Meanwhile...

The Amber Fields were just as they sounded; a spacious savannah, with seldom trees and a few stones scattered about among a golden sea of grass, shifting in waves along with the wind. It was here that Team RWBY was taking care of their very first mission without close supervision from a teacher, nor the company of another team- both of these would come during their assignment in the Forest of Forever Fall, just a week or two from now. The objective the four girls were handling now was as simple and safe as it could get; they were to locate the nest of a certain species of wildlife here, mark the location on the map in their scrolls, and promptly return to Beacon with the info. The Fields were uninhabited by any manner of Grimm, so the trip was really meant to get them used to the protocols and guidelines of legitimate missions.

Ruby Rose, the leader of RWBY, was caught between disappointment with the lack of excitement and combat along with the pure beauty of the field itself, so it was to say she was neutral. She pat Crescent Rose as if to reassure it that she would use it again in due time. Her sister Yang was ahead of her, looking a little bored with her hands locked behind her head, her long, enviable gold locks swaying in time with the grass at their feet. Their monochrome remainder, Weiss and Blake, were heading the group right now- mostly on a whim as they had already taken care of business and were on their way back to the academy.

"Hey, sis. You think Jaune and them had to do this snoozefest too?" Yang had been somewhat grating with the rest of the team this whole time, being the most restless of the four.

Weiss let out an exasperated sigh, looking over her shoulder to address their companion despite not being posed the question; "Oh, give it a rest. This place is so beautiful, Yang- could you try to appreciate it a little? I mean-"

In the blink of an eye, Weiss Schnee was taken.

No warning came before two figures prowled over the top of a short hill the team were passing by, having been lying in ambush on the other side for them. Sprinting into the midst of the quartet blindingly fast, Weiss herself was partway through her sentence when she was stopped in her tracks by a well-placed blow from the second of two intruders with a bat to the back of her head. As she lost consciousness, the first of them circled her and caught her on their shoulder. They bolted just as Blake realized what was happening, tearing off toward a grove to the west. The abductor's accomplice was slower than his companion, but he stopped between the remaining members of RWBY and the grove the abductor was making for.

Ruby brought out Crescent Rose, in a flurry of petals she disappeared in pursuit of the kidnapper. Blake made to follow after her, but several wires caught hold of her arm and leg, yanking her off her feet and back toward the second perpetrator once she tried to get by him. Closer inspection revealed this guy as an almost senselessly suspicious character; a black mask covered his mouth and nose, clasped at the bridge of the nose and jaw line. He was wearing tinted goggles as well as a bandana; not a single feature on his face nor a strand of hair was visible. He was wearing a dark gray trench coat of sorts hanging down to his knees, the belt hanging limply from the waist and allowing it to drape loosely to reveal orange pants stuffed into professional laced boots, and a similarly orange shirt with a V-collar.

On his left hand, the sleeve of his coat was tucked into a glove that covered up to just before his elbow, where the wires that had grasped her earlier retreated to tiny openings at the fabric covering the underside of his knuckles. In his other hand, the sleeve was open and he was holding some kind of baton; Signs of electricity jumped off the stick as he flicked it outward, extending it to full length of roughly two feet. Lastly, a rather large box was held to his back with straps criss-crossed over his chest, the odd object appearing relatively heavy. Starting at his waist, it rose a bit over his head and stopped just short of passing his shoulders on either side in width.

"Yang, I can catch up to Ruby quicker than you..." Blake clutched Gambol Shroud tightly in one hand, the breeze rustling her ribbon both on her head and weapon.

Yang cracked her knuckles and neck, prepared to give this shady freak a good beating for catching them off guard like he had. Blake took off after her other two teammates, almost getting snared by the wires again but Yang caught the thin strings before they reached their target. "You heard her, right? You're all mine now~"

Blake left the opponent in their blonde member's capable hands, knowing she had been itching to wallop someone and choosing not to be present for the poor soul's brutal punishment. As she darted for the small group of trees she was trying to figure out just what was going on; her ability to detect hostility not to mention watchful eyes was in a class of its own, but these two people hadn't set off her senses at all. This meant that the duo must have been adept; however, the man she left with Yang showed signs of self-doubt, and though he had caught her once through sheer luck his skills were sloppy at best. Knowing the second member had to be a distraction, she left Yang to mop up, but this brought to question the abductor's nature- they had been able to conceal themselves from them, strike fast enough to take their friend, but on top of that had somehow hidden their less than proficient accomplice as well.

The trees provided little to hide being thin and having much space between each, but it was much better than being in the wide open range that Blake left behind, searching for any signs of the three who preceded her. There were glimpses of rose petals here and there that vanished just as fast as she spotted them, and within moments she caught sight of Ruby, standing with Crescent Rose in full scythe form and glaring at the back of their target.

"Alright, Mister! The jig is up!" The statement would have been funny just by how she worded it if the moment weren't so dire, and the man they had reached stopped whatever it was he was doing. He was sitting on the balls of his feet, completely facing away from them and focused on Weiss. She was set against the trunk of one of the small trees, still unconscious directly in front of him, though they could only see a bit of her past the man's body. He stood to his full height, turning to them in the process; Black hair swept back messily with some still refusing to conform and remaining a set of bangs. His eyes were such a deep blue that the night sky would be jealous, and by appearances, he looked to be a handful of years older than they were.

The stranger was wearing a brown jacket with an abstract marking sewn into the back and dark patches covering the shoulders, rolled up at the sleeves where a cobalt shirt beneath carried on to the wrists. His gloves were fingerless, the jacket unbuttoned and the cobalt shirt beneath zipped up at the center. A gun the size of his thigh was strapped to that very part of his leg, over basic gray pants that led to black shoes.

Ruby looked ready to start interrogating their enemy, but before she could utter a syllable the man in question raised his voice to a less than masculine pitch, eyes lighting up as he took in the sight of her; "Look'it how small you are! Is that a rubber scythe? I don't usually get threatened by toddlers, this is a whole new experience!"

Ruby's face jumped straight from aggressive to appalled; if her friend getting kidnapped wasn't on her agenda today, having a bad guy mock her size out of nowhere was even less. "I-I-I'm not small! I'm still growing! I drink milk, got it?! This won't last, quit exaggerating!"

He chuckled at her flustered rebuttal. "Sorry ta tell you this, but it ain't working, pint-size."

"Who are you- and what are you doing with Weiss?" Blake coolly guided them back to the proper topic. The stranger set his hands on his sides and leaned to face the ground as he let some nuisance escape his lungs.

"Why is it always those questions? 'Who?' 'What?' 'Why?' Okay, Lemme throw a why at ya- why do you think I'd tell you any of the wh-a's? That defeats the whole point of being secretive, ya know?" The stranger gestured wildly as he spoke, as if he had to act as composer and every word in the conversation played a different instrument. Ruby and Blake both found themselves at a loss in how to respond to that. He went on;

"Ta hell with it, then- let's just get creative, yeah? I could've robbed her blind, I could'a sung her a eulegy. Dammit, I could'a made her brunch, any mix of the three and more- the possibilities are endless! So let's cut the questions. The question to end the questions is this question; what's to be done about a guy who stole your buddy, but then apologized? A coupl'a times? Sorry. Sorry, girls- real sorry. We can put this aside, I'll march over yonder, you go back to school, no hard feelin's." He held up his hands in a less than enthusiastic surrender, stepping backward quickly to avoid a scythe to the head. Ruby had gotten her composure back, and Blake was at his other side, blocking his easiest routes of escape.

Pulling down a sleeve, he checked his watch. "If that's your answer, I've got some time to kill. Show me what ya got."

Ruby charged him head on, raking at him with a myriad of slices from Crescent Rose. The stranger ducked, lurched every which way and did the smallest of hops where necessary, staying out of the lethal curve's path by just enough to come out unscathed. She tried swinging the blade behind him and hooking him in, but he performed a backflip over it, his spine touching the flat steel tauntingly and his hands went out to the sides when he planted his feet, goading her yet more.

Blake took a swipe at his leg from the side, coming in low to the ground. Her adversary teetered and flopped forward, completely straight like a plank of wood, dodging her strike regardless of how low she had been and also grabbing hold of Ruby's ankles. Pulling them out from under her, she fell on her backside as the stranger's legs slung out to the sides against the grass, lifting himself off the ground just a bit in the weirdest position possible. Once like this, he reefed on Ruby's still-held feet, throwing her out through his legs and beneath him like a swing dancer and causing her to tumble across the grove. Blake corrected her course and went for another cut at his legs wide apart, but he stood on his hands and brought his legs up into the air, walking on his hands just out of the attack's range.

What the hell was going on?

Cartwheeling to his feet, their opponent adjusted his jacket upon standing. "You're both kinda speedy. Not bad, I'd say..."

He trailed off; the sound of footsteps approaching soon revealed Yang, untouched, and dragging the accomplice by his collar- the guy was tied up by his own wires at present. The stranger pressed a hand to his face and let it slide off into a gesture of emphasis once he spoke.

"Shmots! You had one job!"

Yang looked down at her captive, then up at the stranger. "Did I hear that right? Is your name friggin' Shmots?!"

Body language indicated that 'Shmots' was as unimpressed as he could get, probably with his partner's antics. His hands flickered at his sides where his arms were tied down, the stranger shrugging back.

"As the Yam calls the Shmots black. Anywho, I should probably jet; three on one isn't all that favorable, and this'll just go from the frying pan into a raging inferno if your wonderful little instructor catches on. So..." Yang internally contemplated whether or not this stranger just called her a Yam and for what reasons, Blake cut him off as he tried to take a left, and Ruby tried to cleave him vertically in half. He wasn't getting anywhere fast.

Yang made her debut in this fight by hurling Shmots at his partner, the stranger turning sideways and tilting back to dodge his ally. He quickly caught Yang's oncoming punch by linking her arm in his, ducked her opposite fist, and pinned her arm to his chest with his as she circled behind him through the motion of her second punch. He jumped up; bringing her along for the ride and tilting backwards to land on her with his back as well as roll in reverse onto his feet again. The stranger wasn't fast enough to dodge Gambol Shroud when it lashed out on the end of Blake's ribbon and licked his left shoulder, making him flinch back and allowing Yang's recovery.

As the stranger tried to get back his bearings, Ruby appeared behind him with petals scattered, nailing him in the ribs with the back of Crescent Rose like a hammer and knocking him off his feet. Yang slipped in from the front and swung a shot-powered fist into the man's chin, sprawling upward on an angle until Blake's sickle form spun around his leg to wrap it in ribbon, catching him and hurling him through a tree opposite the one Weiss was still decommissioned against. The three girls gathered a few feet from their fallen opponent, Yang and Ruby sharing a high five.

Blake was still wary of the man even though being battered and chucked through a tree would normally KO just about anyone or anything. Against the odds the stranger sprung back to his feet -as she expected- and shook his head from side to side, clearing the daze they put him in and dropping one loud laugh; was he still not taking this seriously? The thought had no time to expand from there when he struck out for her, showing the speed that had allowed the taking of Weiss.

She barely stepped away from what she thought would be a punch... but unfortunately, his fingers flicked out to poke her in the eyes. The afterimage left by her semblance vanished, and as the real Blake reappeared the man already had a strike aimed for her, making direct contact on her bicep and shoving her away from him. Strange; the attack hadn't hurt at all... She took a closer look at him and found that he had taken an actual stance rather than teasing them; he stood with his side facing her, head held low, with his closest arm draping down straight and his other hand up palm-out next to his shoulder. The middle finger on each of his hands was crossed over the ring finger... Again, there was nothing she could ascertain from what she was seeing.

Ruby appeared on his right, then his left, and back to his right before trying to jab the shaft of her scythe into his chest, at which point he caught the weapon and pulled it to him, and Ruby in the process, giving her one of those open-handed hits to her belly and knocking her back. He wrenched with some difficulty Crescent Rose out of Ruby's hands much to her dismay, pitching it hard as he turned away from her- the impressive blade and rifle fusion rotated like a Frisbee over the trees, and he shielded the sun with a hand over his eyes to watch his handiwork fly off.

The stranger sneered arrogantly at Ruby, waving her on in the direction of her lost weapon. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction of watching her leave the battle for the time being, but Crescent Rose was too important to any potential she had to change this fight to leave wherever he had thrown it to, so she ran out to get it. She blinked, started running again, and looked down at her feet. There were no rose petals. She was moving at normal speeds...

Ruby would be gone for a while yet as she had no way of cutting the travel time, so it was back to being two on one. Blake watched Ruby go in her disarray and tried to use her own semblance as well; the feeling she normally got when activating it wasn't present. He had somehow sealed their semblances; the enigma before them was far more dangerous than she originally concluded. "Yang, don't let him hit you! He can disrupt your semblance!"

Yang nodded grimly to her comrade, ready to break this guy's jaw ten times over. He smirked at her, but his expression packed up and left just as fast as it came. "Yeah, no. This was fun, but we're gonna have to reschedule ladies. Shmots! I don't pay you to sit on ass, kid!"

The words weren't even out of the stranger's mouth yet when the newly freed Shmots' wires ensnared Blake- without her semblance she could not escape as he pulled her in for a stunning blow to her midsection and released her at his feet, running over to his companion just to get cuffed in the head. Yang crouched by Blake's side, glaring down the perpetrators as they made to escape.

"You won't get away with this." She warned. The stranger scoffed; turning his back on her he gave her a meager salute.

"You'd better hope that I do, Yam. Actually, tell Rubs and Wafer I'm sorry. Again. Whenever the chance arises." And with that, the two vacated the area faster than Yang could follow without abandoning her wounded friends.

"What the hell just happened?" Blake was thinking what Yang said out loud, trying to come to terms with their almost defeat. Blake recuperated in a few moments, as the stun rod Shmots had wasn't set to any powerful voltage by the way it had felt, and sat on the side of Weiss that Yang wasn't. Some inspection revealed that she was only bruised on the back of her neck, no traces of other injuries. It would take some time still for her to awaken by the looks of it.

"Does that guy think my name is Yam? Which would mean... Ruby is Rubs, and Weiss is Wafer?" Blake pressed her finger and thumb to her closed eyes, trying not to think any more about it.

Ruby returned to the scene with Crescent Rose holstered where it belonged, rushing out just to see that they had lost the suspects. She settled with sitting with her knees drawn up in front of Weiss, concern drenching her like rain.

Unexpectedly, Glynda descended from over the trees into the area they were sited, observing the four and the immediate surroundings before she stopped being so tense. The inconvenience of it suggested he'd sensed her coming, perhaps. "It is good to see you all safe. Is Miss Schnee unharmed?"

Blake had figured that Glynda or another teacher was watching over them through surveillance on their scroll, but the thought seemingly hadn't crossed the sisters. Considering the way the stranger chose to get out just before she arrived, he must have known she was close by somehow as well. "She seems to be fine. She just has yet to come to her senses."

Glynda nodded as she walked over to the team, Ruby looking at her instructor over her shoulder. She seemed absolutely miserable. "I couldn't protect my teammates... I could barely get a solid hit on that creep!"

Yang set a hand on her sibling's shoulder, and Glynda actually comforted her as well; "You performed admirably against such an opponent- I was able to witness most of the confrontation through our surveillance of the area... He was quite skilled. Just about any team in your place would have been just as overwhelmed." She paused, and Blake wondered where these cameras might have been. Drones, maybe? "Are there any small details about the attackers that you can tell me? I was unable to see their faces through the cameras."

Yang explained that anything involving Shmots' face was a lost cause, but Blake was the first to give Glynda something to work with, still being worried about the fact that it hadn't gone away; "He had an odd technique... With a light hit from his hands, he was able to suppress our semblances. Ruby and I both were afflicted."

Glynda studied the both of them, mostly where the strikes had landed. She pushed at her glasses, thinking intently. "I am unfamiliar with what it is he did to you... We will have to keep watch over you both when we return to Beacon; if any other symptoms appear, things may get messy. Further, we need to know a rough estimate of when the suppression wears off..." she neglected to add 'if it does wear off'.

Ruby's eyes were still downcast, but with a jolt she perked up and got Glynda's attention; "He had pointy teeth."

"... pointy teeth?"

"Yes. The one that took Weiss smiled at me and talked a lot, and all of his teeth were sharp."

"Was he a Faunus, then?"

"Probably..."

Glynda nodded, turning on her heel. She seemed to believe this was all they knew outside of what she had recorded on her scroll... Something she would probably be watching numerous times before the day was through. "I will escort you all back to the academy. Come along."

After a few minutes of walking across the Field, Weiss stirred as Yang carried her at the middle of the group. Ruby excitedly bounced over to them when she took notice, Blake and Glynda doing the same with less childishness.

"Ugh... What? Why am I... Why is Miss Goodwitch?..." As she took another moment to file through her delirium, Weiss set her feet on the ground and stumbled slightly, but regained her balance around the time her mind became clear. "What happened?"

"You were abducted."Blake candidly answered, causing their white member's eyes to widen. They briefly summed up what had happened, trying to properly explain that the main perpetrator was in fact just as whacky as they were saying.

"Well, I've only got a headache... Did he take anything from me?" She checked her pockets and Myrtenaster, but found nothing amiss. That fact alone had her wondering, considering anyone who'd had this sort of opportunity would have made off considerably wealthier even with just her boots.

Glynda gestured to Weiss as she spoke, getting her attention. "From what it appears, no, but all the same... you only just started your term here. We wouldn't like to strain our relations with your father, and the company -might you keep today's events to yourself until we find anything definitive?"

Weiss, unused to such a self-serving request from someone like her teacher, slowly nodded affirmation as she explained why along the way. "I suppose so... but really, why did this even happen if I wasn't harmed or robbed?" Blake, not thinking this would ease her conscience but perhaps give it a new circuit to lap, recounted her abductor's words;

"Um... well, he said he may have –and I quote- 'Robbed you blind, sung you a eulegy, or made you brunch'."

Weiss, unable to piece this together any better than before, rubbed her head's pain away as best she could, following their teacher back home with the others.

"No, Shmots. I didn't go and snap bones or dismember anybody. We're good." The Stranger and Shmots were leaving the fields behind already, their pace slowed as they were well past the point that Goodwitch would have given chase. Shmots was communicating through sign language so barbaric that it was really just an advanced game of charades; one that his companion seemed good at.

The Stranger watched more gestures before responding apprehensively; "Well whaddaya want me to say, man? I've got no reason to mess with you. We're on the same team, right? Right. Look, this is just the start- the first step on the broken escalator, Shmots. Don't you wanna wring the neck on the one who broke the escalator? I do. I really, really do."

Shmots shifted the box mounted on him for comfort, looking irritably at the other male. It was obvious even without signs what he was asking about;

What was the next step?