Chapter 82
"I'm still a naive, stupid little girl, aren't I?"
A short scoff from behind her.
"Your words, not mine."
She ground her teeth, a curt smile ripping across her lips.
"I let you drag me into this place."
"No, you came of your own free will. I did not coerce you. It was merely a suggestion."
"Nothing you said was true, was it?"
She heard the sound of a board creaking, and she tried to follow his footsteps as he paced.
"Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Who's to say?"
"Hopefully you. Some… shred of honesty, dignity, or… some kind of humanity left in that feeble, evil mind."
"Now, Ruby. It's rude to accuse your old friend of being evil."
Hidden by the pleats of her skirt, Weiss carefully placed her hand on the pistol holster that sat just in front of her right hip bone and as quietly as she could unbuckled it. She was too far from Crescent Rose to make use of it, especially with Jaune in between her and it.
"How did you do it?"
"How did I do what?"
"How did you get me to come here? How did you get me to believe you."
She could hear the sounds of him crossing his arms. Her hand gripped down on the Kort's hand grip.
"I didn't. You came by yourself, didn't you? You followed me. All by yourself. Like a puppy."
"I don't believe that for a second. I'm strong. I'm independent. You must have done something to me to get me to follow."
"I just made a suggestion. It was you who chose to listen to it. If anyone's at fault here today, it's you, Ruby."
A low growl escaped her lungs. Not loud enough to be heard. She very slowly started to pull back the hammer on the pistol, keeping it in the leather holster for the time being. Jaune's voice was like every bad feeling she had ever had all at once coming back to her as he spoke again.
"You know, it's kinda funny you came to me. I mean, I thought you didn't like me."
"Gee, I wonder why I wouldn't."
"I mean. I was so gentle with you. We were friends, we got along. You remember."
"So the breadth of your bullshit knows no bounds, huh?"
"You wound me, Ruby. I don't think you understand the severity of your insults."
Weiss tried not to turn around and just execute him on the spot. She knew she could, she knew she had the firepower to overwhelm him with just the Forty-Five on her belt. But that would be murder, and that was illegal. She silently cursed the law.
"You know, Jaune. After you finished our little… relationship-"
He interrupted, his voice silky and dark.
"I was unaware we had one. You should fill me in on these allegations."
Weiss continued, ignoring him.
"After you were… done with me… I got stronger. Tougher, faster, better. I trained night and day for this moment. I became more powerful with every waking moment. I have the highest kill count on Grimm for the entire Atlesian Army. I'm sure you can't say the same, can you?"
He laughed. It was spooky.
"Very impressive. I'm honoured to be in the presence of such physical fortitude."
"So you should tread carefully on the things you say and don't say, Jaune."
"Hmm, right. You and I both know that all that training means nothing against me. You're just as weak now as you were back then. Isn't that right?"
Weiss frowned.
"Of course not."
"You wouldn't have followed me otherwise, you know that. But maybe it's just me. You feel weak around me. You can't control yourself when I'm around."
She scoffed.
"Okay."
"Or maybe… you miss me."
Weiss grinned.
"Oh, you didn't just say that."
"It's a plausible explanation. You actually miss me. That's why you came here. You came back to me. You wanted more-"
Weiss spun around and drew the pistol, levelling it at the sound of his voice and fired, dumping all seven rounds out of the magazine. And all of them slammed into his shield leaving deep scoring marks in the white and gold paint. He had been expecting this. Weiss snarled and reloaded, clicking the slide release with her thumb and lining the sights back up on the shield. Once again, all seven rounds bit into the armoured surface, but didn't dig through.
"You shut your mouth."
"My, Ruby. Discharging a firearm within the city limits is a felony."
"You wanna talk about felonies?!"
She dropped the gun into the carpet, as it was clearly going to be ineffective against the shield, and pulled the recently sharpened combat knife out of its leather pouch and spun it around in her fingers, adopting a combat stance. Jaune smirked.
"Are you sure you really want to do this, Ruby?"
"Deadly."
"Okay. Your funeral."
With a shimmer of polished steel, he drew the sword from its sheath within the shield and readied himself. Weiss growled again and charged forward. She had trained for this. She had spent a significant portion of her life getting ready for this exact moment. She had shed blood, sweat, tears, skin, dignity, and her hair for this, and it all culminated here. She bared her teeth and brought the knife up, readying a swing, yelling the whole way. She was going to make sure she made a statement.
"Bastard!"
She brought the knife down, slamming it directly in the direction of his head. She expected him to block, and he did, her knife bouncing aggressively off the thick blade, and causing her to over-rotate to the right. She dove forward, forcing him to backpedal a few steps, and rolled over her left shoulder, springing back up and slashing forward with her teeth bared. She made another swipe, which was easily deflected. She let her left hand go limp and dropped the knife, ducking low under a neck-high slash from the sword, catching her blade by the handle in her right hand. Her torso came back up and a right-side strike was driven away by the shield.
He moved his shield aside and drove a harsh kick directed at her chest. She quickly brought her hands up and slapped the boot back down to the ground, quickly pulling her arms up and crossing them over her chest to block a second kick that came up. She winced as the sole of his boot tried to leave a pattern imprint through the sleeves of her borrowed outfit on her forearms. The hit knocked her off balance and she fell backward, narrowly hitting her head on the corner of a table. She was quick to roll backwards and spring back to her feet, keeping her eyes up and on his shoulders to see how he would move. And move he did.
Down came the sword, crashing through the table to her left as she dodged out of the way. The sword came around from the right side, and she managed to barely deflect it on the serrated edge of the combat knife, trying to force his arms apart to get a better shot at his chest, but he wouldn't yield. She was starting to see what everyone had told her about how hard this would end up being. Before she had a second to react, the shield was driven into her chest, forcing her backwards. It stung. Jaune laughed.
"My, you're resilient, aren't you."
"You shut the fuck up."
"Do you kiss your mother with that mouth? Oh, wait."
She tried not to lose her cool. Instead, she drove back forward lept at him, Ruby's size nine combat boot pulling her to him. She hit the shield and pushed off, forcing him back but not knocking him off his feet. She caught herself on her hand and sprung back onto her feet, and flipped backward to put some distance between them. She was still too far from Crescent Rose to reach for it and take action with it. Weiss reached to the back of her belt and grabbed a second knife from its pouch and brought it around, alternating her grips.
"You realize that will not help you, right?"
"Shut up. Shut your face."
She drove forward again, blades-first. Every swipe she made was deflected by the shield, no matter which hand she used in her assault. It wasn't fair that he could hide behind the big metal wall and avoid her. It was easy slinging insults and harsh words from how protected he was, the bastard. Weiss grit her teeth and decided it was time to sling something right back. She planted her boot on the arm of the couch and propelled herself upward and forward. She tossed a knife at him, the blade glancing off his leg and embedding itself in the floor. She noticed the twinge of pain on his face disappear as quickly as it had started. It was something. Her momentary lapse in focus for celebration was also her undoing, as she was hit full force in the face by the shield, putting a sizeable dent in both her aura and her eyebrow.
She landed flat on her back, the wind rushing from her lungs. She coughed, feeling her heart pumping erratically. She grunted, dazed, trying to keep conscious and alert, even though her head felt like it was full of dynamite. She clenched her jaw, trying to blink away the pain that was searing through her head and playing ping-pong between her temples. A loud thunk just next to her left shoulder brought her back to reality, and her eyes fluttered back into focus. Jaune was leaning over her, knelt down on the carpet with his shield embedded in the floor. She didn't like the look on his face. She noticed that the tear in his pants from the knife had opened, but the skin on his leg showed no signs of scarring or even any sort of injury.
"What-"
She went for a slice with her remaining knife, but his hand moved out and he caught her around the wrist. Panic swept through her as he smiled.
"Maybe you are getting stronger."
"Fuck you."
He didn't comment on her profanity again, only grinning and gripping her wrist.
"You're relying far too much on this knife."
He turned her wrist over to eye the knife. To her surprise and genuine fear, and despite her intense strength training, she was unable to pull her arm out of his surprisingly light grip.
"I don't think you should have it anymore. You should probably drop it."
Weiss's eyes went wide. Her hand started to twitch. She felt like she no longer had control of her hand. Her grip on the knife started to weaken.
"What the fuck are you doing to me?!"
He smiled, turning her hand away from her so the knife wasn't hanging over her chest.
"Nothing. Just making a suggestion. Drop the knife."
Her hand opened, and the blade slipped from her fingers and landed in the carpet a safe distance from her face. She stared at it for a second, before turning her face back up to his, his teeth peeking out through a creepy grin pulling at his face.
"How are you doing this to me?"
"Oh, I'm not doing anything to you. I just made a suggestion. And you seemed to agree with me, didn't you? See, sometimes, only sometimes of course, I just… I need things to happen my way. I make a simple suggestion, and sometimes people agree with me. Seems like you agreed that you didn't need your knife anymore."
"You're a monster…"
Now she understood. She understood what Cardin had said about fighting without aura. She finally knew what Ruby meant when she said she felt powerless whenever he touched her. She had nothing in her arm. No feeling, no control, and no strength. Nothing. She was horrified.
"No, I'm not. I'm not the one attacking someone in their home with a knife. After shooting at them. You know that discharging a firearm inside a private domicile is a felony in this country, right?"
"So is malicious misuse of a semblance."
Weiss spit through her teeth and brought her legs up and drove them into his chest, pushing him backwards and knocking him down and away from his sword and shield. She put her hands back behind her and sprung back onto her feet, reaching for the inside of her right thigh and drawing out a polished black Baratta A9M3. She honed the glowing green dotted sights on the middle of his chest. He only seemed to smirk.
"A little nine millimetre? Really, Ruby?"
"Tell me how 'little' this feels."
She wasn't fast enough pulling the trigger. He had already reached sideways with his foot and scooped the white dinner table he was stood next to and kicked it upright. The bullets ripped through the thick pine plywood top and left lighted holes out the other side. She dropped the empty magazine out and fought with her duty belt for another, fiddling with the black polymer in its carry pouch. She didn't have a chance to reload as the perforated table came roaring at her head. She dropped to the floor to avoid it whipping around and pulling the trigger again, only to have the hammer drop on an empty chamber, the magazine having fallen to the floor a foot away. She tried to reach for it.
"I don't think so."
He drove a flying knee into her side, and knocked her backward into a wall. As soon as her butt hit the drywall, it shattered, and she fell through the plaster and wall joists and into the adjoining room, gun flying from her hand as she landed in a cloud of dust. She had only managed to half-scramble to her feet before he pushed through the whole in the wall himself and grabbed her by the collar. She'd barely opened her mouth to scream or speak or do anything before she found herself flying through another wall, solid wall ties snapping like matchsticks from the force. She tumbled and rolled sideways, collecting herself through a coffee table and trying to ignore the sting of getting hit in the nose by a clay coaster. She reached up behind her ear and turned the earpiece back on, stumbling to her feet.
"I'm getting my fucking ass kicked."
She grunted and brushed herself off.
"Brute force it is."
She had realized this was no place for careful tactics or acrobatic skill, as the short seven-foot ceilings were too close for any fancy flips or anything like that. Everything would have to be settled with both feet on the ground, and with her fists preferably. She wasn't getting anywhere with firearms, and she wasn't any closer to Crescent Rose, to her irritation. She rolled her shoulders and brought her hands up, widening her stance and doing as Cardin had instructed. Chest forward, hips back, fists up to her cheeks. She exhaled as he stepped through the new hole in the wall.
"My, Little Red. You don't give up so easily anymore."
"I wouldn't give you the pleasure."
He chuckled. It bit into her skin.
"Very poor choice of words."
A fist came at her with lethal force, soaring towards her face from her left side. His stance and ability was almost matched to Cardin's, which wasn't surprising as they were both military trained and designed to kill with every strike. The upside to this was it meant she could anticipate his actions much easier than she had thought she would be able to. With a strike across with her right hand, she palmed his fist down and away, opening his guard up to his chest. And exactly like she had been trained to expect, his left arm came around as a haymaker. She curled up her right arm and blocked the left swing off the outside of her bicep. She kept her eyes on the middle of his chest, eyeing all the little micromovements he was making in his attack. She resisted the urge to shiver at just how powerful each hit was, knowing that he was trained to kill, and knowing that he was trying. Or at the very least, subdue.
His right leg came up for a knee blow that she was quick to bat back down, forcing him to take a half-step back to keep his balance. Weiss pushed her advantage and took that all important half-step forward, ducking under a right swing that should have done in her head. She drove her left hand into his side, causing him to wince slightly. She turned her body to the right to avoid a heavy swing, and stayed within his guard circle, if only just. Then, like releasing the energy of a trebuchet, she rotated her body back to the left and drove her right fist into Jaune's sternum, turning into the punch and sending all of her anger and aggression along with it.
Her wrist exploded with pain that fired up her arm as Jaune was knocked off his feet and backwards with considerable force. His body crashed through the wall behind him, leaving very few still intact in this little apartment, and landed through his bedframe, crumbling it like cardboard. Weiss tried not to scream about the monumental pain in her wrist, radiating in waves of heat up her arm and up past her elbow. She turned a fierce glare his way as he stood up, out of breath and dishevelled.
"You hit like a cannon. I'm impressed, Little Red."
Weiss ignored him and clutched at her wrist.
"Are you wearing fucking body armour?!"
"Of course, sweetheart." he banged twice on his chest, making a dull ringing. "Steel breastplate. You know, in case I am attacked by a miscreant with a gun. Or, you know, the odd violent ex-lover who wants some kind of revenge."
Weiss growled and coiled her fists back up.
"I was not your lover, you sociopathic pig."
"Funny, that's not how I remember it."
She yelled and jumped forward again, closing the distance with her knee extended. It landed in his face, knocking him back down again. He was quick to recover, flexing upright and driving a haymaker into her blocking arm that just barely missed the side of her face. His leg came up at her, which she caught in her palms. Gripping down on his ankle, she rotated her torso and tucked into the inside of his leg. She used it like a big crowbar and leveraged him around, lifting him off the ground and tossing him like a wet paper towel back through the hole and into the kitchen, where he slid into the front of his oven. She quickly followed him through, and slammed her fist through his face and knocked his head into the glass door, which shattered. She grabbed the door by the handle and ripped it down, denting the metal frame on the top of his head. She only noticed as she let go that the strength of her grip had actually deformed the metal and left imprints of her fingers.
She would have kept whacking away at him, but he managed to come to his senses quicker than she had liked and kicked back at her, knocking the wind from her sails and pushing her back on the tiled floor. She danced around a low-blow aimed to sweep her legs, and handsprung backwards out of the line of fire as he directed a mighty right hook at her. She grabbed at a nearby chair with her foot and tried his trick of whipping it, directing it at his head. It split in half as he headbutted the middle of the seat, splinters going everywhere and collecting in his blond hair, matted with sweat.
"You're feisty."
She chose to remain silent. Dashing in and throwing a pair of left-jabs, that were deflected, and following them with a pair of rights, one of which knocked his own hand back into his face. She was putting more strength into every hit than she even had in her body. And it was doing a number on her aura. She ignored the stinging in her arms and plowed her left fist into his stomach again, upper-cutting him so hard she could feel the metal of his chestplate bend. He stumbled backwards, clearly in pain, but he managed to sneer anyways.
"I like feisty."
"Then you'll love this."
From the back of her belt she pulled a police baton and spun it in her fingers.
"Oh look." She sneered right back. "A collapsible staff."
She flicked to towards the ground and extended it, hearing all four of the trademark clicks as it took shape. Jaune's face faltered for a moment, as he was unarmed, but he stepped towards her nonetheless. Weiss spun the baton in her fingers a few times and prepared her stance, gripping down on it and hearing her knuckles crack.
"You could break bones with that little toy."
"Here's hoping."
"I suggest you put it down."
"Not a chance."
She ducked under a swing aimed at her head, and swung the baton into his knee as it came up at her. There was a resonant crack as it impacted the side of his knee, and his leg was forced back down again as he stumbled back a step. Weiss smirked and stepped forward again, raising the baton for a very telegraphed hit. He took the bait and reached up to catch her arm as it came down. Her wrist his his palm with a puff of drywall dust.
"Put. The baton. Down!"
"No!"
She grabbed his wrist and squeezed. Searing pain washed over his face as both his radius and ulna snapped with two loud crunches of bone, a sickening sound to her ears. She jumped up and planted both feet against his chest and propelled him backwards, slipping out of his limp hand and flipping back onto her feet as his body crashed to the ground and slid on the hardwood. He struggled to his feet, clutching his broken wrist. He seemed angry.
"That wasn't very nice. You should apologize."
"I don't think I will."
He grit his teeth.
"I suggest. You apologize."
"You first."
He growled and grabbed his wrist. With a sickening crunch, he pulled it outwards, and manually forced the bones back together before his intense aura whirred into life and started to mend the broken bones. It was harrowing to watch, with how purple his wrist was. She tried not not lose her lunch over it. The glowing from his wrist fizzled out, and he rolled his hand around a few times to test it. It made a few airy pops and crackles as the bones set in place, as he raised his fists back up to his face.
"That took a lot of aura to fix, Ruby."
"I'll just have to break it again, then."
"I'm afraid you won't be able to."
He charged forward, coming right at her with his arms out. She swung the baton again, expecting him to dodge. He didn't. Fear grabbed her. Then he did.
"Wha-!"
His hands closed around her neck and lifted her off the ground. Her back hit the wall and she fell through it, his angry face following her down as she fell backwards, landing in a room she wasn't sure belonged to his apartment. On account of how the walls were painted pink. She bounced off a similarly pink bedspread and collected herself on the ground, swinging the baton loosely in his direction as he landed next to her, missing and cracking a miniature wooden tea table in half. She sprung to her feet just in time to be punched in the stomach with enough force to send her up into the ceiling fan, which broke off and fell with her. She landed in his arms, which promptly threw her back through the hole in the wall and onto the floor.
"I told you to drop the baton. Why won't you listen to me?"
Weiss flipped back up to her feet. Her abdominals were stinging.
"I'm not a naive little girl anymore."
He growled.
"Stop being a bitch, and heed my goddamn suggestions!"
"No."
He ran at her again. This time she was prepared. She put her leg back and braced, knowing he could overpower her with sheer momentum and moving force. Which he did, of course, lifting her off the ground again and bulldozing her through the closed door and back into the kitchen. She had noticed his short charges were just that, short. And just on cue, he let go of her and tried to force her to the ground. She was ready, tucking over and hitting the ground before he wanted, and drove her baton into his shins. He tripped, and fell face-first into the edge of his countertop, cutting open his cheek and breaking his nose. Weiss quickly hopped to her feet and vaulted the countertop, landing boots first on the destroyed dinner table.
"You…"
She spun around to watch him stand up. His face was glowing with both hatred and aura, and the scar across his cheek quickly zippered itself closed as his nose fell back into alignment. He pointed at her across the counter.
"Lay down. And surrender."
"Not a chance."
"I can and will outlast you, Ruby. You know that."
Weiss smirked.
"Are you sure?"
He yelled and grabbed the edge of the counter. With monumental force, he ripped the fifteen hundred pound polished granite slab up off the cupboards and forced it at her, flinging wood scraps and little brad nails everywhere. A feeling of shock took her for a moment, and her body reacted on instinct, raising her left fist and coiling it back before releasing it into the countertop.
Her whole body caught fire as she punched through the granite slab, the two halves landing either side of her with substantial thuds. She thought she briefly felt the floorboards crack under the impact, shaking her boots. Jaune stepped forward.
"You need to listen to me."
"I'm done listening to you, Jaune."
She noticed he had picked up his shield again. She wasn't worried. She had a plan. He hit her with it and slammed her against a wall, which this time didn't break, likely due to a steel support structure being behind it. He hit her with the shield again, making her head smack back against the drywall, leaving a sizeable dent.
"Don't make me do this by force, Ruby."
Weiss smirked.
"That's my intention."
He grabbed her by the throat. She kept her hands at her sides. It was time to turn the tables. He almost spat at her in anger, just as she wanted.
"Be a good little girl and submit."
"Never."
She slid her hand to her inner thigh holster and drew out a revolver, cocked the hammer with her thumb and pressed it into the flesh just behind his chestplate armour. She watched the look in his eyes turn to fear. She pulled the trigger.
"AAHHH!"
Blood splattered back against her hip as the heavy bullet sailed through the light fabric of his hoodie and the soft, squishy flesh of his side. He let her go and stumbled back, almost losing grip of his shield. He glared at her, clutching his side.
"What the fuck was that?!"
Weiss spun the revolver around on her index finger a few times.
"Antique With and Smesson revolver. Chambered in .45-70 Government. How does it feel? Does it hurt? This was kinda expensive, I'm hoping it hurts."
His aura took a little longer than normal to seal up the hole in his side, which she noticed seemed to scare him.
"Put the gun down, Ruby!"
"Nope!"
She leveled the big iron at him again and fanned the hammer, cranking off the remaining five shots into his shield. They dug deep and kocked the shield back into his head, almost piercing the metal plate, the lead bullets splattering into the walls like shrapnel. She dropped the empty pistol into the carpet and reached for the outside of her right thigh, grabbing the harsh, wire-frame pistol grip of the firearm she had taped to her leg. With a rip, she pulled it free, pulling some of her leg hair out along with the weapon, making her wince. She freed the magazine taped to the frame and slammed it into the side-mounted magwell, and yanked back on the charging handle.
"Will you stop?!"
Weiss didn't answer beyond a short chuckle, and pulled the trigger. The bolt slid closed and picked up a round from the magazine, firing and cycling back. The relatively slow-firing and similarly antique gun rocked back and forth in her hands, delivering thirty rounds of nine millimetre armour-piercers into the front of his shield and driving him backwards. The bolt locked open after the final round was fired from the magazine, and she quickly pulled it free of the gun and grabbed a second one from her duty belt. The advantage she found, slamming the magazine into the side of the gun, of these open-bolt submachine guns, was that all she needed to do after loading them was pull the trigger, as the simple blowback action didn't need to be charged or racked.
"Ruby-!"
She pulled on the trigger again, forcing him to backpedal into his kitchen as the intense bell-like ringing of his shield was no doubt having an affect on him. She dropped the empty submachine gun onto the ground and stepped forward, broken bits of his apartment crunching under her steel-toe combat boots.
"Stop with the guns! Where are you even keeping them!"
"Wouldn't you like to know."
Weiss reached up under her skirt, and flipped off the button snaps on the two holsters that were strapped to her butt. The two handguns fell into her hands, which gripped down on the fancy wood grips and pulled them out and into the room. She levelled both at him with a moderately deranged smile. She watched him cower behind his shield again as he caught sight of the four gun barrels pointed at him.
"What even is that?!"
"Arsenault 3822. It's like a 1911. Only… you know… two."
She squeezed both triggers and let fly the double-barrelled pistols. With each fall of each hammer, two big heavy .45 Automatic slugs fired down range at his shield, clanging off and leaving fist-sized dents. At this point, his shield would no longer close up and fit his sword in the built-in sheath. But of course, that didn't matter to her. She just kept pulling each trigger, and forced him backwards onto the spot on the floor she had felt bend under the weight of the granite countertop. It took all thirty-two rounds from the pair of guns to get him to stand where she wanted, but once he was in position, she dropped them onto the kitchen floor with two thuds. He peered around the edge of his shield with a devastating stare.
"Why isn't it working on you?!"
"Why isn't what working on me, Jaune?"
He stood upright and pointed at her.
"Do what I tell you!"
"Make me!"
She dove forward, taking him off guard, and delivered a substantial uppercut to his stomach, bending his armour into his skin and lifting him from the ground. With a flash of speed, she reached up and grabbed him around the throat, tightening down and getting a firm grip. Then, with all the force in the known universe, she drove his body into the ground, which cracked under the impact and broke open. Jaune yelled as he fell through the floor, landing in the dark basement below, leaving Weiss by her lonesome on the edge of the hole, windmilling her arms for a second as she almost lost balance.
"Hahh…"
She took a breath for a second, enjoying the silence and the calm. She looked down into the hole into the floor blow, and smirked while reaching to the back of her belt. She pulled out one of her black smoke grenades, and spun it in her hand to right it. She pulled the pin and tossed it aside. A voice came over her earpiece, brusque and thickly accented.
"I am to inform you zat you are going to get yourzelf killed."
Weiss grinned.
"That's a shame."
She dropped the grenade into the hole and turned her body away. It exploded quietly from below, releasing a huge cloud of acrid black smoke into the room that pooled up out of the hole and around her ankles. Blake's voice came through her earpiece next, with the frantic sound of microphone static as she no doubt had just torn the headset off their reptilian com-tech with some degree of reckless abandon.
"Weiss, this is too dangerous! Abort!"
"Can't. I'm going in."
"Don't!"
Weiss ignored her friend and opened the pouch on the back of her duty belt, and pulled out a pair of night-vision goggles. She slid them on and rotated the dial on the side, correcting the image to low-visibility and heat-sensing. She took a step forward and fell into the hole, seeing the room below as she imagined Blake did, with everything illuminated and visible in the dark din of the basement. She was surrounded by support pillars and dust, with laundry equipment against the far wall. She saw his body illuminated in her goggles just in front of her, his shield still in his hand as he stumbled around, unable to see. She grinned.
"Over here!"
She saw his figure turn and look at her, and charge blindly forward. She sidestepped and drove her knee into his stomach, knocking him back. He took a few blind, pained swings into the dark smoke, which she batted back at him easily. She gave a harsh punch in the throat, forcing him back and making him choke on his tongue. She dodged a blind kick and kicked him backwards, her boot landing square on his crotch, which she would freely admit she took pleasure in doing. He doubled over rolling onto his back and sliding just out of the smoke cloud. Weiss put her knee down on his chest and pulled off her goggles, flipping the switch back to the night-vision setting. She forced the goggles onto his eyes and pulled out an LED Maglite, shining it directly onto the vision sensor. Jaune screamed.
"AAARRRGHHHH!"
She slammed the Maglite into the side of his head and flipped off backwards, leaving him writhing in pain on the ground. She backpedaled through the basement a few steps, and pulled out another grenade, this one an adhesive-covered concussion grenade. She pulled the pin and tossed it at the ceiling, just below where she figured the front door was. She took a step backward again and flicked her hair out so it wasn't in her eyes, replicating the way that Ruby would, and bent down and covered her ears. The grenade went off, collapsing the floor above and bringing down the tile and most of the front hallway onto the floor in front of her. The coat rack landed just to her right, the bright red cape fluttering down in front of her. With a flourish, she spun it around her shoulders and locked the rose-shaped clasp, and put the hood up. She reached into the rubble in front of her and lifted the Mighty Crescent Rose, shaking off the dirt and dust.
"Hey asshole!"
She stepped forward. He looked up at her from where he was lying on the ground. His eyes were bloodshot and watering, and blinking rapidly. She crunched through the destruction at her target, slowly and effortlessly. With a practiced flick of the release latches, she pulled back the shoulder stock into the working position, having to assist the old springs by hand. It felt natural in her arms. And she loved it. She flipped the scope up into the working position, tightening down the twist-lock to make sure it didn't fall back down, and pushed forward on the front barrel shroud, locking it in place. Jaune blinked at her.
"What-"
"Remember this?" she teased. "Remember what this can do?"
For the briefest moments, he smirked.
"Dust rounds won't do anything to me."
Weiss bared her teeth, gleeful.
"Who said dust rounds?"
She pulled back on the charging handle and held it, bringing the stock up to her shoulder and levelling it at him.
"But… I thought…"
"Oh, I had it rebarreled a few days ago. Rechambered and rebarreled for something other than twelve millimetre dust cartridges."
"Then what? Fifty Browning?"
Weiss laughed.
"Oh, goodness, no. Twenty millimetre anti-aircraft!"
She let go of the bolt handle, which rocketed forward and picked up one of the huge one-pound bullets, forcing it into the chamber with a deafening clack. She grabbed the front grip and brought her right eye down to the sight. This would be loud.
"Noooooo!"
He barely had time to raise his shield. Fat lot of good it did him, however, as the round fired with such concussive force it nearly broke her shoulder, making her cry out in pain. The projectile sailed forward, tearing straight through the titanium plate of his shield, the iron breastplate under his shirt, most of his internal organs, and punched its way through the back wall, leaving a foot-wide hole in the concrete that led to the courtyard behind his apartment. Blood splattered the floor as his aura went into shock, completely depleted. Weiss stumbled backwards from the recoil, almost dropping the big rifle. Jaune sank to his knees, blood pouring from his mouth and the colossal hole in his body. She approached him.
"How does it feel?"
"Ughhhh…."
"Yeah, that's how I felt, too."
She drove her knee into his chest and knocked him backwards, forcing his back against the compromised wall. His body went limp as he hit it, and started to fall forward. She halted this the best way she knew how. By lifting her leg up, and kicking his slowly-dying body through the concrete wall and into the courtyard. His body bounced a few times on the grass, landing flat on his back with his arms outstretched. She stepped carefully through the giant hole in the wall and into the cool, sunny evening, feeling the fresh air fill her lungs again. It would have been a beautiful feeling, if not for what she was doing. She approached his body, and slowly knelt down beside his head. His breathing was ragged. No wonder.
"Are you ready to admit what you did was wrong?"
He coughed.
"I didn't do anything wrong."
"You sure fought back a lot for someone who didn't do anything wrong."
He laughed, blood pooling in his mouth.
"You know you enjoyed it."
Weiss smacked her lips together.
"You really want those to be your last words?"
He opened his eyes and smiled.
"Who said anything about last words?"
Before she could react, his hand came up and grabbed her around the back of the neck, his nails biting down into the skin. Her voice caught in her throat.
"I think I'll take that aura now."
Weiss screamed as her nerves caught fire. It felt like she was melting from the inside. Her precious aura, which she had been holding off using, was being drained from her body with black-hole levels of force. Every hair on her body stood simultaneously on end, as her nervous system nearly shut down on her. The edges of her vision blurred and she fell sideways, crumbling into the grass and losing her grip on Crescent Rose. When his hand finally released, her body heaved, and she flopped over onto her back, seeing his form slowly stand up in her compromised, reddened vision. Jaune let out a short laugh.
"That's much better, thank you."
Weiss strained her eyes. To her horror, the hole in his stomach had closed up, leaving not more than a faint scar just next to his belly button. She scrambled backwards, picking up the big rifle and finding her feet very shakily. As soon as she was upright again, the pain from every injury she had sustained started to creep in around her. She knew. She had none left.
"What the fuck did you do to me?!"
"Oh, sweet Ruby, don't you know what my semblance is?"
She shook her head, trying to rack the charging handle on the rifle. It was jammed shut. Jaune smiled, taking a very soft step forward.
"Control. Aura mitigation… and control. You probably mistakenly thought it was healing or something equally banal. No, I'm not so fortunate. If I needed to heal someone, I would just touch them and transfer some of my aura to them, and then amplify their ability to heal themselves. And when I wanted you to do what I asked, heed my….suggestions. I would just take it back away from you and you would fall into my fingers like butter. I'm surprised you don't remember that."
"You're a fucking monster."
"No, I was just tired of people telling me what I could and couldn't have. And thank you for the aura, by the way. I would have died if you hadn't been so generous."
"I can still kill you without it."
He smirked.
"Aww, you really think so?"
"Are you really willing to take that chance, Jaune?"
"I'm interested to see you try, Ruby." he paused to place his damaged, perforated shield on the ground. "And one other thing. Your aura… feels kind of different than I remember."
Weiss winced.
"It's been a few years."
"That's true. But… it never felt this way before. It feels… cold."
Weiss sighed.
"You know Jaune…" she relaxed her throat. "I was wondering if you'd ever notice. You might be strong, but you aren't particularly observant."
She reached up with her sleeve in her fingers and wiped at her left eye, peeling away the costume makeup and the filler putty that had hidden away her scar through a rather intense battle. She blinked away some of the concealer that had gotten in her eye, and gently removed the silver contact lens for the briefest of moments, revealing the shining blue of her real iris. She put the contact back in after a moment. To her shock, Jaune seemed genuinely surprised.
He straightened his shoulders and gave a wicked smile.
"Well, well." he sneered. "This is not what I was expecting."
Weiss coughed.
"What were you expecting?"
He sighed and took a step toward her. She somehow managed to not flinch.
"Perhaps she would come and fight her own battles for once."
She growled and gripped her fist down on Crescent Rose, locking on to his eyes.
"I'm going to make you regret saying that."
"I'd like to see you try without your aura."
Weiss spat onto the grass.
"I don't need aura to beat the shit out of you."
"And that's the other thing I was wondering…" he paused to pace to the left, placing a hand behind his back. "If your intention was to come here and seek some kind of retribution, why go through the whole charade of making yourself look like Ruby?"
She fiddled with the release latches, but didn't activate them.
"Figured I could get you to confess to Ruby."
"See, now that I know you're trying to get me to confess, I won't do it."
Her thumb bit into the release latch, unfolding Crescent Rose to its full length, each blade slamming loudly into one another, latching into the open position. She slammed the pointy end into the soil and glared across the courtyard at him.
"I'll make you."
"Sure, but that's confession under duress. And that's inadmissible in court. And might I remind you of the number of felonies you've committed today? Aggravated battery, negligent discharge of a firearm inside a domicile, possession of machine gun within Mistral county limits, impersonation with intent to mislead, and significant destruction of personal property."
She could feel her aura begin to replenish. At this rate, it would take her close to an hour to fully recharge. Time she didn't have.
"Since when are you a lawyer?"
"Oh, I'm no lawyer. I just know what is and isn't legal. I know that I can say I was just defending myself and my home."
"Malicious misuse of a semblance is punishable by death."
"In Atlas, maybe. But not here. Why do you think I moved here?"
"You really are a sad sack shit."
He clicked his tongue and frowned.
"Harsh words. Besides, I remember that you didn't finish school. And that means you don't possess a Huntsman's license. Which means even if I am found at fault for using my semblance, as you claim, maliciously, I'll be let off. Because a civilian can't just go around wielding intense amounts of firepower against licensed Huntsmen."
It was her turn to smirk.
"See that's where you're wrong."
"Oh? Do tell."
She reached into her back pocket and drew out her wallet. She thumbed it open and presented the card. Clear as day, written in bold letters, were the words 'Weiss Schnee, Certified Huntsman'. Jaune frowned.
"Impossible."
"Very much possible. See, you were excluded from Pyrrha's funeral, not because you didn't want to go, but because you weren't invited. I was there for the reading of her will, and I found out that day. These are transferable, if a Huntsman or Huntress deems another person capable or worthy to hold this license. They can surrender theirs in circumstances of grave illness or incapacitation, which is what she did for me. So yes, Jaune. I am a qualified Huntsman. And you know what that means, right?"
His smile went sour.
"Okay."
"That means I'm going to be excused of all necessary crimes during the apprehension of a criminal."
He pursed his lips and balled a fist.
"Okay. I'll admit I'm on the back foot here. But remember, you can't do shit to me without your aura and your precious glyphs, now can you?"
"Wrong again, bitch." she raised her hand, forming a small, snowflake-filled glyph on her palm. "I might not be able to summon or use dust so well right now, but my glyphs are hereditary. I was born with the ability to do this."
"See that's not fair."
He charged at her. She was ready this time. She ripped the scythe from the ground and tore up a patch of grass, swinging the massively heavy weapon around her head and carving a huge arc around at his legs. He was quick to dodge, hopping over the swinging blade and closing in on her. She finished the swing and sidestepped, driving the pike sideways at his chest. He flipped backwards away from her, landing on his boots about three feet from her. Weiss grunted and spun the nearly seventy kilogram weapon in her hands and landed the blade in the grass, sinking it a foot deep just between his legs.
She dragged the scythe back, carving a foot-wide trench in the grass and lifting a chunk of loam out with the point of the blade. She lifted the scythe and powered it into his chest, driving him back further still. He grabbed his shield out of the ground and deflected a swipe she aimed for his neck, the metal sparking against the damaged surface. She spun around and tried again, having another hit deflected off the broken metal. She chuffed, spinning the scythe in her fingers and driving the pike directly at the shield, piercing it and knocking it out of his grip. He dove for it, but she kept it out of his reach by hooking the dangerous end of the scythe into the five inch wide hole she had blown in it and spinning it away from him.
His body left the ground and his legs came at her, flying in faster than she would like. She pulled the scythe up and caught his feet on the barrel of the rifle , just in the cutout of the arch. Two powerful kicks pushed the scythe into her chest and forced her to the ground. She bounced off her back, grunting, before springing back up and spinning the scythe to block two more flying kicks. He was pushing. Hard. It was taking every ounce of her ability to push back, despite having not even a sliver of usable aura. She tried her luck blocking a punch with a glyph, only to have it shatter like sugar glass when his fist sailed into it. She swore under her breath, flipping backwards and out of his circle of attack.
"I don't think you deserve that scythe anymore." he grimaced, bearing down on her. "I suggest you fight me hand to hand."
"Any advantage I can get is a welcome one. Stay back."
"You are weak. And you will lose."
Weiss coughed.
"So sure of that?"
"I have aura. You do not."
His fist came around, and she was able to block it in time, feeling the heat of his breath as he lunged at her. She cartwheeled over a low sweep of the legs, and hammered the scythe around at his chest, feeling the intense pain shoot up her arm from just how heavy Crescent Rose actually was when it was swung. This was a beastly weapon, made all the more obvious when just then it collided with his side and pummeled him into the nearest tree, breaking it in half at the trunk and felling it. Jaune laughed as he got back to his feet. He stepped over the fallen tree and back towards her, grinning. She lifted the scythe from the ground and readied it, her right hand gripping down tightly on the handle.
"You know…" he clapped his hands together. "You're pretty good with that, I'll admit."
"I've been practicing."
"But you use it one-handed, Ruby doesn't do that. Right-handed at that."
"Keeps my left hand free to do other things. Like punch you in your stupid, smug face."
He ignored her comment, advancing further.
"That much weight will pull your shoulder out of its socket. We don't want that, do we?"
"The fuck do you care?"
"Tsk tsk. I think you should put it down. Don't you?"
Weiss sneered.
"Just try and take it from me."
Jaune shrugged.
"Okay."
He dashed forward. She hadn't been expecting him to move so quickly all of a sudden, and on instinct, she tried to stop him with a large glyph. It fizzled out of existence as he broke through it with easy, lowering his shoulder and impacting her in the chest. All at once, the wind rushed from her lungs and her extremities went limp. She sailed backwards, bouncing off the dirt with a crunch from what she assumed was her back. It took no more than two seconds for her brain to catch up with the movement of her body, and she quickly rolled over her left shoulder and pushed herself back up to her feet. And what she saw in front of her horrified her.
"There. That's better."
Jaune grinned back, Crescent Rose in his arms. Weiss's heart stopped for a second. Whether that was from the physical trauma or from emotional shock, she wasn't sure.
"Give that back!"
"Hmmhmm, no. I don't think so."
"You take your dirty hands off that weapon right now, or I swear-"
"You swear? You'll do what? Kill me? Maim me? Make me, uh… confess?"
Weiss let out her breath, steadying herself.
"I will do what I must. For Ruby."
"You actually love her, don't you?"
"I do."
"Funny. Can I tell you a little secret?"
She faltered for a second.
"What secret?"
"You know, I never really wanted what happened to Ruby to happen. It was never… my intention. But you know what they say, 'necessary evils'."
Weiss squinted at him.
"The fuck are you implying?"
He paced to one side, slowly and methodically.
"You see, Weiss. What you claim to have happened to Ruby is tragic. Whether or not it was me is entirely up for debate."
"But it was you."
"Well, arguably, I could blame you, too."
She shuddered.
"Excuse me? In what way is it my fault?"
"Ah, well…" he looked down at his nails for a second, before turning his eyes eerily up to meet hers. "You could have just said yes and gone on that date with me."
Weiss scrunched up her face, her heart snapping in two.
"That. Is exactly the wrong thing to say to me."
Jaune laughed.
"You made your choice. And I made mine."
Every single fibre of her being lit up in that second. Whether it was by will of some divine intervention, or by some miracle of good luck, she felt in that moment all of her aura return to her. Every pained joint soothed, every cut and bruise healed, every ache subsiding. Her lungs pounded as she was nearly pushed to the brink of hyperventilating, her chest heaving and falling with great force. A single tear rolled down her right cheek, landing just at the corner of her mouth with a salty taste. She clenched her teeth together and lowered her voice.
"Might I make another."
Her hand moved to her duty belt, and ripped through the zipper on her fanny pouch, tearing it out of the fabric and rendering the poor pouch unuseable. She slammed her hand to the bottom of it and gripped down, pulling free a little silk handkerchief wrapped tightly around itself. She brought it around and unwrapped it. The two crystal clear rocks were shimmering in the light, and their frozen surface bit into her hand as she tossed the cloth onto the ground at her feet. Jaune smirked.
"A present?"
"Fuck you."
She remembered a movie, from her youth. It's star, a mountain-sized man she couldn't remember the name of with intricate side burns, had performed a neat trick on screen where he had jammed two handfuls of crystals directly into his arms to replenish his aura. Now, whether this was a clever trick of special effects or a real tactic that might just give her some kind of edge in this fight didn't even matter any more. At this point, she was grasping at straws. This was either going to hurt, or it was going to work. She had no back-up plan. Unarmed and generally out of options, she yanked up her left sleeve and raised the crystals above her head.
For Ruby
She plunged them down into her arm.
"Ahh-!"
Pain roared through her body like wildfire. As soon as the crystals pierced her skin, she felt her arm go numb, and her whole nervous system lock in to overdrive. Her chest rose, filling with a gasp she hadn't made by her own volition, and her brain shut most of the way off for a brief moment. She struggled for breath, a freezing cold following the pain right up to her synapses. It felt like her insides were melting. It was horrible. She had no control of the feeling. Her legs gave out, and she fell to her knees, a trail of blood trickling down her arm and onto the grass from the pair of punctures on her forearm.
"Gahh-"
This had been a dumb idea. She was vividly aware of that. The cold was creeping in around her senses, blocking them out one by one. First, her sense of smell went, her nose blocking up and shivering. Then, her sense of taste, as her tongue flexed and started to ache. Her hearing went next, replaced by an ever increasing dull ringing accompanied by a chill that permeated her very skull. Her skin went numb, taking away the feeling of her clothes touching her body and the two wounds she had self-inflicted. She looked across the park as Jaune started to approach her, her vision fading to white around the edges of her eyes. She shivered.
The scene in the movie was clearer now, as all her focus was directed to it. Of course this was going to hurt her, she remembered, the whole point was that the actor had been playing a character who couldn't feel pain. That's why he had been able to withstand the sudden surge of energy in his body, he couldn't feel it. Weiss's woefully full-feeling body had taken the brunt of it, and it had knocked her down. She felt stupid. All this effort and it was her who knocked her down? Ironic. Or was it circumstantial? No, it was irony. All this fighting, all this destruction, all this violence. And she was incapacitated by herself. Stupid. Jaune said something to her as he approached her that she couldn't hear. His hand reached out to touch her face.
"Don't."
The words slipped from her lips without her control. She looked down and gasped. Wrapped tightly around his right wrist, mere inches from her face, was her own left hand. The veins of her arm were glowing, pulsing with a white energy, and her whole arm seemed to be condensating the air around it in a light, misty chill. She looked back up at him to see a pained look on his face, fear creeping in the sides of his fading smile.
"Wh-what is this?"
"I said I'd just have to break it again..."
It happened without her instruction. Her hand crunched down, breaking his wrist with a loud snap, filling his face with anguish. She planted her right foot on the grass and stood up, bending his arm into a contorted angle. He shouted something nondescript and sank to one knee to try and alleviate the torsion she was applying to his arm. She leaned her face down to his, lowering her voice to a whisper.
"Jaune, I'd like to introduce you to something…"
She continued to twist his wrist. He sank on his knees further. He wasn't going anywhere.
"Something called… humility…"
She put her boot on his stomach and forced him to fall to his butt, pulling his arm towards her. His hand was going purple, and he was trying with all his might to pry her fingers off his wrist to no avail.
"You… you have caused more pain and misfortune to the people of Remnant that you can even conceive. Your abuse of power and God complex have maybe made you a little naive yourself. I understand that I don't have the best view of the world and myself within it, but I also understand that sometimes I'm not the one who matters…"
She placed her foot gently over her crotch, hovering it there to dissuade him from moving too much or trying to kick her. It worked.
"I know that Ruby can fight her own battles. She's stronger than me or you or anybody else on this god-forsaken planet. And today, this is not only for her. This is for me. I came here to bring you to justice. And you had the audacity to blame your actions on me. This was already personal. But now?"
It was time. Time to try out something she wasn't sure would ever work. But so far, her wacky, out-there, frankly suicidal ideas hadn't failed her yet. Why not try for something so out there it might actually be the untimely end? She closed her eyes and focused.
/.../
The manor.
She was drunk.
God, everything hurt.
She was angry.
Ruby had left her.
All her bad choices and bad decisions had befallen her at once.
It sucked.
She was alone.
Hatred.
Violence.
That was the only thing these people understood.
Her suitcase was behind her.
Her sword was inside it.
She was armed.
Destruction.
Catastrophe.
She was injured.
The statue.
Her sword was in the statue.
The hilt stared back at her.
She remembered.
/.../
A glyph formed on her right palm. She focussed all her energy in her body to that one spot, her mind and soul aching, like they might explode and leave nothing but a smouldering, Weiss-shaped crater in the ground. Her arm shook briefly, before a patient, weighted sigh escaped her and calmed her vicious nerves. There was a shimmering sound. The cold gripped her arm. She slowly closed her hand. The leather of the hilt was warm.
Weiss opened her eyes. The feeling of the world returned.
With the effortlessness of a warmed knife through softened butter, she drove Myrtenaster through his chest, piercing the armoured plate and out the other side of his body. She let go of his arm and let him fall backwards off the end of her sword, tumbling to the ground. With a flick, she flung the blood off the blade and onto the grass, bringing it up and wiping the rest off on her sleeve. Jaune stumbled backwards, gasping for breath and using what remained of the stolen aura to repair the new wound. It looked like it might take a while. She thought this was… acceptable.
"My sister assured me that wasn't possible. I am forever grateful that I ignored her."
"Y-you-...b- bitch…" he coughed.
"Eighty-seven hundred miles away. And I can still summon it to me."
She let him retreat, dragging a thin trail of blood along the grass as he tried to get away. He wasn't going to make it very far. The exit to the courtyard was the other way. She took a step forward, bringing Myrtenaster up vertical.
"My summoning has always been weak, I'll admit. But I have been practicing."
"Ughhh…"
A glyph formed on the ground to her right. It started to spin, an icy figure starting to take shape.
"I was taught patience, and reaction time, and boxing, and shooting… but the most important message I learned was the value of Family. How to put the lives of those closest to you higher above anything else, no matter the consequences."
The figure finished forming. The icy sculpture stood freely for a second, before turning its head and taking a step forward. It pulled an icy bow from its back and knocked an icy arrow, raising it to Jaune. It closed one translucent eye and narrowed in its aim.
"A Maiden taught me that. Somebody imbued with ultimate power taught me that family is more important than anything else in the world. A Maiden you wronged, Jaune."
"I don't know what you're talking a- ahh fuck!"
The icy arrow slammed into his chest and shattered, knocking him from his feet. He struggled back up, eyeing the statue with fear. It knocked another arrow.
"Pyrrha taught me to understand the fragility of life, and how that fragility isn't something that should stop you from living life like anyone else. I accept my mortality. So did she. Even if it came much sooner to her."
She made a second glyph on the ground to her left, and formed another ice sculpture, equipped this time with a circular shield and ornately carved spear. It raised the spear and drove it forward at him, with the precision of a Centurion Warrior and the strength of the Champion of Mantle behind it. Jaune barely had time to make a grab for his broken shield before the spear impacted it, knocking it out of his hands again. Weiss continued to pace forwards, the sculptures following slowly at her sides.
"And Ruby… dear Ruby. The light of my life. The single greatest thing that ever happened to me. She's not traditionally beautiful, she's not as elegant as a dancer, or as smart as a doctoral graduate. But she never claimed to be. She's… innocent. A treasure. The most perfect person she can be. She's selfless. Adventurous. Loving. And she loves me."
She formed a final glyph in front of her. The wind swirled around it, raising a block of ice from the ground and cutting away at it, piece by piece. She kept her focus, kept her mind at ease. Slowly, methodically. First the rough features, the legs, the torso, the head, all roughly hewn. Then the finer details, the pleating of the skirt, the taut collar. The chilly vortex surrounding the statue was working hard, carving out each edge and curve with a craftsman's touch. Her touch. The messy hair cleared up next, along with the slightly chubby cheeks and the roundness of the face. Weiss sighed, smiling. She rose another block of ice from the ground next to the statue. The vortex started to swirl around it too.
"That was your mistake, Jaune. You chose to act against something that mattered to me. Someone who mattered. I'm not going to stand by and let that happen. No more."
The wind dissipated. The sculpture opened its translucent, icy eyes, bearing them down on him. It reached to its left and wrapped its icy fingers around the handle of the the extraordinarily detailed carving of the scythe. The statue seemed to smirk, pulling the scythe up and rolling it around in its hands for a second, before planting it in the ground, blade down, behind its back. Weiss squinted through the crystal clear sculpture at him, obscured and contorted by the ripples in the ice.
"No more will I allow you to remain ignorant of the consequences of your actions, Jaune. And no more… will they live in fear of you."
She gave a silent gesture, raising Myrtenaster. The statues broke forward, charging gracefully and silently at him. The Archer jumped up and fired three arrows directly at his head, which he only barely ducked under. The Centurion drove its spear between his legs and swept them away. He fell, only to be batted back the other way as the big Scythe came around, slamming into his chest. He bounced off his back and barely avoided the spear as it sank into the ground in the spot his head was, shattering with a loud crack. The Centurion sculpture was unaffected, as it merely formed another one and launched it at his chest as be backpedalled, completely unable to fend off all three at once. The Archer landed two more arrows on his chest, chipping away two huge chunks of his stolen aura and making him briefly unable to react. The Centurion flipped in and slammed him in the face with its shield, tossing him backwards into a tree trunk.
"You need only confess. And all of this will be over"
"Wha-"
He ducked under a swing of the Scythe, which easily cleaved through the foot-thick tree trunk and toppled the canopy backwards in a flutter of dried orange leaves. Having his head down, however, meant he was unable to see the kick that the Centurion landed on the side of his ribcage, which sent him barrelling sideways a good twenty feet, his aura cracking but not breaking quite yet. Weiss watched his body tumble, and struggled to get back up. She turned slightly in place and reached out her hands. She formed three glyphs, one under each statue, and carefully lifted them off the ground, no more than ten feet up in the air. The Statue holding the Scythe quickly spun it in its wrists, folding it up and shouldering it like a rifle. The Centurion did the same with its spear, making an equally ornate hunting rifle out of the long weapon. Weiss narrowed her eyes.
"Do you wish to confess?"
Jaune struggled for air.
"Bitch…"
"That's fine, I wasn't really ready for you to, either."
She stepped forward, and increased her pace step by step until she was in a full run. As she closed the distance, she formed a glyph between her hands, gritting her teeth so hard it hurt. An icy sabre burst from the middle of the glyph, her palm closing down on it with force. She made two slashes at his chest, slicing open his sweater and revealing the armour plate beneath. She lanced her own sword into it, piercing the metal but not his skin, knocking him back. She took another slice, this time at his neck, punting him sideways as the sabre shattered into a thousand pieces. She paid it no mind, simply forming another glyph on her palm and sliding Myrtenaster into a purposeful sling on her duty belt.
Out of the glyph came a large mace. It was spiked, and it was heavy. The weight of the large weapon almost made her lose her grip on it with only her right hand, but she was quick to wrap her other hand around the handle as well. Jaune's eyes went wide as she swung the mace around like a bat, barely having enough of a reaction time to duck. He really shouldn't have bothered, as she used the spent momentum to rotate into a front flip and brought the mace down on the back of his head, shattering it too and knocking him to his stomach. He rolled over and tried to get up, but she was quicker, planting her boot into his butt and launching him a good two feet.
"Are you satisfied, Jaune?"
"Fuck you!"
"Impossible, unfortunately."
She held out both hands to her sides, forming two glyphs that shimmered in the air. The puncture wounds in her arm were screaming now, a scream she elected to ignore. With two flicks of her wrists, a pair of icy nunchaku fizzled into the air which she grabbed, looping her fingers into the trigger guards and action levers. With a practiced twirl, she easily spun the striking stick of her right weapon into his chin while simultaneously working the action of the left one's handle to load a round of icy buckshot. As her body rotated around, she switched sides, hitting him with the left weapon and firing into his chest and loading the right. It was a delicate dance to get all twenty icy shots into her target while swinging the firearms around her head, but as predicted both sets of modified Nunchaku shattered after they were empty, leaving Jaune with an enormous bruise on his chin and throat and most of the front of his sweater blasted off.
She continued undeterred, forming a larger glyph in front of her and reaching into it. In one fluid motion, her left hand grasped around the icy bow and her right the fletching of the arrow, drawing it back to her shoulder. She closed her left eye and pointed her finger along the head and zeroed in on the whole in his chest she had punctured earlier. Her fingers unhooked, and the icy arrow sailed forward, piercing directly through the hole in his armour and embedding itself in his chest a good inch deep. She reached forward with her right hand and grasped the bow in both hands, separating it into a pair of lethally sharp, pointed daggers. She continued forward and slashed away at his neck, making a significant gouge in his collar that quickly healed. It was getting slower, she noticed. The daggers and the arrow went the way of the other, shattering as Jaune tumbled backwards.
"Your strength is fading. I suggest you give in."
Jaune's breathing was ragged. His jaw clenched.
"I didn't do… anything wrong. I just wanted things my way."
"Tell me how you achieved those things."
Jaune spat up blood. Weiss merely shrugged and pulled up another glyph, pulling from it a very long and very frozen translucent sniper rifle. Skeletonized and with barely more than a barrel, trigger and scope, she pulled it back to her shoulder and grabbed the bolt handle. It was a long, tight action to draw up and back, but it cycled just as it should have, picking up an icy round from the short three-round icy magazine. She slammed it forward and down, locking it into battery, and flipped the frozen safety selector to the 'very unsafe' position and bore down on him through the icy high-magnification scope. Her finger dropped to the trigger. She squeezed. The rifle exploded in her hands, firing the frozen ice bullet into his chest with enough force to flatten him to his back and send him sliding along the ground until his head slammed into the concrete wall of his apartment complex. She stepped carefully forward, watching him struggle to sit up straight. The two-inch hole in his chest was slowly closing. He stared back at her with fear in his eyes.
He tried to stand up. She smirked. With a flash of her hands, she grabbed Myrtenaster from her hip and fired it forwards, unassisted by any glyph or semblance. The viciously sharp tip slammed into his shoulder and sliced easily through it, sinking through his body and into the wall behind him, pinning him in place. She brought her hands up in front of her forming a tiny glyph on the end of the pommel as he tried to reach for it to pull it out, and instead pushed it deeper into the wall, sinking it down until the cylinder was pressed against his chest. He cried out in agony, which went ignored. She paused for a moment, seeing Crescent Rose sitting in the grass just off to her left. She bent down and picked it up, cradling it like a baby in her arms. She looked back to Jaune, who was clearly having a battle of his own as his stolen aura was trying to repair the damage done by a sword that was still in him. She approached slowly, lifting the scythe over her shoulder.
"I really would appreciate you just confessing."
Her heart pounded in her chest as she stopped a few feet away. His voice ached with a violence.
"Confession… under… duress…" he struggled out. "Inadmissible… in… court…"
"Not to a Huntsman. Just do it. You can't fight anymore."
She gently reached forward and wrapped her fingers slowly around the stained leather handle of Myrtenaster. Jaune's breathing hitched.
"I won't… I didn't..."
Weiss sighed. She gripped down and started to twist. His face contorted. He gritted his teeth and fought through it, his aura pulsing around his body, weakening with every second. It wasn't enough. She grimace and brought Crescent Rose down off her back, planting the blade into the dirt and the pike against his chest. She kept twisting with her right hand and reached for the big scythe's bolt handle with her left, wrapping her fingers around it. He seemed to be daring her to do it. She closed her eyes and hung her head. She leaned her knee onto the handle of the scythe, causing the pike to slowly start to poke into the exposed skin of his chest. The aura that jumped to the middle of his sternum obviously added to the violent pain that was no doubt coursing through the sword wound in his shoulder. She pressed harder. He gave.
"Ahh-fuck-stop- okay"
Weiss let up, standing up and letting go of her sword.
"Okay?"
"I did it… I raped her."
Weiss leaned in.
"Who did you rape?"
"Ruby…"
"Why?"
"I wanted to…"
She nodded.
"I know."
"I'll never do anything like it again…"
"That's correct."
With all her might, she slammed her palm against the Crescent Rose's bolt handle, finally unlocking it and ejecting the spent anti-aircraft shell. The bolt slammed closed with a harsh shake, chambering another round. She lowered the pike down to his stomach and grabbed for the trigger. Jaune hung his head. He had accepted his fate. He had accepted his fate years ago. She was just making sure he followed the correct procedure. She squeezed the trigger.
With a colossal bang, the weapon fired, and the recoil shunted the pike through his aura and his stomach, sinking into the wall behind his back. He coughed, letting it all go. There was no yell, no scream, and no fight. He was spent.
"Finally…"
She sighed.
As the pain overcame her, she collapsed to her knees and spun around, her back falling to the same wall as him. She could hear someone shouting in her earpiece, but it was too fuzzy for her to understand.
The distant sound of emergency vehicle sirens echoed in her ears as she smiled, her body finally succumbing to the volume of unrefined, volatile ice dust coursing through her veins.
It was over.
She had won.
For Ruby
Her love