Not in as great a mood today and those of you who read the reviews section may know why.
Critics United has returned to plague this story once more.
And my strategy for round two is the same as it was in round one: wait it out and ignore them. I figure, since I've been at this for a year, if I really was reported for rule-breaking, an ACTUAL admin of the site would have contacted me by now, but since nobody has, I keep on keeping on. Hopefully, this time, we won't get any more of those weird fake CU guys.
RWBY Watches Classic Movies
Chapter 56
"When and how?!" Blake shouted, jumping from her seat and reaching for Gambol Shroud before she remembered it wasn't there.
"Been here since the beginning of the movie, Blake." Sienna said with a shrug. "And is that really any way to talk to your godmother?"
"Sienna, dear! Oh, it's so good to see you!" Kali said as she wrapped Sienna in a fierce hug.
"Hello again, Kali." Sienna grunted out with a smile. She and Kali had met in the early days of the White Fang, back under Ghira's leadership. "How's life?"
"You have some explaining to do, missy." Kali said, putting her hands on her hips. "Start with how you could let Adam Taurus get you."
"Let's put that on hold until the movie is over, okay?"
"I'll hold you to that." Kali said with a wry grin.
"I don't know if I'm comfortable having the late leader of the White Fang sitting in the same room as us." Weiss said.
"What's my dad supposed to be then?" Blake said.
"You know what I mean, Blake! This woman is responsible for my childhood, for Beacon!"
"Actually, Beacon was all Adam's doing." Ilia said. "Sienna was furious when she heard about it. I can feel my skin turning pink just thinking about some of the things she claimed she would do to Adam when he returned. Now, shall we return to the point?"
"Thank you!" Nora exclaimed.
Nora hung up the phone in the trailer and began to wipe her hands before going back to the radio.
"You know, I beg people to listen to me." She said, "I use plain, simple Common. I don't have any accent that I know of."
"Oh, shut up." Penny said, absolutely done for the day.
"So, if nothing else, that should make for an interesting chapter in your book."
"I think the debate over the parental instincts of a T. Rex is now… academic." Penny said.
Nora was about to try the radio when Penny's words really hit her.
"Hang on, this is gonna be bad." Nora said.
"Whatever happens, this is your fault Sun!"
Suddenly, the entire trailer shifted, falling onto its side. Everyone was thrown forward, with Penny and Nora falling to the floor- which was once the wall- and Sun falling onto the wall- which was now the floor- before the trailer fell on its side again so that everything was now upside down.
A T. Rex roared outside as Nora looked out the window and the trailer began to move backwards.
"They're pushing us over the cliff!" She said.
Outside, the tyrannosaurs destroyed the windshield and pushed the car further back, but the accordion design connecting the two halves made it somewhat difficult. Sun and Nora ran to the nearest door and tried to force it open.
"Come on, come on." Sun growled as he tried to force the door open, to no avail.
"Once we're out of here…" Nora said, pushing behind him.
"Straight into the woods."
"Straight into the woods." Nora agreed as she stepped back and rammed her foot into the door, barely missing Sun's fingers. The rexes hit the trailer again, lining it up perfectly and throwing Sun and Nora from their positions.
As the trailer began to hang over the edge of the cliff, Sun yelled out. "Hang on to something!"
The rexes pushed once more and more than half of the rear trailer now hung over the cliff side. Gravity eventually won out, and the whole back half fell over, the accordion sleeve the only thing holding it up. The rear panel fell off, a square wall of hardened glass the only floor they had. Sun and Nora had fairly good purchases, with both something to hold onto and something to stand on, but Penny was not so fortunate. She was hanging with her back to a cabinet, her hands clutching the handle. Eventually, her weight was too much for the door to bear and the whole thing gave way, and she fell and impacted hard against the glass wall, causing it to crack.
"Penny!" Sun yelled out. The only response he got was Penny sighing against the glass, fogging it up as her cheek began to bleed. She opened her eyes to see the sheer fall that awaited her and heard the glass begin to crack.
"Oh, Gods, please." She pleaded as she began to rise to her knees.
"Don't move!" Sun yelled as the cracks began to widen.
"I'm coming down for ya!" Nora said as she began to climb her way down. "Sun, get the scroll."
"On it." the monkey faunus said as he searched for the case.
Penny had fully risen to her hands and knees, putting her whole weight on the glass. It seemed to be holding, so she carefully moved her hand towards the edge. As she did, cracks began to form under the fingers of the hand holding her up.
Meanwhile, Sun had found the case hanging from a lamp. He found purchase on a revolving chair bolted to the floor. He considered wrapping his tail around something so he could maximize his reach, but didn't think it would be enough and settled for a single outstretched hand.
"Sun, why not just use your tail?" Ruby wondered aloud. "Like, wrap it around that pole and lean out?"
"It's an idea, but there's a lot of problems with it." Sun said, "I would basically be putting my whole weight on my tail, and while it is strong and prehensile, I must be pretty tired and weakened from a long day on that island and the stress of the attack. The amount of times I would have to wrap it around something solid in order to properly hold my weight would greatly limit how far out I could hang."
"I'm guessing there were plenty of opportunities to test your limits growing up?" Weiss said, genuinely curious.
"It's Vacuo, Ice Queen. You do what you have to to kill time and not die."
"You get a pass on that one." Weiss said with a smirk.
As he stretched out, the strap slowly slid down the lamp, gravity taking it's toll. He had nearly reached it by the time Penny had nearly reached the edge of the metal frame the glass was set in and Nora reached out a hand for her.
"Give me your hand, baby." Nora said, as she spied Penny's pack off to the side.
"Head's up!" Sun yelled as the scroll case fell. Nora instinctively grabbed Penny's pack and held it out to her. She grabbed it just as the case finally shattered the glass wall and Penny hung for her life.
"Your lucky pack, right?" Nora said as she tried to stay in the trailer.
By the time Nora and Sun had finally gotten Penny back into the trailer, the heard the sounds of a car horn beeping above them. Up on the cliff, the other car burst from the jungle and came to halt. Leonardo stepped out and saw the state of everything, taking it in with horror.
"Nora! Penny! Sun!" he yelled out.
"Leo! We're in here!" Sun yelled back.
'I like this. Leonardo deserves an amount of redemption.' Ozpin mused in Oscar's head.
'Are you really sticking up for a traitor?' Oscar questioned.
'I do not know when Leonardo turned on us, but I knew him for a good deal of his life. I helped him become Headmaster of Haven. I refuse to let the actions of his final days tarnish the legacy he made for himself.'
"Hang on! I'm coming!" Leo replied. He ran to the door and tried to open it before he realized that the emergency doors locks had automatically kicked in. Seeing the smashed-in windshield, he climbed through it into the trailer, ignoring the warnings going off in the cabin. "What did this?"
"Rin! Where's Rin?" Nora yelled out.
"She's okay! She's in the high hide!" Leo told her, giving Nora some relief. "Who's hurt? What do you need?"
"We need rope!" Nora told him.
"Rope. Anything else?"
"Yeah, three cheeseburgers with the works. Four by four animal style!"
"No onions on mine!" Sun added.
"And an apple turnover!" Penny finished.
That got chuckles from most of the crowd.
"I'll give you this Pinky," Roman said, "You know how to lighten a mood."
"It's one of her better qualities." Pyrrha agreed.
"Also, can we agree that these movies do suspense really well?" Blake asked, receiving nods all around.
Leo nodded to himself, glad that they could still make jokes in this kind of situation. Paying the rain no mind, he quickly ran back to his car and dug through the trunk until he pulled out a large length of strong, thick rope. He took it to a nearby tree stump- more likely the remnants of a tree the rexes had knocked over in their initial appearance- and tied the rope around it. He took the rest of the rope into the trailer and tossed it down to the trio, which was caught by Sun with his tail.
"Good throw!" Nora said, "Did you tie this to anything?" a loud rumbling answered her. The trio looked outside and saw the side of the cliff begin to climb upwards. "We're sliding, Leo!"
Outside, Leo saw the front section of the trailer slowly moving backward. Thinking fast, he ran to his car and began unwinding the spool of thick metal wire attached to a metal hook.
Inside, Sun and Nora quickly helped the less physically fit Penny up the rope first.
Once Leo had unwound about twenty feet of wire, he picked up the hook and ran for the trailer. He came within six inches of the target before he ran out of wire and was thrown into the mud. He picked himself up and ran back to the car. Meanwhile, his rope knot was beginning to undo itself. Ultimately, it came undone from the weight it was bearing, sending the three adults inside tumbling to the bottom and nearly falling to their deaths. Fortunately, they managed to grab the frame before they fell.
Once Leo had wound out another seven feet of wire, he ran back to the trailer, but slipped and fell to the muddy ground. 'See, this shit is why I don't like the field.' He thought to himself as he crawled to the bull bar and wrapped the wire over the top of the bottom bar, hooking it in place. The wire pulled taught as the trailer ceased moving and Leo's car shook from the weight it was now bearing.
Knowing there was no time to rest, Leo saw the rope hanging slack on the ground. He quickly picked up the end near the tree, walked around the back of the stump and took his time tying a proper noose knot. Inside, Penny felt the rope going taught, and yelled to alert her trapped friends. As he finished the knot, Leo saw his car sliding forward. He looked back and saw the trailer begin to tilt into the air, the last pair of rear wheels on the front section falling over. He ran to his car, threw it into reverse and floored the gas as Penny resumed climbing inside.
"Hell, this even gives us some ideas on how Lionheart designed the cars." Yang said, a little impressed.
"What?" Weiss said, not buying it.
Slowly, Leo managed to bring the trailer back to the ground and pulled the first pair of rear wheels back up, hissing and popping as they did. Inside, Nora began to climb up the rope. Leo pressed a button on the dash and changed gears, swerving from side to side as he pulled the front trailer further back onto the cliff. Inside, Sun joined Nora and Penny on the rope. Unfortunately, Penny's grip slipped and she slid down, running into Nora and Sun, and pushing all three of the out the bottom of the trailer.
"See what I mean? The car has positraction." Yang said.
"Posi-what?" Coco asked.
"And here's where Yang turns into me." Ruby teased.
"Positraction is just a fancy word for a limited-slip differential unit used on cars. The basic idea is that the unit senses when a tire is slipping or sticking and sends power to that wheel to keep it moving properly. Thankfully, I don't really need that with Bumblebee."
Leo had managed to get all of the trailers wheels on the ground, but he knew he didn't have enough power to get the whole thing back up, so he settled for what he could do, and what he could do right now was keep the front section from falling again. While he was trying to keep the trailer from slipping again, he heard loud impacts coming from outside. Behind him, the two T. Rexes emerged from the tree line. He tried to keep his body still while also revving the gas to keep the trailer steady.
Suddenly, one of the rexes tore the headlights off his car and threw them to the side. Then, the other one caved in his roof. They slowly picked the car apart, while Leo tried to defend himself. He could no longer reach the gas, but he was right next to his air rifle. He tried to pull it out, but the iron sight got caught in a mesh webbing and he couldn't get it out in his position. One of the rexes heads came close to him and he kicked at it to try and make it go away.
This was Leonardo Lionheart's final mistake.
The rex grabbed his leg at the shin and pulled him out of the car, flailing and screaming. It tossed him in the air, catching him at the torso while the other grabbed his legs and pulled, tearing him in half. It let go of the car, which it had been holding with it's foot, and the car sped toward the cliff.
"Man, that's a hell of a way to go." Sienna said.
'At least this time he died fighting, the fool.' Salem thought to herself.
The trio on the rope screamed as the interior of the trailer rushed past them and exploded as it hit the rocks below, followed soon after by Leo's car. Shrapnel nearly hit them several times, including one of the intact spare tires. The trio looked up and knew that their brave comrade could only be dead. The only thing they could do now was climb.
Penny was the first to reach the top, but stopped when she did. A dark feminine hand reached out to her, and she took it as Sienna Khan helped her onto the cliff, followed by Nora and Sun. They looked around as the hunters, their opponents-turned saviors, created a defensive perimeter. A man with a medical bag walked up to them, but was shoved aside as Rin Valkyrie blazed past him and tackle-hugged her mother.
Nora stood up from her seat and walked up to Sienna. The late-High Leader looked up at her curiously, meeting her serious gaze.
"Thank you for keeping my daughter safe." Nora said, holding out her hand.
Siena chuckled and took the proffered hand. "You're gonna be a real terror when you have kids, you know that?"
"You better believe it." Nora grinned as she returned to her seat.
"Our communications equipment's been destroyed." Sienna said once the rain had stopped and they had returned to their former camp site. "and if your radio and scroll were in those trailers that went over the cliffs…"
"They were." Nora confirmed.
"Then we're stuck here, ladies and gentlemen. And stuck together, thanks to you people."
"Look, lady, we came here to watch. You came to strip-mine the place." Sun said, giving Corsac a dirty look as the man got too close to him. "Back off."
"At least we came prepared." Salem said.
"Prepared?" Nora scoffed, "Five years of work and 100 miles of electrified fences couldn't prepare the other island. You think a couple dozen Marlboro men will do you any better?"
"It's a looter mentality." Sun said, "All you care about is what you can take, but you have no right."
"An extinct animal brought back to life has no rights." Salem fired back confidently, "It exists because we made it. We patented it. We own it."
"It's the animal rights fighters all over again." Ozpin groaned.
"Is that a hint of regret I sense up there?" Oscar teased.
"Oscar, even in our current state, there is not enough time in the day to explain that proverbial can of worms."
"You looking for a problem, pal?" Sun said as Corsac got up in his face again.
"Found you, didn't I?" Corsac replied, making Sun clock him in the jaw. When Corsac got back up to return fire, he saw Sun standing with his hands clasped together and two clones of himself standing at his sides, clearly ready for a fight.
"Wait a minute," Sienna said before Sun could do anything. "I know you. You're that Remnant First bastard."
"What in the world is 'Remnant First'?" Salem asked.
"Professional saboteurs." Sienna explained simply.
"We're environmentalists!" Sun yelled angrily.
"Knock it off!" Penny yelled, "Now look, the fact of the matter is that by moving the infant into our camp, we may have changed the adults' perceived territory."
"Their what?" Salem asked.
"It's why they persisted in destroying the trailer." Burke explained. "They now feel they have to defend this entire area."
Penny nodded. "We need to move, right now!"
"Move where?" Sun asked, dispelling his clones, "Our boat? Their airlift? They're both waiting for a call we have no way to send."
"Thanks to Sun." Neptune commented.
"Dude!" Sun yelled, whirling on his best friend.
"Hey, man, I call 'em like I see 'em."
"Alright, alright." Salem said, digging through her pack and pulling out a laminated map of the island. "Look here, there's a communications center here, near the old operations building. Everything ran on geothermal power. It was designed to never need replenishing. If we can get there, we can radio the airlift."
"Do you have the frequency and codes?" Nora asked.
"Right here." Salem showed them a small notebook.
"Well, we'll mind those." Sienna said, taking everything and entrusting it to Ajay.
"How far to the village?" Sun asked.
"Oh, a day's walk. Maybe more." Salem said, "But, that's not the problem."
"Then what is the problem?" Sienna asked.
"Velociraptors." Salem said, causing everyone around her to go silent, either in horror or in confusion. "Our infrareds show that their nesting sites are concentrated in the island interior, which is why we planned to stick to the outer rim."
"Well, fuck me sideways." Nora sighed.
"Ozpin says he's surprised you haven't been calling them out on their language." Oscar told Glynda.
"At this point, I've given up." Glynda shrugged. "They're hardly students anymore, from what our host told me, and it's not like they would actually stop if I told them to."
"Wait a minute." Corsac interrupted, "What the hell even is a veloci-whatever?"
"Velociraptor." Burke corrected, "Carnivore. Pack hunter. About two meters tall, long snout. Binocular vision. Strong dexterous forearms and killing claws on both feet."
"And the tyrannosaurs may continue to pursue us if they perceive a threat to either themselves or their infant." Penny added.
"No, no, you're wrong there, Dr. Polendina. We'll lose them once we leave their territory." Burke argued.
"No, don't bet on it. The tyrannosaur has the largest proportional olfactory cavity in the fossil record with one exception."
"Right, uh, the turkey vulture could scent up to ten miles."
"Anyone care to translate that?" Coco asked.
"It means that the tyrannosaurs can track them pretty much anywhere on the island, and if they think these people are a threat, they will actively seek them out and eliminate them." Summer said.
Sun gulped and sank into his seat, sensing the almighty rage emanating from Nora.
"Right, this is all very exciting, it really is, but I say we move to the village." Salem said, rolling her eyes.
"We could always go back down to the lagoon." Nora suggested, looking down to Rin, who was wrapped up in a blanket for warmth.
"And do what?" Sienna asked with a frown. "Sit out in the open, next to a heavily used water source, and hope that your captain comes back for you?"
"Nah, he won't do that. He knows better." Sun said.
"Then we head for the village." Sienna said finally, "We might be able to find shelter, and we know we can call for help." She picked up her gun and began walking. "Rex just fed, so they won't stalk us for food."
"Excuse me," Nora said angrily, forcefully turning Sienna around, "I assume by 'just fed' you mean Leonardo. How about showing some damn respect? The man saved our lives by giving his."
"Then his troubles are over." Sienna said plainly, "My point is that predators don't hunt when they're not hungry."
"No, only humans and Faunus do." Sun yelled up at her.
"Oh, you're breaking our hearts. Now saddle up! Let's get this moveable feast underway!"
You know, this whole thing with CU is kinda draining me. It doesn't help that it's kind of affecting my performance at work, since that's when most of their review alerts always seem to reach me. I hope that makes you happy, CU. Keep it up, and I might be out of job, which would also make me unable to pay for critical medications, and subsequently having seizures again. But hey, you guys won. Congrats.
Am I being petty by saying this? Maybe, but I'm also not exaggerating.
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Next Update: 1/14/20
P.S. To reader Plasma Dragon 312: Happy Birthday, man!