Here we begin a two-parter that I have been planning since the very beggingof this fic. I really ope you enjoy it!

Chapter 25: When Extremes Meet

"Is everything in order?" Yelled Pascal as she raced through the shoddy ramparts of the White Fang's front line base.

Kuro, the private from her first deployment unit, turned to her from his work organizing their artillery with an anxious expression. "Almost madam commander. We'll be ready for battle in about two hours."

Pascal shook her head glumly and looked out over the battlements. The two hundred soldiers they had taken from their main base to defend the front line fort were all scrambling into positions for their uphill defense that would be coming that night. The anti-terrorist army of the Sentinels headed by the dreaded general Naislain were practically on their doorstep, far ahead of their original prediction. The size of the base was modest to put it lightly, and it was only armed with a skeleton crew recently to simply watch for enemy activity. It was a stopover hideout, not a fortress for a final stand.

She sighed, "Two hours, I'm holding you to that captain."

She stormed off towards the rest of her pre battle duties, her anxiety only mounting as the time dragged on. Eventually she made her way to the head planning room where Arsenic and Cordelia were sitting on old decrepit couches and mulling over maps of the area's terrain and the most recent reports on the enemy's movements from their scouts.

Cordelia groaned in annoyance, her polite noblewoman appearance remaining strong despite the strain of the pre-war atmosphere, "For better or worse Naislain's forces have thrown caution and strategy to the wind and are marching straight towards us in one massive wave."

Arsenic, who was getting antsy for a fight and bouncing his leg up and down, gave his two cents on the matter, "We can use this. We got a buncha mines in the storage room, let's lay some traps on the way here!"

Pascal shrugged, "We don't have enough time to bury any. Besides this is the 'Dread General' we are dealing with, trying to slow his approach down with explosives would be like trying to trip an avalanche."

The excitable faunus commander slumped down in his sat in disappointment.

"I have an idea that could work" said Cordelia.

She gestured to four areas around the base on the map in front of her, "If we station a commander with a squad in each location, place that team KMSN you've spoken highly of in charge of the last one, we can do quick blitzes on their side ranks as they approach. With luck we can sow some chaos in their ranks."

Arsenic smiled, "Chaos, I can do that."

Pascal nodded, "Let me guess, once we break their ranks we gently usher their esteemed general and his vanguard into the main base."

Cordelia smiled and took a sip from her teacup in satisfaction. "Then we close the gates and dog pile on them. With him and the other officers dead, his army will be nothing more than a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off. We might actually be able to pull this off."

A White Fang soldier came barrelling into the command room looking winded and worried, "Commanders..at the gates...there's-"

Arsenic growled and sunk his claws into the ragged arm of his couch, "If you tell me they're already here I swear to god I'll rip your throat out!"

The grunt cringed backwards sheepishly, "N-no sir! There's something else. I-I think it'd be better if I just showed you."

Pascal motioned for her two comrades to stay seated, 'I'll check it out."

She left the room with the soldier, leaving Cordelia and Arsenic alone. Cordelia sighed in a controlled and somewhat pompous fashion, "That girl is going to run herself ragged if she doesn't pace herself."

Arsenic scowled. "Let the bird brian do what she wants. If she collapses from exhaustion on the battlefield I won't lose a wink of sleep stepping over her corpse."

His elegant compatriot shook her head, "As irritating as she can be, she is crucial to lord Bismuth's plan, so whether we like it or not we're stuck with her." She took a tiny sip from her teacup, "Then again at least she's better than Taurus."

Arsenic snorted and let out a small chuckle, "You got that right."

As quickly as she had left, Pascal rushed back into the meeting room, a scowl of rage and stress across her face.

"What's wrong?" Asked Cordelia inquisitively.

"Change of plans, we put the bulk of our forces at the front gates of the fort, we can not let the Sentinels inside the base nomatter what!"


"Why the hell are we attacking at night?" Whispered Fox angrily to his friends. "If we waited till morning we could be better rested and actually see."

Neon filled in behind him on their march through the nighttime forest. "Why does it matter to you? you can't see anyways?" She said snarkily.

Fox turned around to face her as if to stare her down, "Low blow little miss rave queen mchairball, maybe I'm just worried about us all fighting as blind as me, did our general actually forget that most of our enemies have night vision!?"

Neon considered this, being a faunus with enhanced vision in the dark made her sometimes forgot how much of a disadvantage it must be to not be a faunus in a situation like this.

Flynt scoffed, "Something tells me he isn't the most strategy minded person out there."

"Truer words have never been said" muttered a disgruntled Yatsuhashi who had been marching in silence the whole time.

Velvet, who was standing next to the four and listening in on their conversation, glanced around the area. They had been marching for nearly two hours and found themselves cutting through the southern edge of the forest that housed the White Fang base. According to their scouts they would reach it soon.

The rabbit looked worriedly at her girlfriend marching next to her in silence, "You ok Coco?"

She turned to look at her, the shadows of the night masking her face slightly, "Yeah, just a little tense. But don't worry, I've finally gotten some sleep and I'm combat ready." She gave her a forced smile in a vain attempt to break the ominous atmosphere of the march.

Not wanting to make her feel bad, Velvet returned a smile and pretend with the best of her ability that she was reassured, "Well, let's get this over with."

"Everyone, full stop!" Yelled Java who was several yards in front of them.

Within a few seconds all troops in the area stopped in their tracks awaiting orders, the atmosphere further tensing up.

"What's wrong?" Asked Vericks quizzically.

Java shushed her, "I think I hear something."

Everyone stood ready for combat. Naislain, who stood at the center of the group of soldiers alongside his honor guard, minus Ebony and Regulus who were mysteriously missing, motioned towards Alexiris, "Boy, give us some light."

He nodded and clutched his fists together to activate his semblance, creating a bright sun like glow from his forearms and shoulders.

Within seconds the sound of a braking tree branch was heard from nearby. "Get down!" Yelled Pale as he tackled the young prodigy to the ground, a bullet from a sniper rifle whizzed by immediately after.

All hell broke loose. White Fang grunts jumped down from the treetops all around them and began attacking from all angles with different forms of mismatched weaponry.

Coco ducked out of the way just in time as to not be decapitated by the chainsaw of a Lieutenant. She swung her hand bag around in an arc and knocked her opponent clean off his feet and quickly moved into piledriver on him. However he was just quick enough to leap back onto his feet. He moved into attack Coco once again but was stopped by a quick slash by Yatsuhashi which launched him back into a tree.

"Get up!" He yelled as he quickly pulled Coco to her feet.

After only a small amount of time the tranquil unease of the forest had erupted into a ballistic symphony of chaos as Sentinels and White Fang troops shot and hacked away at each other in a grizzly frenzy.

Alexiris and Pale were fighting back to back against a wave of grunts. The commander's movements were so fluid and fast that it barely looked like he was touching the troops that he disarmed and blasted back with a single hit. The young prodigy at his side put his semblance to work, creating quick, brilliant flashes of light from his aura coated body parts, blinding and disorienting his opponents and creating opening after opening. It was clear he had completely mastered his abilities even though he wasn't even in combat school yet. Truly his skills took after his older sister.

Team JAVA were standing as a bulwark in front of the general and were unleashing hell upon any foe unlucky enough to stand in their way. Coco's eyes locked with Velvet's, who was shambling to her feet after getting the wind knocked out of her.

The two nodded and without words spun around back to back, ready to fight. However the battle's tides were already beginning to change, the sniper from before shot another bullet into the crowd near the general, instantly killing a random soldier. The sniper launched outwards from her tree top hiding place and descended upon the general in a flurry of gunshots from twin pistols directly at him. Before the general could react, his adversary combined her two short range weapons into a high impact sniper rifle and aimed it point blank at his forehead.

"Checkmate!" She yelled as she pulled the trigger. The blast smashed into Naislain's face and sent the attacker rocketing backwards before she landed gracefully on her feet.

The small explosion from the gunshot gave pause to the fighters in the immediate vicinity including, JAVA, CFVY, SSSN, and FNKI.

"GENERAL!" Yelled Java, rage and worry betraying her cold demeanor.

The sniper smiled, "Well you went down easy, guess you were all talk and no..no…" Her face fell upon the clearing of the dust.

Naslain stood in the exact same place, uninjured and looking only mildly agitated, "Is that the best a member of the food chain can do? Well?"

The sniper gulped and shot off another round. It missed and the general pulled one of his massive Obsidian shot guns from his belt and fired. The sound the monster of a weapon made was defining and its recoil enough to tear the arm off of any man without an active aura.

The attacker rolled out of the way just in time to avoid being blown to oblivion as it's projectiles exploded with the force of a C4 mine. They weren't shotguns, they were grenade launches.

"You're quiet quick on your feet beast, but you have a brain? Do you honestly think such a meager attack would work?"

She scrambled to her feet and looked around wildly for an escape root, frustration and desperation clouding her eyes. She attempted to stall and play it cool, "You think this was my only trick? I'm not a idiotic meathead like you Naislain the Butcher!"

The general smirked maniacally, "If I had a nickle for every time someone called me by that meaningless name my army wouldn't have to worry about funding."

He unlatched his second shotgun-grenade launcher from his belt, prompting his attacker to tense up. "But an idiot, ha, now that stings! I've actually put a lot of effort into this plan and you insulting it hurts my feelings!" He said facetiously.

"Now tell me girl-"

He pointed his weapon high into the sky "Have you ever heard of the term, 'Scorched Earth Tactics?'"

The general let off a round as if signalling something. For a moment everything was silent, the the smell of smoke began to suffocate the air around them.

Pascal turned to face the source of the smoke behind her and was horrified, "You son of a bitch" she whispered.

Coco and Velvets' hearts sank the second they saw what was happening. In an instant a large swath of the forest a few hundred yards away from them had erupted into a massive inferno that quickly began engulfing everything around it.

Nailsain laughed, clearly enjoying himself, "Better scurry back to your little stone hovel beast! Unless you want the flames to engulf it before the battle is through.

Pascal bit her lip in fury, they would have to call off their main attack and retreat to base before the flames surrounded them or worse, burnt the place down. "You'll pay for this Butcher! You'll pay!" She wailed, shooting off a flare into the sky before dashing off into the trees.

Sun charged towards the general in a fury with such force that his teammates couldn't hope to hold him back.

"YOU BASTARD!" There is a village just beyond the southeast side of the forest! If we don't stop that fire right now the whole place will be reduced to ash!"

Naislian aimed his weapon at the boy's face, "Utter one more word from your filthy mouth and you'll become a casualty of war just like every maggot that has been cast aside in our righteous name!"

Sun froze for a brief second but the fire in his eyes betrayed him. He didn't care what happened, he needed to stop this madman now.

Pale jumped in just in time to save him, "We can do both! We can wipe out these cretins quickly and still have time to evacuate the village! We must not lose heart now my comrades! Remember we are the heroes here! We are the-"

The prideful man was left at a loss for words when Sun turned his gaze to him, pure, unadulterated, hatred and spite tearing into him from his furious glare. The faunus leaned into the blonde warrior's face, "You're no hero." He said emotionlessly.

He spun around and charged off towards the growing flames in the distance.

"Sun wait!" Yelled Neptune in dismay. He glanced at his team, then teams CFVY and FNKI worriedly, "I'm going after him, you guys just put an end to this quick!"

The blue haired boy sprinted off towards his best friend with his two other teammates tailing quickly behind him.

Naislian scowled harshly. "Forget them, we charge on the fort now while their defense is in shreds. Tonight we claim total victory!"

Him, JAVA, and the surrounding soldiers all let out a loud cheer as they charged forward towards the enemy base. Alexiris grabbed a dazed Pale by the arm and quickly dragged him forward, a look of disgust on both of their faces.

Coco turned to Velvet, who looked utterly horrified, "What do you want to do?" She asked hurriedly.

Velvet gulped, "I-I need to go with Sun, That poor village needs our help!"

FNKI all nodded their heads in unison, "We're going too, you're going to need all the help you can get!" Yelled Flynt.

"Coco!" Yelled Java, who was hanging back from the rest of her team.

"You're falling behind! Get over here quick!"

Coco hesitated, Not wanting to defy her sister directly.

Velvet pushed her forward, "Go ahead and help them win, we'll take care of things here."

Coco looked over her shoulder with worry, "You can't seriously expect me to leave right?"

Fox and Yatsu nodded at her reassuringly, "We'll keep your little sweetheart safe. You just focus on kicking those terrorist's teeth in and making sure your sister doesn't have a break down." Said Fox cockily.

Coco sighed, "All right, I'm trusting you, and Velvs…..be safe."

Velvet nodded, "You betcha."

And with that the team split up and Coco rushed towards her sister's side, ready to get this horrid night over with. But little did she know, the worst was yet to come.


The fire had already spread through most of the southern forest, sounds of roaring flames and gunshots burst forth from all direction.

CFVY and FNKI were already in the thick of the chaos desperately trying to catch up to team SSSN and beat the inferno to the village.

"Look out!" Yelled Yatsu as he tackled Velvet and Team FNKI's Slender to the side just as a large oak tree gave way under the intense flames.

"Are you guys alright?" Asked Neon in a panic.

"Yeah, we're ok" moaned Slender as he picked himself up and quickly dusted off his folded up guitar.

The flames continued to spread around the fallen tree and soon a wall of fire divided the group, "You guys keep running! We'll go around and meet you on the other side!" Commanded Velvet.

Fox scowled, "Fine, just don't get yourself killed. I am not going to be the one to tell Coco you got cooked medium well!"

"Stay with them Slend, and don't fall behind!" Yelled Flynt in a worried voice.

"Just my luck" the gloomy boy muttered in a melancholy tone.

And just like that their party was split in two and the three unlucky deviants began charging back through the flames in an attempt to go around the wall of flames that had now spread farther than their stinging eyes could see. The sounds of dying allies and enemies roared against the flames in increasing volumes until they all mixed into a morbid soup of misery.

"It won't be long now till the grimm overrun the forest, this is going from bad to worse really fast! " Thought Velvet, struggling to stay positive.

As they ran an exceptionally loud scream was heard nearby, stopping the three in their tracks.

"CRDL!" Screamed Velvet as she ran over to the bleeding corpses on the barren ash covered ground.

Dove, Sky, and Russel were already dead with large caches across their abdomens. Cardin was lying several feet from the rest of his team and was bleeding out fast.

"Cardin! Here let me put something on that wound to stop the bleeding." Said Velvet.

The dying leader took one look at her and cowered back in fear, "Stay away you fucking animal!" He screamed delusionally.

Velvet leaned closer, "I'm trying to help, please don't struggle!"

"No, monster, monster, mon-" he was unable to finish his last words as the form of a faunus leapt down from the trees and sliced open his neck.

The man looked up at Velvet's horrified face with his own crazed and blood covered grin. "Well hey there little rabbit, or would sheep be more appropriate?"

He jumped forward to attack her but was knocked to the side by a fast reacting Yatsu, "Stay away from my friend!" He yelled as he slammed the but of his blade into the attacker's skull, sending yet another adversary careening into a nearby tree.

Velve sprung to her feet, ready to fight, even the lazy looking Slender ran forward to their side, his guitar have already transformed into a long katana, and his harmonica now a sleek magnum pistol.

Their enemy laughed psychotically as he quickly recovered from his attack and scurried up the side of the tree, planting claws from his feet in a high sturdy branch so he could stand upside down and gaze eyes to eye with his prey. His hair and clothing hanging suspended in the air giving him an even more unstable look.

"Well would you look at this, more prey for my gullet. My last few opponents were barely worth bloodying my claws, let alone eating." He licked his lips manically, "But now you grace me with a delectable three course meal, I'll devour you all nice and quick then get back to the base for the main course! So hello there my fine adversaries, my name is Arsenic Hide the Cannibal! Rank Four on the White Fang's dreaded Food Chain!"


Neon ran as fast as her legs could carry her, skipping over fallen bodies and branches alike she and her three remaining companions raced forth towards the edge of the hellscape.

"Look, there is the end, right over there!" Bellowed Kombu as he pointed towards a dark and flameless area up ahead.

"Come on just a little more, hurry up you annoying little hair ball!" Screamed Fox as he grabbed the lagging Neon's arm and pulled her with him exceptional force.

Within a few seconds the group burst out of the flaming rove and collapse on the rocky ground in a heap of exhaustion.

"Wait this isn't the end" said Flynt between tired gasps.

The four of them looked up to see that they had merely reached a small circular bed of rocks and depressions that stood as a flame retardant bastian from the inferno surrounding it.

Fox picked up a handful of dirt from the ground and licked it, "Ew!" said Neon with disgust.

"Oh grow up hairball."

"Stop calling me that!"

Fox threw the dirt to the side, "There is dust residue in the soil, this must be what's left of the quarry sight from a decades ago. It's existence is what prompted the Schnee dust Corp. to build that old base around here, it running dry is what also made them abandon it."

A pristine and collected voice rang out from somewhere nearby, "And that's when we found it and put it to good use. Taking things nobody wants and putting them to good use, that's what we faunus excel at is it not?"

The four took their battle stances and drew their weapons. Kombu's bongos broke in two and folded around his fists into lightweight, yet incredibly sturdy, metal and wood boxing gloves.

He smashed them together and scowled, "Who goes there!" He yelled out.

The voice laughed, "So rude and unprofessional, I'd swallow it and politely shrug it off coming from an alley like Pascal or Adam but from an enemy? That is a disrespect not to be taken lightly."

From behind a nearby boulder a beautiful woman with the horns of a ram spiralling out from the crown of her head game strutting out into the open. In one hand she lazily spun around a finely glazed teacup by its handle around her pinky finger, in the other she gripped the hilt of a long spiral spear which's head dragged ominously on the ground behind her. Her unamused and calculated expression bore into her adversaries. She meticulously broke down every detail of their physique in her mind with lighting speed, imagining every conceivable way of felling them. As fast as she could think, she made sure to take her time to decide a method of murder that would strike the perfect balance of elegance, efficiency, creativity, and above all, cruelty.

"I really should be getting back to base to give good ol Naislain a piece of my mind but I can't just leave disrespectful little ingrates like you without dealing out some harsh discipline."

She threw her spear up into the air and caught it on its decent. Resting it on her shoulder ran her hand through her hair to keep any stray fibers out of her face. "I haven't gotten the chance to take part in a decent scrap for quite some time. Now come at me if you so dare ape."

She gave him a twisted yet poised smile, "Let's see if rank three of the White Fang Food Chain, Cordelia Leblanc, the Eviscerator can teach you some sorely needed manners!"

Next time on RWBY The Path We Walk: Volume 5, chapter 12: War Never Changes

A/N: I can't believe it has been almost a year since I first posted this story. Leave a review if you've been enjoying it, also leave a review if you'd like to express any grievances.