Somehow, Rio managed to open the glass hatch right around the time the girl began to open her eyes. He reasoned it wouldn't be a very welcome thing to wake up trapped in a glass container of all things.
Of course, there was also the fact that said container, or rather, the machine it was attached to, was surprisingly user-friendly? The word 'OPEN' couldn't mean much else.
Now, what Rio couldn't say he accounted for was when the wheat skinned girl, in an abrupt jerk of movement, suddenly tumbled right out of the machine and onto the ground. Well, she would have if Rio hadn't caught her by the shoulders.
But then that changed to an awkward sort of hug when he realized he had to use his own body weight to supplement hers, lest she crumble to the ground.
Thus, groaning, and with obvious lethargy, the girl's head had nowhere else to go but land on his chest.
Rio tried not to react.
Still, he could just barely make out her eyes opening and closing, which was good. Of course, that they were both bleary and unfocused made sense, given how long she had been in a state of unconsciousness.
And, well, if it wasn't too rude of Rio to think, this was actually more preferable.
After all, the alternative was the wheat-skinned girl being aware, lucid, and all too willing to throw questions at him, questions that he hadn't yet figured out how he wanted to answer.
Though, that said nothing of more immediate issues, like the fact he had next to no idea where he should be placing his hands, and for that matter, the entirety of his torso that was keeping her upright.
Then there was the slightly stirring girl's minimal amounts of clothing to consider as well.
But Rio dismissed such thoughts for now. After all, not only was it impossible to get flustered in this situation, just the same, it was also not even remotely the time to observe proper etiquette.
Instead, the boy decided to carefully shift how he was holding her, achieving a nice balance where he allowed her to sink to the floor a bit, just whilst also now cradling her body via her shoulders... and having her side lean subtly more into his chest so as not to stress her neck.
Of course, afterwards, Rio immediately once again began double casting not only his regenerative healing arts, but one of strengthening as well. Because now more than ever, he needed to make sure her condition didn't deteriorate.
That said...
"It's... Amber, right?" Rio spoke, voice soft and calm. "I don't know how well you can hear me right now, but you just woke up from a very long sleep."
After all, what was perhaps just as important as healing her body right now, was making doubly sure she did not once again lose consciousness.
From what little he knew, regarding patients waking up from comas, doctors and nurses would handle this by systematically speaking to them, about anything and everything, if only to keep them grounded in reality.
"Now, I can't exactly get your permission, but since this is hardly a suitable place for you, I'm going to pick you up and take you to someone who will be able to properly look after your health, okay?"
The girl's head shifted on his shoulder.
"Ah... ahhh? W-Who...?"
At that weak but clearly audible rasp of a question from a face not even looking his way, Rio blinked, momentarily surprised. After all, to be able to speak already...
Regardless, she was still clearly dazed, only continuing to stare fixedly at, not quite his hooded and masked face, but the ceiling just past his shoulder.
"...I'm nobody important," Rio answered after a beat, and with a small smile. "Just someone who saw you in trouble, and is more than capable of bringing you to those who care about you."
It was unknown if she heard him, or even understood the words, but Rio felt her head fall down into the crook of his neck all the same. This was followed by very soft, rhythmic breathing.
I can't imagine how exhausted she must feel. It's amazing she even managed to speak...
With a slow and (sadly) practiced motion, Rio looped an arm around the underside of the girl's knees, catching a shoulder with his other.
Of course, he was gentle.
He had to be.
The last thing he wanted was for blood to rush to her head unnecessarily.
That said, Rio went about trekking back through the long dimly lit corridor of the underground area and towards the elevator.
Right... and Aisha was nowhere to be seen, having slipped back into her spirit form. She had healing for a good while, and it took a lot out of her.
Rio frowned subtly. He really did treat Aisha horribly. He would have to do something to make it up to her.
He moved slowly, and he idly realized it was the same as when he had silently trailed after Ozpin and his entourage in the first place, now hours prior. Except that time was bred from caution, and this time was due to concern.
Rio finally reached the elevator, and operated the panel along the wall to call the elevator back and return to the ground floor. Then, after getting in, he returned to keeping a watchful eye over his passenger. A passenger that was now trembling slightly.
She's shivering.
But of course she was in that outfit, one that exposed a lot of her wheat colored skin to the surrounding air.
And, Rio suddenly felt like garbage, carrying around a girl in his arms, one wearing extremely thin hospital garb. He paused for a beat, lingering in place. Then he sighed.
Taking a knee, now holding the girl against him with one arm, Rio's other arm reached for the air. And...
The air reached back.
That was to say, it distorted, and in a way, it looked almost identical to the rippling, shimmering phenomenon his invisibility art created.
Nonetheless, it came and went, because in the span of a single second, Rio was now holding a thick fleece blanket. And he just wordlessly draped it over the girl in his arms. Then, he was standing back up. Just with another near silent, breath-like sigh.
Rio might have succeeded in waking up... Amber, he gently reminded himself.
He might have succeeded in waking her up and improving her condition, but it would all be for naught if she didn't receive the proper procedural medical treatment in time.
Even getting something as harmless as a cold in this state could spell disastrous consequences for a body still trying to recover, after all.
In other words...
Rio needed to hurry.
Yes.
That was the black haired boy's thoughts.
Just... only until the elevator doors opened, and he was suddenly face to face with: not the empty pathway surrounded by dim lights and darkness he had been expecting, but the one person he could definitely say he had not wanted to run into.
After all, on a stern but otherwise beautiful face, and just below blonde hair, two emerald-green eyes were currently in the midst of blinking at him with the kind of incomprehension displayed by someone truly shocked.
And, Rio found that the thought that suddenly came to him didn't do the situation justice... at all.
That's...
A bewildered boy blinked behind the hood and mask.
...Not good.
...
...
...
It probably didn't make much sense given her profession, but Glynda had experienced very little terror during her life as a huntress. Fear, yes. Danger, even more so. But terror?
Raw, uncut terror?
It wasn't something Glynda was familiar with.
But then she saw a suspiciously dressed figure step out of an elevator no one should be utilizing at this hour, and her blood absolutely froze over. And yet, this wasn't just because of their dark as night appearance.
It was who they were carrying.
A...mber?
Disbelief struck Glynda like a pile of bricks.
And there was actually no way to tell what was more shocking. Because even in light of the horrifying fact that the terminally ill brunette was out of her life-support container, there was something else that hit even harder...
Impossibly, and in the arms that carried her, Amber blinked and stirred, her pupils moved around blearily, and for all intents and purposes, emulated what someone did after waking up from a very long sleep.
And it wasn't a trick of the light. Nor was it Glynda imagining something that wasn't there. Amber was... it actually looked like she was...
"H-How..." Glynda breathed out.
It went without saying that the stern-faced disciplinarian was nowhere to be seen.
This was why she was a beat too slow to react when the cloaked figure holding her took a halting step forward and out of the elevator, the doors clicking shut behind them.
Still—react Glynda did.
...And initially, this came in the form of her involuntarily taking a step of her own, but backwards. Of course, after realizing this, she bristled, and the glare she was suddenly sending the cloaked figure's way was several notches above threatening.
Her hastily drawn riding crop even more so.
"PUT. HER. DOWN," Glynda seethed, eyes glacial. "Put her down. Right now."
She didn't expect to be listened to, and yet, Glynda also couldn't say she expected to be ignored either. Except, that was exactly what happened in the several tense seconds that followed, where the unknown figure in front of her didn't so much as twitch at her words.
And, she did mean 'unknown'.
With a flowing black cloak and hood hiding whoever was underneath—but at the same time, vaguely male by the height and build—Gynda could just barely make out short black hair, an angular jaw highlighting an expressionless mouth, and if she wasn't mistaken...
That touch of white...
A mask?
White Fang?
No... that didn't matter.
Least of all right now.
Swallowing, Glynda instead focused on what did matter, circumnavigating this precarious situation she had found herself in, and doing so without endangering Amber's life.
That said, in a movement Glynda hoped was subtle, the hand not holding her weapon disappeared into a pocket in her skirt, where she did little more than hold down two buttons on the side of the scroll's frame.
When it barely vibrated, Glynda's hand innocuously came back out. An impromptu SOS. With her GPS location included. It was vague, and it wouldn't describe the situation to her allies at all, but it would have to do.
"...I said," Glynda bit out after a moment's pause, whilst also now subtly trying to coil her semblance around Amber's form, ready to pull the girl towards her at a moment's notice. "Let her—"
The figure abruptly moved.
Glynda tensed.
And yet...?
It was just so they could kneel, and then slowly, one might even say gently, prop Amber against the adjacent wall, careful not to disturb the... Glynda blinked, only just now noticing the presence of what had to be a blanket covering the girl. What?
Still, he(?) backed off.
And when that was followed by raising both hands so she could see them, Glynda wasn't sure what won out, her growing disbelief of the present situation, or her skepticism.
"...Uhh?"
But then Amber's semi-aware body started to slump off the wall and onto the carpeted ground, and suddenly, Glynda staying still out of caution no longer seemed to be an option.
After one more moment of deliberation, and while making doubly sure to keep the strange person in her periphery, Glynda quickly began to levitate Amber up and off the ground, close enough to touch.
Then she was close enough to embrace her, and the woman wasted no time. Crouching down, Glynda scooped the girl up into her arms. "...Amber?" she murmured, unsure. No, in truth, her tone anxiously toed the line between that of hoping and then begging. "...Amber, are you... are you okay?"
Glynda Goodwitch wasn't an emotional person.
Nor was she even the type to get distracted in situations that demanded otherwise.
And yet, when that brunette head of hair swished towards her, blinking those bleary, almost unfocused chocolate brown eyes of hers, a color that Glynda promptly realized she had nearly forgotten...
"G-Gly... nda?" Amber murmured inquisitively, but also with the weak, rasping cadence of someone who was realizing anew how to speak, and after so long.
Glynda's expression crumbled.
In relief, joy, or sadness?
She didn't know.
Either way, that look on her face was here to stay, as well as the delicate smile that appeared not a moment after, one Glynda couldn't have prevented, not even if she tried.
Not now.
Not in this situation.
"Yes, yes. It's... It's me. It's Glynda. Amber, you... you're really..."
Eyes stinging, the blonde professor tried to speak, although it was made impossible by the thick emotion strangling her voice.
After all, Amber was...
Her student.
Her friend.
But more than anything else, the person Glynda thought she would never be able to speak to again.
Now, if Amber understood the words, it wasn't readily apparent. Her head just bobbed, and when it accidentally brushed against Glynda's shoulder, she closed her eyes, as if keeping them open was too much of a chore.
Ah.
Struck with a sense of foreboding, Glynda hastily brought two fingers to the neck of the wheat-skinned girl.
When she actually found a steady, almost vibrant pulse, and on a girl who had only in the loosest sense had one prior, Glynda felt like she couldn't be blamed for the breathy exhale that escaped her.
Really.
But then the panic returned as she had forgotten one simple thing. Alarm bells rang loudly in her head, and Glynda abruptly threw her gaze to the side—
But.
With a confused frown, the blonde woman stared.
The masked, cloaked stranger stared back.
He... hadn't moved in the slightest.
He just continued to remain completely still, hands raised and all, having done little more than silently watching both her and Amber that whole time.
And even with Glynda now crouched with Amber as she was, with a line of sight different from what she had before, she still couldn't see much beyond the darkness of that hood.
Just that black hair, white mask, and lips set in an unexpressive and neutral line, revealing nothing.
Brow furrowing, the question left Glynda's mouth before she could stop herself.
"...Who are you?"
But her question only served to fill the silence, because the figure, once again, abstained from speaking, and he certainly didn't give much indication that he had even heard her. "...Are you White Fang?" Glynda pressed again, tone frayed.
Silence.
"How did you know about this girl's existence...!?"
Again, nothing.
The dark clothed stranger was clearly staring her way, even indicating an apparent unwillingness to fight, but at the same time, revealing not a single thing more.
And it was only making Glynda more and more confused.
After all, this entire situation...
It didn't make any sense.
Because, even... even if this person's goal was to kill Amber for her power, or take her away to do the same... for a murderer, even a kidnapper to choose this time and day to enact their plan, coincidentally arriving at a time where a comatose girl miraculously wakes up...?
That was just too unrealistic.
Except, that just left the only other possibility...
"Did you..."
Glynda swallowed, not believing what was about to come out of her mouth.
"Did you somehow—"
That cloaked hood suddenly twitched.
Two seconds later the nearby window shattered, and the silhouette of a person came crashing through. It was Qrow, having arrived with exceptional timing, sword already poised for a swing on the unsuspecting figure's flank.
Heart-rate spiking, Glynda's eyes widened.
Because with frightening reflexes, a preemptive step already had the stranger twisting away from the length of the blade, leaving the blow to harmlessly cleave nothing but air.
His cloak, too, was just as unrattled, fluttering innocuously with the movement.
With a click of his tongue, Qrow rode the rest of his swing's momentum into a roll, right before pressing a button on Harbinger's side.
Abruptly, a suddenly sprouting scythe's blade appeared, and it was already delivering a devastating sweep of a strike at the masked man's midsection.
But to Qrow's annoyance, that movement was read too, and the cloaked figure was already in the process of leaping backward, where one additional hop saw him landing right on the shattered but now very accessible window frame.
The intent was clear.
"U-Uh, wait," Glynda gracelessly shouted before she could stop herself, and she ignored Qrow's perplexed look, then immediately after, his wide eyed, disbelieving one, no doubt finally placing the wheat-skinned girl softly stirring in her arms.
Yes; ignoring all of that for a moment, Glynda still decided to throw that ridiculous question into the air.
"Did you heal—"
Except it didn't land.
Because that was when the shadowy figure stepped backwards and fell, completely disappearing from view.
"Hey—!"
Cursing, Qrow wasted no time rushing to the window, if not to chase after the man outright, then to at least get a general location, a direction, anything. But, as the huntsman reached the window's shattered frame...
He realized there was no need.
Not with the two men that had arrived to cut off his escape.