Wow, the response to this one was rather insane! I'm glad its getting the attention it is, thanks to everyone who left such lovely reviews! Now tis time for chapter 2, and its gonna start getting real real quick! Don't expect these chapters this fast every day, I simply had spare time at work today, but I'll do my best to update regularly. With that said...onwiththefic!
"Goddamnit!" Weiss shouted as she leaped backward, sparks flying from the gauntlet on the workbench. Shaking her hand in a futile attempt to make the pain fade quicker, she hissed out a breath as she hopped up and down, aggravated. "Fucking electrical surges!" she cursed as she kicked at the leg of the bench, ignoring the twinge from the impact. She'd been at this project for over a week now. Her family had numerous hidden projects, most notably a firm grasp on nano and hard-light technology, and she was determined to put it to good use. Someone had been attacking the SDC holdings and she was tired of watching it happen and watching her family be slammed by the press.
And on a level she never would admit out loud, part of her yearned for the simplicity of heroism. To everyone in her life save Blake, Weiss was the perfect, cold, spoiled heiress of the SDC. She was soft-spoken, with polite smiles, but she never let anyone forget that she was destined to rule over a corporation that had far more political power than any single organization should. That she chose to practice martial arts in her free time was considered just another rich person's eccentricity.
But deep down, within the depths of Weiss' soul, her heart wanted justice as much as anyone else. She wanted to help people. She kept up her facade to keep her father from giving the company over to her younger brother because she wanted to be in charge to utilize the SDC's resources to help those less fortunate. It wasn't until the coming of Red Rose that she figured out a way she could help. She may not have powers, like the strange wave of metahumans that had arrived, but she had money, intelligence, and technology on her side. She'd make herself powers...if the blasted suit would work with her!
She'd already made the main part of the suit...it didn't really need to do a lot, just protect her from small arms fire and such. Utilizing nanotechnology, it could improve both her strength and speed, giving her a better chance to keep up with the metahumans and easily outclass most criminals. She also had installed a hard-light shield generator in the suit. Not that her father knew she knew about it, but he'd be surprised to know how many of the SDC's 'failed' projects she knew about. But the main suit improvements were meant to be installed in the gauntlets, for ease of use, but they refused to cooperate with her.
A chime sounded from her phone, interrupting Weiss' internal thought process. Glancing over at it, she hit the button to place it on speaker. "Yes, Velvet?"
"Miss Schnee, Miss Belladonna is here to see you," came the quiet voice of Weiss' assistant.
"Right. I'll be up presently," Weiss responded. With a final glare at the now quiescent gauntlet, Weiss brushed her hands off and left her workshop.
Red Rose closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath. She stood at the top of the Atlesian Tower, the tallest building in the entirety of the city. Ostensibly it belonged to the city government, but everyone knew they were puppets of the Schnee Dust Company. But for now, Red Rose just enjoyed the sensation of the wind playing over her face, of the quiet solitude being up here. It was closer to three in the morning than two, but she liked to patrol every so often. There was something...relaxing, to spend time up here alone with her thoughts.
From this height, gazing down upon her city, Red Rose could almost forget about the pollution, the street gangs, the rampant corruption. From up here, with the lights scattered about the city, with the tens of thousands of cars drifting along, the city had a glow to it, a different look to it than you'd see from down in the morass. She supposed it meant something to her, that she'd come to love her city as much as she did. Although it really wasn't the city itself, it was the people who made the city what it was. The street vendors who sold those amazing hot dogs (she never could resist a hot dog). The Chinese restaurant on the corner that she visited at least once a week with Yang. That guy who sold cotton candy down at the park...okay, maybe she liked the food a bit too much, but her powers made her metabolism run fast.
Movement out of the corner of her eye brought Red Rose's attention to a spot below her, around the 70th floor. It was dark, but the city was lit up so well that she had a decent vision of the area, and that shadow was...moving? Narrowing her eyes, she tried to get a better idea of what was going on, but it was surprisingly difficult. It was like the area was obscured in some fashion, a blurry effect taking hold. But the moment the shadow reached the window on the 71st floor, it just disappeared, almost as though it melted through the glass. The area instantly sharpened in her vision, back to match the rest of the area without issue.
"That's not suspicious at all," Red Rose muttered to herself. Shrugging, she let go of her grip on the edge of the building and leaned forward. Within a moment, she lost her footing and began to freefall. As the wind rushed past her, a grin that some might describe as manic crossed her face. A single giggle escaped her as she fell, reveling in the feel of freedom, but she did not forget what she was doing. As she reached the 71st floor, she triggered her powers, bursting into petals and teleporting inside the building. She had no idea why her momentum only carried through her teleportation when she wanted it to, but then again, nothing about metahumans made much sense to science.
Either way, her grin disappeared as she fell back into herself and her mindset. She had a job to do. Glancing about, she to see if she could spot that weird shadow until it hit her...she was in a dark building, everything was a shadow. She wanted to facepalm, but now was not the time. "If I were a sneaky weird shadow figure, where would I be," she mused to herself, eyes narrowed as she scanned the area for anything suspicious, when her eyes landed on the closed door to the main office on the floor. While the room looked undisturbed, there was a small amount of light spilling from underneath the door, like the type of light a computer monitor gave off.
Red Rose didn't want to risk making too much noise, so she allowed herself to fall back into the petals and let them sweep gently across the floor, the wind that pulled her petal form around not even rustling the papers on the desks she passed. Reaching the door, she reformed before it. The light clicked off a moment later, the audible sound of a computer shutting down coming through the silence of the dark office.
Red Rose hung back from the door, trying to fit herself into the corner as best she could to avoid notice. She had little time to wait, as a blackness deeper than the night flowed out from underneath the door like water spilling from a glass. After a moment, the puddle of blackness flew up into the air, forming itself into a humanoid figure dressed entirely in black. Red Rose blinked, tilting her head to the side as she tried to get a better view.
The figure's gender was hard to determine, but they were as tall, if not taller, than Red Rose. Clad entirely in what looked like skintight leather and cloth, the figure was definitely in shape. They weren't overtly muscular, but their figure showed toned musculature underneath the outfit. They had a strange helmet on, with two...cat ears sticking out of the top? 'A Faunus?' Red Rose mused to herself. She hadn't heard of a Faunus meta in the city, but they could have been hiding. Well, either way, time to stop this charade.
"Halt!" she shouted, startling the figure. Three things happened in the same split second. One, the figure turned to face Red Rose, giving her a glimpse of a strange mask covering the figures eyes, and another one lower down covering their face, reminding her...of that video game character Scorpion, almost. The second thing was that, with the frontal view now available, Red Rose was fairly confident the figure was a woman, considering how tightly the outfit stretched across her chest. Thirdly, a glint of metal had gone from the shadow's hands and was flying at Red Rose's face.
Wide-eyed, she reacted as fast as she could move, her arm blurring into petals as she brought her hands up to block. A loud thunk sounded as her gauntlets absorbed the blows. Blinking, she glanced down to see two shurikens sticking out of her gauntlet, the shadowed figure having taken a step back and dropped into a fighting pose. Glancing down at the shurikens and then back up at the figure, Red Rose blinked. "Seriously? Shurikens? What are you, a ninja?"
The figure didn't respond with words. Instead, she moved her hands in a complex gesture, one Red Rose didn't recognize. A second later, bright blue light formed between her hands, the sound of crackling electricity filling the air. Red Rose blurred into motion, teleporting behind the figure just as she thrust her hands out. Red Rose watched, open-mouthed, as a bolt of lightning tore through the corner she had just been in with a loud crash of thunder.
"That could have hurt if that hit me," Red Rose mused. The figure spun about incredibly fast, her leg already in motion as it came about for a kick, giving Red Rose almost time to reach. Blocking it with her forearm, she retaliated with her own kick, the figure lithely dodging it. No time was given to rest, as the shadow woman started darting about, striking at Red Rose from more angles than she'd ever had to deal with. Red Rose called upon her powers, allowing her to speed up her own motions and teleport to unexpected angles, but the figure retaliated with her own. Every time one of them would land a blow, the other would fade into another form; Red Rose into her petals, and the other woman into shadow. Red Rose noticed something though, and accepted a blow across her jaw, ignoring the pain as she reached out to grab at the figure. The figure danced back, but not before Red Rose had grasped at her belt. Grasping the item she had noticed, she hid it behind her hand as much as she could.
The two broke apart, both panting heavily. Red Rose rubbing her jaw with her right hand. Red Rose narrowed her eyes at the figure. "Whatever you came here for, you aren't getting away with it. Just surrender already."
The woman in black straightened up. Cocking her head at Red Rose, she looked like she was going to surrender. Red Rose relaxed a smidge as the figure held her hands out, but too late she realized it was a ruse. In one of the woman's hands, swirling air had gathered, light trickling out of it. Before Red Rose could react, an explosion of wind blasted her across the office, slamming her into the wall with so much force she bit her lip, blood trickling down her cheek. The dark figure leaped into action, dashing across the room and heading for the window.
Red Rose gripped hard at the hilt of the knife, one of the things she'd stolen from the woman a moment ago, held hidden in her left hand just in case. Taking aim, she threw it as hard as she could. The figure didn't notice it flying at her, the knife sinking deep into her abdomen. The figure cried out in pain, but she couldn't halt her momentum, smashing into the window and going through it with a loud crash. Red Rose hobbled over to the window as fast as she could move, but it was a waste...the figure was gone.
Red Rose sighed, but her eyes were drawn to the floor before the window...something the figure had dropped as she jumped. A single black USB drive lay by the window. Red Rose narrowed her eyes. Lifting it up, she placed it carefully in a pouch, before glancing around. Taking in the destruction, she sighed. Standing upright, she let out a hiss of pain, before disappearing into petals once more.
"I can't believe you got hurt again," Yang admonished as she lay an ice pack over the massive bruise forming on Ruby's shoulder.
"At least it wasn't a bullet wound?" Ruby offered sheepishly, wincing as Yang slapped another ice pack on her other arm with a frown.
"Don't make a fucking joke right now. Lightning? Exploding Air? Shurikens? Some ninja chick nearly killed my sister, twice, not one week after you nearly died to some two-bit criminal and his sidekick!" Yang growled. Ruby wisely kept her mouth shut as Yang paused, the blonde woman lowering her head. "I can't keep watching you get hurt, Ruby. I can't do this."
"Yang...it'll be okay. I just need to be more careful is all," Ruby tried to reassure her older sister.
"And will you?" Yang responded, a challenge in her voice as she snapped her head up to look into silver eyes.
"Will I what?" Ruby replied, blinking.
"Be more careful." The silence from Ruby spoke volumes, and made Yang give out an indelicate snort. "That's what I thought." Yang placed the final ice pack, leaning back as she sighed. "I can't stop you from doing this hero bullshit...but I'll find a way to help you more than just patching you up." Ruby smiled at her sister, but before she could reply, the doorbell rang. Ruby moved towards the edge of the bed, but Yang shoved her back.
"Yang, I can get the door," Ruby began before Yang pushed her back with one hand.
"You stay here and sleep! I'll get it. It's probably the pizza guy or something."
Ruby rolled her eyes. "Yes, mom." Yang rolled her eyes in return, heading out to the living room, but before she could open the door, she heard a banging on the back door. Glancing out the front, she noted that no one was outside and shrugged, turning about to the back door situated in the kitchen. With a shrug, she opened the door.
Dressed in all black leather, leaning against the door with one hand as another gripped tightly at a knife embedded in her abdomen, Blake Belladonna, Yang's unlikely friend, stood in the doorway. With disheveled hair, red eyes, and a pained look on her face, Blake managed to croak out one word, "Help.." before collapsing to the floor before Yang's startled face.
