The Battle of Haven
The fragmented moon hung low in the night sky, our heroes walked together through the courtyard of Haven Academy. Their stomachs churned and their mind's raced out of control, trying to keep focused on the task at hand. As they entered the school they found Lionheart, suspiciously brandishing his weapon, at the end of the grand foyer waiting for them atop the central balcony.
They had expected a fight but they hadn't expected Leo to be so obvious in his treachery to already be armed and ready for them. He however felt the opposite, finding himself in a room filled with far more students than anticipated, all of whom had their weapons on their person to his surprise.
As Leo and Qrow begin to speak, Mydnight's ears twitch and Yang sees him begin to look around the room with a suspicious look on his face. After a moment he settles on a much higher balcony over looking the room and she sees his fang's bear themselves, looking to see where his eyes have landed she finds a Raven perched on the balcony.
"Mom?" Yang breaths out in surprise, only a second before Qrow looks to where his niece's vision has fallen, brandishing his weapon and firing wildly, missing Raven and tearing through the banister. The older students watch on as the conversation continues, trying to keep a level head. However as Ruby finishes pleading to Raven to work with them, Raven loses her patience.
"You sound...JUST like your mother," her words stung in Ruby's ears, but only for a moment before Raven swipes her red blade through the air, opening a portal before them which immediately sends a fire ball right at an unsuspecting Ruby. Ruby is struck by it and sent flying backward, Yang immediately turning to her sister in concern and running to her side.
"Ruby!"
Mydnight however has a far different reaction, his hand flying down to his right side, drawing his right hand canon and raising it nearly too quick to see before un-loading a slug straight at Raven's head, only to be sliced down the center by her blade before impact. Qrow, wishing to avoid further conflict puts his hand up in front of Mydnight before he can begin firing again.
Cinder, Emerald, Mercury and Vernal step through the portal, Cinder keen to run her mouth as usual. "Hello boys and girls," she coos.
"Come on guys, is that any way to greet your old friends?" Mercury smirks, Yang's eyes going wide before she takes a battle stance, Qrow now moving to stand between his niece and Mercury.
"Everybody stay calm!" He orders, almost un-able to finish his sentence before the front door slowly opens and Hazel, followed by Rosaria and her brown hooded partner enter. The two younger fighters continue walking toward the group as Hazel turns to close the door.
"Oh no..." Oscar gasps.
"The white fang is prepping demolition and securing the school grounds. No one's getting in...and no ones gettin out," his raspy low voice proclaims.
The brown hooded figure then raises his prosthetic right arm and everyone in the room, save Mydnight, sees the front door vanish from sight, replaced by a new wall. "The wolf can't save all of you this time," the male's voice rings out with laughter.
"If we have it our way he won't be saving any of them," Rosaria chuckles as Liv, Ambur and Mydnight turn to the three intruders, the rest of the group facing Leo.
As the group begins to break up into their individual fights, Liv, Ambur and Mydnight find themselves being targeted by the hooded male and Rosaria just as planned. Now the trick was the get the hooded male to focus on Mydnight instead of the other way around.
Ambur puts on her best fake smile she can muster and pulls her broadsword from her back, pressing her thumbs up into the cross-guard until it clicks in and separates into her two single edged long swords. "Pity your decapitation was an illusion Rosa," she smirks, "Though I suppose it does leave me the opportunity to pop your head off your shoulders like I wanted to in Ozpin's office."
Rosaria is silent for a moment before coming up with her retort, "You caught me off guard, it won't be happening again."
"Awh what a jip," Ambur scowls, "no jokes today? That's a shame," she rolls her eyes and shrugs.
Rosaria begins to bite her lip before the hooded man steps up, "Don't let them get into your head. Salem already chewed you out once. I doubt she will be as lenient the next time you fail."
"Shut up I know already," she growls out before raising her fists, igniting her aura as he fists begin to glow blue.
The hooded man sees Mydnight focusing on him personally and looks to Liv and Ambur. "Mydnight is too quick to try and trick the other two...since it's just the two of us we aren't going to be able to proceed as planned. You're going to have to fight Olivier and Ambur alone."
"I can handle it."
The hooded figure looks back to Mydnight, who draws his second pistol and smirks. "I doubt that very much," the male breaths out as he lowers his stance, readying himself for Mydnight's coming attacks. Olivier too takes this moment to reach behind herself and press the small button at the base of her spine, Isenheart spreading across her limbs as she too prepares to fight.
Mydnight, surprised that his opponent has brandished no weapon, slams his pistols together side by side as the shaft of his scythe shoots down out of them and the weapon transforms. As his scythe completes itself he pulls the rip cord and the male's shoot forward at each other at extreme speeds. Before the girls even have a chance to begin fighting the two boys have come to several blows, Mydnight stunned by finding out that both of the hooded male's arms are prosthetic and capable of striking his scythe in such a way to deflect the attack without touching the blade.
"So we get to do this our way huh?" Ambur smiles, this time genuinely as she begins walking slowly toward her foe, closely followed by Olivier. "Perfect."
"Don't get so cocky you over grown sex doll," Rosa smirks, "It's going to take a lot more than you two to beat me in a fair fight."
Liv lets out a smirk of her own before replying, "Who said anything about fighting fair?"
Rosaria couldn't take it anymore, she had pent up her rage for her former classmates too long and she lunged forward at them, her fists aglow with aura. Her first strike colliding with Ambur's left blade, held up in defense before Liv runs up and slides between Ambur's legs, kicking into Rosa's left leg, taking her off balance, causing her to fall forward toward Ambur. Liv raises her left elbow and pushes off the ground as Rosa's eyes go wide in surprise, Liv's weapon going off as her elbow connects with her targets stomach, sending Rosa flying into the air into a back flip, landing un-gracefully and off balance only to look up and find one of Ambur's swords flying at her horizontally, forcing her to do a back bend to dodge it, the sword flying all the way to the back wall of the room and sticking into it.
Rosaria kicked her feet over backwards again, trying to keep her momentum up, only to once again find Olivier flying at her at incredible speeds with her left leg extended, aimed at Rosa's right leg. Rosa couldn't believe how fast she was moving and had to assume that Ambur had thrown Olivier at her. Un-able to dodge in time, Liv's attack landed and she skidded to a halt after sweeping Rosa's legs out from under her. Rosaria extended her arms out and caught herself on the ground, looking up and finding Ambur's white sneaker coming at her face. Rosa rolled to her right as fast as she could, dodging Ambur's punt as she built up Aura again and sent a ball of energy up at her former team mate.
Ambur used the momentum of her kick to spin herself around to the right and she brought her second longsword up to her shoulder like a bat. As she twirled she swung the flat side of the sword down toward Rosa, batting her attack right back down to where she had been, only to find that she had jumped up to her feet and taken several steps back from the amazon.
Mydnight dug his feet into the floor as he slid backward form the force of his foes strike. His metal fist had collided with the center of his hilt with such force that Mydnight couldn't stand his ground. Mydnight looked to his opponent as he stopped sliding, seeing the male's grin under the shade of his hood. "Come on I know you can do better than that."
"I know you do," he breaths out, not loud enough for the other man to hear. Mydnight collapses his scythe into the dual pistols and re-holsters them on his belt.
"Giving up?" The male questions as he starts walking toward Mydnight.
"Of course not," he smiled back. He stood tall and raised his fists to meet the male approaching. "But I figured I'd cut you some slack for not using a weapon."
"Hah," the hooded figure blurts out, "So the wolf has jokes huh? Rosaria failed to mention that."
"Ya I bet she failed to mention a lot of things!" He grunts out as he swings the first of many blocked punches at his opponent. As the two go at it they keep the fighting fairly simple. Even as events transpire behind them and new fights begin while others end the two men seem evenly matched. However one thing is finally able to tear the men from their duel, finally looking around the room.
"Weiss!" Jaune yells, Mydnight's ears flicking up as the rest of the room falls silent, both men looking to find Weiss incapacitated on the floor with a fresh wound in her abdomen. As he looks around he finds that Ruby too is unconscious.
"Ohhh when did that happen," the hooded man smiles as Mydnight turns back to face him. "You should probably go help them," he say playfully as he sticks his tongue out at Mydnight.
Mydnight grits his teeth and readies himself once again to fight. "You know I can't do that..."
The man now scowls, "Oh come on, what is it gonna take for you to get off my back so I can screw with their minds, huh?" He asks.
"You're gonna have to kill me first," Mydnight growls as he lunges forward, his fist connecting with the man's outer arm.
The girls see Mydnight keep fighting and sigh a breath of relief before Ambur speaks up. They had worn Rosaria down over the past several minutes and she was beginning to show it. Her breathing was heavy and her stance was sloppy. Ambur had retrieved her weapons and reverted them to their single great sword form. "Liv go help them...I got this."
"Are...you sure?" She staggers back, not expecting to hear this.
"I'm sure. I know you want to fight her too but they need you over there, they are dropping like flies."
"...Don't let her touch you," Liv says as she holds her emotions in, choking them down to focus on helping the others fend Hazel off. As she runs off toward them Rosa speaks up.
"Big mistake Ambur," she grins as she stands up straight and dusts herself down.
"If you were fresh I'd agree with you. I'm not dumb enough to fight you at full strength alone. Your semblance counters mine perfectly. But I think I can handle you now. Besides," she smirks, "I have people to fight for. You've got nothing."
Rosaria grits her teeth in rage before she charges up an attack and sends it at Ambur's feet, easily rolling to dodge the explosion of energy. She spins back to face Rosa, finding a volley of wild shots coming at her. She raises her blade and swings as hard as she can, creating a rush of wind which blows all of the shots off course.
'That's it Rosa keep on wasting your aura,' Ambur thinks to herself as she continues to block and evade Rosa's attacks.
Mydnight swipes his hand across the man's line of vision, faking a back handed blow, trying to get the figure to follow. He then slips his left leg forward, hooking it around his right leg and pulling forward, tripping him and sending him into a backward fall. He follows up with this by putting all his strength into a final punch to the man's chest, sending him the short distance to the ground on his back, hitting the floor like a ton of bricks and leaving a wide area of cracked tiles around him.
Mydnight can't help but hear all the metal in the man's body creaking and crashing under the pressure. The man seems dazed for a moment and before he can get up Mydnight puts his right foot on the man's chest and brandishes one of his pistols, aiming it straight at the man's head. After the dust settles Mydnight sees his hood beginning to slip off to the floor. Once it has fallen all of the way he sees the man starring back up at him with a scowl on his half man, half machine face. He had brown hair, only covering the right side of his head, the human side. Both of his brown eyes were in tact and it became very clear to Mydnight that at least half of the man's body was autonomous.
Mydnight's eyes widen for a moment, only to return to normal as he briefly shakes his head and speaks. "Ya know...I actually didn't want to be right."
"Well we can't all get what we want now can we?" He smirks.
"...Why are you working with them? With Rosa! You hate each other!" Mydnight yells in disbelief.
"The same reason that you two should be. Ozpin lied to us! He ruined our lives and you're still fighting for him!" He growls out.
"Z, Salem is evil! Don't you get that?! Rosa ran away! That's the reason that you die-" he begins before trailing off.
"Evil is a point of view Mydnight. Ozpin and Salem are both horrible people. But Salem didn't do this," he says pointing to his own face, "to me and neither did Rosa...Oz did."
Mydnight can't help but shake his head In anger as his semblance goes off. "You actually believe that don't you..."
"Why else would I be here? I'm not out here to have my ass beat by my best friend for fun. That's your dumb ass ex-girlfriend's job," he snickers out as he gestures over to their two fighting team mates. "Of course you just HAD to develop a true sight semblance AFTER all the years Oz lied to us."
"Oh so what now this is my fault?"
"No you moron! Don't you see that you're fighting on the wrong side!"
"No...I thought I saw someone who gave up," he sighs out as he looks over to Rosa before looking back down into the man's eyes. "Turns out I see two."
Bronzine grunts out in anger before clenching his metal fists around Mydnight's pistol and directs it away from him, Mydnight firing a shot which hits the floor just past Bronzine's head. "You wanna talk about giving up?! Look at me! Look at what they had to do to me to keep me alive! Ironwood's robot girl at the tournament looked more human than me!" He says as he throws Mydnight off of him and jumps to his feet.
Mydnight raises his pistol again and fires toward Bronzine's head, only to watch his former friend snatch the bullet out of the air, his aura enveloping the mechanical hand as he tosses the bullet aside. "You took an oath and you gave it up..." Mydnight breaths out.
"Oz's word is worth nothing so why should mine be any different!"
"Because you didn't betray Ozpin!" Mydnight yells out, taking Bronzine off guard. "You broke your promise to me and Ambur..." Mydnight says softly as he takes a deep breath. He then reaches down into his back pocket of his jeans, producing a small chess piece. A Black Rook piece with three stripes of paint on the main cylinder between the built up base and rampart style top. The bottom most stripe is a dirty Bronze color, the second a stripe of hot pink, then an empty space with no paint to simulate a black strip, and finally an Amber stripe near the top.
Upon seeing this Bronzine freezes in place, unable to move, his jaw dropping in silence. Mydnight's yells had attracted the attention of their nearby partners as well, both girls turning to see what Mydnight held in his hand, both of them equally stunned. "Always and forever," Mydnight breaths out.
"You...you don't know what she's capable of...you don't know what fear is Mydnight," Bronzine says nervously as he begins to back away from them. "If we stop working for her now we are dead.
"We stand a better chance together. We can beat her."
"No...you really can't..."
"Stop listening to that idiot Bronzine!" Rosaria yells across the room. "I told you, he's a lost cause!"
"...So are you..." Ambur breaths out as she turns back to her former team mate, grabbing the pink haired girl's attention.
"Oh please, as if you didn't already know that. I WILL NEVER come back to a team led by you. You are the reason all of this happened. Not Ozpin."
"Think whatever you want Rosa..." Ambur says as she cocks her fist back and gets low to the ground, her feet digging into the floor. "I'll grant you that much as your last wish."
Mydnight and Bronzine hear Ambur say this clear as day, both men turning to look at their partners, Mydnight knowing exactly what Ambur is about to do. Mydnight sees Bronzine put his hand up and begin to take a step toward Rosaria. As he does this however Mydnight shoves his chess piece back into his pocket as he runs toward his former friend, tackling him back to the ground. As they look back to the girls they see Rosa put up her aura all at once, creating a massive dome of energy to protect herself, just before Ambur pushes off the ground with all of her strength, leaving behind a massive crater in the floor as she flies at the dome with her right fist cocked back.
As the amazon approaches the dome she extends her punch to the wall of energy and the entire room stops as they hear the sounds of exploding glass. Shards of Blue aura fall to the ground all around the room before dissipating into nothing. As Rosa begins to stagger backward, her Aura completely expended, Mydnight closes his eyes as he holds the struggling Bronzine to the ground.
Rosaria's eyes go wide as she realizes she is doomed. With no time to react, all she can manage is to do is to start falling sideways. Ambur's fist collides with her left shoulder as she falls, her semblance easily able to tear right through Rosa's flesh and bones, punching her arm clean off in only an instant. Her face morphs into one of pain for only a moment before she passes out, her energy depleted and now losing a massive amount of blood. So much in fact that Ambur finds her fist and most of her body covered in her former team mate's blood. As she comes to a stop, grinding her feet into the tile she turns back and finds Rosaria passed out on the floor, annoyed that she missed her target, having been aiming for the heart.
When the dust settles Mydnight lets Bronzine up, who immediately runs to Rosaria's side. "You! What have you done!"
"Why do you care what happens to her?!" Ambur yells back at him, unable to understand the massive change in her friend's personality. "She hated you more than anyone on the planet!"
"I...I don't know what to believe...Rosa warned you two would try to confuse me...tell me lies to change my mind...I don't care but...Salem does...and she will never rest until she finds you now...she had plans for Rosa and you just put them in jeopardy..." He lets out, panic filling his face before he throw up several projections, making himself and Rosaria invisible to Ambur and the rest of the group's eyes. He rips his brown poncho off and ties it around her shoulder to try and slow the blood loss before scooping her up, Mydnight watching him do all of this unable to bring himself to stop him.
"Why are you just standing there?!" Ambur yells to him. "Finish them off!" She pleas.
Mydnight looks back to his former team mates and slowly raises his right pistol, aimed at the back of Bronzine's head, watching as he stands tall with Rosa in his arms. "You don't have to bring her back to Salem...Just stop!"
"I can't!" Bronzine yells back as he stands up with his partner in his arms. "You don't understand! She can't be stopped," as he says this however they hear the elevator come back up to their floor at the other end of the room, seeing Yang alone, holding the Haven Relic. "No way..."
"She...actually did it?" Ambur gasps out in surprise.
"If I...If Cinder is dead...Rosa is next in line to replace her...If I bring her back alive Salem will forgive me for this failure...and I won't have to spend my life running from her," he breaths out, re-capturing his former friend's attention.
Mydnight's grip on the trigger of his pistol tightens reluctantly as he re-aims at his friend. However before he can make a move, Ambur, Liv, Qrow, Oscar and the members of JNPR and RWBY all begin to scream in fear as they all curl up into defensive positions. He looks over to Emerald, who is also on her knees and screaming, able to tell that she is the source of his friend's fear. He looks back to Bronzine but sees that he has begun running for the exit. Hazel leans down and takes hold of Emerald, picking her up and following Bronzine out of the building, closely followed by Mercury.
As they left Mydnight rushed to Ambur's side and took her into a tight embrace, trying to help her out of the trance that Emerald had left everyone in. After several moments, his friends begin to come to, their faces filled with fear, most of them staying in the fetal possition completely stunned by what they have seen. As Ambur begins to wake up he begins to wipe the spatter of blood from her face as he helps her up into a sitting possition.
"What the hell was that," she gasps, her breath shaky and filled with fear.
"What did she show you guys?" Mydnight asks as he looks around the room.
"An Illusion..." Ozpin begins, taking everyones attention. "But...an accurate one." He breaths out, clearly having taken a toll on Oscar's body.
"THAT...was Salem."
End Of Volume 5
