RWBYond Vale

AN: I may have slacked off a bit on this chapter mostly because I'm really excited about next chapter. I originally wanted Neo to be more of a threat but seeing her (still impressive) display in volume 3, I don't think she has what it takes to take on four people at once. So I writing myself around that like I did last chapter. Which helps because I need Rio out of the picture for a while.

Chapter 36: Do you remember me?

Sun's staff came down on the last Grimm in the area. It had been a long day of fighting Grimm. Even longer thanks to his desire to save ammunition for the real threats. Rio was sitting casually on a pile of rubble twirling his oversized sword around. Nora was cheering with excitement from another victory. Yang was, distracted. Something was bothering her and he didn't know what it was.

"Hey Yang." Sun said. "Let's get going."

"Sure." She said.

"The console is right this way." Rio said getting up from his seat. Sun took point as they reached the console. It was on a cliff overlooking the hollowed out center of the island. Cat walks could be seen lining the inside of the pit and numerous caverns dotted it. Rio accessed the console. "We're in."

"That Rubrum guy knows his stuff." Sun praised.

"Ya, I guess he does." Yang said flatly.

"Okay, you mind telling us what's wrong." Sun said. Yang didn't answer right away.

"I got a bad feeling about this." She said. "I'm worried about Ruby."

"She's fine." Nora reassured her.

"I know she's fine but," Yang stammered. "She seemed distressed last time she checked in."

"Well, we all have a lot on our mind." Sun said.

"I haven't heard her sound like that since…" Yang paused. "since she found out about my mom."

"Care to elaborate."

"Let's just say I didn't exactly go about it in a mature way." Yang ran her fingers through her hair. "I'm still ashamed of it to this day. Ruby's forgiven me but every time our mom's get brought up she still gets defensive."

"She probably doesn't like think it's fair that your mom's still alive." Nora said.

"I feel like I don't know what she thinks. She hasn't opened up to me about that stuff in years. She won't even visit Summer's grave with me anymore. She'd rather go by herself."

"That's weird. She took us when we left for Haven."

"Bingo." Rio said. The conversation was dropped but Yang didn't seem to take that last bit well. "I know why this wasn't on the system map."

"Whys that?" Sun inquired.

"It's not a computer to hold information. It's an elevator operator. We can go to any level of the mines from here."

"That doesn't do us any good." Yang said.

"Unless Ozpin is down there." Sun said. "But the mines are massive. Unless we know where we're going we shouldn't just look down there."

"We should at least see if it works." Nora suggested.

"Establishing a little base down there would be efficient if Ozpin is being held down there." Rio said. "Besides if he is he'd probably be taken this way. Those walkways are way too old to be escorting prisoners."

"Fine we'll check it out." Suns said. In the middle of the 6 ft. long square metal platform, a 3 ft. wide whole opened and a small platform rose to fill it. They crowded onto the platform as it started to shift down. As it did Sun could hear the tethers straining. "I think we should have gone on at a time." The cables snapped. Sun's heart skipped a beat and they fell into darkness. A long way down they landed with a thud on another metal plate. "Everyone alright?"

"Yep." Nora groaned.

"I've been hit harder." Yang said picking herself up.

"What? Did you guys not land on your feet?" Rio said cool as ice. Sun and the others gave him dirty looks as he chuckled a bit. There was an eerie dark green light coming from just a little way away. Through his night vision, Sun could see a ladder heading back up top side with the whole still opened letting just a tiny bit of light shine down. They decided to investigate the glowing first. Sun took point leading the way with his Faunas vision. When they turned the corner they could all see just fine. A whole cavern full of dark green dust lit up the whole cavern.

"Okay now I have a really bad feeling about this." Yang said. "Why is there so much dust here? I thought the mine shut down because there was no more dust."

"It did." Rio said. "But this is nature dust."

"Nature dust?" Nora said.

"It's created when you lace dirt with water dust and plant a plant into the soil. Inject that plant with earth dust and boom, a steady supply of nature dust, so long as the tree stays healthy." Everyone looked at him in bewilderment. "What? I passed advanced dust studies. Did you?" The answer was no. He had passed dust 101 just fine though.

"So these aren't rock formations." Sun said. "They're tree roots."

"Who could do this?" Nora said.

"You and Rio weren't there to fight the behemoth. That Tobi gut used it a lot." Nora started rubbing her fingers across the roots to feel them.

"Nora wait." Rio said but it was too late. The dust metabolized creating a strong wooden wall separating Rio from the others.

"Rio!" Yang shouted. She raised her arm up to strike.

"Yang don't!" Rio shouted from the other side. "You'll only make it worse. Nature dust metabolizes on contact with flesh. And it gets very angry when threatened."

"But we need to get you out."

"I'll be fine. I'll go around and meet up with you guys later."

"Okay but you better not die." Yang said.

"Psssh, like I'll go down easily."

"We should head back." Sun said. It took them a minute to get back to the top. When they did, Sun's pupils dilated a bit as they readjusted to the light. When all three of them were out Sun heard footsteps behind him. It was that girls. The girl from Haven that flirted with Yang. What was her name? Oh, that's right. "Lieutenant Mint?"

"Who?" Nora said reaching back for her weapon. Mint twirled around a pink umbrella and stood casually in front of them.

"That's no lieutenant." Yang said scathingly. "Do you remember me?" Yang's eyes turned red. "NEO!" She screamed out. The girl just smirked as her green eyes turned brown and pink. Shards of glass peeled off her starting with her feet. Even though she didn't move a muscle her stance seemed to change as she revealed her true colors. It was like an image of a casual girl was being ripped away showing someone else underneath. Someone who was ready. Almost as if…

"Look out." Sun said reaching for his weapon. But at that range, not even Blake could dodge. The blast from Roman's cane hit Nora square in the chest with a fiery explosion. It nearly threw her over the edge but she managed to catch a bit of earth to keep her from dropping down the bottomless pit. Neo charged and kicked Sun in the face, almost sending him to the abyss. Sun managed to pivot to regain his balance on all fours. Neo was charging him, umbrella in one hand, cane in the other. Sun used that awesome tail of his to grab his weapon and smack Neo out of the air. But the illusion shattered again. This time Sun could see Neo casually dodging around Yang's punches. Blake had told him what happened last time. He couldn't let Yang fight alone. Sun activated his semblance. Two clones went to help Yang fight while the other went to help Nora up. Once Nora was up the clone went to help Yang as well as Nora took a shot at Neo. Neo fired the cane, destroying one clone, batted the second with her umbrella, dodged Nora's grenade, kicked the final clone, flipped over Yang and sent her right into Nora's second grenade. Neo was humming with amusement as her eyes switched color.

"Yang was back up and punching at Neo while Nora fired another pair of grenades at Yang. Yang dove out of the path at the last second as the grenades hit Neo but it was another illusion. Sun spotted her first. He flipped around and began twirling his weapon in an attack pattern. Neo dodged and blocked them with her weapons. Sun managed to connect a shot with his gun-chucks. Knowing that this was the real deal he swept her legs and put her in a submission hold. It was Yang that fired this time. Neo gasped in fear then laughed a little. As the illusion broke and she shattered again. Sun took the full brunt of the blast and was sent flying. She must had switched during the leg sweep. But he could see her now. He threw himself at her and she deflected his blows. But he followed up with a power move she couldn't just deflect. He couldn't let her switch out again. He had to do something. What would Neptune do? We winked at her with a grin and she have him the most confused look. And then it hit her. Right in the face. And by it, I mean Yang's blast. Then another one of Nora's grenades hit her in the stomach and Sun cracked her in the head. Yang followed up with a massive left hook.

Neo's aura faltered for a moment and came back a little. It was rapidly pulsing brown and pink. Blood ran down her face covering her right eye. She lifted her face up. She smiled widely and crazily. Her eyes, and, aura, went white. Nora's 6th and final grenade hurled towards Neo. But a flick of the wrist and a blade came out of her umbrella and she cut the grenade in half. She was hyperventilating and started laughing. She fired the cane at Sun and Sun held his staff vertically to block it. But then she caught the blast with the cane end and turned it into a horizontal wave that struck Sun hard. Yang and Nora both charged in close but she evaded them for several seconds before shattering again and hitting Sun with a moon beam. Without missing a beat, Nora smacked Yang like a game of polo, sending Yang towards Neo like a cannon ball. Neo tried to deflect it with the cane but Yang directed all her strength to Neo's defenses and shattered the Cane. Neo grunted and yelped in agony. Tears flowed from her eyes as they both went a fiery shade of pink. She moon-sliced Yang, damaging her robot arm.

"My robot arm you bitch!" Yang threw a left hook and Neo stabbed at her. Yang must have purposely dropped her aura because the blade pierced her side even though she should still have plenty of aura left. Unless she really was that exhausted. Yang's right arm sparked and hissed from the slice but it still managed to grab Neo's arm. Sun could here Neo's aura giving way as her arm began to break. "Beg for mercy." Neo sniffled a bit but looked at Yang defiantly. Silently, she screamed in rage and agony as Yang knocked her out with one final punch. Yang went to punch her again.

"Whoa, what are you doing?" Sun said stopping her punch.

"She deserves it." Yang said.

"That's not how we do things."

"She's dangerous."

"She's defenseless. We beat her, the three of us." Sun gestured to her face, stained with tears and blood. "And we demoralized her while doing so."

"So what do we do with her?" Yang asked.

"Ooh, I know." Nora said with a grin. So they dropped her down the broken elevator shaft, broke the ladder rungs on the way up and closed the elevator access.

"Nora, that is both what I thought you were going to suggest."

"Hey I try not to use the same line twice."

"She should be fine until we can get her to a better place." Sun said. "So long as Grimm don't spawn there."

"That would be nice." Yang said under her breath.

"I'm going to report in." Sun said he looked at Yang who was nursing her side. It was a shallow wound and Yang's aura was working fast to heal it. "Then we're going to find a place to rest while we wait for our next move."

AN: Another chapter done. This actually turned out better than I thought. Neo is actually pretty fun to write. I don't know if I'll ever get to Neo's backstory but basically she can't speak but more because she wasn't taught to when she was young. If you guys have read Batman: No Man's Land, she's basically Cassandra Cain, if she was adopted in by the bad guys instead of the good guys. That would explain her mannerisms without needing for her to speak.