Chapter 6: Sound Maestro
Vale City Streets
9:00 am
(Narration by Xavier.)
It was early at the start of the day, the day a high-speed train running all the way from the abandoned train stations of the Mountain Glenn impacted with the inner city's wall that permanently sealed them. The result was a full-scale Grimm attack on the city, and everyone had sprung into action. While our friends on Team RWBY fought the Grimm in the square where the Breach was, my team and I pressed forward with the intent to aid our friends in this fight.
" Keep moving guys, don't let them corner you!" Xavier said.
" Got it." They responded.
Team XBAZ was pressing forward through a street crawling with hostile Grimm. They fought off Beowolves, Ursa, Creeps, and even the occasional Deathstalker that stood in their way of their objective. They pressed into the city square, where Teams JNPR and RWBY were holding their ground with support from Mercury and Emerald (which made Zach a little uneasy) followed by the arrival of Ironwood's soldiers. The boys suppressed Grimm on the opposite side of the opening. In the aftermath, they returned to Beacon to discuss the latest events...
" Man, that was a good fight." Blaze said.
" Consider that our first official battle during our time in Remnant, gentlemen." Xavier said.
" Dude, we whooped some Grimm ass today." Alex said.
" Yeah, If I remember, my kill count stood at 46." Zach said.
" 46, mine was at 79 bro." Blaze remarked.
" I had the best score of 90 boys." Xavier said.
" Well read them and weep, I had over a hundred kills." Alex said.
" OHH, show-off." The other three boys said.
As the boys took turns to wash up and clean up from the fighting in the city, Zach decided to show Xavier something he had been working on in secret...
" Alright, what did you want me to see?" Xavier asked.
" Just the most awesome idea ever." Zach said.
" What?" Xavier asked.
Zach pulled out some blueprints and shown them to him, in which appeared on the papers looked like a Beat Box that had been transformed into a gun, which had Xavier confused...
" Is that a Beat Box gun?" Xavier asked.
" It's a sonic gun, it basically fires weaponized sound." Zach explained.
" Weaponized sound?" Xavier inquired.
" Yeah, I did it with some of the songs that were on the IPods, Mp3 players, and phones that were left behind." Zach stated.
" Wait, you've weaponized songs from our dimension?" Xavier said in a shocked tone.
" Pretty much, yeah." Zach responded.
" What do you intend to do with this sonic gun and weaponized songs?" Xavier asked his teammate.
" I'm actually thinking of making more sonic guns." Zach said.
" Oh, you want to become an arms dealer?" Xavier said sarcastically.
" No, we could use these to capture one of Cinder's associates." Zach explained.
" I see, looks like you got a little project ahead of you." Xavier said.
" So you're in?" Zach asked.
" We'll need a way to capture one of her associates without being connected in any way." Xavier said.
" Good, because it's gonna take sometime to assemble the weapons and a sonic interrogation set-up." Zach said.
" When can you have it ready?" Xavier asked.
" In a couple of weeks." Zach responded.
" Have fun." Xavier said.
" Bathroom's open!" Blaze hollered.
" Alright." Xavier said.
The boys took their showers and continued their day all the way into the evening, Zach had been approached by Mercury...
" Nice work today, kid." Mercury said.
" Thanks, you too." Zach responded.
" (Chuckle) You're never gonna be the best." Mercury said which made Zach stop in his tracks.
" What'd you just say?" Zach asked.
" You guys are just a bunch of upstarts, when step into that arena when the tournament comes around, all that's gonna happen is that you'll be ripped apart." Mercury said.
" Really now? Big words coming from a murderer." Zach said.
" What?" Mercury said in a tone of denial.
" Visited a nice little bookstore in the city one day, previous owner's sister owns the place now, boycotts all copies of The Third Crusade in honor of her dead brother. " Zach said.
" So what?" Mercury said.
" She was outraged over the fact police couldn't find any evidence to catch the killer." Zach started. " But what they failed to find was a bullet casing, that had bounced and landed underneath a book rack in the store." He added which angered Mercury.
" Ooh, I must have touched a nerve." Zach remarked.
" Are you trying to blackmail me?" Mercury said.
" Actually, I'm calling this little chat a negotiation." Zach said.
" What do you want?" Mercury said in an angered tone.
" Simple, don't threaten my teammates ever again and I don't sell your ass out to Ironwood." Zach said, walking away.
Zach left Mercury speechless and confused after the ultimatum that he had issued. He returned to the dorm, and they continued their lives until the next day.
The Next Day.
Beacon Academy Combat class.
9:00 am
Blaze had easily bested Cardin Winchester and Russell Thrush in a fight with Alex in class today. Next up was Mercury and Emerald against the pairing, but the boys were oblivious to the fact that Mercury and Emerald intended to lash out at them...
" Let's have a good fight." Blaze said.
" Yes, lets." Emerald said.
Goodwitch allowed the fight to begin, so Mercury and Emerald began to relentlessly assault the boys so they wouldn't get any hits in.
" They are trying to beat us easy!" Alex exclaimed.
" So lets fight in the shade, DARK SOUND!" Blaze said.
Blaze engulfed the entire arena floor in a dark, shadow-like fog that both Mercury and Emerald couldn't see each other in. They wandered around aimlessly in it, completely lost, until Mercury lashed out when he heard the sound of Alex strumming his guitar. But he instead hit Emerald square in the face...
" OWW!" Emerald said.
" Oh my god, I am so sorry." Mercury said.
" Watch it next time!" Emerald exclaimed.
" Hey, I can't see a darn thing in this fog!" Mercury explained, trying to refrain from swearing.
They continued to try and maneuver their way through the fog, until Emerald heard two fast strikes...
" Mercury? Whoa!" Emerald said as she tripped over something.
She looked down to see what she tripped over, only to find out it was a slightly dazed Mercury...
" Emerald?" Mercury said.
" Mercury? How did this happen?" Emerald asked.
" It's... a trap." Mercury said.
Emerald was too slow to react when Blaze slowly and quietly stood up behind her, then proceeded to knock her down faster than she could react. The fight concluded as their aura was in the red, so the mist dissipated as the two boys stood victorious.
" That is teamwork, which is required when paired with a second huntsman or huntress, as it will save your life." Goodwitch said as the bell rang.
As the kids all began to proceed to their next class, anger was stirring in Emerald, anger she couldn't control or stop. It was anger at the fact she was just humiliated in the arena by two complete strangers, so she got up and stormed towards the exit, which alerted Mercury...
" Whoa, Emerald, what are you doing?" Mercury said in a concerned tone.
" Evening a score!" Emerald responded.
" Emerald, stop, you need to calm down and think about what you're doing." Mercury said, now seriously alarmed.
" Oh, I've thought about it." Emerald said in an angered tone.
Mercury scrambled to his feet, quickly giving chase to his angered partner. She was already on the second level with her weapons drawn, but as he raced to stop her, she had already swung it in its chained attachment form at Blaze, but Blaze had turned the corner and exited the room, so she instead ended up hitting a red-haired girl in a Beacon uniform in the face, causing her to fall down the stairs in pain...
" What the hell?" Alex said turning around.
The two boys immediately ran back to help the injured girl, while their team captain saw the still-aggressive but shocked Emerald trying to approach Blaze. He immediately responded by grabbing her wrists and started to twist them to the point so she would drop whatever she was holding...
" Drop them, now." Xavier said in a stern tone.
Emerald had already began to strain under the pressure he had her wrists at, so she had no choice but to drop her weapons. Mercury was walking up, but he was shoved out of the way by Professor Goodwitch, who wasn't happy with what had just happened...
" MS. SUSTRAI!" Goodwitch said.
" Emerald, what have you done?" Mercury thought.
" What the hell is the matter with you? Assaulting a student?!" Goodwitch said angrily.
" It was an accident!" Emerald said in her defense.
" Or really, an accident when you were trying to assault my teammates?!" Xavier exclaimed.
" What the hell is wrong with you?!" Alex said, having overheard.
" That is it! Report to Ozpin's office immediately!" Goodwitch ordered.
" But-" Emerald said.
" Move it!" Goodwitch said.
Emerald walked out of the classroom with a shameful look on her face, but Xavier didn't trust her enough to go to the headmaster's office to receive a punishment for her actions. While Goodwitch pulled out her scroll to contact Ozpin, he walked over to Blaze and Alex, who were helping the poor girl to her feet...
" She alright?" Xavier asked.
" We think she has a concussion." Alex said.
" Why don't run her over to the infirmary, Alex? I need Blaze to do something for me." Xavier said.
" Okay." Alex said.
" Ow." The girl said.
Alex picked up her stuff, then proceeded to walk out of the room. Xavier then turned to Blaze and began to speak...
" What do you need?" Blaze asked.
" I need you to tail Emerald, make sure she gets to the headmaster's office." Xavier said.
" Okay, I'll stick to the shadows." Blaze said, cloaking himself in shadow.
Blaze followed Emerald while Xavier proceeded to meet up with Zach in their Grimm Ecology class with Professor Port. Alex showed up after a bit, with a big smile on his face...
" What's got you happy?" Xavier asked.
" I got myself a date to that dance that's coming up." Alex said.
" You mean, with that girl Emerald hit in the face?" Xavier said.
" Her name's Kayla dude." Alex responded.
Xavier was glad that his friend had gotten himself a date to the dance, so they continued about their day until they proceeded back to their dorms for the evening. Zach turned out to have beaten the group to the room, where he had set up strange weapons on their beds...
" What are these Zach?" Blaze asked with a confused tone of voice.
" These are Sonic rifles, each programmed with a weaponized song." Zach explained.
" You weaponized actual songs?" Alex asked in a shocked tone.
" Yep, I weaponized a lot of songs from our dimension." Zach said.
" What songs have you weaponized?" Xavier asked.
" One Rebecca Black song, a lot of Disturbed songs, a couple of Bruno Mars songs, and so many more." Zach responded.
" Where did you even get the songs?" Alex asked.
" One thing about the Breach, a lot of stuff gets pulled through, including IPods, Mp3 players, and phones." Zach explained.
" How did you even build the guns?" Blaze asked as he picked the one up of his bed.
" With four old but still intact and working Beat boxes, old gun parts, and computer parts." Zach stated.
" What's with the case?" Xavier asked, pointing to the case on the desk.
" Oh, that's these things ammo." Zach said, opening the case.
The other three boys looked down onto a series of flash drives, each with blue, green, yellow, red, and pink tape on one end of them...
" What's with the tape?" Alex asked as he picked up a drive with red tape on it.
" The tape is to symbolize what colored beam comes out. Look at this paper if you want to know what it means." Zach explained, handing them a sheet of paper.
The three boys looked down at the piece of paper, in which it had shown three different color-codes along a description of what the colors mean and the effects of the weaponized songs...
BLUE- DISORIENTS OPPONENT
GREEN- FATIGUES OPPONENT
RED- PARALYSIS
YELLOW- INDUCED PYSHCOSIS
PINK- CALMS OPPONENT
They were both impressed and a little bit terrified at what Zach had managed to accomplish. Xavier knew what this had meant, which had caught the attention of the other two...
" Xavier, did you ask my brother to make these?" Blaze asked.
" We have an idea to find out if Cinder is not who she says she is." Xavier said.
" What does that plan involve?" Alex asked.
" Kidnapping one of his teammates." Zach said.
" Wait, we're gonna kidnap somebody?" Alex said in a shocked tone.
" Zach." Xavier said.
" I did a little fact checking, turns out Mercury and Emerald are held in suspicion to a murder that had happened in the city a couple of days ago, along with the fact their transcripts are fake." Zach said.
" Their transcripts are fake?" Blaze asked.
" Yeah, they were done by a professional too." Zach said in response.
" That explains how they got in." Xavier said.
" I might know the perfect target..." Blaze said with a snicker.
While they were discussing a plan to stage a kidnapping, Cinder was getting mad at Emerald for being so careless earlier today...
" WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?" Cinder exclaimed.
" How many times do I have to say that I'm sorry?" Emerald argued.
" You need to learn when to control your temper!" Cinder said.
" How long have you been punished?" Mercury asked.
" I've got detention for 3 weeks, one more offense, then I am officially removed from participating in the tournament." Emerald said.
" That will give you plenty of time to learn how to control your temper." Cinder said.
" Were you able to learn anything from Reina?" Mercury inquired.
" No, she's about as oblivious when it comes to these boys as we are." Cinder said. " All she was able to tell me was that they specialize in the most ridiculous." She added.
" Well, looks like we're gonna have to keep trying until we learn something." Mercury said.
" No, when the tournament comes around, we will end them." Cinder said.
" How?" Mercury said.
" You'll see." Cinder said.
Throughout their entire talk, Ashlyn was listening into the room by hiding very quietly on the ledge outside their window...
" So, you intend on murdering these uniquely gifted children, my mistress won't stand for it." Ashlyn thought.
This chapter concludes with the boys conspiring to stage a kidnapping, Cinder plotting to murder the boys, and Ashlyn spying on Cinder's sinister plans. Ashlyn is based off Mary Poppins and Asholette from the video game Soul Calibur 4. The next chapter will start with Ashlyn reporting back to her mistress, a kidnapping takes place before the tournament starts, and La Reina's true intentions are revealed.
WAIT AND SEE.