Chapter 7: Turning point Part 1
The next day
Yang anxiously taps her foot as she sits hunched over the front row desk, waiting anxiously for last class of the day to end. The last class so happens to be Prof. Goodwitch's combat class and currently the sparring match in progress is Coco and Velvet versus Team CRDL. So far the match has been mostly one sided in favor of Coco and Velvet with Team CRDL getting in a couple of good hits before Coco and Velvet took out Russel and Sky in a series of combo attacks in the first half of the match.
Yang watches with disinterest as Cardin trades blows with Coco as Velvet unleashes a tornado of slashes with a wireframe copy of Crescent Rose on Dove whose defenses crumble immediately. The buzzer goes off, signaling that Dove's aura has dropped into the red and thus his defeat.
"Dove Bronzewing has been defeated." Prof. Goodwitch announces as Dove exits the arena to head to the locker rooms.
Hearing this, Cardin purposely strikes the ground between him and Coco with his mace, launching himself backwards away from Coco with the resulting explosion at little cost to his aura. When he lands, he immediately gets into a defensive posture with his shield raised while Coco and Velvet regroup. From where Yang is sitting, she hear Cardin audibly grumbling to himself about how easily Coco and Velvet's divide and conquer strategy worked so well for them.
Yang turns her gaze towards Coco and Velvet to find them whispering to each other while making hand gestures on what Yang assumes is a plan to quickly take out the hunkered down Cardin. When they separate, Coco heads towards the edge of the arena and leans against the wall while Velvet eyes Cardin with an appraising look as she transforms the wireframe Crescent Rose into its sniper rifle form. Velvet launches herself with a shot to the ground towards Cardin, twisting her body midair to drop kick him but Cardin sees this coming and blocks the kick with his shield. When this happens, Velvet once again launches herself into the rafters with the wireframe Crescent Rose using Cardin's shield as a springboard.
Velvet launching off of his shield causes Cardin to drop his guard and stumble backwards a couple of steps while Velvet changes the wireframe Crescent Rose to Nora's Magnhild. As Velvet begins falling back down, a confident smirk appears on her face as she twist her body to bring ready the wireframe hammer to strike as Cardin stares up at her in… awe? Velvet slams the wireframe hammer into a defenseless Cardin's chest, driving him back first into the ground and the buzzer announces his defeat.
Most of the classroom erupts in cheers while Velvet backs away from the flattened Cardin as the rest of the Team CRDL runs up to their fallen leader. Prof. Goodwitch quiets down the class as Russel, Dove, and Sky carefully check over Cardin for any injuries.
"I think I saw an angel." Cardin lazily groans out as he lays there in a daze, causing his teammates' eyes to widen in shock and their worry becoming deep concern.
"Professor, we're taking Cardin to the infirmary to get his head checked out." Russel calls out after Team _RDL stare at Cardin for a couple of moments incredulously. Prof. Goodwitch looks over at Team _RDL as they stabilize Cardin's head in a makeshift brace and nods her approval before turning her attention back to the class.
As Team _RDL gets Cardin out of the classroom, Prof. Goodwitch clears her throat "For the next match it will be Fox Alistair and Yatsuhashi Daichi versus…" Yang tunes out the rest of what Prof. Goodwitch is saying as she looks at the clock hoping the bell to ring but then she groans when she realizes that the sparring match between Coco/Velvet and Team CRDL was first one of the class.
Adam leans back in his office chair, rubbing his temples in frustration as he takes a break from trying to figure out a way out of the current situation but so far he hasn't had any luck. Ever since his meeting with Ilia, his head has been a raging storm of anger towards himself, self-doubt, frustration, and regret. To distract himself from these thoughts, he gets up and walks over to the office's window that overlooks the warehouse main floor.
Outside, he sees various members of different ranks going about their businesses despite the grim situation, which brings a small reassured smile to his face. But the sight also brings about a stray thought: Should I really be their leader after purposely leading them into this situation?
Sighing, he looks over at the clock hoping it is time to leave but he's disappointed to find that he still has a few hours left before he needs to leave for the gym. He turns his attention towards his desk that is littered with messily marked drafts he has been working since the early morning and begins clearing it off to begin drawing up new plans that hopefully hit the same roadblocks as the previous ones.
The bell finally rings, signaling that Prof. Goodwitch's class is over and Yang all but runs over to the exit trying to get to the dorm room as quickly as possible without looking too suspicious. As the rest of class leaves the room, Weiss rushes past Yang, heading in same direction as her as if she's expecting something.
When Yang reaches the dorm room and enters, she finds Weiss sitting at her desk rubbing her temples while she angrily mutters to herself about something. Looking past Weiss, she sees the laptop that Weiss showed the team yesterday with a red flashing screen and the word FAILURE prominently displayed on it.
"Uh what happened, Weiss?" Yang asks, unsure if she wants to get any closer to Weiss.
"My simulations failed again." Weiss replies.
"Do you know why?
"Yes but every time I run them, they fail for one reason or another no matter what I change, add, or tweak the various theoretical laws, random events, and theoretical market trends."
Yang thinks this over for half a minute. "Have you tried cheating?"
"I have but the results were completely unrealistic each time I do that."
"Then something must be wrong with the program you're using or with the financial reports."
"That is entirely possible and I wouldn't put it past my father to do such a thing." Weiss sighs as she shuts down and closes the laptop.
Yang uses this opportunity to quickly grab her gym bag containing everything for the showdown and quickly goes to leave the room. "Well… I'm heading out to Vale to train."
"So soon?"
"After watching all of those second years fight us first years, I want to get some sort of a head start on training for the tournament." Yang lies. "Do you want to join me?"
Weiss scoffs at this. "We've done enough training, we need to do is get started on our studies so we don't get blindsided by whatever the professors are going to throw at us for Finals Week."
"Your loss then." Yang says dismissively and wave of her hand as she heads through the doorway and rushes down the hallway while making sure that she texts Ruby to avoid worrying her again.
Meanwhile in Ozpin's office, the headmaster leans back in his chair to take a small break from going through all of the various pieces of paperwork that cover his desk. He gets out his chair, grabbing his steaming coffee mug in the process and walks over to the window overlooking the academy's courtyard. Taking a sip as he watches students go about their daily activities, he barely spots Yang rush out of the dorms towards the airship docks. Ozpin raises an eyebrow in interest at this before he turns away to retrieve his cane and leave a note for Glynda vaguely explaining his absence then he leaves his office to follow after Yang.
Adam crumples yet another draft of a plan in frustration when the predicted outcome resulted in Cinder and her unknown number of allies destroying him and his cell for successfully leaving the kingdom without prior notice. Grumbling in frustration, he looks up at the clock and is relieved to see that it was nearly time to leave. quickly destroying the draft so that Cinder's lackeys don't accidently discover it in their boredom, he stands up and walks out of the office, retrieving Blush & Wilt and a gym bag along the way.
As Adam makes his way towards the exit trying his best not get spotted, Andre spots him anyways and walks over to him with a folder in his hand. "Adam! All of our bases finally checked in with us and sent over their current status and their casualty reports."
"How are they doing?" Adam asks, turning towards Andre.
"So far, all of our bases haven't been found by the authorities and there have been a few run-ins with Humanity's Shield members. Thankfully all of them ended with the H.S. members being arrested but most surprising of all, the police didn't harass our members for being a Faunus, according to reports." Andre explains. "Also the other the bases have confirmed your reports of Grimm being inside the city and has been mostly Creeps with the occasional Beowolf."
Adam is slightly relieved upon hearing the news. "How bad are the casualties?"
"The other bases lost a few members each when the Breach happened and most the casualties the cell suffered as whole were from the Mt. Glenn base." Andre says as he hands Adam the folder. "The folder contains all of the casualty reports including the on for Mt. Glenn."
Adam flips through and quickly scans the list but he stops at the Mt. Glenn list, letting out a regretful when he sees the lieutenant's name who was with him for both of the meetings with Cinder and was first person to voice their opinion against the acceptance of Cinder's proposal. As Adam quickly looks over the list, Andre notices the gym bag Adam is carrying. "Uh Adam… are you going somewhere?"
"I'm meeting my contact again." Adam lies.
"Okay but why a gym bag?" Andre asks, looking at the bag skeptically.
"The meeting is at a gym and I need to clear my head again." Adam relies.
"Adam, are the plans you are coming up with hitting that big of a roadblock?"
"Yes." Adam simply replies.
Andre sighs. "Then please be careful out there. We can't afford to lose you."
"I'll try to." Adam replies, nodding in agreement before continuing on towards the exit. 'I'm sure that you'll be a much better leader than I am.'
Sitting in an outdoor café, Ilia grumbles as she stares up at Beacon Academy and the cliffs that it sits on in frustration as she takes a break from search of finding a way to infiltrate Beacon that has been fruitless so far. She looks down at the list of crossed off infiltration methods and sighs knowing each method would have worked if the overall security in Vale wasn't on high alert.
Deciding that her break is over, she gets up to leave the cafe when she catches a glimpse of a familiar red/black coat and red hair pass by her. Turning to get a better look, she sees a mask less Adam carrying a gym bag, walking away from her without acknowledging her presence. Finding this odd, Ilia begins following him through the city and eventually Adam comes to a stop in front of building called Gym Rockers and a woman with a long, untamed blonde hair approaches him. She quickly gets into a nearby hiding spot, ignoring the questioning look of white haired green suit wearing man who is sitting close to her.
From where Ilia is, she sees Adam and the blonde have a standoff as they exchange what Ilia assumes is greetings or quips at one another but she can't tell from how far away she is from them. As Adam and the blonde enter the gym, Ilia decides not to follow them inside figuring that whatever reason Adam has for meeting the blonde isn't worth knowing since she has a job to worry about.
Inside of the gym after Adam and Yang changed into appropriate gym attire, Yang, with Ember Celica on her wrists, leads Adam, who has Blush & Wilt at his side, to the room she reserved and past full or clearly marked sparring rooms. When they arrive, Adam is confused when he sees the boxing ring in the middle of the room that looks like it hasn't seen much use in a long time, dusty mirrors that cover the entirety of wall opposite of the door, and a couple of metal chairs strewn about the room but he doesn't say anything. His confusion deepens when Yang digs through her gym bag and tosses a pair of MMA gloves.
"Ok Adam, this how we're going to do this: no weapons, just our bodies." Yang says, taking off Ember Celica and setting down them down on a nearby chair as show of what she said is true before putting on a pair of MMA gloves. Adam finds this reasonable and sets down Blush & Wilt against the wall and puts on the pair of gloves Yang tossed him as Yang climbs into the boxing ring. He climbs into the ring after Yang and they go to opposite corners to face each other.
They warily stare at each other and nervously inch their way towards the middle with their fists raised defensively, unsure who is going which one of them is going to strike first. When they get within a foot of each other, they nervously stand there looking for an opening while shifting their position ever so slightly.
Adam looks away for a split second when Yang feigns going one direction and she throws a right straight jab that Adam dodges followed by a left uppercut that grazes Adam's cheek. Adam twists his body to deliver a right uppercut to Yang's chest to force her back and give himself some space. They separate briefly before Yang charges Adam with her right arm ready to strike but Adam side steps to her left and thrusts his left knee into her stomach which sends her stumbling into the ropes.
Leaning against the ropes, Yang hears Adam rush towards and she quickly turns around, striking him in the face with her elbow. Adam staggers backwards a few steps and Yang closes the distance between the two of them, throwing a flurry of jabs that Adam can barely block or dodge some of them in time. Yang's assault lasts a minute before Adam manages to grab one of Yang's fists in midair then head-butt her followed by a straight jab that impacts her upper cheek. Yang gets herself free and they back away from each other to catch their breaths.
Yang studies Adam's posture to see if she did any real damage but from what she can see is that she did very little. Taking a quick deep breath, Yang steels herself as she begins cautiously approaching Adam. At the same time, Adam catches his breath and eyes Yang trying to predict her next move. Deciding to go on the offensive, he readies his fists and charges towards Yang.
They once again meet in the middle of the ring with Adam ready come out swinging and Yang immediately raises her guard to block his punches. Adam throws out a flurry of hooks and uppercuts that Yang sees coming and easily blocks the flurry. But he follows up the flurry with roundhouse kick to her head that her raised guard barely holds against and sends her stumbling sideways a couple steps anyways.
Yang quickly recovers then gets close to Adam before he can fully recover from his kick and delivers a right hook that causes him to stumble backwards a step which allows Yang to regain her composure. She throws a couple jabs to keep him off balance and immediately follows up with an uppercut that forces Adam to the ropes. Leaning back against the ropes frustrated, Adam eyes Yang looking for an opening and doesn't find any when he sees Yang doing her best to defend her torso but he doesn't see her doing anything to protect her legs.
Getting off the ropes, Adam confidently approaches Yang with his guard up and a plan in mind. Yang throws out a couple of jabs to test Adam's guard and throws a left hook but Adam blocks it easily then low kicks her knee to knock her to one knee. He immediately knees her in the face, sending her reeling backwards and he begins charging his semblance with the hope of ending the fight sooner rather than later. Once Yang gets her footing back, she sees Adam begin to glow and grins when she remembers Blake telling the team about how Adam's semblance, so she waits for Adam to make his move.
Seconds later, Adam's semblance is done charging the kinetic energy built up over the course of the fight and charges forward with his right fist ready to strike. But Yang sidesteps to the left like a matador and Adam instead strikes the corner post behind her as some of the kinetic energy transforms into rose petals that fly off of Adam's body. This causes it to tear away from the ropes and the ring itself then fly through the wall behind it with a loud thud.
When Adam turns around to face Yang, he sees her eyes turn red and her hair light itself on fire making him assume that is a telltale sign of her semblance activating. He immediately puts up his guard with worry of what Yang's semblance might be as she charges forward towards him. Yang launches a barrage of jabs that forces Adam to continuously block each punch and back up a step each time. When the first punch lands, Adam feels that the punch is much heavier than the punches beforehand, giving him an idea on what her semblance is which makes him worry. As the barrage continues Adam is eventually pushed back to the ropes and his guard begins to slip as he looks for an opening in Yang's barrage.
Once again, Adam notices Yang's legs wide open for an attack and in between the punches, he lowers guard long enough to take one punch while he kicks one of Yang's legs in to throw her off balance. He immediately exploits the opening by unleashing his own flurry of jabs that forces Yang back, creating space between the two of them again.
Catching their breaths again, Yang finds herself frustrated with how the fight has turned into a stalemate making her angry but the memory of Blake softly smiling at Weiss and taking ahold of her hand reminds her of what she is fighting for. While Adam finds himself worried about how this fight is going but a memory of him and Blake arguing over something followed by him stopping himself from nearly hitting flashes through his mind, causing anger towards himself to bubble up and reminds him why he didn't back out if this fight. Spurred on by their memories, both of them decide to go on the offensive and charge each other ready to trade blows. Because her curiosity got the best of her, Ilia watches in shock, horror, and odd fascination from just outside the slightly ajar door as Adam and this blond woman, who she is sure is not a Faunus, begin to trade blow for blow. Unbeknownst to her, Ozpin silently stands a ways behind her watching as well.
Adam and Yang strike each other at the same time with right hooks then strike each other again with a left hook, causing both of them to stumble backwards. They quickly recover and Yang delivers a straight jab that impacts Adam's face followed by Adam quickly recovering and delivers a roundhouse kick to the left side of her abdomen. Reeling back from the kick, a brief memory of the Breach appears in Yang's mind and she quickly recovers to barrage Adam with a barrage of hooks and uppercuts.
Adam manages to block some of the punches but a heavy right hook catches him in the in the left cheek. Staggering backwards a couple of steps from the hook, the memory of the Lieutenant and other members of his cell at the time voicing their well justified disapproval Cinder's proposal followed by him easily convincing them why it would work flashes through his mind and the anger intensifies as Yang continues her barrage. He ducks and weaves to get close to Yang, ignoring the punches that graze him and throws a right hook into her chest which causes to stagger backwards a couple of steps. Adam follows up with a low kick to the back of Yang's right knee then thrusts his right knee into her face as she falls forward. He begins charging his semblance as Yang reels backwards onto one of the three corner posts.
An image of a burning Vale at the height of the Vytal festival flashes through her mind and she steadies herself in time to notice Adam glowing as he charges towards her. Yang barely dodges in time, feeling air rush past her shoulder as Adam's semblance fueled fist flies past her, striking the corner post. The post rips away from the ring and ropes before bouncing off the ground into the mirror, shattering a section of it. Yang and Adam quickly turn around to face each other and immediately strike each other with a right hook, sending Yang into the middle of the ring and Adam closer to the rope/post-less corner.
As they reel back, an image of Ruby, Weiss, Blake, her father, Qrow, Team JNPR, and Team CFVY smiling at her appears in Yang's mind while an image of the little boy kneeling on the ground crying over his dead parent's bodies while as a dead Grimm dissolves nearby appears in Adam's mind. Adam clenches his right fist then quickly charges his semblance with what little kinetic energy he has left as Yang readies her fists in anticipation. They charge then strike each other in the left with semblance fueled right hooks, shattering their auras and knocking each other out at the same time.
Author's Note: So this chapter and the next were supposed to be one. But I decided to split it into two chapters due to the difficulties I am having writing the next chapter.
