrested by order of General Ironwood, but due to Yang's injury, she was unfortunately disqualified from the tournament. Still, she would recover. The round had been easy to remove and her Aura was already healing the damage, but it would scar.

"How are you holding up, Yang?" Blake asked, concern laced in her voice.

"A bit bummed that I can't move forward in the tournament, but I'm managing." Yang replied.

"You should take this as a lesson, Blondie." Silver said. "Only ever expose your back to a corpse, and never let down your Aura when you think you've won."

"Yeah, learned that one the hard way." Yang replied with a shrug, before wincing in pain as her shoulder throbbed with the motion.

"We both did." Silver said solemnly.

"What do you mean?" Ruby asked.

Silver didn't answer, instead he took off his coat and chest armor and moved his shirt up a bit until his shoulders were exposed, revealing a nasty looking puncture scar that was colored a dull purple. Poison scarring.

"Pretty nasty, huh?" Silver said with a mirthless chuckle. "A little parting gift from Tyrian. After Winter and I managed to beat him, he hit me in my right shoulder with his stinger, and injected me with enough venom to put down a Goliath. It's honestly nothing short of a miracle that I survived. And I never forgot the lesson."

The room was silent for a good few minutes, and Silver put his shirt back on, then put on his armored vest and his coat. Silver rubbed his right shoulder and grimaced as he felt the phantom pain of the stinger piercing his shoulder, and his veins burned as if the Scorpion Faunus' venom still coursed through them.

The door to Yang's room opened, revealing Qrow as he stepped inside, getting everyone's attention. Ruby stood up and gave her uncle a hug, asking for some form of reassurance. She let a relieved smile cross her face when the Huntsman returned the gesture.

"Uncle Qrow." Yang said with a small smile.

"Hey, Firecracker. How ya holdin' up?" Qrow asked.

"Bummed that I can't take part in the final round of the tournament, but glad that Silver will be there to represent Team RWBY." Yang replied.

"Yang." Qrow said, his voice sounding very serious. "You are very lucky that shot hit your shoulder, but if you hadn't blocked when you did, Mercury could have taken your arm off, or hit your heart, and you'd be dead within a few seconds. That coulda been, so much worse than it was."

Yang was silent for a moment as her uncle's words sunk in.

"I know." She finally said grimly. "Consider my lesson learned."

"I'm glad." Qrow said, putting a comforting hand on Yang's right shoulder. "I'm glad you're alright, Firecracker. We already lost Summer, I doubt Tai would be able to take losin' you or Ruby."

Both of the sisters were silent at that thought, and Silver looked at Blake as the two shared the same thought. For the two Faunus, there were times that Yang would act just like Adam, acting without considering the consequences of her actions. This wasn't one of those times, and proved to them both that she wasn't Adam.