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"Lady Khan I think-"
"You are going with Qrow, Edward." Sienna interrupted. "We don't have any leads on Corsac and Fennec yet and the man who gave us this place could be panning to hand us over to them." Sienna didn't tell everyone about Salem and magic bits but with Lionheart being a Faunus it wasn't too hard to stretch the truth in that direction, even she needed to justify her orders. "You're going and that's final."
Edward begrudgingly accepted her order. It wasn't hard to see why they just got their leader back and then lost their base, some of their people and failed a mission all in such a short time span. Now they were being asked to head off against the first Faunus headmaster and councilman. Leonardo Lionheart was a major victory for the Faunus even if the man ended up being more kitten than lion in the end.
Being forced to attack him would carry a certain reluctance.
"What about the Schnee girl?"
Sienna internally groaned. "Just... Just don't start anything."
"Yes, ma'am."
As if his begrudging tone wasn't obvious before.
Sienna couldn't blame him, not one but two Schnees were in the same building and it became far smaller with the human's presence.
A tightness in her 'lady parts' had her groaning in pain, Sienna had a bit of cramping earlier but it had to take a back seat for her planning with Ozpin and making certain violence didn't erupt at the presence of the Schnee sisters, Lara might know what was going on. A sudden shift in her bowels, however, had her running to the bathroom.
"Are you sure about this Oz?"
"Yes Qrow, I don't want to jump to conclusions but I can't root out any possibilities, I just want you to wait in case we're ambushed if anything does happen I'm certain Mrs. Arc's men will be sufficient to aid us."
"I should be heading in there with you..."
"Ruby will be fine," Ozpin assured before asking. "How is Winter?"
"Gagged and tied up in the basement, her sister isn't happy about it but we can't have her running out and blabbering out where we are."
Ozpin sighed, they'd probably need an executive order from James to get her to keep quiet. He could give him a call at the CCT, if possible.
"Well, I gotta take that Sun kid to get his leg looked at, I'll be right back."
As Qrow exited the room Ozpin sighed and hoped if there was any amount of mercy left in either of the brothers then he'd be completely wrong about Leo.
"Hello, there seems to be a new edition this time around." Leo eyed Weiss Schnee.
"Everything seems fine." Oscar said.
"Yes, it does..."
"You said the council was giving you support, that seems marginally different from there interests before," Ozpin said. "I assume their help is minuscule and had a price?"
"Um, yes you could say that... why did you bring them here?" He asked, his weapon being at the ready didn't go unnoticed. "I don't think we should be boring them with politics."
"They can stay, I believed it best to have everyone present when discussing our plan to-"
A loud thunk landed on the floor behind him and various gasps of surprise had Ozpin turning around to find an arrow in the ground. It glowed briefly before erupting into a violent explosion.
Ozpin painfully slid along the floor and once he stopped wasted no time pulling out his scroll, a boot came down crushing his hand and scroll and a rough hand pulled him in the air by the neck.
"Hello, Ozpin."
"R-Raven." He choked out.
There wasn't even a moment to panic before his back hit a wall. Her face was in his, her bright red eyes burning, teeth bared in a grin that bordered on psychotic as her grip tightened around his throat. At first, he'd thought she intended to snap his neck and be done with him again as spittle ran down his chin. Until her arm reared back and threw him to the floor.
"Vernal, make him suffer."
Ruby got to her feet just in time to see a girl in a red dress land a few yards away, the bow she had made her out to be the archer.
"W-Who are you?"
"Cinder," She said. "It would be best to stay down, little red, I gain nothing in hurting you."
Her hand shot up to block the rounds Ruby sent her way.
"Well, no one can say I didn't try."
"Your, not Adam but Haven isn't Beacon, he didn't get away with it and neither will you!" Ruby declared.
Cinder chuckled. "You have no idea who I am or what my capacities are. Adam was just my little pawn, a little puppet in my design to bring Vale to its knees."
"Adam attacked Beacon and let Grimm run loose so he could kill Jaune."
"Well, I tore that little city and the world apart, here they sit on the brink of war thanks to-"
"Ironwood arresting Jaune and Sienna and keeping Pyrrha out of the tournament was why everyone went nuts, he did all this."
Her smile vanished. "Okay yes that did happen... but I was the one who told the media and lit the flames with their marriage certificate."
"You mean they didn't just figure that out on their own?"
"Of course not," Cinder snarled. "I have brought the kingdoms to their knees... or rather I contributed heavily to their destruction!"
"It doesn't sound like it."
Cinder stared back at her and with the twitch of her eye the bow she was holding shattered and reformed into twin curved blades but before either of them could do anything a voice cried out.
"Dodge!"
Ruby turned and barely saw the fist before it collided with her face, she spun about as the force sent left her on her back.
"Why didn't you dodge!?"
"R-Raven?" Ruby staggered back to her feet. "Raven!" Her scythe came up just in time to catch the katana.
"You need to learn situational awareness, Ruby." Raven pressed in and shoved Ruby back. "Don't block your opponent is clearly stronger than you." She regarded Cinder for a moment. "Find someone else."
"What are you doing?! They're with Salem and we need help, stop!" Ruby leaped back from about blow.
Raven is stronger than her, more experience, finished her huntress training, lived as a bandit. There wasn't any chance in the world Ruby could defeat the older woman. Instead of fighting back the little reaper resorted to prancing about with her semblance just to avoid every swing sent her way. Nora and Ren were being attacked by some green-haired girl and Headmaster Lionheart fired down at them with... flaming rocks?
"How is that even possible?" She stopped to think. "You can't light a rock on fire, is there something burning on top of it that I can't see? Wait, is that Mercury attacking Weiss!?" Ruby was ripped from her thoughts by the back of Raven's sword, the owner sighed heavily and placed her heel to Ruby's throat.
"Situational awareness Ruby," The girl beneath her heel choked. "Lacking it is seen as one of the primary factors in accidents attributed to human error, did Taiyang teach you nothing?"
Raven removed her foot and turned to leave Ruby gasping for air, noticing a back turned to herself Ruby shot up and swung scythe to no avail. Raven ducked under the anticipated strike and gave a kick in return.
"That's what situational awareness will give you, Ruby, now get up and actually fight."
Ozpin never gave him a call be he didn't need to, everyone present, okay the eared Faunus present heard a blast coming from the CCT.
"Leo really killed them all." Qrow thought as anger bubbled to his facial features.
"What are we standing around for?" Edward asked. "Let's move!"
Wasting no time Qrow and the troopers they brought rushed out from the tree line. Leonardo was going to pay for what he did and maybe they'd get lucky and take out some of Salem's people in the process. Whatever the result Leo's luck had run out and he wasn't getting any more people killed tonight.
From the eastern treeline a barrage of bullets came out, the three dozen or so Khan's Claws exposed as they were, began being cut down.
"What the fuck!?" Edward cried as the White Fang of all things came pouring out of the brush.
To the west yielded even more of them, for whatever reason the goddamn White Fang was here!
"Ah, shit their working for Salem!"
Qrow spun Harbinger around to deflect as many rounds as he could and Edward fished out his scroll as they all fell back from the pincer.
Corsac smiled as the traitor forces fled, all of the hunters in training, the huntsman, and Edward himself are now far away from Sienna and easy targets.
Corsac stopped the nearest soldier. "Tell Fennec he will have nothing to fear from any of the hunters or Edward. Contact the reserves as well, the opportunity to eliminate Sienna and her human retinue has presented itself." She nodded and pulled out her communicator.
"Tonight couldn't get better."
Hazel looked on from a doorway unsure of what was going on.
Cinder was right and they did bring reinforcements with them, but the White Fang was here for some reason and battling it out.
"This will garner the attention of the authorities fast." Hazel's eyes shifted to his goal, Qrow Branwen was doing his best to block as much incoming fire as possible for the Khan's Claws to retreated behind something, it was admirable at best.
He needed to capture Branwen for Cinder to finally get revenge against Ozpin.
Unlike the one he was denied at Beacon, Hazel would get what he wanted.
"Lara! Lara!" Sienna cried out
"Lady Khan?" She rushed out of the kitchen and into the living room.
"I feel like... oh gods is it happening!?"
"Alright you two help her upstairs now, the master bedroom had a big enough tub, move!" She rushed back to the kitchen and her voice dropped. "Heat up a knife too."
"What? Why would you need that?"
"Just do it!"
Sienna noticed that people really did exaggerate the pain felt when going into labor. It hurt but was more irritating to her lower body than anything. She was carried halfway up the stairs when her scroll began to ring, the carefully laid into the bathtub and Lara rushed and over to the sink to wash her hand.
"Okay, we don't have any pain relief but people have been doing this for thousands of years without it and I have science back medical knowledge to assist us- Okay can somebody answer that damn scroll?" The closest Faunus fished it off Sienna as Lara dried her hands.
Tossing the towel away Lara crouched down next to the tub and smile kindly. "Okay, his is your first time and its always the hardest, so just take a deep breath and relax, there's nothing you need to worry about-"
"Lady Khan, Edward's on the line and is requesting enforcement, the traitors have attacked him and Branwen at Haven, they're outnumbered and need reinforcements!" The one with the scroll cried.
"They were actually waiting for them there!?" Sienna thought.
"Go, all if you take as many as you can and get there fast!" She ordered.
"Adam had attacked Beacon and now the Albain brothers are attacking Haven. Hell, they were assembling here and are deep in Adam's thinking. I was so concerned about the baby I didn't even think to put any of that together and probably just wasted a perfectly good trap."
"Lady Khan, please calm down, I'm certain everyone will be fine," Lara said assuredly. "They can hold out until help arrives, no need to concern yourself any further."
Sienna sighed, Lara was right. There wasn't anything she could do beyond sending help but they all knew how to fight and could take care if themselves.
"Okay, now what do I do?"
Lara climbed into the oversized bathtub and spread Sienna's legs apart setting them atop the rims. "Just relax, we're going to be here for some time."
"Hopefully without any more distractions." Lara muttered.
Fennec placed his scroll back into his pocket and smiled at the news. With fewer forces here and the ones his brother had shadowed away preoccupied at the school, Sienna just became a more vulnerable target than ever.
The door to the back opened and out flooded her traitorous claws flooded out.
"Ah, the first catch of the night."
"Open fire."