"Come on then!" The old man barked as the shadow began its slow approach. The strangers form appeared to be covered with long thin sources of light, revealing his face as he grew closer, despite the gloom. Weiss felt her jaw slowly dropping at the sheer size of this man. He was huge, with bulging muscles and tanned, sunburned skin from his unkempt black hair and beard, down to his boots. The man was so large and hairy and mad looking, he put Weiss in mind of some wild animal. He certainly looked bear-like with those wide staring eyes and bared teeth. As he drew nearer to Goku, Weiss and Ruby, slouched forward like he was carrying a great weight, they all got a good look at peculiar lights.

This strangers tanned biceps beyond any normal mans were punctured in a multitude of places with long yellow dust crystals. Jagged cruel points that emitted that sinister gleam. Weiss had never seen dust that unstable. Powerful energy seeped from them like fiery mist. The man was barbed like a hedgehog.

"So many incisions… why hasn't he passed out from pain?" Weiss wondered. Was this something faunus were capable of? With those fangs and eyes, he couldn't be anything else. But this walking pin cushion was wide awake and fast approaching, with bulging knuckles and clenched fists.

Upon his chest between the spikes was a small metal device. To Weiss it looked like a collar or choker wrapped around the neck, yet clearly piecing the chest and funnelling something into him. It was humming and emitting that same strange light. The veins protruding from under the device were pulsing and bulging below the skin, glowing the light of the crystals. Emerald looked up and noticed the stranger for the first time. She was so shocked, she almost stopped crying.

"Hazal?" she managed to whisper, her voice faint and creaky from sobbing. "What…what the hell did he do to you…?"

Hazal looked down on Emerald, and his thin lips slowly curled into smirk. Without warning and with frightening speed to behold from one so big, Hazal grabbed Emeralds entire head and launched her high up into the air. She sailed through the air like a ragdoll, with zero control of her momentum. For the briefest moment in Weiss' eyes, the girl seemed to hang there suspended in mid-air. But then she began to fall. She plummeted like a shot bird, straight down towards where this madman's spikes were waiting to run her through.

"Ruby!" Weiss exclaimed, raising her rapier. There was a flash of red and before anyone could react, a red blur blitzed through the air. Hazal scowled and aimed a powerful swipe and the blur but found that arm was suddenly very cold and pinned to his side. Something seemed to seize Emerald moments before impalement and the very next moment she was gone.

"That was fast." said Weiss, icy vapour seeping from the blade of her rapier. "But you'll have to be quicker than that."

The red presence swooped down beside Weiss and there was Ruby. Surrounded by rose petals on the damp floor. She laid Emerald down gently, noting that she had become unconscious most likely from the shock of all that had happened, and rose to face Hazal. Weiss was relieved to see she was still able to fight, after Mercury, Ruby seemed too distant to help herself, let alone save the wretched girl. Weiss felt no sympathy for the thief, but there had been too many casualties here already. The huntress' would not allow anymore.

Ruby faced the huge man; her face contorted with rage." What is wrong with you? Her aura wasn't protecting her. She would have been seriously hurt. Don't you care!?" She screamed at Hazal with as much disbelief in her voice as there was horror, her eyes ablaze with that light that cut the darkness once again.

Hazal looked down at Mercury's body, and lightly kicked it with his left foot. When he spoke, it was in a voice so deep, it might as well have been a growl. "They are both useless to us now. Good kids…but not good enough in the end…"

At that moment, Weiss noticed the faint humming in the back of her mind. In her panic she hadn't noticed it, that pull that revealed what her eyes could not detect. The flashing light coming from those gross veins, there was something more to them than muscle. The aura she could feel from them was immense, more powerful than the average human or faunus. But it was more than that, this aura felt familiar somehow…

"You should leave."

Weiss heard Goku speak as he passed her, approaching Hazal with seemingly no fear. He was a couple of inches shorter than the faunus and nowhere near as bulky. Hazal did not reply, instead he tensed his arm and the ice was blasted off like it was nothing. The heat of those crystals must have been immense. He then angled his liberated arm down at the corpse of Mercury. A spike protruding from his forearm extended with incredible haste and pierced his chest. Both Ruby and Weiss flinched at this. They wanted to stop this needless disrespect for the dead but too late, the spike had already been twisted and removed. Whatever her misgiving about her character, Weiss was glad that Emerald was not conscious to see the state of Mercury's body now, with a great hole in the chest where his heart was supposed to be.

Hazal raised his arm up like a sword and swung it briskly to one side, sending the blood flying off onto the floor. He then allowed the spike to retracted back to its original length and turned his attention to Emerald. "He barely had anything left. I'll need hers as well. Watts said we can't waste this stuff."

Weiss caught Ruby's shoulder as the huntress gripped her scythe and made ton lunge at Hazal. She could feel the anger coursing through Ruby and shared it. She had only stopped her to discuss some kind of combination attack, something that would get them both under this behemoths guard. She noticed that the white fang soldiers that Hazal had with him were standing back, probably out of fear of further injury. But she never vocalised the thought. For Weiss trembled at what she felt from the old man. She couldn't see his face, but the power radiating from him was terrible once again. He was enraged once again.

"So that's it. You're just like that girl?" Goku said quietly, his fury making his voice shake a little, rising again to a booming cry of hatred. "You have no business here. Get lost!"

"I'll leave once I have the aura I came for. Anyway I thought you wanted a fight?" Hazal growled in reply, looming over Goku. The old man did not flinch or back down. Instead he raised his left arm and pointed his open hand at Hazals heart.

"I think you've got more than you can handle already, and right now I think I'd rather just kill you." Said Goku irritably. He proffered his hand more insistently and faint light could be made out emanating from it. But still Hazal did not move. Weiss looked down and saw that Goku's other hand was clenched at his side, shaking with suppressed rage. She knew that he was sensing this stranger's aura, and maybe he was sober enough to know whose aura he was sensing.

Hazal smirked at the hand and the expanding light within it. The expression seemed to set the old man off, with a loud bang he shot off an energy wave right into Hazal's chest. The force of the attack sent his skidding back, yet the cry of pain Goku expected to hear did not come, and when the smoke around Hazal's form cleared, he was still on his feet and still smirking. Hazal straightened up, seemingly unharmed. The only thing that had changed was the colour of the crystal spikes. They all shone slightly brighter than before and all three of them, Weiss, Ruby and Goku all at the same time realised what had happened. Slowly, the old man lowered his arm.

"So, you can absorb energy too?" Goku asked, his anger now betraying disappointment. But Hazals demeanour was anything but ashamed. His reserved nature had been cast out in place of a wild happiness, the malicious smile on his face a testament to his pride and violent excitement at what had just happened. It was clear to everyone that he had never absorbed that much power at once before, and that he was elated that it had been successful. He spoke more quickly and vehemently, like he had just gotten some wild caffeine fix.

"You make it sound easy. I am an improvement to what Cinder was. Her body was strong, but she could still feel pain. I alone can wield this power because I cannot feel pain. You can hit me as hard as you like, but all you'll accomplish is fatigue and when that happens…" He paused to let out a horrible grunting chuckle. "You're aura is mine."

Without warning, Hazal moved with that unnatural speed once again, sending his clenched fist straight at Goku. His intoxication did not slow him down however and Goku raised his arms in a cross guard in front of him a split second before Hazals punch connected. The pavement beneath them cracked and split apart. Ruby and Weiss were thrown from the ground with the force of the impact, and if they had been unable to fly, might have been brained on the jagged debris below. The white fang were not so lucky. The shockwave blasted half their ranks into the air in a great wave only to come crashing down again. Some landed on their feet and watched terrified as their boss locked arms with this impossible man. Some landed on their limbs and cried out in pain and begged for help. Some landed on their backs or necks and did not move at all.

Goku's clenched fist slammed into Hazal's as the others were blown back. The shock of the impact made the entire capsule Corp building shake. Weiss just barely kept from being blown away by stabbing the ground with her blade and holding herself to it. It was a flimsy handhold, but it held for just long enough for her to resist that terrible shockwave. Ruby had not been so quick and had flown away out of sight. Weiss was worried about Ruby's aura, still weak and depleted from her earlier fight with Mercury. In scanning her surroundings for her leader, Weiss spotted the old 'Capsule corp' building. The masses of debris flying around and crashing into each other, it was a testament to excellent craftsmanship that the old building had survived so much. Yet it seemed to shrink away slightly as the Saiyan traded heavy strikes with the hulking faunus, an aura of power palpable around them and preventing any help from either side from getting close. Weiss felt her own power diminish in the face of such a contest. She could feel Goku's aura rising and falling in short bursts, timed to his contact with his opponent. His sense of control was staggering. But what she could feel in Hazal was slightly different. Every time the two of them connected, his aura seemed to spike a significant amount, and as his power rose, Hazal's spikes grew brighter and he moved even faster.

"This must be what he meant by 'stealing energy'." She thought to herself, noting that both combatants were now moving too fast for her to see. "But if that is true, why is Goku still attacking? I hope he's got a plan."

"Weren't you listening? You can only make me stronger!" Hazal burst out laughing as he furiously brawled with the increasingly savage looking old man. His crystals were now so bright they were difficult to distinguish from his own aura when he transformed into a super Saiyan. Between the bright light and that familiar energy, Goku briefly lost himself in the conflict, and Hazal's features seemed for only a fraction of an instant to change before his widening eyes. The eyebrows became thinner, the eyes black instead of brown and the bared teeth that snorted with mirth seemed to narrow into a thin derisive smirk. The face if Vegeta.

The old man's fist collided directly with Hazal's chin and he went soaring into the air like a firework. But before he could even figure out which way was down, Goku had warped into the sky and caught him by the long and deadly spike Hazal had on his arm. It was the same spike he had used to desecrate Mercury's body. The spike was hot and burned at Goku's fingers but he did not let go. Working out what was happening, Hazal looked up at the Saiyan with fear in his eyes while Goku looked down with disgust. From the way he was dangling in mid-air by his captured arm, it was clear that the spiked man had not learned how to fly yet. This pathetic waste of space couldn't be him. So why could he sense him?

"I get it now" Goku spoke to the night while Hazal dangled in the air like a yo yo. "They pumped you full of his stolen energy, just like those two before and that girl at my farm."

"Release me!" Hazal demanded loudly. Then Hazal looked up at the stony faced Saiyan. Then he looked down and say the street level, about a quarter of a mile below. He looked back up at Goku, his expression grew vicious once again.

"Sure. Whatever you say." He spat, and with a burst of red energy, the old man was spinning Hazal round and round by his spiked arm like an Olympic hammer thrower. The cycle began to pick up speed as Goku whirled the huge man around him in a great circle, his teeth bared and his fingers blistering from the heat of the crystal, yet still tight as ever. Hazal gave a feeble struggle, but the centrifuge force of being spun around at this intense speed was making him both weak and confused. The world around them moved so fast it was a blur.

"Kaio-ken times 2!" Goku declared as the reddish world dissolved into a fiery vortex of force and motion, and Goku heard something crack in his hand.

"Ruby!" Weiss called as she ran down the dilapidated streets. The storm was getting worse and the rain was now accompanied by heavy wind that blew the water into Weiss' eyes and made it difficult to see. She couldn't see anything of her leader and there was no chance of hearing her in this. She decided instead to try and sense her aura. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and almost immediately spun around to the insane presence that was coming from behind her. Goku and Hazal's auras were still locked in intense conflict, the faunus' now at least five times the size it was before. Yet strangely she could not sense the old man's pain or fear. She shook her head and tried to focus, after all she knew where those two were, and it was Ruby she needed to find.

But when the heiress turned back around, she hardly needed to close her eyes to sense anything, or rather anyone. There were figures standing in front of her, masked and armed, and wounded from the look of it, some were nursing fresh wounds in their chests and necks, some were supporting injured limbs or allies. The white fang members who had accompanied Hazal suffered heavy losses due to their captains overzealous attack, but there were a few who looked as if they could still fight, and unfortunately for Weiss, they also looked the angriest and the most eager to carry out the orders of a master who clearly had not cared if they had survived or not.

"Take her!" The large man in the middle barked the order to his companions like some kind of general, and three of the able bodied stepped forward, their guns raised and cocked. Weiss put her hands in the air. Three barrels pointed at her was tough, but she had handled worse. She waited for the first of them to attack, and she didn't have to wait long, the man on the right fired a shot right at her face, which she managed to side step with relative ease. The woman on the right fired at her stomach immediately after her fellows shot missed its mark, but Weiss was too quick for her and combat rolled clear of the bullets path, only now reaching for her weapon.

…

But her weapon was not what her fingers wrapped around. For a split second she looked at the twig in her hand with complete horror before the loud bang brought her painfully to the realisation that one of these faunus must have a semblance that disarms their target. The third man had taken advantage of Weiss' hesitation and landed a shot in her ankle. She winced as her aura dissipated, and gasped in fear when the thick fingers wrapped around her pony tail and hoisted her up. The large faunus who had ordered the others now held the Heiress in one hand and snuggly held her rapier in the other. He laughed darkly as he observed the beautiful blade, angled it down, and drove the tip of it right through Weiss' other foot. Her scream was drowned out by a clap of thunder, but her moans of agony were quite audible to the white fang goons surrounding her. The large man threw her to the ground with a loud grunt, and wrestled the gun from the masked man who had missed in the first volley. He walked over to where Weiss was sprawled on the damp floor, grasping her bleeding foot and trying not to cry out.

"Should'a stayed at home princess." He remarked derisively as he rested the barrel of the gun against her temple. "I always wanted to kill a Schnee."

Weiss looked up at him with all the venom she could muster, but what she saw behind him made her furious expression slowly fade into a pained smirk. Moreover what she sensed on top of it filled her heart with hope.

"About time. What the hell took so long?" She said with a small trace of a giggle, while the eyes behind the mask followed her gaze and widened with sudden anger, with sudden fear. He turned around only to see a massive shadow descending from the clouds at an alarming speed. With all the strength she could muster, Weiss grabbed her sword from the shaking faunus's slackened grip and forced a propulsion glyph to send her sailing backwards, and just in time. A nevermore had descended from on high and crashed into the street level, ploughing the masked attackers and their wounded off their feet. The big on that had stabbed Weiss got the full force of the beaks impact right in his face and flew back to hit the wall next to where Weiss had landed, in the shadow of a tall building, his head snapping back on the brickwork and slumping to the side, unconscious. The rest of the white fang members were being held down with the weight of the huge bird. Standing atop the huge black specimen, her red cloak billowing in the wind, was Ruby.

"Pfff…show-off"

Goku floated in the heavy rain fall clutching the spike in his hand. Now dripping with blood from one end, it was still humming with Saiyan energy. The old man's eyes lingered on it lazily, as if looking at a nasty bug in need of squishing. He gripped his forehead with his free hand and took a deep breath. "He's dead. He's not back just because you can sense him. He's dead Goku. He's…?"

The Saiyan looked down and saw movement in the crater below him. "Dead."