Disclaimer: RWBY Characters, places and terminologies with the exception of the Original Characters, belongs to Rooster Teeth Productions.
"I'm so glad you're safe!" The lady with shades was hugging Velvet really tight.
"Me too…Coco please…could you release…please?" The Faunus was getting out of breath.
"Come on Coco that is enough." The big guy tried to separate between her those two girls.
"No…I won't let her go ever again." Coco replied.
"I know we all missed Velvet too, but you are suffocating her, Coco." The darkened skinned member tried to reason with his leader, as she started to notice how her partner was out of breathing.
"Oh my, sorry for that…" Coco finally released the Faunus, as she took deep breaths. She started to notice Ace and Diamo, as they were standing there looking with smiles that little warm reunion. "So who are those men escorting you?"
Ace walked towards Coco and tried to kiss her hand. "Greetings my lady, my name is…Ugh!" He got interrupted as the charismatic leader hit him in the stomach with her purse.
"Personal space, would you? I was asking Velvet."
"Sorry, the one with glasses is Kingston Diamo and the one with the green bandana is his partner, Ace Clover. They are the ones who helped me to get back here." Velvet was done introducing them.
"Did they do any indecent things to you, Velvy?" Coco asked with a joking tone.
"Coco, stop…No they didn't."
"Oh…" The leader hit Ace on the head with her purse again.
"Owww! What was that for!?" The infiltrator was holding his head while crouching in pain.
"You got the chance and missed it."
"You…wait what? You hit me…because I missed a chance with Velvet?" Ace looked rather surprised for Coco's reason.
"Yeah…" The leader said it bluntly.
"…" Ace got silent for a moment to analyze the moment. "Alright, I see the logic of it."
"Anyways, sorry to bother your talk, aren't you going to present your team, Velvet?" Diamo spoke as he saw the other teammates.
"Oh yeah, she is my partner, Coco Andel, she is the leader of team CFVY. Those guys are like my brothers for me, Yatsuhashi Daichi and Fox Alistar." The guys waved the hands to them.
"Yo." Yatsu greeted in a casual manner.
"Nice to meet you." Fox said as well.
"So Velvet, do you mind to explain me with full detail about the people behind the attacks?" Coco asked to them, as she recalled the conversation she had with Velvet on her Scroll back in Samsara. Velvet agreed and between she and Diamo started to tell the whole story about the Purifiers and the White Fang. Ace wanted to tell his share but the others interrupted him as he tends to exaggerate with the stories. Team CFVY got horrified expression for hearing the things the Purifiers intended to do with the prisoners and what kind of treatment they got. Even if the prisoners were from the White Fang, it was still horrible things to someone.
They went to a small house from Tint Hills to continue the talk. They were living there temporally to protect the settlement until they were done. The place felt cozy according to Diamo as he used to be at that kind of living. They kept talking while omitting the important problems in regards Jack and everything else.
"That is crazy…" Yatsuhashi commented about the problems with the Purifiers.
"It is, as we never thought that there would be humans to go on that kind of extremes," Fox commented too.
"It is no longer a problem since we dealt with their leader. I'm sure there won't be any more attacks." Velvet explained as she felt safe inside the house.
"What makes you sure they won't come back and seek revenge? You said there were a lot of members from that cult." Coco pointed out as things might not be good enough to relax.
"She might have a point, we let a lot of them escape and not sure if they survived or not." Diamo also wasn't sure if it was over.
"Oh come on why you can't just let it go and stretch the muscles? Those guys won't ever dare to go against us ever again after how we left them homeless. I wished you were there to see the show too." Ace was lying on the sofa while feeling comfortable.
"If you say so…" Coco was looking at those two travelers, as she could sense that they weren't ordinary people. "…Tell me, what's your story?"
"Us? Not much to say as we found Velvet on the river while camping."
"Uh-huh…" Coco was sitting while having some suspicious of them. "Are you sure you aren't Huntsmen? You looked pretty prepared for simple wanderers." Diamo and Ace exchange looks as they felt under pressure.
"Well…" Before the sniper could say anything, someone was knocking on the door. Fox opened the door to see who it was.
"Hey, sorry if I was interrupting something but we may have a problem on the gates." There was a man standing with fear as he was in a hurry.
"Is Grimm bothering you again?" Coco replied to the man.
"No, there some people with some weird white robes outside of here, do you know them?" Everyone looked at each other as they picked up their weapons started to see what appeared not the end of a war. Diamo went to the roofs along with Velvet and Fox while Coco, Yatsuhashi, and Ace were standing right behind the gates while Coco went outside with her weapon ready. Things didn't look for them as they had no idea how to deal with them. Good thing the rest of the Purifiers were to the other side of the bridge as they can get close to Tint Hills' gates. One Purifier took a megaphone from his fellow member and started to speak through it.
"Sinners of Tint Hills, I require your full attention as we have important things to deal with you!"
"What kind of important stuff are you talking about?" Coco spoke from a safe distance.
"We know two men and a bunny Faunus are hiding here, with other sinners on that place."
"They've been following us?" Velvet whispered to her allies.
"What you want with them, exactly?"
"We want them to pay for what they did to our home and our master!" Diamo was aiming to the outside of the gates, having a clear shot in case things got messy. "Now, if you hand them over to us, we are going to leave you in peace and forgive this place for keeping Faunus live here." No one from Tint Hills believed their lies. Coco was definitely not let anyone racist to hurt her partner under any circumstance.
"Yeah, I have a counter-offer for you…" The leader of team CFVY shot to the hats of the cult members with her weapon, just to scare them off. "…I say, why not take your sorry asses back to the woods and leave my friends and these people in peace!" Her team was laughing about what she did moments ago.
"Mad negotiations skills as ever, Coco…" Fox complimented her.
"If it is what you think, then the talk is over!" The Purifier threw the megaphone to aside of the road while started to order everyone else around.
"Hmph, good luck as those guys don't even have any weapons." Ace commented in a mocking tone. Tempting fate, those people in white robes were bringing some sort of catapult on the road, with rocks and other kinds of projectiles to destroy the gates. "Are they serious!? A fricking catapult…? I'm getting tired of dealing with those guys." The feeling was mutual for Velvet and Diamo as well.
The cult started to charge the weapon while some tried to cross bring some ladders to get over the gate. It was an invasion since there were a lot of them. The Huntsmen and travelers tried to repel them off, but it was difficult as some succeed to trespass the gates and fight inside.
Group A (Ace, Coco, and Yatsuhashi) fought outside of the gates while Group B (Velvet, Diamo, and Fox) defended the town as they maintained the settlers and their families safe from danger. It was rather chaotic despite they no longer had weapons made of Silverium. The Purifiers swarmed like rats as they kept sneaking through the gates, something that started to annoy team CFVY. Group B was dealing to protect the civilians, Velvet escorted some while Fox fought some of the cult members. The sniper took double turns as he had to shoot to both in and outside of the gates.
"And this how you had to deal all the time?" Yatsuhashi asked the infiltrator while fighting.
"You got lucky those lunatics didn't get their arsenal with them..." Ace replied as he was casually talking while kicking cult butts. "…Although, the catapult is new to me."
"We need to destroy that thing, the walls and gates won't resist any longer," Coco yelled at everyone as she focused on hitting the enemies with her purse.
"There are so many of them: how can we stop the catapult if they even can't let us go far!?" Fox said while he grabbed one Purifier from the ground and threw against others, taking them down.
From a distance, some Purifiers started to fight in the woods. They were holding their positions as they were trying to save their lives. Our heroes noticed that something else was dealing with the cult as they were busy protecting the town. It was a surprise since they were receiving unexpected help away from Tint Hills and Purifiers stopped coming to there.
"What is going on?" Fox asked as he went outside along with Velvet and Diamo to watch from the horizon.
"I don't know, is it the Grimm?" Yatsuhashi asked while Ace grabbed his binoculars to see what was happening. He started to laugh maniacally. "What's so funny?"
"I guess the Calvary came…" Ace passed the binoculars to everyone else while Diamo was smiling as he looked through his sniper rifle. Team CFVY except Velvet was surprised at who was fighting the cult.
"You gotta be kidding me…" Yatsuhashi commented as he saw the White Fang flag from the distance.
Two hate groups, two types of people that really hate each other started to unleash a complete battle on the woods where no one could get disturbed. As Ace saw a recognizable face leading the attack, the people of Tint Hills were impacted as how the White Fang not only was fighting but defending the town too. They started to destroy the catapult piece by piece as the Lieutenant of the White Fang used his chainsaw to tear it apart, destroying the Purifiers' last weapon. As they fight continued, they drove them off with as the cult was getting defeated by the radical group. With the fear of them, they started to run away with some White Fans soldiers chasing them.
Only a handful of them, including their Lieutenant, started to walk towards town's bridge with their hands on the air. Everyone looked confused as to how weird it was for them to act so civilized towards humans. Ace, Diamo, and Velvet left the gates to go with them and make sure everything was good for everyone. Velvet told her team to put their weapons down, to assure them that everything was alright with the Faunus group.
Karan stopped in the middle of the bridge and took off his mask as Ace was walking towards him. They looked at each other to their eyes, filled with mutual respect. "I didn't expect to come and help us." Ace complemented as he was happy to see the Lieutenant.
"Helping you? Don't get the wrong idea; the White Fang does not care about you or that town."
"Then what was all that with those lunatics back there?" Ace was smiling with joy.
"That was a way to pay my debt with you for freeing my people on their camp. This doesn't mean I'm already friends with you..." Karan started to look at the families of Tint Hills, with both humans and Faunus children holding their hands. "…But I must admit, when you left the storehouse I started to get funny thoughts about why I joined the White Fang in the first place."
"And what exactly you were thinking, Karan?"
"Not much, just a dream when I was young. I don't know if it will become a reality someday."
"I'm sure whatever your dream is; you would need to work for it first."
"Indeed, I will have to." The Lieutenant turned his back and walked towards his fellow White Fang members, to go back to the woods.
"Hold on just for a moment…!" They stopped as Ace called them out. "…what are going to do now? Because they burned your camp and all…"
"First we are going to hunt every single Purifier alive in Forever Fall, and then we'll come back to HQ and tell that this area is no longer safe for us." Karan grabbed his mask and wore it back. "Remember this, human. One day our paths will cross someday, stay alive for then when it happens." Ace nodded without saying a word. The Lieutenant focused his sight on the road again, never looking back as he and his group continued to chase after the remaining Purifiers.
Everyone was amazed by how Ace handled the situation, talking to a White Fang as they were friends. It wasn't a surprise for Velvet and Diamo since they already experienced that. Coco lowered her shades with shock as she never expected something like that to happen. "That was pretty cool of you handsome guy, how did you make someone like him your friend?"
"Nothing special… is just the kind of effect I do on people I meet." Ace said casually as Team CFVY was impressed about it. They were out of words and happy that men like him and Diamo were good people since they helped Velvet and managed to protect the town.
Coco was fully convinced as those two travelers were cool, but got the feeling of seeing them somewhere else. As she remembered, Velvet promised them to give some supplies and ammo for bringing her back. The leader ordered to the male members to bring everything from the house. They offered some Lien for helping with the investigation of the attacks, initially, Diamo refused the offer but Ace insisted to keep it since they will need for the long trip.
"Are you sure you don't want to stay a little longer with us? We could use some help around."
"We would like to, but we have other important plans right now, at which we must travel and reunite with our friends at Mistral," Diamo replied in a polite manner, as always.
"Really…? I'm sure Ace would like to stay." Velvet said
"The settlers will make us a feast for protecting their home." Yatsu commented.
"That sounds good, but we have a long trip and nothing can't stop this invincible duo." Ace gave quite a rushing attitude.
'At least someone is still with enough energies to keep talking.' Out of the blue, both travelers heard Fox's voice inside their heads.
"Woah! Your Semblance is reading minds!?' Ace said with shock and amaze.
'More like talking without moving my mouth.'
"Well, I guess you trust us enough to show your Semblance without hesitating." Diamo commented while wondering on the combat appliance for such ability. "In any case, we must go."
"We don't mind if you two hang around here." Coco said.
"Nah, I'm agreed with my partner too. The next time I see you, cool lady, I would like to go somewhere fun with you and Velvet." Ace winked one eye at Coco, she lowered her shades by giving him an unamused glare. Everyone rolled their eyes to how ridiculous they were. "Oh, I almost forgot something…" Ace was reaching on his pockets to find something important to give Velvet back. "…I think you dropped this." He gave her the dream-catcher back.
"Thank you so much. I guess this is a promise for us right?"
"Yes, a promise to us." Diamo smiled at how they finally become closer. Ace felt a little jealous but not that it bothering him anyway.
Velvet started to kiss on the cheeks of those two travelers before leaving Tint Hills. "I wish you good luck, and hope to meet your team someday." She whispered in their ears, as they nodded to the Faunus. As the gates were opening, they crossed the bridge while everyone waved their hands while saying goodbye. It was quite an adventure, but the mission wasn't done yet.
While walking on the road back to the train station and prepare for the trip for Mistral, Ace was thinking something that was bothering back in Samsara. "Hey partner, do you remember the bet I did with you last night?"
"Yes, I do… What you have in mind exactly?" Diamo was curious about what Ace got in mind.
"I just want you to answer me one single question. What made you change of mind about go with Velvet and bring her here? Don't tell me you got some affection towards her." Ace smirked.
"Maybe… it was just to humor you." Diamo smiled as he tried to not laugh.
"Yeah right, if you ever have questions about good pick up lines, don't forget I'm always here for you." Ace said it as they were walking towards to the west, hoping their teammates are fine.
To be continued, on Out of the Cold Rock…
