"In the end it wasn't me or any of the mercenaries that brought an end to you, it was your own humanity and your want to prevent this happening to anyone else that killed you."
"I'm dead?"
"Not really, not yet at least but you won't regain consciousness in time to live so you may as well be"
"Last thing I remembered was locking Ironwood out of the airship"
"Afterwards you went to burn Ironwood's research, the fire spread and the airship lost altitude, water is slowly seeping in and soon you're gonna drown"
"I can't do anything about it?"
"No you used up too much aura in the last fight I'd be surprised if you could even open your eyes at this point"
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to try"
"Go ahead but right now you're just running on fumes"
"Apparently I have enough to argue with myself so why not use it for something more productive"
Chase focused on leaving the dream world he was in, he could feel the water surrounding him and quickly checked how much aura he had, some had been generated since he was last awake but not much. He swam around to find a window or something that he could use as an exit. He settled on a door to what he assumed was a balcony. He activated his gauntlets and started punching the door, it didn't do much as the pressure from the other side countered the force of his fist. -Well this water had to come from somewhere- He swam upstream to find the puncture that let the water in. He found a window that must've cracked during the crash so he punched it with his gauntlet to make a bigger hole for him to fit through. The force of the extra water flowing in knocked him back against the wall, knocking him unconscious.
Shu's view
The sirens that could be heard from the city weren't helping Shu, he needed to remain calm if he was going to convince Ozpin
"We can't just sit here and wait. You're people are too weak from the fight, we can go and help in the city"
"It's too much of a risk to send anyone out into the city, it's crawling with grim"
"We've been wanting a chance to fight grim since Chase saved us, let us do this for you"
"We still don't know whether or not you can be trusted and until Chase regains consciousness I am not taking that risk"
"We don't have that sort of time, people could die and we don't have Ironwood's army with him in jail"
"Fine, under the condition that your people join us here at Beacon, we can only give Bullheads to hunters and huntresses or those in training"
"We'll do it, most of us wanted to go to Beacon anyway"
Ozpin pressed a button on his table and spoke into the microphone, after that he gestured to the door behind Shu.
He went to the around Beacon to try and find the others, after they broke Ironwood's microphone him and the other mercenaries offered to help out at Beacon due to how much damage they had caused. He found some of them in the hall looking after the tired hunters and huntresses, nearly all of them were dangerously low on aura after the fight, he found Otior, a mercenary who was infused with lightning dust and used an electrified whip.
"We got permission from Ozpin to help out in the city"
"But we need to stay here in case grimm attack Beacon"
"That's why I'm only taking a small team, me, you, Cinder and Chenoo"
"Alright, when do we leave?"
"As soon as we find the others, you get Chenoo and I'll find Cinder"
"Alright, Cinder should be in the hospital, she started feeling bad about what she's done"
"Thanks, when you find Chenoo head over to the dock, Ozpin is arranging a Bullhead to pick us up"
Shu left to find the hospital and when he walked in he was happy that not that many people needed to be brought here. He found Cinder looking at someone in a hospital bed.
"Even though we tried to kill him and called him a monster he wanted to save us"
"How's he doing?"
"They say that he's physically fine and should wake up… but he's not generating aura at all."
"But grimm are the only creatures that can't generate an aura, he's got to be producing some"
"There's still only a sliver of aura left in him and we saved him two hours ago"
"I'm afraid we have a mission, this will have to wait"
"What do you mean we have a mission! Haven't we done enough already"
"It's to help the people in Vale, the rest of trains were launched at the city and it's crawling with grimm. We need to go and help evacuate and clean up the grimm"
"If it's to help someone then you can count me in, when do we leave"
"There should be a Bullhead waiting for us now, let's go"
The two left Chase in the hospital room and headed out for the city
Chase's view
"Ok I'm not that stupid, I should've drowned by now. What's actually going on?"
"You're smarter than your average Beowulf, it only took you a couple hours"
"So what's really going on?"
"Come on, what would be the fun if I told you that?"
"Ok then, assuming from the fact that both me and you are still here I'm not dead so someone must've saved me"
"You're one for one"
"But if I'm not awake that must mean that I was injured during the time it took for someone to save me"
"Not quite, try again"
"If it's not physical it's something to do with my aura"
"Getting closer, what would have to happen for you not to be awake that comes from your aura?"
"I don't have enough to gain consciousness"
"Oh, he's two for two, let's see if he can get why"
"You, you're somehow stopping me from regaining aura, but you wouldn't have enough to stop it we both ran out of aura when I went unconscious"
"How about a clue, it's to do with that new trick you used"
"My teleport used both of our semblances, yours to create an imprint of my aura and mine to move us to that template, I guess you could say it's like…. oh no"
"He's got it, when you used that trick you merged our auras, creating what some people may call an evolved semblance with a merged aura"
"What does that have to do with us not generating aura?"
"Well, as it's a merged aura both of us have to produce aura for it to be useful and right now that's the only type of aura your body will accept. Only problem is that to merge our aura you need to use that semblance and we don't have enough to use it"
"So one of us needs to become dominant and control the other to merge both in the generation process"
"Yeah, and we'd need to do it pretty quickly. Or else people are going to find out where the strongest types of grimm come from"
"What do you mean, grimm can't be humans they were here before us"
"Most of them yes, however, the ones which give people the most trouble, your deathstalkers and nevermores are pure human. Besides a grimm can only be artificially made if someone dies from a lack of aura"
"Well then time to take back my body again"
"Hold it, I never said I wanted a fight"
"Well seeing as that's what you usually do I just assumed"
"I'm willing to let you control this body under one condition, you let my conscious stay"
"And why would I do that?"
"Well, I am just dust, a substance that has existed as long as remnant, I'll help you and give you useful information as long as you let me live"
"Why the change in personality all of a sudden?"
"If you must know I wouldn't like to become as I was before I was infused in this body, also after you forced most of me out I realised that you might be able to help me as well"
"Fine then, let's get this over with"
Chase opened his eyes to see the light of the Beacon hospital room, he was still tired but he was at least conscious. He looked around to see that a few of the other beds were occupied. As he tried to get up his body felt stiff, he slowed himself and got up onto his feet.
Slowly he walked out of the hospital with a slight limp, he headed straight to Ozpin's office to get an update on what had happened while he was out. On his way he saw the door to team RWBY's dorm and decided to see them first.
"She still won't respond, whatever Ironwood to her has caused a lot of damage"
Chase walked in to see team RWBY along with team JNPR crowded around Penny, presumably they were trying to fix her.
"Mind if I have a go?"
As soon as Chase spoke they broke their concentration and turned around at him. Blake and Ren looked at him worryingly while the others were glad to see that he was ok.
"You're awake" Pyrrha was the first to speak up
"Yeah, and feeling a lot better now that I can generate aura again"
"Again?" Ruby spoke out confused
"Long story, really complicated basically what they did to me should stop having new effects"
Chase stepped over to Penny and crouched in front of her placing a hand on her forehead he used his semblance. The dust auras inside her were messing with the connection with her wiring which was causing the malfunction. He decided to force them back and create a barrier to keep them from doing any worse. Once he did so he took a step back, a little weak from using up so much aura.
"She should be fine now"
Ruby pressed the button Ironwood had with him and Penny opened her eyes and looked around at everyone.
"Why are you all staring at me?"
"Nothing, anyway I best be going, I have to find Ozpin to find out what happened while I was out"
"Well I think a group of the mercenaries went out into the city to deal with the grimm"
"We need to stop them"
"Why, they're perfectly capable in combat as they displayed to us" said Ren
"Because they are mentally unstable, any moment the dust inside them could take over, especially in a stressful situation such as fighting grimm"
"I think there might still be an extra Bullhead"
"Then what are we waiting for we've got to go"
"What about Penny, and the others. Someone needs to stay here, only a few hunters are still able to fight if we leave then Beacon is wide open to a grimm attack and the mercenaries"
"Alright, Ruby, Pyrrha, Jaune and I will go the rest of you stay"
"Why us?"
"Ruby is good at dealing with a lot of grimm, Pyrrha's semblance would be useless against their dust and Jaune couldn't hold out against a mercenary"
"Alright, let's go"