Warning: I don't own anything but the fanstory.
-:-
Chapter 11: W part 2
The final day for the competition, Beacon:
In her dorm, Weiss woke up in her bed, stretching and yawning alone since her friends went for early breakfast. Beside her pillow were her books and her silver locket. She brushed her teeth, dressed up into her academy uniform and felt prepared yet, nervous as if she would do the same mistake that would tarnish her reputation. She would feel further apart from Flare even if she lost or win against her. Nonetheless, Schnee shook her head and readied for the worst when she left her dorm with the locket around her neck.
Once she exited, Jaune, in his own uniform, was right in front of her, waiting patiently as he leaned onto his own door. She huffed at him sassily, "What do you want, Arc?"
"Oh come on, I was being a friend to you, helped you earlier and you still feel like being a total 'I don't need help' Ms. Perfect?"
"I don't-Why would I-*sigh* I'm feeling down, okay?"
"Then share it with us. With me. Right now." He clasped his hands together with hers, astonishing her as he was quite anxious about her little condition. Although his hands seemed to be rough from the handling of his Tank Buster, he felt very smooth and warm, rewarding her. "I-I-"
"We don't want to have a bad reputation with you not giving your all to the competition..Man, I'm saying all this and I still hate doing it." He tightened his grip by a little which was enough to rock her world until he realised what he just said. Her face reddened as his strong grasp seemingly satisfy her until she was uncomfortable.
"Fine, just take away your hands from mine! Jeez. I...made friends with Flare when we were young."
"..Why does that make you feel down?"
"Becuase I accidentally betrayed her! I wanted to get her attention during our exams in the 5th grade by writing down on a piece of paper that her skirt was partially zipped. But, when she was looking at it and our teacher was right behind us, she was forced to redo a different set of questions in the same subject exam again on another day..That's why I hate being a moron. No, I hate being a bad person, the worst friend."
"Normally, she would have agreed since this was by far the best option for any 5th graders. However, she was too stubborn for some reason and wished to do it now. They both argued in front of everyone of us until she stood up..." She bent her neck down, her face looked gloomy as she teared a little, unable to finish what she started expressing. Jaune ruffled his hair, keeping his cool still and answered for her, "So, her skirt fell down, the boys had that 'pants feeling' that Damien kept secret about when I know it's called an erection, girls laughed at her teddie panties or something, she was so embarrassed that she wanted to stay in a hole but, in the end, she was somehow expelled because she screwed around with the teacher long enough and you were blamed by her for 'everything that had happened to her from birth to now', right? Is it also the reason why you're being home-schooled like me?"
"That-That's almost the entire reason! Except for the expelling. She had a 1-week suspension as another study break. How did you know that!?"
"Mmm, I don't know. Lucky guess?...*whisper* Maybe, went through the same..." He shrugged his shoulders, still getting her in disbelief. "Never mind. Let's just go to the cafeteria.."
"..You do know that our ride is suppose to be half a minute left from the time being, right? That's why I'm here to pick you up" Once again, silence filled the hallway as Weiss made a poker face.
At the landing area:
The RBY and NPR of the two teams, along with Damien, were boarding the aircraft Bullhead since Pyrrha and the Faunus needed to go for the competition and the others wished to view their performances. Professor Oobleck would be supervising his students and Team CRL did not join as they were still in the Nurse's Office to recover from Jaune's unbeatable victimisation. Nikos pondered, worried, "They should be here by now.."
"Don't worry, Pyrrha. I'm sure they'll get there in ti-" Damien said as a soft crashing noise of glass came from the academy and there was scream getting louder, "...oU DUUUUNNNCCE!"
"Hey! I'm not scheduled to pick you up as some chauffeur now, am I?! And I'm not the one who over-slept, right?!"
"N-No!"
"Yeah! It's a no! And I'm no alarm clock!" Jaune screeched maniacally as he carried Weiss Bridal Style while running to the carrier with incredible speed. As he passed by every metre of the pavement, the floor of rock crumbled from the sheer force of the pushed air done by his speed. Oobleck pushed his glasses inwards to his eyes and on his nose, ordering the pilot, "Take off, now!"
"W-Wait, how about them?!" The pilot responded.
"They'll make it. We'll take much time if we stay any longer. Go!"
"Roger that, I guess.." The Bullhead went up while closing the ledge, confusing the two that was not on board. "T-They're leaving!? We won't make..."
The world's motion went slow. She could not end the word 'it' while Jaune was casually spinting to it. He was still in the regular speed but the egress of the ship was still closing very slowly. He shrugged his shoulders once more with much calm before swaying with the wind like a normal human. Behind him was his red streak that was forming from the glow of his inner tendrils. He leaped high with decelerated velocity and slid through the gap of the closing entrance.
"...it! Huh?!" The pace was reverted and Weiss studdled at how she suddenly appeared inside of the Bullhead, including the others except Damien and Oobleck, who congratulated Arc, "Efficient work, Mr. Arc! Seems that you have surpassed the speed that most of us could not follow!"
"Yeah, even for me." Jaune agreed that he could not follow his own speed, bewildering Oobleck. "Could you repeat that?"
"I said even for me." He dropped to his knees, muscles cramped and bones cracked. "Told ya."
"Your Semblance still is a flawed one, Jaune. But from an expert of speed, what do you think, Ruby?"
"...Hm, it could've been worse." She said cheekily before consuming a cookie, "Thanks for sneaking into the restricted kitchen for this, Yang! Nom~!...I was not suppose to tell him that, right?..." Her bigger sister smacked her face with her palm, "*sigh* No, you're not.."
"Well, we'll discuss about the problem Xiao Long had committed later! Onward to Haven Academy!"
"Let me go, you moron!" Weiss dangled her arms around at his face, slamming her fists to it until he gently placed her down.
-:-
An hour later, in a hideout:
Mercer was still in bed, recovering. Cinder sat on a chair, crossing her legs while Emerald leaned onto a wall coolly. Mercury was poking his face over and over, "You still don't think he's dead? I've been doing this for the past few days."
"And, that's a good amount of time wasted on something stupid by you." Emerald huffed.
"Shut up! I wasn't even talking to you."
"Well, his vitals still seem to be functioning well." The woman of the ambers swiped her large Scroll pad, Alex's image was on the screen with a healthy green coloured bar. The silver-haired gave up and took out a marker pen, "Screw this, might as well do something to piss him off even more. I'm not done with this cunt-"
"You're gonna have a long life-span to regret that, if you really want to." He woke up frightfully and suddenly, eyeing straight at him, who jumped in shock. Cinder spoke, "Oh? Seems that you're awake."
"Where the hell did you bring me to?" He got up, still wearing his coat. "We brought you away from the town, or so it was called. You've been in a 'coma' for three weeks."
"Three weeks? That's wasteful."
"Like him using quarter of that time to poke you." Emerald pointed out like a snitch against her partner. "H-Hey, don't rat me out in front of him!"
"Whatever. I'm already pumped up to do something now. Where do I start for my mission?"
"Hm? Right into action, huh? Well, there's always this mission we've minor problems with-" Beeping noises came from Fall's Scroll, intruders were discovered by the laser senses. She swiped again, showing Jim and Bob already into a fight. The lazy one brought a light machine gun and already mowed down countless of White Fang troops into heavily wounded as the more serious one stabbed through one's stomach with a bladed arm and using it as a meat shield, holding onto the enemy's own rifle with a free hand.
(Postman by Celldweller)
"Hm. Actually, you can start off by stopping your two friends." She gave hers to him. What Alex saw was Bob saying, "Yeah! Suck it, kidnappers! Get wasted, assholes!" as he kill off countless of White Fangs. They were in a cave of a giant rock in the ocean as he could hear splashes of water from the background.
"Wow, who knew my partner would be this enthusiastic to a gun fight. I thought he was meant to be so FORMAL and DISCIPLINED with his little MEDITATING shit back at Mountain Glenn and-" Jim strangled a White Fang with one arm and keep slamming his stock upon the top of her head. "Fuck that shit. Shut up and shoot, bitch!"
"Ow! Ow! Quit it!" She ordered.
"Fine." Jim just let her go but to shoot her down anyway. More armed White Fang came and shot at Bob, forcing the body to take all of the lead. He then kicked her in the rear back at them before turning his arm into Tendrils. Symbiote spread out, sticked to the enemies and retracted them into a mash of gore and alive rebels. One more White Fang went in for a close combat battle with two ninjakens in both hands. He struck first with a pierce to the stomach which was taken in before thrown back out. He then swung horizontally but was ducked underneath. He continued doing extraordinary moves with the double blades, also giving Bob a hard time to keep up.
He finally landed a blow on his stomach, making a wide, deep cut upon it. Unfortunately, for him, the possible life-time scar had been easily regenerated. Puzzled, he let his guard down at the absurd capability of Bob's healing factor, giving away an opening. Bob shot at him with the assault rifle of his fallen comrade, the bullets were sliced up into two each with his ninjakens until the clip was empty. Before Bob could even reload, the White Fang slashed the rifle off in half, disabling its purpose. He tossed the useless gun away and carried on with blade fighting using a combat knife which the White Fang taunted, "Hah! What are you going to do with only one blade, huh?"
"You're right. What should I do?" He sarcastically scratched his chin before throwing it away and transforming out his Claws. "Maybe turn both arms into 8 talons?"
"...Fuck me and my mouth. Hryah!" They both continued their fight. Jim stumbled upon their giant lieutenant who wielded a chiansaw, "You've made a big mistake coming to White Fang territory!"
"And you made a mistake of being in my way! Get outta here, punk kid!"
"Don't 'kid' me!" He rushed with a powerful downward swing of his chainsaw, colliding with Jim's machine gun which he used to block. The chainsaw casually mowed down the rifle into half and already went down to ripping off his arm. "Hahah! Told you that you shouldn't be here!"
"Gnh!...Well," Jim shrugged off the pain, even though it would be excruciating to the human body, and caught his own arm by the wrist. "This is child's play, boy."
"W-What the-?!" He stuttered in shock as the ex-Atlas care-freely waved his amputated arm around, Blacklight blood squirted through the vein-like tendrils onto his face. The organs were black, incapable of visibility of how it looked like from within. But they had the ickiest of touch, like the faeces with sewage. The iron in the blood was so strong, he might collapse out of the smell. It completely grossed out for those who imagined how blood flows and how organs work in the Evolved system, though similar to human and Faunus, to certain White Fang members of great creativity, "What the hell is that?!"
"Organs, if you're not educated on biology,"
"B-But, why is it so-?! This is..!"
"I don't know. Better question, how are you not puking ou-?" He puked on him when he slightly took off his mask. Jim wiped away the vomit on his face and planted back his arm. "Now, to break your spine for that, ya prick!"
He punched the Lieutenant right at the face with his guard down. He retaliated with another horizontal swing of his vial, noisy saw which was blocked. The Evolved went for another punch only to be missed by an inch while the White Fang slammed his elbow upon his head, forcing him to the ground. Carrying on with another downward approach, he was about to saw his brain to a pile of meat when Jim rolled away from the chainsaw. He whipped out his Hammerfists and pounded him around madly, "Take that! And this! And that!"
"Tch! Gah! Curkk!" He flinched and grunted by the unbelievably strong strikes, unable to counter yet. After getting used to the combo, he slapped away another Hammerfist attack with his weapon, both spun once with momental blows. The lieutenant's elbow to Jim's face and Jim's Hammerfist to the lieutenant's face, they brushed their own faces with nervous system shattering pain, propelling one another backwards. Jim's cheek was literally peeled off from his mere skin before it mended itself back to the way it was.
The White Fang's mask had a crack before he went back to charging in with his chainsaw, "I'll kill you, asshole!"
"Tch! Don't piss me off, you dumb brat!" They were about to go for second round, only to have Bob diving in like Max Payne with his arms dangling in tendrils. He released a Critical Pain Devastator at the Lieutanent which demolished his body like a porcelain item into a truck yet, he was still breathing. Bob, too, got pushed back by his own shockwave which got him to a location where Jim accidentally swung his Hammerfist at him in fright, "Hey, hey hey! Watch were you're-!"
"Why did you come here?!" It landed perfectly upon him, sending into the ground with his head in the air. Bob had dizzy eyes before concentrating his eyes at him, "What's your problem?! I just saved you!"
"Again! Why did you jump into the fight?! I was totally winning!"
"No, you're not! That guy could've beaten you up!"
"Still have more weapons in my arsenal, Bob!" Their quarrel left the White Fang stunned, 'How were they beaten by two stubborn dumbasses?' was what was in their minds exactly. Jim pulled him out by the hair like a carrot, "C'mon! Let's just kill off these faggots and get the hell out of here with Mercer!"
"Right!"
The terrorists threw a frag grenade at them, hoping for some damage. Instead, Bob juggled the hand-size bomb with his feet like soccer and passed it to Jim with his chest, the gun expert swung a rifle he conveniently found on the floor at it like baseball back to the ones who caused it. With every cause having a consequence, the group got blown to the sky by their own explosion. Jimmy cracked up, "Hahah! What an explosive devastation! Speaking of devastation,"
"Oi, oi oi! Don't do that right in front of me-" Before he could warn him fast enough, his body was covered in tendrils and emitting mist, he smashed his entire leg into the ground. Thousands of tendrils spewed as a near omni-directional attack, affecting anyone of the Devasatator's radius, even Jim's own buddy, "Traitor-!"
Cinder's Scroll pad went static, the security camera went offline. Alex was still on the bed, still staring at the static. Fall sweatdropped, "Not going to help stop your own team from killing my army?"
"...I'm internally laughing at the regret I made, working with you guys who so happen to be working with the White Fang..who's failing miserably at these guys and they're weaker than me."
'Are you kidding us?!' Emerald and Mercury thought. For them, they had no clue that Alex's connection to the head of the Hive Mind was disrupted by a few minutes, 'Plus, even if I tried to stop them with my mind, I can't even use it with the Hive Mind getting fuzzy with me.'
-:-
Earlier, back at the carrier:
Jaune was looking down to the floor, worried and hesitant. Through whispers, the two brothers communicated, "Man, I can't believe it.."
"About what?"
"It is about 'ZEUS'. He was taken in by the White Fang and Atlas said that he was stopping some big cone of concrete that was made of the town. Wasn't it run by Davy Torchwick's gang?"
"So? He did stop them, right?"
"He went overboard. This isn't anything like him. He was unconscious after fighting their boss. I read through his memories as he was inactive, realising that he caused the destruction of the town in ONE go, dude."
"I-I, um..Cool?" Damien smiled with his teeth nervously, Jaune shook at him with a face that said 'Really?'. "No, it's not. I know that place was full of thugs yet, he could've just swept all the street rats less carelessly instead of bringing environmental damage along. Imagine the the benefits of an empty town. Now, it's just a wasteland with a massive cavity."
"Yeah..Sorry 'bout that."
"Anyway, what's worse than this was that he halfed the MOON! The whole Moon, Damien! In half!"
"Sure, he cut it in half, so what? That things really not complete since it keeps falling apart into chunks and went back to a nearly complete sphere."
"What are you guys talking about?" Ren butted in unannounced, standing at their front. Damien shook his head, "Nothing. We're just talking about how Merce-I MEAN, ZEUS made a hassle upon the Moon."
"You mean a few days ago? Yeah, can't imagine someone to be that powerful, though. It's unreal.." He put his hand on his head as if he lost hope for all of Remnant. "What can the whole of Remnant do to stop him?"
'..Nothing.' Jaune thought, digging his nails deep into his palm's flesh, his fringe covered his blood-red glowing eyes. While their conversation changed from the Moon news to how they felt about the tournament, Weiss was pouting as she glared at Arc from a distance where they would not find suspicion. However, Yang found out and went in for a tease on her by poking her cheek, startling her, "Who would dare-..?! Oh, it's you..."
"Heh! What's wrong? Can't get Jaune out of your mind?~"
"D-Don't be ridiculous! He's just..so hard to read. I find him suspicious that he was connected to something about this Mercer guy and his 'fire poison' a few weeks ago and he had said some weird things like 'that's much better' and debated with us on how we're mistaking what we heard."
"Maybe. You're probably just loving him being mysterious, huh? Since he's such a 'cool, mysterious, masked' man from the novels. Like Blake!" She pointed her thumb to Belladonna, who flushed and furiously hid her lower face, leaving her eyes to lour at her. "Sorry, okay? Besides, you should stay healthy with him. You guys are like a couple of close wife and husband, *whispers* not that I'd be alright with..."
"I DO NOT!" Her skin burned to scarlet-red, shouting at her in a sudden. Her snapping caught everyone's attention to her, embarrassing her again. "N-Nevermind..."
Yang giggled childishly and Arc tilted his head in an awkward manner, clueless to what her outburst was. In an instant, Jaune's head felt like it was melting from within. His brain was burning into a crisp and his vision was going blank, "GRRRAAARRGH!"
He dropped to the ground, rolling about in pain, everyone around him went to being worried about him. Ruby first went, "Jaune! Are you alright?!"
"THIS IS NO WAY ALRIGHT AT ALL-OW, YEAP. THAT BURNS!" Excruciating as it was, his entire eyeballs turned glowing, scarlet red, he had the visions again. An image of a scenary outside of the orbit, Remnant, in space as the world crumbled by flames and explosions. Every kingdom, every part of the whole ocean, there were earthquakes with continents shaking and tsunamis devouring the lands and innocents. Another image was Alex Mercer facing off an unknown woman with yellowish-orange eyes, two partners beside her. At least unknown to him.
Alex wielded his regular "Devil's Pride" but had a demonic arm with a sheath attached to it, similar to Vergil's Devil Trigger. The sheath had an orange eyeball with the pupil of a cat, designed in a similar way as the Eye Of Sauron from Lord Of The Rings. He placed back his katana into the casing. He jerked his katana out of the sheath by using inertia, whispering deathly with two voices, one demonic and one normal, at the same time, "I told you, Fall..."
The last image was a dark figure, blinded by its own shadow due to the fire behind it. It had only one skeletal left wing of a Nevermore, nearly a complete body-like black armour of a skeleton with only an entire right arm patch missing, replaced with Crocea Mors. The suit was covered with any regular black coat and the left skeletal gauntlet was weaponised with a long, curved blade for a fin. However, the helmet of the armour was partially done, only leaving its right eye unmasked and have one horn originating from the left side, similar to a Mouflon goat.
The mask was quite similar to a skull, only the teeth is similar to a vampire or viper's fangs. It had a messy and spiky black fur collar around its neck. Eyes were pale yellowish, the shield was opened and connected to its right forearm and the blade was stuck to the back of its hand, parallel to the forearm itself. It roared louder than any Grimm, its Banshee scream echoed and pushed the air around it, tearing down city-blocks before self-destructing with pale yellow Aura, "GRRAAARROAAHH!"
Jaune snapped back to his sight of the real world, he vomited a pool of blood. Pyrrha screeched, "JAUNE!"
"I'm alright! I'm alright! *huff* *huff* That was *huff* something for an experience.." Arc wiped his mouth clean off of any droplet.
"You jerk!" Nikos punched his chest, he did not feel anything but something emotional to his heart. "Don't scare me like that!"
"I-I'm sorry?!"
"You better be! That was scary to lose someone like you!" Weiss scoffed, Arc rolled his eyes but smiled. "For once you cared, Snow Angel."
"Of course I would! Why wouldn't I not care for an idiot that is loved by a partner who I wished to be with instead?!"
"W-Wait, wha-?!" Ruby sobbed before being cut off.
"Loved by who? Who are you talking about?" Clueless as ever, his puzzled face showed his confusion while the red-head ponytail girl was smoking red until reacting to Weiss' response, "Who else but Pyrr-Mmph!"
Nikos slept her mouth with extreme force, sighing with relief. When she pulled her hand away, Schnee burst again, "What was that for, Pyrrha?! I'm telling the tru-!"
"Do not screw this up for me, Schnee..." Her frightful voice shut the white-haired's mouth like a zip. "Y-Yes!"
"Urgh.." Arc was getting dizzy, he looked as if he had too many shots of alcohol. His body fell flat to the floor, unconscious. Everyone except Oobleck went panic mode once more, only the professor advised them to leave his body to rest, "It would not be easy for his mind to recover if you worry! When you do, he, too, would have to stress over you people as his friends...*whisper* The only ones to continue being his..."
'Damnit, bro..This isn't right anymore! You shouldn't have the same damn problem again this year!' Damien bit his thumb's skin, not following his own teacher's orders.
-:-
An hour later, At Haven Academy:
The Bullhead landed and the students of Beacon alighted, taking their first few steps upon the entrance of Haven Academy. The view of the school was, unnaturally, risible. Unlike Vale's place of academics, there were not many lampposts with banners as usual to them but statues of knights with wings. The structure was much like a grey coloured mansion from Greeks and a giant golden figure of an angel goddess playing a harp. The goddess was big breasted and her face was undeniably beautiful. Damien was really in heaven as bliss and joy was painted all over his face. "Man~, THIS IS THE COOLEST PLACE EVER!"
"Yup..This brings back memories, I guess. I've never thought I'd see so many familiar faces...Feeling better, Jaune?" Pyrrha sighed, causing her eye-scratching partner to fret. "Y-Yeah. But what's wrong about Haven Academy?"
"It's...It's the academy where most of my friends graduated to. Back in Sanctum, where I emigrated from. I'm sure everyone's gonna be 'enthusiastic' that I had to leave, their...'Finest Huntress'..."
"O-Oh, sorry about that if it were to bring you any harm. If it makes you feel any better, I don't think they're going to be..ya know, since you're friendly to those around you while I'm just..different."
"It's alright. I'm hoping that I can face my friends after I just left them. I thank you for being such a kind and dear partner...Hm.." She smiled cutely to him, forcing him into a blush. Jaune stuttered shyly as he scratched the side of his face, "Y-Your welcome!"
"Hey, isn't that guy that Shot was telling us about before she went back to detention? A blonde man with a stripes on his back? She also said he nearly taken down her whole delinquent group, especially the Specialist Kunoichi Squad." A random student of Haven Academy gossiped with another. Her voice made Pyrrha squeeled before she hid behind Jaune. "Y-Yeah! She was very descriptive about his appearance. What gives?"
"I think it's because of him harassing her to be his lover."
"Y-You mean he did those awful things to her?! What a perv!" He jerked to hearing that sentence, cursing mentally to his enhanced senses to eavesdrop. "Naaah, I think she meant that it was all done by accident."
"Geez, Sasha! You're so kind to men! They'll take an advantage over that weakness!"
"I mean, isn't he quite the good-looking?"
"Now that you think about it, I don't know where to start. What a hunk!" The atmosphere had gotten thicker with the contagious gossiping about him, making him extremely nervous. Jaune walked to the two girls who started it, letting Nikos off to hide behind a tree and explaining to them to make sure they did not get the wrong idea, "Now, hold on a sec. I'm not someone to be bad news at all. I'm just trying to get her onto her good side!"
Pyrrha was still hiding herself from anyone in her previous academy before students behind her started gossiping about her, "Hey, don't you find that girl over there kinda familiar?"
"Uh yeah..Pumpkin Pete."
"What?! No! Don't you remember, isn't that Pyrrha Nikos? Wasn't she in your class back in Sanctum?"
"Oh right! But she came to Haven Academy? Why would she do that?"
"Yeah, why?..." Nikos was in a conflict of both guilt and sorrow, tears started forming down her face, starting at her eyes. She wanted to dug a hole and die in it in embarrassment. She hated being seen as some item to be of worth instead of being seen as someone normal, like a new and efficient touch-screen phone to a commoner. Soon, others continued the conversation. She believed it would end up with the same disappointment for them as always, losing a formidable student, just like losing a daughter, a friend.
"Seriously though, why would she come back to this God forsaken bullshit Academy named Haven? It doesn't even have the rights to earn that name!"
"Yeah, the only thing good here are friends of common issues, benefits and that tits-ful golden statue. Beacon's a place for more than all of that here!"
"But, I hope no one finds her as some kind of thing to mess around with but someone who can make her feel, you know, regular? Remember Sanctum?"
"Well, of course! This academy did taught us one thing, 'Never be human for abandoning your family.' She is family as well. Hey, maybe that blonde dude is her partner!"
'W-Wait, what?' All of her doubting emotions were swapped away for slight happiness, concern and peace. She looked back to where they were eyeing at, Jaune Arc. He was still confronting them about any misunderstandings.
"And, you did! She stopped getting her boys to bully other people for lunch money and today's already the last day of her month long detention! Hey, is that Pyrrha Nikos?"
"Eep!" She ducked her head away from the female. Jaune turned to his partner, still confused if being the 'Finest Hunter' was much of a big deal, "Y-Yeah, she's my partner. Why?"
"Treating her well lately? Better not be a jackass to her!" One of them gave the most livid frown while clenching her fist at him, who felt a little uncomfortable for being suspected as a jerk. "O-Of course not, I don't treat that badly! Right, Pyrrha? Hey, Pyrrha? You alright there?"
"Um, yeah?..."
"Come on, your friends thought me as a jerk. And I think they want to see you, right?" He looked back to the two girls, who replied, "More like sisters. No one's 'adopted' but we went through Sanctum with many fond memories. Remember when you had to do the dare of going inside Sanctum late at night for a few hours?"
"Pyrrha did the naughty?! *gasp*" Jaune was ecstatic to hear Nikos being a ballsy person while Pyrrha got out of her bubble and spoke out. "No, no! It was only a dare, didn't you hear!? I'm not that bad!"
"But that's cool! You weren't scared of getting detention, right?"
"No."
"Oh...But you get to do that!? That's nice!"
"I like this guy! He isn't your boyfriend, right~?"
"Come on, Sasha! T-That's too much!"
"Fine, fine. Don't worry, there's no competition for you. You got this in the bag, and he's a keeper! Perfect catch, Nikos! Good job!"
"Sheesh!" Pyrrha did not notice, but Ren did find her getting in touch with her old friends well, and with Jaune. Seemed to him that thanks to both their intellect and Jaune's method of getting people's smiles with his as he laughed nervously with her. It's no different than the surprising moment Blake was calmed thanks to Jaune fighting off the White Fang with the secret Faunus getting along with her team by the instant he finished talking to her about it. Arc then asked, "Oh yeah, about Shot. You told me about her being better and not getting detention right? What does she need to do for detention, anyway?"
"Doing her homework and once she's done, she studies. Except, she's still stuck at the basics, though. Therefore, she had to do get some tutoring from her professors."
"What is wrong with your academy's detention system? Can't she do more proactive things instead of the boring ones that even I can't endure?! I rather do the gardening than homework!" He pouted stubbornly.
"Teehee! She is right, you're a very funny man! And a cute one, too!"
"Please don't call me a kid anymore...I hate being called cute." He pouted, kicking the dirt on the ground childishly with his arms folded.
"Oooh~, looks like someone's embarrassed about it!"
"*sniff* No I'm not...*sniff*" His babyish nature kicked in, sobbing over a compliment when he just wanted to be treated as a man. A group of school girls behind them made a 'Kya!' cheer together in sync, pink hearts imaginably came out of their backs and casting jealousy to Pyrrha and the boys. The usual dark Aura dwelled upon Nikos as she grinned creepily to the women, cracking her knuckles and coming closer to them, "Don't get too close to him, fellas. Alright?"
"Ah, Pyrrha! There's no need for that, we just like the guy, not try to take him from you! Remember, no competition?!"
"Mine!" As he looked, he even heard screams of agony from getting tickled in every area most sensitive to the common human and Faunus bodies. Just then, the same black-haired girl with the katana came down from the sky, facing Jaune. She stood properly, scowling at him with ill intentions of murder, "Jaune Arc!"
"Y-Yeah?" He pointed to himself, sweatdropping. "How dare you come to this school after what you put our Queen and us into! And what now, here to rape her like you usually did?!"
"Aw crap, here we go again..WHY DO YOU THINK I'M A RAPIST?!"
"You LOOK like a pervert, there's no reason we would speculate you as a pervert! And what you made her wear when she come back!...YOU'LL PAY!"
"She went back to the field trip in the summer dress? Why would she-? No, look! I just want to finish this dumb competition so that I can go back home and have that delicious egg mayo sandwich-Wait, did you say 'our' and 'us'?"
"Damn straight..." She snapped her fingers, the same female masked delinquents came out of their hiding areas to assemble, scissors readied. "I, Kuro Kenshi, shall make you perish for what you did to her!"
"..Ooohh, so Kenshi's your surname, huh?"
"W-What?! You dare to forget my name?!"
"You never said anything about it. How should I know about it? Also, my face itches from mosquito bites."
"...Did Miss Kenshi seriously got defeated by this dumbass?" One of the lacky girls questioned another before Jaune roared, "Hey! I heard that! My ass ain't dumb! It's perfect! And I'll castrate your pancreas for that!"
"Oh crap!" She shivered while he sighed in regrettable stress, taking out his White Bang. He smacked the top of his head with the barrel intimidatingly as if he had a sore headache from two whole bottles of beer, but he was just trying to remember what he had to study for the history tournament, "You know, Kuro? You are by far the most irritating person to deal with, you know that? And I'm just here for a tournament! I have no intentions to do anything to your Queen right now!"
His dare-devilish face scared the wits out of the minor opponents while the regular students, including Pyrrha, did the same 'Kya!' cheer to him. Kuro still held her guard, "Tch! Don't be feared by him, he's just bluffing!"
"Oh, am I? Let's see why you girls only remembered my face before passing out." When they heard a crack from his neck when he pressured it, they fled from battle, dropping their stationary weapons and hid behind the trees and bushes, disgracing Kuro, "W-Wait, you girls!"
"See? Even they have better development in brain cells than you for a sore headache..*sigh* How does everything come down to this? I just got here for 15 minutes and 43 seconds until everything went down to 'Hey you. Let's fight!' situations. Fine," Jaune pinched his nose in disappointment before darkening his tone to a life-hating, sorrowful personality. Cracking his index with his thumb and whispering to her and only her, "Bring it."
"1-D!" Kuro chanted, jerking out her katana and revealing white blade marks at the middle of the air, attacking Jaune. He used his Tank Buster and shouted, "Arc 11: Astral Gleamer!"
His blade was enhanced with pale yellow Aura and he swept away the lines from his path. They traded blows for blows, causing the area they battled to break down into pieces of stone. The demolition was getting nearer to the rest of the teams, alerting Professor Oobleck, "Alright, kids! I think it's time for us to be leaving. Mr. Arc has been wasting our time for the past half an hour!"
"Hey!" Damien protested.
"Apologies. Jaune Arc has been wasting our time-"
"Not the name, Professor! Why the hell are we leaving my brother?!"
"Firstly, their fight is getting more ridiculous and dangerous even for me to stop! Look at the ground. It's getting destroyed by their recklessness. Secondly, you already knew who's going to win, right?" The Faunus turned to his sibling, the intense love for bloodshed was written all over the blond's face. Kenshi bellowed, "2-D!"
"Arc 9: Heaven's Blade!" As they negated one another's attack and defence fairly, Damien focused to Oobleck, confirming it with him, "You were saying?"
"Oh...Well, nevermind. I'm sure he'll bring out his fullest potential, finish the match and get back to us eventually, have faith everyone!" The elder one dragged her by the hood of her red cape. "Come on, Ruby, let's go."
"Aww but Yang! This fight is just so majestic!"
"Same for you, Pyrrha." She snatched her arm as well. "Please, Yang! Five more minutes!"
"NO. Besides, what if you get hurt and he started crying for you?"
"...He would?" Pyrrha asked with hope in her voice and glitter in her eyes that she would finally be noticed by her senpai.
"Isn't he your partner?!"
"Enough of you, Arc! It's time I end you. Now!" She struggled against his will and might, dodge-rolling from him. The whole Beacon team paysed at their paths again to finally see the last scene of action. She roundhouse kicked him away and sheathed her katana. Jaune regained his balance by dive-rolling back to the ground, casually strolling away from her with his sword resting on his shoulder. "Grr! Don't mock me!"
"...Huh, you were saying? I apologise, I think you got dirt on me..Hold on a second. You should be the one apologising!" He checked his shoes to see whether they were untidy from the gruesome fight. He stomped his feet, trying to get rid of the dirt on his shoes, "These are good shoes too. There goes 10,000 Lien from my pockets."
"That does it! 1-D!" Kenshi finally released an absurd amount of Aura into one huge line of spatial-distortion at him. Jaune rolled his head around, cracking his neck before finally shaking off the chains wrapped to his arm, singing his sword with the Astral Gleamer enhancement still active. Their attacks destroyed one another, leaving her breathless with Jaune was still kicking, only with a fractured arm due to the impact. Kuro coughed, "Hah! How's that, you flawed bastard! *huff*"
Using the other hand, he reshaped it back into its proper place, "Mm. Much better."
"*huff* Oh yeah. *huff* Zombiness..."
"Zombification! I gave it a name!"
"Whatever. I'm finished already. *huff*"
"Okay *sigh*. How about I finish you as quickly as possible then you can sleep and I can go start the history competition?" He snapped his fingers all together and pointed at her, "1."
He disappeared and reappeared behind her, pressing his nails forcefully into a vulnerable area of her arm that was just beside her deltoid, "2." He repeated the same thing but for her leg instead as he was at her sight for the near instant. He zipped to beside her again, swipe-kicking her to the floor.
Finally, Arc pulled out his White Bang and aimed it point-blank to her forehead, ending his count with a demonic voice, "3..."
Kuro could not feel anything from her 'disarmed' leg and arm nor could she stand up, her pride and power was annihilated. Arc smirked at her exhausted, sweating face without pulling the trigger, "Told you. Now, let me get you back on your feet so that we can finally call truce."
However, after the exact moment he tapped his hands to her shoulders to catch her, her clothes were slashed off, leaving her only in her undergarnments. Blue-striped underwear, bandage bra, beautiful skin and a 'just right' ripped body, no man near her would not nose-bleed to death. Of course, she was embarassed too, especially Jaune, "H-H-How...D-DARE...YOU!"
"Oh dear-Aawhaww, my children!..." She punched him in the nuts, making him fall and leaving her 'victorious'. "How dare you go and s-s-strip off my clothes, you perverted fiend!"
"The hell, I did no such thing in doing that anime thing of 'cutting up someone's clothes with a delay' like from Shomin Sample! God damnit, no way I can regenerate from this..."
'You did good, Arc..' All the boys were giving him a thumbs up with nosebleeds while Nora screamed at Ren, covering his eyes as she climbed on him like Left 4 Dead's Jockey, "Ren! Close your eyes! Don't submit to her body!"
"Gah, no, Nora! I won't, get off of me!"
"Jaaauune~, care to explain why you want to cut her up?" Nikos snapped her fingers as she approached him who told her without a sense that he might be in danger, "Cause she wants to kill me?"
"Oh, I see. You didn't really have the intention."
"What intention? My intention is to go back to the dorm and have a nice eggy sandwich-ey."
"Now do you think he's a perv? After he had proven that he did do weird things to females?" One of the Haven Academy girls whispered while another replied, "Who cares. He's really daring~"
"The nerve of him!" Kuro retreated back with her allies giving her a new uniform. "And there you girls were! Why didn't you fight alongside with me?!"
"W-Well one, after our first encounter on him, he was scary and two, you were more...reckless, should we might add."
"What?!"
"Y-Yeah! You were always training more and more until you literally tore your muscles apart and when we fooled around town, you even included us in the range of victims in the park!" Another explained. "You nearly got us all killed because of your moves and it surprisingly affected your clothes. There's no other blade marks that caused your clothing to be cut but absolutely freaking yours!"
"B-But I-"
"Don't blame anyone but yourself!..Please don't hit me because I just stated the logical reason."
"Y-You..Just give me the damn clothes..."
"Jaune?" A familiar voice came about, stopping Pyrrha from lightly punching Arc's chest. Shot came back in an actual regular uniform that most ordinary students wore. "Y-You're here?!"
"Shot?" He said.
"Leader?!" The delinquents said.
"Shot...Heard about her. Sounds fun!" Yang growled, cracking her knuckles. Pendant jumped to his arms, blissed with happiness and a red face, "Oh, I'm so glad that you're here! You should see what I've actually learned from school!"
"I'm happy for you but, could you just NOT crush me?"
"Huh? Oh!" Pyrrha was furious in her mind, on the outside, she creepily cracked her neck, tilting her head while still smiling. "Really, why are you here?"
"History competition. Can't leave without it."
"Do you mean 'live'?"
"Leave. I don't want to come here for just some dumb, minor tournament. I wish I can just skip it to meet you again and see how things go with your academy. Sorry that all you'll get from my visit here is only..that."
"I-Is that so?" Shot blushed while the Spartan cutely bit on a handkerchief. "Would ya like to go for a tour? We are causing more trouble and not following the rules so why not skip the competition?"
"Sure! Doesn't hurt too much with that useless, unnecessary-No not the collar, Oobleck! Let me go! I just ironed it!"
"Professor Oobleck, correction!" The green-haired dragged him while leading the entire Beacon group straight to the competition, leaving all of the spectating Haven Academy students behind. "Oh yeah?! How about coffee-dependent Oobleck!?"
"It's true that I love coffee more than anything and I admit it!"
"Damn you..."
Shot can't help but giggle at his adorable struggle. Xiao Long stood back, still having killing intentions at her while she had the same, "So, Yang Xiao Long, how's Beacon treating you?"
"Better than what you expected."
"I didn't expect any ill hatred towards ya. But, you best hope that your chest aren't ripped away from you..."
"And, why's that?"
"Jaune's mine, Yang. I wish for no rivals..."
"Hmph! Same here." She grinned cockily. Pendant's body was flooded with glowing white ambers, eyeballs brightened as well. Yang punched her own knuckles, her hair turned Super Saiyan and her eyes turned blood red. They jinxed, "I'll break you."
-:-
A few minutes later:
"Ah! Mr. Oobleck! It's great to see you here!" The same lady from the park greeted him dearly by shaking his only hand forcefully with both of hers. He was quite confused by her strange excitement, "Same to you, Ma'am Disciplina! Mind giving back my hand?!"
"O-Oh yes! I sincerely apologise for that! It's just too GOOD to reunite with you like the good old days!"
"Ahh yes! The good old days when we went for campus, stripped Port on the first day and make him chase us for his underwear, naked! Oh jolly good times!"
'...For someone like me who don't find killing Grimms any big deal, he's messed up.' Jaune sweatdropped as Oobleck continued. "So, are we ready for the competition!?"
"Yes! Girls, get over here!" Her echoing shout sent to Flare, Detona and Bust, forcing them out of their dorm. They zipped through their academy and fell in like a Military Squad. Flare and Detona were the only ones with serious faces, Bust was just too happy to get into the competition. "Y-Yes, Ma'am!"
"Are the preparations checked?"
"Yes, Ma'am!"
"Are the food ready?"
"Yes, Ma'am!"
"Did you finish your homework and studied enough?!"
"Yes, Ma'am!" Flare and Detona replied proudly.
"No, Ma'am! Oh, wait a minute-..." Bust accidentally blurted out her secret of not doing the task at hand. Her allies went wide-eyed, their teacher's smile twitched in rage. The yellow-haired girl retreated backwards nervously and slowly, "W-Wait, professor! I can explain...Um,"
"That you have NOT prepared for what we had been practicing for the last five WEEKS?!"
"Por favour!" The student of Haven jerked into a defensive stand, covering her eyes to prevent the sight of what the old lady could possibly do to torture her. "*sigh* Then, I'll have to bring Ms. Pendant, then..."
"Pendant?! Why Shot, professor?" Winchester queried. "Aheh. During her detention classes, I got her to do some revision mainly on Remnant's history,"
"Musta been boring. Dear the lords to praise her soul..." Jaune muttered to himself, tapping his forehead, shoulders and chest religiously. "It may sound as if she is being used as a 'plan B', but we would have problematic issues arriving for our cases such as this. Fortunate enough, she took the test for the certification into getting to this competition."
"Sounds reasonable. But what about her?" Damien said.
"Well, either have a child who can't be responsible of her own studies or have a more disciplined and willing student who we can trust to be well prepared." Bust teared so much with puppy eyes, she ran off from the scene to her dorm, crying. Everyone looked to her and went back to Professor Disciplina with disappointed looks. "Oh get a grip, it's true! Anyway, the competition will start in half an hour. Be prepared, students."
As the only teachers left, Flare sent her shoulders to a more relaxed position than the tensive stance. She hopped joyfully towards Jaune and leaned on his chest seductively with lust in her eyes, the creepy smirk on her face, "Hey there, Master~! Might you shout at me again? I'm DYING for your abhor of me."
He looked at Damien from his left and Ren from his right for some advice, all they did was shook their shoulders, "*whisper* Why do you call me Master? And why do you want me to hate you? *regular volume* Um..Go away! I hate you!"
"Oh~! Such hurtful words~! Mmm~..."
"G-Guys, she's creeping me!" He whispered to them, puzzled but they had weird faces of disgust, perking up their lips and squinting their eyes. Damien coughed out the words, "No, no. It's inhumane."
"Abnormal, friend." Ren included.
"Oh, I guess that means it's fine, then."
"IT IS NOT FINE!"
"But, you guys said it's nothing humane! I'm the same!"
"Not that kind of inhumane!" Damien and Ren both smacked his palm deep into their foreheads while the girls, except for Nora, Flare and Detona, gathered around behind the boys, staring with purple aura of disgust at the ginger ponytailed Winchester.
-:-
Meanwhile:
Jim and Bob were kneeling on the ground with their backs straightened, a bump each on top of their heads. White Fang members regrouped at one corner, heavily injured and afraid to take another step nearer to the two Evolved. Alex Mercer crossed his arms with a plain look, "Don't do something like that again unless I sent a message to you two about any form of danger through HM."
"Yes, sir..." They downed their heads to him. Cinder Fall stepped in, calling for the pale skin. "Ready to do your job?"
"After three weeks of doing nothing and then having to deal with these two, yeah. I would."
"Good. Here is the most likely location of your target for today," She swiped her Scroll pad to a church area on a Three-Dimensional map. She included a profile of a man with long, spiky and rough mustache and beard in a torn hood. His eyes were reddened with visible vessels, as if he took hard drugs, or in the case had been sleep deprived on the run, "His name's Trevor Cain, age 32. A wanted criminal in the Dead or Alive Bounty List. Payment for any two ways is 100 thousand Lien for countless of thefts, robberies in the bank, bombings on the police department, sales of drugs and, secretly, stealing White Fang weaponry. That's what they would say, but in actual fact, he had been in sightings of the bombings and robberies, only taking what isn't his."
"Seems they don't check security footage well. That doesn't sound too bad-"
"And using them against Atlas Military. Quick thinker, knows the gun the minute it was given to him. You should also be careful about him, very cunning and a strategist to escape from the clutches of Atlas Military, even."
"Ahh, I see why he's a pain. Can't be too hard, cause it's just one guy."
"Who got away from humiliating Atlas Military. You should be sent the common whereabouts he had been visiting, so get going," Emerald sassily spoke back, leading to Alex sighing. "And you're comparing that to me? You two stay here, I'm doing this by myself."
ZEUS ordered his own creations who rebelled the idea. "Stay here?! For what reason!?"
"You tore apart the White Fang from their dignity and bravery just to 'save' me. Thankfully you didn't kill any, just nearly got them killed. Your job is to make sure they are back at full health and cooperate well with them."
"...Can we just turn them into zombies-?"
"No."
"...Evolved-?"
"Nurse them. I don't really think they've got what it takes for my power."
"Ahh, fock the Medic, man! That shit's boring!" Jim swung his arms downwards as Bob nodded vigorously, "Yeah! Screw the Medic!"
"You'll soon know why you'll be depending on your healing factors if I come back to see them untreated. We're working with them for a while and it'd be a tougher job for us with a smaller army, got that? I might find this guy's talent useful. All I need is his motives. Then we'll get more like you two."
"Yes, sir!" They jerked back to disciplined positions of saluting him as he was about to leave. Alex was stopped by a hand to his shoulder. He who had stopped him was none other than leader, Adam Taurus. "Hm? And who are you suppose to be?"
"My name matters not for now. When you come back, I beg you," He then went down to him with one knee, bowing. "To train me!"
Nearly all White Fang members were at a lost of belief. Their greatest ruler, ruthless pillar of pride, humiliating himself to some unknown man. "...And, why should I?"
"I want to exact my vengeance on a student of Beacon, Jaune Arc. I saw what you did to the moon. You might even help my Semblance with that same destructive force upon that globe...I say this one more time, TRAIN ME! I know you had taught him!"
"Oh? And what did he do to make you believe that?"
"Powers. Similar to yours."
'Goddamn prick can't keep it in him, huh? He must be strong'
"And you are now helping with our work! So, teach me your ways so I can beat your student!"
"...*sigh* This is what pity is, huh?" Taurus tightened his grip to the dust on the ground, scratching his skin with the rough, rocky floor in rage of hearing the word 'pity'. "But, I'll do it."
"I-I..thank you!" He tilted his head downwards even further while Mercer finally left. The lieutenant picked Adam back up to his feet, the virus still had doubts, 'Judging by his tone, there's no end to him trying to get me to train him so I have to agree, I guess. Well, at least Jaune will have someone as tough as me to deal with for a challenge if I'm not around. So, clutches, huh?'
He looked up on his Blackwatch gauntlet as he glided at a height just below the clouds, his screen had the same image as the man he was sent to kill, 'Well, he won't escape this time.'
A few minutes later, at the doorstep into a church:
He landed right at the rooftop of a building next to the target location. He cracked his neck from both sides before shape-shifting the appearance of his Grimm outfit into regular civis, brown jacket with dark-blue leather pants with a face of any dead victim he killed. He jumped down in an alleyway, not making a ruckus and headed straight to the place of Christian purification.
As he opened the doors, part of his organs that were not suppose to be man-made already screamed for help and mercy while the other, which he truly was, did not feel the torture and he had no single doubt or care about it. The place was glittered with green light, painted in clear white and the windows symbolised a man with his arms spread wide open, people beneath him was praying to him like an angel.
(Music Recommended: Fall Into Darkness from DMC4)
Visitors clasped their hands altogether to pray as a familiar woman sang her heart to them. A beautiful, gingerheaded, green-eyed, 'Angelina? Oh shit, that's right! It's a Friday! Church day for her! And, my God, she look great in that white dress and all that singing is even better.'
With the gorgeous light shining down her, she really did live up to her name. However, a preacher and three young nuns suspected Alex for showing up in such a rude manner, opening doors to awaken the prayers' attention. As they ignore the incident like every NPC in Prototype would do because of the terrible stealth mechanic, Mercer got to a seat with the whole sight of who he can pin-point his target. He sent a Sonar Pulse to the room, discovering a guy in orange veins sending back the pulse to him. He smirked mentally, 'Got ya.'
Trevor, who had been confirmed as a target, hesitantly turned to his back and in shock, Alex was still glaring at him with a killer's intent. He turned back and pretended to pray again. He started being tensed up with major stress, he could explode any minute then, 'Oh fuck! Oh fuck! Oh FUCK!'
Finally, after a few more minutes of 'praying' to Angela's song, ZEUS made his move as he got out of the seat. Cain could not bear the fear and flipped out a gun to aim it at him. People around him were flabbergasted, did not expect he would carry something lethal into the room, "Back off, freak! I don't want to hurt nobody!"
"Hmph, acted on instinct, huh? Well, can't blame you for being all worked up because of a stalking hitman. Speaking of so, I may have to result in killing you. Why? You're wanted dead or alive. And I'll put you down dead. But since you came here for some reason, you probably ain't that bad."
"W-What?"
"*sigh* In summary, I don't really feel like killing those who have sinned and found taking what isn't theirs isn't beneficial for them." He turned mutated into his Claws and made sparks come out by sharpening one another, "But you're still going back to pay, pal. By the way, terrible English, unless you actually plan to hurt somebody."
Out of the ordinary, an energy wave nearly sliced his head off in a horizontal format before he ducked it. It came from one of the nuns who wielded a high-tech scythe with an energy-fielded blade. Two more used a medieval weapon flail and a sword and shield with the same technology and energy. The priest held a longsword with one hand and a Bible with the other.
"F-Father?!" Cain and Labyrinth stuttered while the preacher ordered, "Everyone! Get out of here immediately! Cain, you'll have lots of explaining to do about why you need to go back to jail."
"Pff-What is this, Opposite Day?! In God's name hell is a fucking Priest helping him instead of me?!" Alex snickered like a jerk. As everyone but them left, including Angelina, Trevor stayed, oblivious of why a stranger he met a few weeks ago, without any proper communication, would help him. "B-But,-!"
"Go, now! It's not like he's after my head."
"I might, Father, because you're seriously pissing me off and in my way to greater good..."
"Father...Gnk!" He left with tears in his eyes, passing by Mercer like any kind of heroic scene in anime. Alex tilted his next clockwise, cracking his neck. He shape-shifted back to his original coat, speaking, "Forgive me, father for I have sinned...but I've just begun."
The workers of their God pulled out epic stances at him with their weapons, "Hmph, you wish...heathen!"
(Music Recommended: This Is Gonna Hurt by Sixx:A.M.)
Alex started off with a lunged kick to the scythe user at her sickle, causing a shock upon her arms to be unable to grasp it properly. As the flail nun swung the spiked ball at his face, he caught it, swung it around, along with her and sent her straight to a bench. The father struck his talons with powerful attacks, enhanced with Aura. When his efforts were not really helpful, the virus was about to slash his face. Before that, he was blocked by the book, echoes shivered down the bones of his arm which exploded into organs and sharp blades.
His amputated arm literally screeched in agony without even a mouth, the preacher shook off the Bible of any filth, "Don't take this lightly, spawn of evil. This Bible can burn you back to hell, torturing you like a vampire to garlic!"
"Hmm, religiously logical," ZEUS peeked into the insides of his tendrils, "But can it kill me completely? And faster than I can kick your ass?"
He grew back another Claw and went back against the nun with the paladin's equipment. She defended against his speedy strikes and went for opened counter attacks, if there were any. Her tactics prevented him from going anywhere above the shield which made things more interesting for him. He applied greater effort that time, doing a KHII Reversal technique around her, catching her off-guard.
She managed to block the backstab as well, only to put in too much pressure to her arm, leaving her opened. Mercer did the Reversal method again and went in for a jab into her stomach. Fortunately, for her, the Bible came out of nowhere and was swung at him, repeatedly from all directions.
Mercer continued missing the holy item from the priest before being stabbed straight to the heart by the longsword and kicked into another bench. As they perspired heavily, he sat on the wooden settle barbarously with his chin resting on his palm, smiling once the stall halted to a stop. "That all you got?"
"N-Not yet. *huff*" Said the nun with the flail as she slammed the ball to create an energy shockwave that destroyed most of the environmental accessories. He hopped over the shockwave and landed back on the still-useable bench, "That reminds me. Are you two related?"
The Father and the nun with both swords 'shields' turned to one another back to him, "No. Why?"
"Oh, nothing. Thought I might do a 'Blue Exorcist' where I kill the old man and that spawn would want revenge, even though I'm not the actual father." He was about to be smacked by the same flail once more for saying that. However, he used his Whipfist to tangle around the chain and snatched it from her. She was still falling towards him when she tried to jump and hit him, thus he got out of the seat, allowed her to stumble upon it before kicking it down. That knocked her head forcefully, leaving her unconscious. He swung the flail up and down, sighing, "Look. I really want to get something down for my new job so, could you just let me have Trevor Cain?"
"Over our dead bodies!" They regrouped without their other member, ready for anything that he would dish out. He charged in with immense speed, swearing, "Christ almighty, YOU'RE ALL GOING TO BE MY SIN!"
He threw the flail at the scythe nun and drop-kicked onto the weapon-less sister into the ground while body-surfing for a moment. The father was about to pierce through him with his broadsword where he quickly backflip-kicked her at his legs, tripping him. Though he forced him to lose his sword, the blade penetrated into his leg and ground, forcing Alex to be temporarily pinned. The sword-and-shield novice took that opportunity to put four slices on his waist while she was going to finish him off with a stab through the neck.
"Fuck!" ZEUS swore as he was able to cut the ground open to free his feet, which was still connected with the sword. He kicked her attack away with the weapon in him, and to him, Alex was impressed, "Heh. Hell yeah!"
"Confound it! He's got your sword, Father!" The scythe wielder picked her two companions up whereas the flail was given back to the rightful owner. "No matter, as long as the Bible and God's Grace are with us, he will be stopped!"
"Then try it." Alex lifted his leg upwards in a Kung Fu stance, intimidating them more with the blood-soaked sword. The Father took out his cross chain around his neck and placed it in front of the Evolved, projecting a cross of white light. He was pulverised by it through the head, leaving burnt marks on his mask and skin, "S-Shit! Maybe that wasn't a good idea."
With him being dazed by the power of Christ, the nun's scythe was thrown at him, pushing him straight to the wall and pinning him once more. With him being cornered, they all put up a beatdown of stabs, slashes and attempts of amputation and decapitation until the elder man put the Bible and cross point-blank onto his face, disintegrating into a skull with the littlest of organs. Thinking that it was over, they backed off and took a breather on the benches.
However, with their focus off-guard, Mercer swiftly caught them by surprise by arming himself with the energy-based sickle staff out of his abdominals and struck them hard, "No good!"
"But this is getting interesting! So come on!"
-:-
Meanwhile, Back at Haven:
"Alrighty, everyone! *sob* I'm sure you all are pumped up about this competition between Haven and Beacon! *sob*" Bust introduced herself sorrowfully from the inside yet, joyfully on the outside as the announcer in the middle of the stage. A huge crowd took their seats labelled around the stage as if they were meant for a miniature stadium, with Jaune, Pyrrha, Weiss, Flare, Detona and a beat up Shot behind tables with buttons. "Today! We will see who will bring home the Remnant History trophy back home...except for Haven, considering this is our academy! *sob*"
Yang sat next to the rest of the teams, covered in bandages for her forehead, first aid dressings on her cheeks and hansaplasts over the bridge of her nose. Damien sweatdropped at the sight of her, "Y-You okay there, Yang?"
"Does it look like I'm okay, fellow pervert?"
"N-Nevermind, sir!...Wait, fellow pervert? What are you a pervert for-?"
"Don't ask or you'll sooner or later find out!" She loaded her Ember Celica with a few clicks. "Okay, I'll zip my mouth now!"
"First question! What was the most horrifying problem the third ruler of Atlas to face-..Yes, Contestant Jaune Arc?" He slapped down the button and answered, "She had to suffer countless of sacrificed men, women and even children as soldiers in the battlefield to uphold Atlas till the very day it was at its own peace with the Grimms' population downgrade two decades, three years and seven months ago."
"T-That's!" Bust turned to Madam Disciplina who nodded, "It's completely true."
"...C-Correct! One point goes to Beacon! Onto the next question," Bust congratulated but, as she began new questions and he finished four of them, she seemed to be awfully spent with Haven competitors holding grudges...except for Flare who enjoyed every inch of the torment. The students related to Jaune cheered him from whole-heartedly to half-heartedly due to his seemingly rude behaviour of taking the spotlight from everyone while those who did not relate to him gossiped about him. "He's awesome!", "What is he?! A professor!?", "He's gonna bring the entire competition down without a sweat!" Those were the hassle they were creating as the audience.
"O-Onto the next question," Bust trembled as she flicked to the next card of questions while Jaune was actually sweating buckets, whispering to himself, "...I think I should stop right now.."
"What do you mean by that?" Weiss folded her arms, glaring at him sternly like a abusive mother. Jaune chuckled softly while ruffling the back of his head, "Ahah, my mind's kinda blocked right now, probably from all that breakfast so I don't think I can remember anything about history right now."
"Finally you allow us to try out some of the questions! It's time for me and Pyrrha to take care of this-!"
"Why was Empress Lin Chi Fwang hated by many women and children?" Schnee screamed mentally from listening to that question. She jerked her head slowly to him, who face-palmed his forehead, "Please don't look at me, I can't think anymore..Now I'm starting to remember. Isn't this in the Sage tier textbook?"
"You little-!" A noise from a button came from Shot who answered, "This is due to forcing labour upon workers who were husbands and fathers to the mothers and children in building the wall of Atlas for their defences, increasing the death population of those workers from exhaustion or accidents."
"Correct! One point for Haven!" Haven Academy students cheered greatly for their Queen Pendant, especially the female delinquents. Surprisingly, the male ones were not present. The three Beacon competitors had poker faces, Arc started first, "..Pyrrha, you did learn Sage tier right?"
"I thought we're suppose to be only using the Advanced tier?!" The red-haired Spartan exclaimed and Weiss followed suit. "I thought the same."
"Nope, wait. I think they also meant 'Advanced tier and higher'." Jaune pointed, remembering about the two words from the competition poster, in which Nikos and Schnee face-palmed at both of their own idiocy and somewhat his. "Ok, there's no way we can win since the questions from the Sage tier is included! You gotta be serious about this!"
"Nah, I'm just going to forfeit since I'm literally too bloated to remember the textbook."
"How?!"
"Guess who to wake me up 4 hours early everyday?"
"...Me."
"Yyyeup. Besides, I'm kinda a man of my word where I repeated myself multiple times that I DON'T want to compete," He stood up and called out his brother. "Damien, your turn now. You should be able to help them, right?"
"I got bored, dabbled on some Sage Tier questions. But I can't really remember them. And I pissed off, thinking that you'll help."
"..Ew." Jaune scoffed at his brother only for his way of taking his mind off studying by doing more studying. The brothers switched places but Jaune preferred to stay at the backstage instead. As an hour went on, Pyrrha and Weiss managed to achieve a few points while Damien scored less due to their differences in intelligence while the Haven students won around two times their total score. Bust announced, "Alright, folks! Now's the end of the first round! Haven girls, you did great! Keep it up! For Beacon, don't give up!~ There's the second round with double the points for each question. There's still a fair hope for everyone!"
Weiss was in the deepest form of misery. 'How is this possible?!' 'Are we not going to win with this useless amount of points!?' 'This is insane!' "It's all your fault, Arc!" All these questions were in her mind, except for the last one, considering she screamed it out loud. Damien overheard when he past by her. His dog ears went down, his eyes were watery. Schnee saw all those aspects visible to her and became quite anxious, "D-Damien! It's not what it sounds like! I meant it for Ja-!"
"You rich kids are jerks! I'm not smart like my brother! Wahahaha..." He ran off to the teams, leaving her in a worsened emotional state that not even the Deadly Sins are capable of, 'Guilt'. She slowly reached to her silver locket with tears in her eyes, reminded of the incident. She opened it, eyeing at her childhood picture with a young Flare Winchester. She then gritted her teeth and unwillingly snapped off the string to throw the necklace at a nearby wall, cracking the glass screen, "GRAH!"
Weiss leaned behind a wall, descended down to the ground and cried on her shoulders, curling her legs together with her stomach. A few minutes on, she heard footsteps and looked up, Jaune picked up the locket as he checked the cracks, "How was that exactly my fault? I don't regularly eat that small of a plate, especially yours! Also, nice photo of you and her. You two look like unstoppable children with no one to push you over when you get back up."
"Jaune..."
"But yeah. It's my fault for 'leaving you guys in the battlefield'. Always me to blame..but hey, I want people to try learning to be independent. To learn to be..'correct' about themselves...To feel as if nothing will stop them now. No stress, no negative feelings. Especially guilt. Good thing big bro Dami came to rejuvenate your memory systems. There are things that we are all guilty of. Even Ozpin, Glynda and...me."
"Even you?..."
"Yup. *sigh* Ugh! Guilt! What a terrible feeling. Yet, not only is it painful to deal with but, it's also easy to get rid off." Arc admired the blue sky with pale clouds with eyes that seemed to have went through hell.
"...What riddles are you talking about?" She got back up, curious of his game. "2 years ago, I was the reason for the 'SIN' incident. But it doesn't matter..not to you, at least...or it does-*whisper* wait, does it even matter? I mean, they are her family so-..."
He then faced her properly, wondering if she caught a clue about the SIN incident. Luckily, she was oblivious of what he was murmuring about and he rolled with it, "Now, I don't want you to follow the same path countless of people have went through, leading to nothing but misery and guilt. Right now, you shouldn't care about the old friend you used to have. You got a competition to uphold. After that, muscle up some courage and apologise to her. She will forgive you in the end. At least one day."
"She's not someone easy to apologise, Jaune! I mean-"
"The question is, did you even give her an apology after giving her time to recover all those years ago?" Her eyes widened, discovering the flaw. "I can even sense that you were too late to say sorry, afraid of yourself screwing up once more and making your relationship with her worse. Instead, waiting a little longer went from a few days to a few years. But look, you've been bottling up this guilt for far too long. You're that nervous to not say anything and you want to. All you really need is someone to tell you..'Do it'. Just apologise and be rid of the agony you've endured. Don't care about the risks or disadvantages. Do it."
It all made sense for her. All the time, in the situation between her and Winchester, she had been afraid of making things worse whenever she wanted to apologise. Her blindness prevented her to see the estimate but confirmed outcome. All she needed was a little motivation to tackle the problem she faced all those years...and then, she could. Warm tears ran down her face, Weiss Schnee nodded with great determination. Arc smirked while giving her back the locket. "Now, go out there and make us proud!"
"Mm!" Her smile brightened and she went back on stage. Every step she took, she could already remember the hardships they went through. Jaune teasing her around for making a slight mistake in her test practices while encouraging her to strive. Him using most of his time teaching her Sage Tier questions and being the kindest, selfless male to ever be in her life, unlike the other males of the opposite. She thought, 'Jaune Arc. What a guy.'
As Schnee went back up the stage, Jaune scratched his eyes, yawning, "Man, I did have to wake up early for this. And I can't even feel like sleeping at all. So restless..Hey, maybe if I just..."
He took out his Rippeater and included a suppressor from his inner tendrils to its barrel, thus firing rapid-fire bullets into his head and making sure he could have a concussion behind a trash can of the near empty backstage.
-:-
Meanwhile, Back at the Church:
Alex stood upon one of the benches, surrounded by the lying bodies of the nuns and father. Although not dead, they were still breathing with a few cuts and bruises. He held the Bible, screams of Grimms could still be heard inside him yet, he was not affected at all, "Huh? This holy book fends off Grimms like actual demons against the holy power of God. Neat."
"H-How dare you lay your filthy hands on that Bible, heathen!" The sword and shield user coughed. "Hey, my hands do not have blood or anything. In fact, your bible's trying to kill off what's inside me, except for your cross, so I'm not that impure..right? Anyway, I'll be taking my leave after putting this on this bench here. Sorry for the mess."
"D-Don't run off..Coward." She fainted onto the ground, losing every strength to muster. He gently placed it down on the speech desk and was about to leave the church until he noticed something behind it. A vertical sword stand was installed for the size of a longsword on the left side whereas on the right, there were displays of diplomas for graduating Sanctum and Shade Academies and succeeding into the Juniors of the Hall Of Fame four decades ago, "Hall Of Fame, huh? No wonder the old man's got some moves. Heard that?! Ya got some moves! And thanks to you, Trevor's probably gone by now."
After he pushed the doors open to exit the area, his eyes were introduced by the sudden flicker of spotlights while being surrounded by gun barrels and pointed at by laser sights. An Atlas Military army surrounded him, along with modernly modified tanks, trucks and air supports.
The tanks had the usual giant barrel but they were equipped with explosives even the ancient tanks could not handle with one shell. To make matters worse, Winter Schnee arrived as well when she was standing at the edge of a flying carrier.
"*sigh and whisper* Fan-fucked up-tastic. You all seriously need to put in that much effort to try to kill me, huh?"
"Yes. We saw how dangerous you are when you destroyed the moon! And, for the safety of all, we have to stop you. Even if it means killing you!" Winter explained before wielding her rapier. Alex pinched the bridge of his nose, not only being disappointed of the intelligence of a Lieutenant but also scanning through every Atlas weapon makers' memories he collected to find Atlas' greatest forms of weaponry.
He later searched for any biological programs their scientists had started, including Project TITAN. None of them was powerful enough to rival even his form that he obtained from consuming the 9 Evolved in New York Zero.
He sighed at great disbelief, mocking the soldiers, "And you came to me with such low levelled equipments that aren't even nuclear warheads? What about a squad full of TITANs?"
"It's either others' safety or our own, ZEUS. And besides, we got something else better than TITANs."
"Dear God, I just wanted to deal with a target I'd prefer to assassinate. That's all I wanted."
"By taking down the Church? Despicable!"
"W-Wait wait wait, no one said about taking down the Chur-"
"Open fire!" She ordered her troops to fire at will, exploding right at the Church's front entrance. Bullets flew, rockets detonated, tank shells shattered the concrete ground Mercer stood upon. When they stopped and the dust cloud dissipated, he was seen unscratched, giving all of them the sense of hopelessness. As they stuttered and hesitated, Alex looked down to the floor, still holding onto his nose, "...You know, I'm more astonished by the fact that you shot at me in front of a Church after thinking that I was trying to take it down and maybe including killing the people in it, which I did not, than the fact that you guys have the balls to go up against me. ME,"
"The guy who outplayed all of you losers and your worthless Project TITAN, flying drones and other crap. The guy who cut the Moon in half. And, heheh, the guy who's gonna pull out a 'CW Zoom' on you all for doing such a Satanic deed." He cracked his neck before posing in a running stance. They all were oblivious of what he meant at the last sentence.
(Music Recommended: New Noise by Refused)
Motion slowed down, birds had not flapped their wings by even a decimal of an inch, everyone and everything looked like they were stuck in a stopped time except for him. He ran around, punching all armed Atlas soldiers by the jaws. That led to twisting their necks, disabling any blood flow to the brain and shattering their windpipes. As he did so while running around them with an orange glowing streak, he took their grenade belts and went back to the same spot where he started. He pulled out the grenade pins, threw away the belts and sent the cooked frags into the tanks' barrels, trucks' and the carriers' windows, not aiming at the drivers, however.
The motion went back to its original pace, bodies fell and Winter was at distraught. Most of her men laid without life around them. The only person on foot was her target enemy. Still holding onto the grenade pins, he bowed to her with his free arm to his chest, "Now, we're even. Next, to celebrate the deaths of all you idiots and the start of your chick boss fighting against ME!"
He threw the pins in the air and had a sinister grin with orange glowing eyes.
(~CAN I SCREAM?! YEAH!~)
"D-Damn you! Everyone get back! Pilots, out of the veh-!" She thundered until the grenades blew up the rest of her army, including her ride and pilot. Schnee swiftly landed onto the battleground, chaos spread around them and left them a ring of fire. ZEUS inhaled the tainted air of the smoke with his covered nose, "Smell that? Despite the killing carbon monoxide, that's the smell of regret that you should have for leading these people along with your grave, Schnee."
"I'll avenge them with your head on my rapier!" She dashed at him, trying to stab him in the heart. He blocked it with his Shield and extended spikes at her, forcing her to back off. He used his Claws to pounce at her, making a few sparks when she defended herself. They went on with a sword fight between his Blade and her weapon, both striking and evading. She tried another attempt on dashing forward but Mercer ducked to plunge his Claws into the road. Ten feet tall spikes came out behind her and the shockwave that they caused propelled Winter away from him after her Aura barrier was severely damaged from the Groundspikes, "And she's out!"
She flew over the Church and onto another streets for their battle. Alex came out in the air, holding onto a gatling gun he took from one of the tanks that was still intact. Behind him were an assault rifle and a shotgun from the fallen soldiers. He sent thousands of rounds per second at Schnee before she slowed down her time to have a greater riposte upon the bullets.
She slashed them down with not much effort, adjusted her handle to pop out a knife and threw it at the barrel. Once the gun could not fire, he abandoned it in mid-air before switching to the fully-automatic rifle. He continued running to her while firing more. Schnee slid in between the range of bullets while charging at him before sliding down to trip his legs.
Unfortunately, for her, he front-flipped over her entire height. Still at a different angle, he still shot at her, although she still blocked them by swiping from behind. Her talent to be able to prevent the bullets at such a close range amazed him. They clashed again, using one another's push to pull themselves back. The virus unloaded the clip, examining if there were anymore ammo left. However, even when it was empty, he loaded it back in with a plan in mind, "Impressive. You could come in useful as a part of me once I've consumed you. And you've sinned in front of the Church. All the more reason to eat."
"I have been trained to penetrate through all odds. With this strength, your chances of escape are low and once help arrives, you have lots of questions from us to answer."
"Not gonna happen cause I already effed up my first mission, and you're just wasting my time by extending the duration of your inevitable demise. And I don't like it when people waste precious time."
"Then, if you think that you're more superior than me, why didn't you run off like the coward you are and just catch the bastard?"
"*sigh* How annoying..Remnant is a world, and worlds would have lands of opportunities, where there are people to kill and jobs to turn in. I'm trying to have some fun in paying some bills! Sure, the pile just keeps rising, but why would I run away from danger when that's the exact point? Why would I leave something drastically fun when I can deal with it?"
"What are you...?"
"Why would I let that danger ruin the mall when I still have groceries? Hell, let's get to the point, why should I go after someone who preferred to run away from your 'fearsome' military instead of someone who commands nearly three of said military squads? Answer: Get some freedom." Alex rolled his eyes. "Now do you understand the reason why I haven't went full auto on you, play with you a little bit more before chasing after the bastard with a mark on his head? Even if it's my first day on the job, old habits die hard."
"Even so, I WON'T LET ANOTHER INNOCENT'S BLOOD SPILLED BECAUSE OF YOU-!"
"Nah nah nah. See, that's not my fault, remember? Don't LIE about it, Schnee. It's your fault for bringing them here. It's your fault that they got into this mess and it's YOUR responsibility. If you don't carry this shameless guilt of your own selfishness, you're no better than the Grimms lurking around..And we all know the karma system, right? This is what happens to liars and morons..." Alex and Winter rushed in again. That time, Winter formed multiple birds of light-blue Aura with her Glyphs and shot them right at Alex's face. He took it face-on with the appearance of invulnerable as if he brushed the attacks off like flies. He started off with a strike by the stock to her chin which she dodged as well.
He suddenly released the useless magazine in front of her and slammed his barrel at it, forcing it to smack her face off-guard. He took out the shotgun and sprayed the pellets directly at the arm she wielded her rapier. He cocked the gun with one hand and fired again at her knee. By using his bicep and body side, he cocked the shotgun once more and shot her stomach. Alex jerked it forwards and backwards, using inertia to pump the last shell in and shot her face. Although none of the bullets could really harm her, they did heavily reduce her mobility, leaving her in one spot for him to finally end it.
"I swear, you really are retarded to come here with such weaklings." He finally swung it at her head, only to be stopped by a blurry figure. Their collision shook the streets, he was quite surprised that something was sturdy enough to prevent her death. As the figure focused, it was a young man, around his 20s, wearing unfashionable clothing, similar to the medieval times' peasant clothes. He was using tendrils as the arms. Blacklight tendrils. Mercer thought, 'Oh? Seems that they finally got it, replicating the virus completely. How cute.'
"Take that, ya nut-job!" Another but deep and muffled voice came from above. There were two TITANS diving straight at Alex and smashed into him. Buildings fell apart by the mere shake of their fall. She seemed impressed of how using his own DNA against him would be effective, 'I have yet to see the full-potential of this new project but, it really looks like it would be over when it had already began.'
-:-
Weeks ago, back at Atlas HQ:
"We're using mainly ZEUS' DNA as a biological weapon against him with test subjects?! Ironwood sir, we already have the TITAN project, all we need to do is amp up the serum with other types instead of turning them into..cold-hearted murderers!" She tired reasoning with James who had turned a deaf ear on her. He walked down the path to the red hologram computer, passing-by actual volunteers of the project. "Ironwood sir, please answer me!"
"*sigh* TITAN project was meant to kill off ZEUS but, considering that three was just child's play to him and he just sliced the moon in half, they are not meant to only sustain him. However, after 4 years of gaining the biomass he had left from previous fights, we are able to replicate the virus inside the biomass, controlling them to do what we order then to do." He briefly explained as he typed on the holographic keyboard, the screen displayed atoms bonded together, cells colliding with one another inside a tissue and boxes of words shows information. "A month ago, the scientists told me about the cautions, capabilities and all that links to ZEUS' abnormalities."
"And what did they say about the virus, Ironwood sir?"
"All they said was that it gives the victim terrible diseases, cancers and other forms of viruses, considering the ZEUS plague composes like of multiple viruses at once. A 'virus factory', they presumed. This comes along with the virus corrupting and rotting the brain to its core. Showing symptoms similar to a Grimm," He tapped on the 'Enter' key, showing off an image of a walker, infected by the BLACKLIGHT and running loose on the security camera. It roared, screamed and chewed on the scientists' flesh in agony before being gunned down by one of the remaining scientists. The risks of the virus disgusted and terrorised Winter at the same time. "However, if the victim has a more resistant DNA make-up, the effects can be altered into providing him immense superhuman physicality, cellular regeneration and body size manipulation, fashioning his own body into sharp deadly weapons that ZEUS is capable of."
"But, they're people..."
"The worst of the worst. They're from the Black Gaia Penitentiary, for crying out loud. I was against it too, don't worry. But the lead researcher informed me of their compliance and wish to be free from charges in helping us instead. If they try to get out if they were successful, they die by our best men there. And thanks to them, we were able to pull out outstanding results," She was given another video to look into, showing the very first test subject to survive the protocol. A convict who was sentenced for a lifetime for mass murder, rocking a mustache that looked like an 'n'. He was tall, ripped and gigantic, like the size of Hulk or even Bane. Ironwood asked her, "Ever wonder why Project TITAN came into play?"
"He's the reason for the creation of it?"
"It comes from a certain reckless commander but, he ended up bonding completely well with the virus. We were trying to maintain the human-like nature of the TITANs, while attributing the strength of what had made him a monster. And that's not all. The scientists also 'copy-paste' the criminal's resistant DNA to other soldiers."
"But why only for the sergeants of the military? Can't they also use their arms as weapons?"
"They may be loyal, disciplined and enduring, but the reproduction of the true HERCULES is not the ideal goal, only making the sergeants' DNA immunity system more persevering enough for mainly strength increase. There are others with similar strength of their bio to crack open the virus' potential. As I said, he became another being. We can't tear someone's life out like that anymore. Until...just now." Winter could not help hearing those sentences from her boss, giving the illogical reasoning that they were not making demons but demon-like humans. "This doesn't seem..right, sir. Are we really going to send our soldiers into this..catastrophic path?"
"Yes, this new project is meant for more monstrosity behaviours. But, you do not have to worry. GRIMM LABS will succeed and no one who is a part of this protocol will get hurt. In fact, we're using the Black Gaia prisoners who can get use to the changes. Besides, it would be over with ZEUS when it had already began." He patted his hand on her shoulder, unintentionally charming her with a sparkling face. 'H-He seems kind of cool..'
"I am convinced that you have other duties to uphold with your team. Soon, I'll be having a conference with the head of this project. You are dismissed."
"Yes, sir!" She took her leave from the wicked laboratory. As she tapped the door to open for her, a grey-haired man in his 70s was just outside, dressed in a cold-white suit. Even without the spectacles, she instantly recognised the man through the repulsive smile he had, a smile only the greedy could adore. The only thing she could scoff at him was 'you'. All he did to her, despite the ill-intention she had towards him, was greet her, "Good evening, Miss Schnee. Mr Ironwoods and I have business to attend for now. If you could kindly?"
Winter felt both bitterness and shock swirled together into a terrible concoction. Her father's secretary, as the supposed founder of GRIMM LABS? Or it might have been Jacob's intentions to begin with. She was not sure what they were but she became completely aware of why when she remembered 'SIN'. She looked back to the two, the supposed secretary in assisting withe Schnee Dust Company's President showed only half of his face to her, his grin was barely noticeable when it came up as the doors were nearly closed. By then, she hesitated. It was revolting to hesitate, in her standards of discipline, focus and strength, for it brought frightening memories.
She needed someone dead for it to be gone. James spoke to him finally, "Ah, Plutus! You've come early for the meeting yet again. But taking our time perfectly would result better, so we can't afford any hindrance of failure in this project anymore. We have to be sure we can adapt into ZEUS' arsenal and abilities before he could do more damage than we could preserve and repair."
"Hah, I couldn't agree more, Mr Ironwoods." His smirk could be no curvier and wider than before, all it was was a sign of betrayal.
-:-
Back to the present time:
One of them picked him up by the collar and lifted him in the air, roaring at his face in his gas masks, "ALRIGHT, ASSHOLE! Time to answer us! What is your purpose for wrecking Remnant from Atlas to Vale, huh?! What's your ambition?! And Winter told us about a target! Jobs! Who are you working for!?"
"..Heheh..."
"Motherfucker, did you not here me!? Answer!" He punched him by the face, getting the adrenaline going into his head. ZEUS was not phased. At least, not too phased when he spoke, "I actually felt that.."
"What did you say?!"
"It felt like a..gentle push by your girlfriend when you tease her a lot..Like some punch to the shoulder..not to forget, that drop...felt like a pot hitting my head.."
"He's gone insane due to you idiots' fat falls! We can't get any information from him..Mission failed-" Winter huffed in disappointment. The TITANs felt slightly edged when she insulted them after saving her bacon.
"Oh, I'm not just insane, Winter. I'm just too amused!"
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"I thought I shouldn't waste my time on fragile people like you after that weak, tasteless fight and should just get over with finding my target. But I can't find him at a radius he's probably long gone to. Surprisingly, after waiting a bit longer, things start to get interesting. You guys seemed to be better than before. Much better."
"Target? Who are you talking about?!" TITAN thundered.
"Heheh. And to finish your sentence, Schnee-" Alex clapped his hands together, in-between the TITAN's head which turned into mush of organs. He was set free and the first thing he did was looking into the Evolved's eyes, grinning, "-We'll get him next time."
She could not have a single though, despite having a quick active mind. Mercer's velocity could outpace the speed he had before by a few yards in a millisecond. He drop-kicked the Evolved in the face, sending him a kilometre away in a split second through the streets. 'N-No! I thought they were stronger than this! He's been holding back the entire time?! What kind of monster would exist with this amount of power?! But..he must be stopped, at least prolonged until they get here! I apologise, Mr Ironwoods. It maybe foolish for me to try and help by getting him where we want him at. But he'll just be as fast as always, and might got to another area where GRIMM LABS could not get him!'
Alex recovered his balance in the air, landing on his feet before turning to the other giant. The big guy stuttered in fear, afraid to get close to the beast but strived back with courage. He went from swinging his arms at him to jumping in the air and slamming his fists from above, only to cause more ruckus when he applied enough force, combined with Mercer's feet area, to plunge his legs into the ground.
With his limbs stuck, the super soldier smashed his fists and legs at every part of ZEUS' body. The way he fought was done in a flash, his arms moved so much faster than before, even with the bulky muscles he had. However, the virus felt minor pain and he was proud. He spitted black blood onto the floor, smirking sadistically, "Finally, a blood-welcoming challenge from you morons!"
"D-Damn!" He swore as Mercer ascended out of the floor. He cracked his neck and knuckles before sending the same punches and kicks back at him, doing greater damage than TITAN had done. Fortunately, he managed to survive with only a few bruises and quarter a gallon of blood lost since his armour was drenched in red. TITAN went back in for another punch only to be countered with another by Alex when they hit one another's knuckles. His arm was being penetrated throughout by Alex's, tearing every bond between his tissues and cells.
He screamed in pain, his voice broke the sound barrier as he kneeled to the floor, blood was flooding out of him. Winter was in awe at how he was able to massacre a TITAN within half a minute. She prepared her rapier and struck at him from behind. He did not move nor did he flinch, Alex Mercer allowed her a backstab through his heart. White Glyphs formed on his back and front and pigeons made of light cyan Aura burst out of the Glyphs, peeling off every atom out of his torso. The outburst of freed birds led to him having a clean but massive hole on him. Instead of being in pain, he chuckled as he glanced at the split moon, as it was still reflecting the sunlight from the Sun to his eyes and the damage he had done was glowing reddish orange, "Ain't this romantic."
'He can't be serious..impalement doesn't hurt him at all?! Sure he's immortal, but impervious to pain?' She thought while Mercer grabbed onto the blade and pulled it upwards, tearing his body even more just to remove its cold steel out of his flesh. Soon, the Evolved was coming back with an ear piercing noise, due to the mach cone that was formed in front of him. His arms turned into blades and he swiped them both at Mercer, who tanked the attack. They went deep into his left kidney area but he grabbed hold of them and continued slashing through his body in half.
His upper body part healed along with his lower part while he was taking the Evolved's arms out from the right kidney area. Schnee was in awe, never seen what he's capable of. Should had known to bring effective weapons to kill him completely instead of cutting him into regenerative pieces.
Alex finally stabbed the Evolved's face with his own weapons and then ripped them out, leaving him armless, "Dis-arm-ed, my good sir?"
Alex kicked his body away and focused on Winter, whose eyes were terrified and out of shape. He could see the fear inside of her and it was ectasy-inspiring to see it. Mercer disappeared out of thin air and reappeared in front of her, jump-scaring her. Before she could retaliate, he kicked Schnee down to the ground and walked above her, glaring into her soul, "If you're wondering why I didn't feel anything from your birdies, then you're gonna learn to love the pain, especially how much death taste like!"
He tried stabbing her mouth with the arms but, she was able to outmanoeuvre his quicker yet playful strikes by shifting her head with her neck. In the nick of time, the Evolved recovered, albeit still flawed with a few still healing life-scarring injuries. ZEUS 'returned' his arms forcefully by sending them into his chest and mutated his right arm into a regular bladed like every other Evolved are capable of, "En garde?"
The Evolved still had a lifeless face as his tendrils reached out for the ends of his weapons, reconnecting them back. They both struck, their blades made sparks after every hit and Alex could feel the resultant shocks from them. The Evolved slashed his knees off, Mercer slammed down his arm onto his back. He carried himself over him, even without his legs, sat down on the floor and threw himself away from him. He quickly regrew his limbs before using his Whipfist to take a few shots at Winter, who was sneaking behind him, "Oh, now that's just rude to hamper, Miss Schnee! Here, have a seat!"
He twirled his Whipfist around her, locking her arms to her waist. The virus contracted back his arm, bringing her to him so that he could smash his knee into her stomach. She vomited out blood with a broken will to fight. He shot her to the sky, forcing her to land into the church through the rooftop window. Winter was lying on one of the benches, next to the priest and his nuns. Alex giggled sadistically, "Hahah! Now,"
The Evolved finally had a new face expression, only slightly irritated of being thrown back and forth. "To business..."
-:-
An hour later, back at Haven Academy:
The entire stadium was being packed up, the competition had ended with Beacon as the victor and Weiss as the lead. Flare was quite surprised that the opposers could make a comeback with the knowledge of something outside the advanced history books, even though Haven had a love-drunk Pendant on their side. She still stood frozen to the stage, being asked by the managers of it to get down, "Huh? Oh, sorry..."
"Hey, kid. Don't be downed by just a brain-draining competition like this. There's always the Vytal Festival, where hunters truly show their prowess." He said.
"Yeah, sure." Winchester met up with Schnee, who was still in guilt, "Look, Flare. I'm sorry about...you know, years ago...I shouldn't have just stayed silent and not say anything. Something that wrong has never happened to me. I was afraid of that embarrassing moment. I'm dearly sorry..."
"What do you mean? Oh. That incident. But," Flare took a moment to think. "I realised my mistake years ago. I should be the one apologising."
"...Eh?!"
"Yeah. I was a sensitive and easily aggressed girl, remember? Now that I've matured, I understood of what went wrong. Damn zip kept flying off in the end..."
"Wait then, why didn't you tell me that we're still..friends, I guess?"
"I thought you'd never forgive me after everything I called you. A slut, a whore, a daddy's little girl. Then, might as well make sure it stays that way since I'm also afraid as well. Plus, you enjoy talking back too, don't you?"
"N-Not that much.."
"Heh. And again, I'm the one who should apologise."
"I-uhm, no. It's me that should be saying sorry-"
"Weiss, we'll never see the end like this. Let's agree on this term that in the end, all is forgiven. Deal?" Winchester offered a handshake of reunion, a new bond that was torn apart for a long while. Something Weiss had no hesitation to comply. "Deal!"
"But next time, I'll find a way to beat you in a real match. Maybe the festival."
"Hah! You have a long way for that to happen, Flare."
"Aye, seems you guys are getting along very well," Jaune came in with a plate of chicken rice. Weiss shrugged, "Who knows? Our relationship went from enemies to frenemies. We're still about to go for the Vytal festival to see how much we've grown out of three years in our individual academies."
"Mmm-Nah, I think Winchester's going to win."
"Hey!" Schnee shouted, pulling his ear while Flare chuckled. "Surely you jest?"
"No, seriously, Winchester. You can absolutely destroy Schnee in the true tournament, unlike this pile of nonsense called a history competition." The secret Evolved directly blurted, earning himself a punch to the shoulder by yours truly. "Why are you siding with her now, Arc?!"
"What? It's true that you got dominated by me so hard, you fell to my arms, remember?"
"W-When did that happen-?!"
"Three weeks ago."
"Damn you..." Flare seemed confused about their relationship, thinking that they were couples in the first time they were together at the park until she laughed quite hysterically, "Hahahah! You two really are like an opposite couple. One being a calm idiot with the other being an angry smartass."
"W-Woah! Flare, please don't tell me that you hit your head in defeat!? I only have a slight interest in him!" Her face, ears went redder than rose.
"And I'm not angry! Nor is she calm!"
"She meant the other way around, Jaune!"
"Oh, okay. I get it now." The orange-haired chuckled more at his idiocy, but a sense of urgency for it. The feeling of pain, being insulted, being a masochist flushed down any emotion she once had, "I-I-I've been wondering if you have a some time with me, um. Jaune, was it? Can you-uh-"
"What?"
"Can you, you know do that one thing you did weeks ago? When you talk back at me?"
"..What?" The tension he was giving her was getting irritating but the ignorance he was giving him was satisfying and ecstasy. She finally gave in to his undying will to control her, "Can you punish me more~?"
"...What?" Jaune said it one more time, still oblivious while his brother choked out a hint, "*cough* Insult her."
"Oh, ok. Um, you're hair's as terrible as Damien's 'PlayBoy' magazines. I mean, all it has is women in useless outfits that don't have any role in being normal, but a complete-..*whispers to Damien* Do I really have to?..Or she won't stop?..Okay. You're disgusting, go home. With that smell, no one can take you seriously. You inbred pig sow." He then made a disgusted face as though he felt like vomiting at the sight of Flare Winchester, who could not help but shiver in delight.
"Ooh! YES! More~!"
"Um, you'll never be able to win just like that. I was wrong, Weiss is so much better. You're just a filthy pile of trash!"
"YES~!"
"Hm...Kill yourself?"
"OH YES~! UGH~!" Her face was full of ectasy, her eyes rolled in bliss, imaginary hearts floated around her, with that creepy grin on her face. Damien gave him a disappointed but fearful look, "Jaune, what the fuck man?"
"Hey, I'm just speaking everything from that black rubber-tights woman with the whip and all in your DVDs, I don't know! I had all those quotes flowing into my mind thanks to you! I mean, it's as though I'm becoming..*gasp* Am I going to be like those women you like?! EW!" He exclaimed, tears flowed down from his eyes as he hugged the life out of his sibling. "Caugh! Argh! Stop..Strangling..ME!"
"AM I?! AM I REALLY GOING TO!?"
"Not only if you let go of me right now!" After he did what he had listened to him, Damien patted him to cheer him up as he cried in desperation for the answer in life. Flare said, "Ahh~, now that I shook off my masochism, are you sure that you don't want him?"
"Oh come on! You know that I don't date people like him. Plus, I think he has eyes on that delinquent girl..or Pyrrha. He deserves someone better than me, coming from..whatever he told me." Weiss tilted her head to Jaune, who was sucking on his thumb like a baby with Ruby hugging him from behind, whistling cutely to calm his outburst of his sheer sensitivity of his possible future as a sadist. "Although, I might as well give him something in return for everything..."
"You should. He does need something from the Damsel in Distress he save. In fact, every waking moment she could offer~!"
"Flare!"
"Come on, anyone can like him at first sight, or first impression! He's a keeper, the girls in our academy are proof as well, you know." She dragged him into the woods, releasing Ruby's hold, "*gasp* Thief! Thieeff!"
"H-Hey, wait a sec! Why are we going in there?!"
"Just shut up and come with me, you dolt." Everyone looked to the two of them running off into the forest, cackling except for Pyrrha.
"No, seriously, where are we going?" He repeated his question before being introduced to the cliff, with the moon reflecting luminous blue light even when it was cut in half. The sight was prepossessing, romantic, awkward actually. Weiss pushed him down to his knees as she kneeled down as well, "Look, I'm not good at this...method of showing gratitude but, it's the least I could do. And I don't want anyone seeing this."
"How exactly?" She dashed in for a peck on his mouth, her cold lips hissed on his like ice to a grill. Soon, both of their temperatures were like the surface of the Sun due to the red flooding their cheeks. The sensation was half a minute worth long. Their yellow and white Aura started to emerge and combined. They did not realise it, even though it was loud, their eyes were shut and their energy released out a spherical orb of blinding light.
It floated off to the direction of the rest of the group while it started transforming into a Herculean size holy knight with white armour. It rushed in with a giant claymore and popped out of the plantation and into the party Haven Academy put up. Everyone was in shock as the warrior lifted his blade and swiftly slashed at the hound Arc.
The dog Faunus unlocked Crocea Mors and prepared to block the attack. As their sword and shield clashed, the knight started to deform into Aura and got sucked into the shield, with the amount of Aura from the weapon into the sword of Crocea Mors. Soon, the brightness illuminated in the party dimmed back down, all were at total confusion. "What the hell was that?"
A golden Glyph formed under them, showing the symbol of a halo with a pair of wings before it diminished. Jaune and Weiss finally parted, still glaring deep into their ocean blue and snow white eyes respectively. Jaune said, "Woah..."
"Yeah..." Weiss agreed until she snapped back to her absolute consciousness, "Um! Anyway, you should be happy that I gave away my first kiss to you."
"I am."
"Is that so-Hold on, you mean it?"
"Y-Yeah, that was pretty amazing!"
"H-Huh? Okay..."
"I mean it, Weiss! Nice cold, chilly lips, by the way. It's lovely!"
"Oh, um! I think I'll be going now! I-I-I need to do..my hair! So, never speak of this to anymore, got it?!" She shifted her sight away.
"Heh. Sure sure," However, he pushed her face back to him. He curled around her hair behind her ears, stating her one of her many nicknames, "Little Snow Angel..."
She went back to her usual red face. She speedily got up and ran back to the group, "...O-Oh, come on! Don't put me back to square one of my first crush!"
"W-Wait! *sigh* And there she goes...off with my, let's say, 57th kiss?" Weiss touched her lips, noticing the taste, "Shot was right! He does have a strawberry taste!"
-:-
Back near the Church:
"Well, would ya look at that?" Mercer grabbed the Evolved by the face, lifting her in the air by it as he stood on the horrifingly injured TITAN. "An ideal copy of the Evolved. This seems very impressive because it's not done by me but by a bunch of humans. Very impressive."
The Evolved was a complete disaster. His body was in jeopardy, arms, limbs, even his entire lower body has been removed, letting his intestines dangle in the air. He did not feel the excruciating pain but irritation to be unable to accomplish the job he had been given, "Aw, still can't say anything, huh? Well, works, always taste like failure-"
In an instant, Alex got punched away from him and into a building. He got out from the bed of bricks with his wrist twisted, spitting out a mouthful of blood and teeth, "Hoho~! And here comes a new challenger!"
He twisted his hand back to its original position and strolled to the people who harmed him. They were four figures in hooded clothing, having the same Atlas symbols each. One of them was as gigantic as the TITAN, two more were skinnier and shorter and the last was quite bulky. The skinny one grew out two Whipfists with both hands and sent them at Mercer. He caught them both, his palms were severely scarred yet, he entangled them together and pulled backward with a sudden jerk. The attacker grunted with a serious, feminine tone whereas one of the strong-looking Evolved ran with blinding speed.
He appeared in the air at ZEUS' face with his legs different than normal. He had boots as black as tendrils and glowing red, their design was that of a majorly bulked-up person's bare feet. Instead of human toe nails, they were as frightening as a Beowulf's. The shins were as muscular as Alex's Musclemass and there were glowing lines, similar to the gastrocnemius lines and muscle strands. He kicked his neck hard enough to make a painful cracking sound of his spine. The remaining output of energy from the kick was used to push the air around, kicking in dust to cloud up the vision of the battlefield.
As the dust faded, Mercer was missing his head but, they still showed no mercy as the other regular-size Evolved grabbed hold of him by the legs. The probable only female in the group sent down her Whipfists to the ground after removing the tangles, uprooting Groundspikes from the floor to stab both her ally and enemy's entire lower half, "Ow! Watch it!"
"Well, sorry and your regeneration." She sassed with a seductive voice. The Evolved with the powerful legs Full-Nelson Mercer and last but not least, the largest among them went straight up into the clouds with his right arm mutated into a peculiar ability. His bicep was the same as Alex's improved Musclemass, his forearm was the same as the Hammerfist and the blade of the, well, Blade was in a position like a sickle. The broken Evolved with only his upper body was fleeing only with his chin dragging the rest of what was left of him and the priest gained consciousness.
The Father noticed the diving meteor-size Evolved going in for a slam dunk and looked down to the Bible, praying, "Father of lords, I pray that you blessed me with the protection to save the Atlas child and the rest of the little angels. I have no fear of losing my life. Just,"
He lifted the book at the Evolved and their vulnerable parent, "FOR THE LOVE OF YOU, JUST SAVE YOUR TRIBUTE AND CHILDREN!"
Her finally landed, the attack the giant Evolved caused was as devastating as when Alex bullet-dived upon the town of mobs and destroyed it. Fortunately, a translucent hemispherical forcefield of white energy, with a small percentage of rainbow colours mixed with it, reduced the chaos that could had been brought upon the city.
And the energy was coming from the Bible itself that was held by the priest, who fainted from the shockwave. As the opposers had finished and were about to leave Alex's vaporised body, they started hearing swift movement of liquid. They turned back to the remains, only to find them turned back into headless vessel. The big one growled, "Hell, how could he be living from that? I destroyed that puny ZEUS into pieces! How?!"
"Hmmhmmhmmhmm." A voice was humming from a distance, it came out from a rubble. "Man, you guys don't disappoint, huh? Punching me, kicking me and shit. Jesus, and I thought I was the rowdy one."
"HERMES, kick him one more time!"
"Ya got it, ITUS." HERMES rushed in with the same instantaneous speed, disappearing and reappearing again in front of ZEUS' body, ready to swing his shin once more. In the Nick of time, his body formed tendrils behind his back, he was emitting orange energy and developed beautiful, relentless power. He blocked his kick using the forearm of his bone-exposed Musclemass. The kicker of the team was shocked, even more than his mates, "W-What the-!? Since when was he durable enough to stop that now?! He was barely alive from any kick of mine!"
"Young punk." Alex's arms turned into his Musclemass and he grabbed hold of both legs. He flipped HERMES about with great strength, ripping off the legs. "Thanks for the leggings. I've always wanted to replicate Devil May Cry's Beowulf or Gilgamesh weapons."
"Gragh! Fuck!"
"HERMES!" ITUS roared before rushing in as well. ZEUS pulled out tendrils from his back, using them to hold onto the limbs in order to have free hands to fight. He went int straight for a jab until it got slapped away by his Shields. The Shields he had felt a hundred times more tougher than diamond as he got pushed away from HERMES. ITUS caught HERMES' body, "Stay with me, man."
"O-Of course...You honestly think I'll be going anywhere without those?"
"Heh." The two laughed before the joy was stripped away by Alex's Whipfist. He took back HERMES and tightened his grip to his neck. "D-Damn you!..."
"KEEP YOUR PAWS OFF OF HIM!"
"Hmm...Nah." Mercer refused bluntly before stabbing HERMES in the chest. He started eating him away, consuming him into nothing. "NNNOOOOO! YOU BASTARD!"
ITUS had much fury in him to nuke an entire town, the call of vengeance screamed in his soul. Before he charge in, he was captured by the woman's Whipfist and fished back to the rest of the team. "APHRODITE, da hell?!"-asdtgh-
"Calm your Shields, ITUS. Remember what the creep said, 'You're like cats, having nine lives. Instead of just only nine, the limit is endless'. More than that, actually." APHRODITE reminded ITUS who realised that he got to tensed for no reason. "I-I see."
"We'll have to evacuate for now, Mr. ZEUS. You should be happy about our 'gift'." APHRODITE congratulated as more Whipfists came out of her back, smashing into the Church and grabbing Winter, Project TITANProject TITAN and the regular Evolved.
"Seriously, you guys are not going to cry over your little 'HERMES'? Wow, that's pretty fucked up for a bunch of humans who are into this 'Friendship is unbreakable' bullshit." He disrespectfully flung around the limbs without care that he consumed the owner of them. "You'll see why."
Finally, they left with quick velocities, despite the different sizes and weight. Alex still found it weird about them as he walked to the rubble. He searched for something and found his head sunk in the pile of rocks. He connected them back and immediately, he realised something strange. He checked the Hive Mind and noticed that HERMES' link was not with him but, at a very distant location. So distant, it was impossible for him, as the lead focus, to get to. He turned back to normal from his Evolved state, "Peculiar. Really peculiar...Oh well, I'll just take this pair in. But Hell, Trevor got away, and I can't find Schnee with Sonar...Meh. I'll do other jobs anyway. Not like Fall's gonna cut me too little slack."
While he consumed in the leggings, a White Fang member was on a rooftop. She used her Scroll and communicated with Cinder, "He failed the mission. However, he did prove that he can be of great use against these attackers who are named in the same way Atlas name their weaponry."
"Your point, exactly?"
"They maybe named by Atlas, like how they used Mercer's..'parts' of his body to create this Project 'TITAN'. If I remember, they're the big ones with lieutenant's headgears. His strength might be grateful in the war against the Kingdoms. He might even take down anything that Atlas threw at him."
"Is that so? Hmm...I'll let him off THIS time. Remind me to warn him not to fail the second mission or he'll be off the group. Without a chance of knowing our motives"
"Yes, ma'am." Their call ended, she soon left ZEUS, who had the same limbs as HERMES and even whipped out his Musclemass that had been more detailed, in the same way as the 'boots'. "Ohoh, yeah! It's time for some more Gilgamesh! Hmm, it seems I may have wrecked this place more than I meant to. And this isn't a place to play Sandbox Mode."
(Lock And Load from Devil May Cry 4)
Around him was just crumbs of buildings, dust instead of structures. He left to the shore to test it on the lifeless water of salt. He did a Cockscrew Parkour and kicked the air. That kick was powerful enough to create a massive sonic cannon cyclone that flew across the ocean with speeds faster than lightning. Such speeds of wind created a path upon the sea, exactly similar to Moses' outstanding ability to split the sea, "Oh, fuck yeah! Man, this legs are awesome."
While the water settled down, Mercer tried only clasping his hands at a quick pace. Instead of just a regular, soundless clasp, he made the same sonic piercing explosion like Saitama when he tried to kill a mosquito, "Damn! If I'm wearing black pyjamas with a red cape and shave my head bald, Saitama might be looking at his own Black(Goku) version...On second thought, I still don't think I can punch out the Earth yet."
He then picked up a cement brick and threw it into the air the next time. The clouds had a hole as well before motion slowed to a crawl. The lightning paced object moved much slower like any car in traffic. Alex was the only thing to move with regular superhuman speed. He not only punched and kicked the air to test his new power, he added a few dance moves to make things more entertaining. When he finished off a 720 degree Taekwondo Tornado kick, he spun around by his shoulders as the pivot, doing from the Windmill dance spin to the Flare dance spin while swinging his legs as if they were meant to do harm like helicopter blades.
He stopped spinning and stayed balanced by the head, doing a flying kick stance before getting up. ZEUS went for another Cockscrew Parkour technique two times in a row before landing one last time with one hand. "Alright, fun's over. Let's take it up a notch."
The motion got faster, then the brick moved like a speeding Ferrari. Mercer went for techniques of Wing Chun, his arms were so illusionary, it seemed as if he had hundreds of arms. The next technique was kicking the air repeatedly, similar to Chun Li before leaping high up. He dived back down with a stomp of one foot, sending a short quake with a magnitude strong enough to send any item in the town to jump up by specific displacements, depending on the distance away from the stomp.
Soon, motion went back to normal, unfortunately, not for ZEUS' ears. They felt uncomfortable when he pushed away the air particles with the shockwave of the stomp, it felt the same way as in an airplane, "Gah, that feels weird! Very disturbing...Also, I can't breathe."
He fell to the ground, gasping for oxygen as his arms and legs reformed to their regular forms. Finally, the air flowed back to his area, supplying him sufficient amount of oxygen, "*cough* *cough* God, there's the issue. I bring out too much power into taking the air away from the field. I need to handle the leggings properly, or maybe hold a deeper breath. Heh, this should keep Jaune on his feet for out next brawl. Can't be slacking off, is he?"
-:-
Beacon Academy, JNPR's dorm:
Jaune was swinging his body around, blushing for a very long time after the first kiss he had with Weiss. Damien was permitted into their dorm and tried to fix him. All he could summarise from his analysis was a few sentences, "I've seen cases like this."
"Is it fatal?"
"What?! No! He's basically love drunk. Don't worry, he can never get drunk with beer thanks to his Semblance. He'll just shake the drunk-ness off, anyway. This has happened with his ex."
"Good. Now, I know that someone had flirted with him. Two, to be exact. And one is whom I can tell~..." Pyrrha went back to her Yandere state whereas Nora was weeping in Ren's arms, "*sniff* Ren-ny, everytime!..."
"I know! I know. I'm here, don't worry..." Ren stuttered with a flushed but pleased face as he could feel her boobs pushed deep to his chest. He had a strange arousal from his childhood friend. The Faunus silently tip-toed out of the dorm, "I'm just gonna, ya know, not get involved with something that can threaten my life right now."
Just in front of JNPR's doorstep, Weiss was still in deep thought in her dorm. Ruby was high on cookies, running around the room with Yang having stressful difficulty to stop her and Blake ignoring the commotion with her book, just like Schnee as she was wondering, 'What was Jaune saying about this SIN incident? Maybe I should talk to Pyrrha about this.'
She typed on her Scroll, messaging to Pyrrha about the two-years-ago incident. After she replied, the Snow Angel checked it out and went wide-eyed by the mere sight of some sentences. Sentences that had strong words to describe death and horror. Niko's message said, "Oh...that? You didn't know? I thought your sister and father would tell you."
"I didn't really enjoy television nor did they tell me. Must be something too traumatising."
"Well, that's when the unknown child slaughtered an entire population of an Atlas city..and he just..laughed. Hysterically, even. Shards of bones scattered, faces unrecognised, fountains, pools, puddles of blood across the streets, splattered on every pavement, even carved on so many walls. They said, 'God doesn't like you all', 'Ironwood can't save you like that', 'Useless as always', 'Punished', 'Fucking nobodies' and then 'SIN and sinner'. It's really tragic, especially creepy...That guy,"
"He could have killed your sister and father as well..Sorry to bring that up as well..." Schnee dropped her Scroll, lower eyelids were darker than black, exhausted from the shattering truth. There had to be a reason for his actions against her family. But that literal reason..laughed.
Atlas Base Military, in the GRIMM LABS:
"Were you able to get anything from ZEUS?" Ironwood ordered with three of the same four ambushers kneeling down to him while the body of the Evolved was lying on the ground unconsciously. ITUS replied, "Not really, sir. However, HERMES did put him at a greater level of power just to stop his kick. I assume we are getting closer to his fullest potential."
"Close enough to reach the orbital satellite?"
"Hey, your lab rats tried to crush us with a gigantic hydraulic press, blow us up with tanks and later bomb us with nukes on an island! Even if we survived that with some difficulties, that was an asshole move, Ironwoods." ITUS growled at his boss.
"I'd be doing a favour to Remnant, killing you instead of imprisoning you to escape again and head out to do more wrong. And do remember who's holding the leash, ITUS." James pressed a button in his pocket, ITUS' body dropped down as if he was knocked out of consciousness with his eyes still opened. Screams could be heard below the lab, muffled up by a liquid. Ironwoods released it, allowing ITUS to come back to life, sweating and gasping for oxygen. "OKAY, OKAY! You made your point..We're your fucking..PAWNS..."
"I expect you to show some respect and focus on the manner that I've given you all second chances. Even you, APHRODITE. Don't worry, HERCULES. You're a disciplined soldier who'd shown great loyalty and trust into Atlas. Just make sure you're not as rotten as these three, especially," The remaining group removed their hoods, revealing the way they were dressed. ITUS had a biker's outfit with silvery spikes on his gloves and shoulders and an improperly shaved beard and mustache, similar to the first Ghost Rider movie clothes.
HERCULES was ripped with only track pants on and a curve mustache, leaving his upper body exposed with his insanely bulky muscles. His back seemed infected with partially drawn-out red tendrils. APHRODITE was in a black jumpsuit with red lines with a silver zip, revealing her bust quite openly like the Valkyrie class from Kritika. She had also long, red hair with beautiful red eyes that went well with her long eyelids. Even though ITUS and APHRODITE were wearing upper clothing, red glow came from all of their backs.
Ironwood turned to a red cryogenic chamber with a young man and the same infected legs as HERMES. He had short hair with a some strands that were dyed red, similar to Knives from Scott Pilgrim. The cryogenic chamber casing automatically opened up, emptying the water into the drains close to it. The youngster got out of it, went to the kneeling position with a sinister, cocky smile. James still had a expression-less face yet, the only thing he felt was being pissed of by the shit-eating grin, "HERMES."
-:-
So, yeah. Here are some of the questions you may have:
Why did Jaune try to kill Winter and her father as this "SIN"? Now, the reason for that can be looked up into two to three more chapters in the future. This is the third last chapter for this volume before I make another fanfic for the other volumes because this fanfic will have too many chapters to follow.
Why call the big guy on the team HERCULES when there's already Project TITAN. I can give you a quick lore of the entire team. First, ITUS, the God of Protection. He's basically the viral Captain America on the team who mainly goes for counterattacks and defences, like the Juggernaut and Riot Shields in Prototype 2 and 1. He was basically once a biker like those guys that have very wide bike handles for their motorcycles. He was trying a heist upon a certain bank in Atlas before being pummelled up by Mercer as the one of many victims throughout his 4 years of stay in Remnant. Though ITUS' previous team got away with the dough, they left him to fend off Mercer for what's left of his use. Alex humiliated him accidentally by throwing him in the air in a fit of rage that the getaway driver drove the robbers very far away when he was still babysitting Jaune. With ITUS being thrown up, he eventually went back down and his underwear got caught by the Atlas flag pole, giving him a cartoonish, iconic wedgie. As Alex carried a busted-up Jaune with him to the car that was getting away, the cops had a hearty laugh at the embarrassed meat shield. Although looking like a fool, ITUS actually was a problem to the kingdom's military, even to a few tanks with his tactical experience of stealing his enemies' guns and grenades to fight fire with fire as he guards his team from harm. That's for ITUS.
HERMES, God of Transitions and Boundaries, has the leggings for my ideal complete set of the Gilgamesh or Beowulf weaponry of DMC that is made of viruses and biomass. He is the speedster of the team and uses such speed, with the lowest superhuman durability in the team but enough, to create hard-hitting kinetic energy attacks without hurting himself from his own painful strikes. He once was a trouble maker, a graffiti artist, able to escape the law, Atlas' Military with actual relative ease...before Alex caught him and broke his legs from fleeing. Mercer found him while still in the midst of training Jaune 2 years before he went to Beacon. While he left Arc to have a delicious cheeseburger at the fast food restaurant to beat up a kid since Alex forgotten his wallet and HERMES was spray-painting an alleyway's wall anyway. Robbed from both his wallet and talent of evasion.
APHRODITE, the Goddess of Sexual Love and Beauty, is the "Whip of Love" in the team. My idea of her "sexual love" is that she is into bondage and she does the weirdest ways of bondage for lust. She was actually once a prostitute before her husband found out and killed himself due to believing that he could not please her enough. She started her new mob job in true honour of her husband to make sure that she found him as a true man for her. It's just that she needed the money by using her body(Also, don't do prostitution, people. I've talked about this in my profile page). Yet, again, her team was like those 1980 mafias or something. Imagine her as the Black Ops 3 Zombies girl of the team in the first map...Nevermind, I'm actually seeing the entire team as similar as the first team in Black Ops 3 Zombies, of course, different personalities and attitudes. In her last heist, Mercer was playing Slender with them who are the victims. The three other guys got the 8 pages(meaning, they escaped) while she didn't(meaning, she got caught). He humiliated her by tying her up to a chair, as she sat, and putting a "Dunce" hat on her, painting her face with clown make-up and spray-painting a brick wall to say "I'm a very bad girl". Reasons? Also annoyed the three got away. And, the crime scene was even in the news, making fun of her. Thus, she then have the personality of humiliating her own victims instead, especially to Mercer when she found him(She had to restrain herself due to their mission of testing their powers)
Finally, HERCULES, the God of Strength, is basically the very buff guy with the most damage output and who is actually the odd one of the team. He wasn't victimised by Mercer but had lost most of his friends to him. When Alex left a building in pieces with some leftover biomass in it where he farmed out Infected creatures to consume them, still in rage, the buff man just punched the virus repeatedly, imagining them as him to relieve his anger. He was being stopped by other recruits but they weren't strong enough. Soon, they realised that he, not in a hazard suit, was unaffected by the virus from long and direct exposures, even though his helmet was exposing his mouth and nose and even though the virus got through his broken knuckles. Thus, Atlas scientists used his resilient DNA to amp down the strength of the virus for a serum to beef up certain soldiers, creating Project TITAN, with the true HERCULES as their god. Smart, eh? Thus, he was not a victim of Mercer but, an avenger. Where have I seen this from?(*cough* Second game)
There you are. The entire team and why Project TITAN has been born. It may seem just as iconic as other revenge teams and RPG classes but, I got nothing at this point. We all care that Jaune gets stronger and gets the girls, right? There maybe more questions that you have so, do review on that, alright?
I just realised that, in fact, I should be also explaining about the Arc techniques! Remember Hermes' Boots? Heaven's Blade? Yeah, see, there's actually a connection between the Arc bloodline and the generations' Semblances. Now, huntsmen and huntresses' characteristics, something iconic about them or the ideals of what they really are, are the keys to unlocking their respective individual Semblances or sometimes, others would actually have the same powers as their own ancestors except maybe more powerful. Thus, since people of great power would have to disappointingly die from either old age, death by powerful Grimms or something, the Arc family have to somehow make sure that the least that they could get from their ancestors as tokens of remembrance and aid the modern generation in battle is to link their Semblances' powers to the Arc's bloodline by creating numbered "Arcs". Thus, Jaune can use Hermes' Boots, Heaven's Blade, Astral Gleamer and so on. Want more thing about it, the Arc bloodline and the order to control their creations of Arcs would always develop, improve and evolve even beyond just only linking Semblances to the line. Of course, I will be bringing in more techniques into the next chapter because Oz has a plan.
And, if you are wondering, how is Alex linked to the bloodline? Well, just try to visualise what would happen during 4 years of intense training, blood-spilling, pain in the ass for Jaune by Mercer? Wouldn't their guts be flying over the place? Wouldn't blood rain all over them? Wouldn't Alex accidentally allow some blood from the blonde Arc be spilled and dripped into any of his wounds, giving him the DNA that connects to the Arc bloodline WHICH links to the Arcs' Semblances. Thus, now that he has the biological authority to create his own techniques as somewhat a half-blood, wouldn't he separate his own creations by numbering them as "Mercer Arcs"? Kinda creative, ain't it?...No? Aw...Oh well, fun fact: Jaune has a challenging difficulty with Damien Arc. Hyped to know what would happen? Maybe? Ok.
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