A/N: I dont own RWBY or Highschool DxD
Dancing! Romance! Impending chaos and battle! Yup, things are getting closer and closer to coming to a head, hope all of you amazing (nearly 600 favorites and700 follows holy crap!) people enjoy reading whats to come as much as I did writing it.
Jaune, Ren, Sun, and a handful of other guys are sitting on the top floor of the freshman dorm's common room waiting. Ruby, Weiss and Yang had all left hours ago to see to the last minute minutiae of organizing and running a social event.
Ryse, 'Sky' and a few of the other guys had left their dorm not long after the bulk of team RWBY had, clad in suits and armed with bouquets. Jaune doesn't really think Suriel is dating any of the humans or faunus' attending Beacon, but the fact that he's secured a cover story for himself has him nervous.
Sun is pacing, tugging at his suit's cuffs, buttons, the tie and shoulders almost constantly. He looks good in the suit, but it's painfully obvious this is his first time wearing one and, how he looks aside, that he hates it. Ren is perfectly calm, perched on one of the chairs, idly flipping through channels on the common rooms TV. Some of the other guys point out a show every now and then, but Ren keeps surfing. Probably for the best, they're all just wasting time until their respective dates, or not-dates in Ren's case, are ready to leave for the Dance.
From his spot leaning against the wall at the common rooms threshold he is easily able to see what's going on inside the elevator, and check down the hallway for the girls. The elevator dings open, and a young girl, barely into her teenage years, he'd guess, darts out with a backpack slung over her shoulder and a panicked look on her face. The newcomer skids to a stop at the door on the far end of the hallway. She raises her hand to knock on the door, but it swings open before she can.
The young woman who opened it is clearly the kid's older sister. Strawberry blond hair artfully arranged in an updo, where the kid has her hanging in loosely down her back in a waterfall that nearly reaches her butt, and clad in a classy olive dress with a pearl necklace and gold bracelet, the elder has an indulgent smile on her face. Both are tanned, but not terribly darkly, have green eyes and delicate looking faces.
The Beacon student hands a small, mostly still, swaddled bundle to the younger, before a tall, pasty pale and thickly muscled guy standing head and shoulders above the young mother steps into the hallway after the baby has been handed off and links his arm with Holly's.
The couple pauses at the intersection of the hallway between the rooms, showers, patio and elevator that the common room is connected to. "Say, Jaune, has anyone on your's or Ruby's team heard word of Team Coffee yet?" Jaune, Ren and Sun all shake their heads in a negative.
The girl deflates at that. "Dammit, I really owe her an apology for, well, a lot of the shit I pulled last year, and I'm pretty sure she's avoiding me. Think you could pass that along to Coco next time you see her?" When Jaune nods, her date offers a small smirk, and tugs her towards the elevator.
A few minutes later, Nora pops out of JNPR's dorm, clad in a strapless dress, it's a vibrant pink at its top, sewn too resemble a corset, and fades to white at the wide flared skirt that ends just above her knees. Accentuating her curves without making it seem like she's trying too hard. She looks cute, approachable. The excitable girl raps her fist on team RWBY's door a few times before making her way to Ren's side, a slight switch in her step to go with her usual bounce.
Blake confidently steps from her team's dorm just as Nora turns so to look in Jaune and Sun's direction, an expectant grin on her face. Jaune can hear Sun's thoughts grind to a halt as the monkey Faunus goes still.
Jaune can't really blame him. Blake is wearing a form hugging, deep violet, high collared evening gown. It's probably silk by the way the light plays off of it. The dress is sleeveless, but Blake is wearing long black gloves that cover most of her arms. Her dress has deep folded pleats that allow her to take full strides, and ends in a chaotic cluster, pointed tips at the corner of each pleat instead of a clean line. Instead of leaving her hair unbound, she had pinned it up just enough to conceal her ears, the rest of her hair falling in tight ringlets to her shoulders.
She strides past the rest of the group to Sun, revealing to her friends that her dress isn't just sleeveless, but backless, save for two stripes of fabric extending from just below her elbows to her short ribs, and thinning out into slender braided strings that rejoin the dress after crossing each other a hand-span away from the rest of the garment that hold it tight and keep her from falling out of it. Otherwise, the dress doesn't pick up again until just above the small of her back, hugging her hips and hinting at her legs.
There had been little debate when guys got to talking as to which member of team RWBY had the best ass, and Jaune is pretty sure that Blake knows who it is too. "Um... Hey." Is all Sun can manage when his date for the evening reaches him.
Jaune can't blame the guy, and is pretty sure that after tonight, the common, rarely-vocalized outside the men's locker rooms, bathrooms, and closed dorm doors consensus will be that Blake has the best in Beacon, not just her team.
Blake offers him a small grin and a tap on the chest before shifting to stand at his side, just inside his personal space. "Hey yourself." Blake quips back as she offers him her arm. He accepts her offer, and turns, with Jaune and the rest of the gathered teens to wait for Pyrrha.
Their dorm's door opens, and at the sight of the Invincible Girl, Jaune can feel his mouth going dry. The dress clinging to her body is most certainly not one of the ones he had seen hanging in her section of the team's closet, from before or after Riser's interrupted engagement party. It's a dark scarlet, shoulder-less as opposed to Blake's high collared choice, with a slit running high up her right thigh and allowing a teasing view of her toned leg with every step instead of pleated.
The deep shade of the fabric makes her bronze circlet and bangles seem even brighter than usual. She has her circlet at a more extreme angle than usual, holding her unbound hair away from her face, save the hint of a fringe she had teased out over the metal band. The dress wouldn't show much more cleavage than her armored corset does if it weren't for the shallow v cut into it that Jaune knows will be driving him to distraction all night. Pyrrha wipes her hand on the side of the dress as she glides to a halt in front of him.
Confidence. Confidence.
He meets his – date, wow that'll take some getting used to - with a smile, and a quick hug, clasping her hand in his as he pulls back. "Shall we?"
He's totally done this before.
Lots! And it definitely hadn't been with his sisters, or other members of Sairaorg's Peerage to save face.
He leads the rest of the sextet to the waiting elevator. The trip down is silent. Sun looking just as lost for words as he feels, Blake shifting between focused on the guy on her arm and, something, distant. Probably getting lost in her thoughts or memories, and fighting her way back to the present.
Ren is keeping a respectful distance from Nora, preserving both of their both of their personal spaces. Nora, with a slight, pouting frown on her face keeps edging into that space. She never moves closer than the two 'couples' are, but with every sideways shuffle of his partner, Ren takes a respectful half-step to maintain their distance.
The elevator dings and its door opens before she can pin him against the wall and force the issue.
The entryway to the dorm hall has a scattering of students, mostly from other Academies, either waiting for dates or new friends probably. Walking past the strangers and outside, they join a steady, albeit patchy flow of kids their age moving towards the Ballroom.
Couples and even-numbered groups moving in pairs are the norm, but more than a few morose or tacitly hopeful looking third wheels are interspersed throughout the flow of humanity. A few of those unlucky single students break off from their friends to join bigger, more boisterous gaggles of clearly platonic or unattached students determined to enjoy the night come hell or high water.
Some of the dorms still have lights burning, though whether they hold huntsmen and huntresses in training still getting ready for the night's festivities, or students who had decided to skip the event entirely is impossible to tell from the ground outside.
As the group moves past the last dorm hall, Sun breaks their silence "So, I know it's kinda early, but, I know that there's gonna be a pretty cool after-party in the transfer dorms later tonight. It's on the floor below the one where my team is staying. I can get us in if you guys want."
"We'll see." Blake replies after it becomes clear that no one in their group was quite willing to reply to that just yet. By then, they had reached the Ballroom. There's a loose crowd of students outside the building, some chattering with each other, others waiting, most of them flowing towards the entrance, and a handful slipping off to either side of the main building towards the whiffs of smoke that the evening's gentle breeze hadn't quite been strong enough to disperse.
Jaune pushes one of the tall double-doors open, and holds it for his date, as well as the other couple and the not together-together pair of Ren and Nora. Blake and Sun are the first through the door, and Yang absolutely lights up at the sight of her partner with a date on her arm. "With how Sunny it's been all day, I'm glad the two of you still had the energy to make it to this Blake tie event!" the bombastic blonde exclaims almost loud enough to be a shout.
Before any of them can reply, Yang is out from behind the pedestal the guest list is resting on and has her partner and best friend wrapped up in a tight hug that Blake neither returns nor fights to get free of as she side-eyes the other girl.
"Really, more name puns, Yang?" Nora quips as Yang backs away from her flustered looking, quietly grumbling friend.
Yang waves the shorter girl off with her free hand as she starts checking off names on whatever it is the guest list is on behind her podium. "Just remember, the first dance with Blake is mine, Loverboy." Before the monkey Faunus can reply, and without looking up, Yang adds. "Oh don't look at me like that. Everyone knows it's the last dance that really matters, and that one's all you two. I'll make sure the DJ plays something special."
Grumbling, Blake pulls her date for the night past her grinning partner and the dangers of her imagination and tongue. "Let's get some punch, I need to wash the taste of my best friend's sense of humor out of my mouth." The Faunus in disguise grumbles just loud enough for Yang to hear over the low rumble of the mostly full ballroom.
"Love you too, Blakey!" She shouts a little louder than she needs to, before turning to face the next pair to make their way to be checked in. "Ren! Nora! I couldn't imagine seeing amore perfect couple tonight!"
"We're only here as friends." Ren corrects her, either ignoring or somehow oblivious to the fact that Nora is currently hanging off of his left arm with both of hers, her torso pressed into his and face almost as close as her chest is to his.
Yang's face shifts to confused disbelief for a moment, before her usual grin and mischievous glint are back on full display as the lifelong friends move past her. If it weren't for his enhanced senses, he probably would have entirely missed the blonde whispering "Make him squirm." to Nora as they moved past the podium.
"Pyrrha, looks like you were able to a-dress the issue with Jaune not realizing that you're into him." Pyrrha blushes a bit at that, but offers a nod in a response. Yang slides her eyes over towards Jaune. "Vomit Boy."
Her fellow blond groans loudly. "Really, a dress pun?"
Yang nods enthusiastically. "Yup!" the 'p' pops almost as loudly as when the blonde's sister is getting ready to force an issue in a conversation. "And trust me, if you hadn't got the hint, the number she had picked out was a lot more suited to attracting dense objects."
Jaune rolls his eyes but can't necessarily argue with that as Pyrrha shoots a pout at Yang. "Weiss' dress for if we ended up coming to this together was just as provocative."
"I still think she should have worn it anyways, it'd be a surefire way to get that idiot to regret shooting her down." Yang opines, checking off that they had arrived on the guest list.
She leans to the side, seeing no one approaching behind them, she steps away from the podium. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to grab my dance with Blake so she can enjoy the rest of the night with her boytoy."
They move deeper into the ballroom, hands still intertwined. "Honestly, I'm not sure if Yang is trying to set Blake up, or get her for herself." Jaune half chuckles, the fog swirling around their feet at ankle level this far from the machines pumping it out. Between the fog, the dimmed lights, and tables bedecked in layers of lace and frill, the venue is certainly right to make for a memorable night.
Pyrrha shrugs "If she knows the answer to that, she hasn't shared it with anyone yet." as she tugs them in the direction of one of the hors'devours tables. She nervously backtracks, "Not that she should feel the need to hide her interests or be ashamed!"
The Reincarnated King takes a moment to picture the girls in question together in his mind's eye before nodding sagely. "I wouldn't object to it."
"Wha-Jaune!" Pyrrha rebukes with a flushed face.
"C'mon, I don't think Sun would object to sharing either."
"JAUNE!"
_-*R-DxD*-_
Lacey is doing her best to not attract too much attention from the other White Fang grunts riding the panel van with her.
Her uniform is starchy, itchy and stiff. The mask makes her breath tickle her face oddly. The short sword is a bit heavier and longer than Resonant Chord, and its holster tugs strangely at her shoulder. The carbine they had equipped her with is an even more alien weight.
Supposedly, this mission will be pretty routine. Aside from the self-absorbed ram Faunus leading the mission and the pair of bobbleheads following him around, the only person that isn't a new recruit is the mute woman that seems to follow Torchwick wherever he goes. She isn't riding in the same van as Lacey is though, she's in the lead van, not tailing the box truck that makes up the center of the tiny raiding convoy.
She doesn't want to be here.
"Man, I really wish they'd put me on the other mission running tonight." The masked terrorist sitting next to her crows. She doesn't reply, but the gruff sounding ape Faunus takes that as permission to continue, not her ignoring him.
"I heard that our Regional Commander had High Commander Taurus pretty pissed at him for letting that traitor with the bookstore get taken care of the old way, and by outsiders. Kinda wanted to see how exactly we'll be making an example of traitors now, ya know?"
She doesn't want to be here.
"So, all you heard is that there's a traitor, and," she pauses, nearly choking on the word, "we, have a new way of dealing with them? Sounds like safe-house rumors to me."
The brute lets out an incredibly fake yawn, stretches, and drapes his hairy log of an over-muscled, literal, gorilla arm over her shoulder. Sitting on the outside spot of the bench she had ended up on, she can't get away from him, and with the difference in size and strength between them, she doubts she'd be able to, if she could anyway. "Nah. Heard it straight from the mouth of one of our brothers taking a break in the city from the real work back out east. Recognized the traitor from when they worked together years ago. Thought he'd died, saw the bastard with a new name running a legit business downtown."
She doesn't want to be here.
She tries to shrug, but can't really with the brute of a guy's arm all but crushing her. "I suppose dealing with one traitor is a lot safer than a supply raid. Especially when It looked like we were sending a dozen brothers and sisters to deal with one guy."
He recoils at her plainly delivered biting comment, the yellow feather tucked into his mask nearly fluttering free. "Not that I'm afraid of fighting for the cause! It's just, curiosity, ya know?" Lacey rolls her eyes, but doesn't respond verbally. After five minutes of stifling, awkward silence, he probably hadn't been able to see her reaction thanks to the mask. Whatever.
She doesn't want to be here.
The vans roll to a halt and the assorted, masked Faunus all pile out. Most of them, like her, have plain, identical masks and uniforms.
Sure, a few of the more fanatic recruits already have a feather or two affixed to their masks, but, excluding their animal features they are largely homogeneous. Having a sword and carbine is nearly enough to make her stand out.
Torchwick's mute representative is a touch taller than her, and, thanks to the multitude of defaced images of the Schnee family, she can say that the girl, who could have been her classmate starting this year, is probably better endowed than her. One of the other recruits had assured her that she 'has a perkier ass than the Schnee', but Lacey is pretty sure he had just been trying to get in her pants. Now, she has 'Weiss Schnee's ass' in her search history, and thanks to the white haired Atlesian's propensity for poofy combat skirts, no real idea if that's true or not.
On the plus side, with how the uniform fits her, she probably looks like a scrawny guy right now, and most people don't know enough about rodents to recognize the difference between vole, mouse, rat, or any other ears the animals have and would probably guess wrong if it came down to it. Between that, and her current boss deciding that her getting a legitimate Huntress license would be a net gain for the cause, so long as tonight's mission goes well, it can be a single mistake, not a life defining crisis.
The ram Faunus running the mission confidently strides to the front of the double rank of terrorists. Like the Lieutenant that had been running the recruitment rally, he has a double row of feathers protruding from the edges of his unique mask.
It covers the entire front half of his skull, save for the deep cutouts for his horns. The covering has a gentle slope along his cheekbones, and a pair of spikes jutting downwards sharply from just in front of either ear. The shape and color of it make his darkly tanned skin, and oiled, pointed goatee stand out more harshly than the features normally would.
"Brothers and sisters. Tonight's mission is simple, and should be swift to execute. We're here," the faunus jerks his head towards the main roadway, barely visible from the side-lot they had parked in, the polished, sharpened steel tips affixed to his horns glinting in the moonlight "for ammunition and ordnance."
'Here' being one of the myriad Valean National Guard supply depots built near one of the city's airship hubs. Mostly, they were logistics waypoints for keeping the militias of the larger settlements outside the city armed and armored. "My team will make our entrance."
He pulls a shaped charge from his belt, idly tossing it up and down in the hand not planted on his hip. "Neopolitan will lead the heist team. Don't worry about what bullets you grab, all Remnant's armies have used the same rounds since the Great War, in case you never learned your history. So the bullets we take tonight will load the guns Torchwick stole for us just fine. No names, keep the chatter to a minimum, and be quick."
She doesn't want to be here.
_-*R-DxD*-_
The song trails off, and Sun takes a respectful step back, smiling at her, but also glancing at the punch bowl. He'd been treating her like glass ever since they got to the dance, and she wants to be annoyed, make a snide comment, but honestly can't bring herself to actually do it. The gentle, respectful way he holds her is a pleasant, refreshing change from the forceful, possessive-
No. She's here, with Sun, to enjoy the night. To live her life right now, instead of dwelling on what's done and in the past. "Did you maybe wanna get a drink? We've been dancing for a while now, and well..."
She offers him a wry smirk. "I did catch you looking over my shoulder a few times."
He takes her hand and starts, casually, leading them off the dance floor. "I, well. I'm kind of worried about Neptune. He's been bouncing from one group of girls to another all night, and I saw him get slapped at least twice."
"I'm not sure if I should be flattered that you haven't been checking out other girls, or worried that you only wanted to come to the dance with me as a cover-up now." She teases, idly prodding his free hand away from his tie before he pulls it off. Again.
He blushes a bit. "Look, I just, well..." He goes quiet as a trio of couples cut through the line for punch to get to the dance floor. "Okay, fine, you just look really, really good, and I was worried that if I focused on you too much I might,erm, well..." He glances, quickly, to his crotch, before looking back ahead and blushing a bit more.
The action was enough that Blake can feel a bit of heat creeping across her cheeks as well.
She had noticed that his usual cheerful confidence hadn't really returned since she'd left her dorm. But hearing him admit that she had managed to choose a dress that could get a physical rise out of him, without crossing over into 'trashy', she hopes, is nice. "It's fine. Besides, socializing is part of these as much as the dancing is. I don't mind if you want to check in on your best friend. If Yang wasn't still stuck playing receptionist I'd say we should see how she's doing, too."
Sun hands her a glass, fills one for himself, and leads them over to where his blue haired partner looks to be chatting with a pair of guys who she thinks she remembers seeing in the last few years' Mistrali National Tournament broadcasted finals with Pyrrha. As the pair reach earshot of the three guys, they are just able to make out Neptune, loudly, exclaiming "No way, you guys play Catacombs and Chimeras too?"
The taller of the three guys, tanned and clearly muscular through his suit nods enthusiastically. "Well, yeah. Not a lot to do, stuck in a hotel all day in between rounds of a tournament. Plus any players who aren't top five fighters, or part of our gyms or teams or retinues or whatever normally get too caught up in the game to fan out too badly."
"So, umm, did you guys maybe wanna play a game while we're all here for the Festival?" Neptune asks, somehow managing to pull off a puppy-dog look that no huntsman in training should be able to.
"Neeeeeeerds!" Sun accuses the three of them as they turn the open triangle of teens into a closed circle. Mercury lightly punches the blond in the shoulder, but doesn't look away from the two new guys.
Blake rolls her eyes at the byplay. "Mind letting me know if you do? It's been a while." Neptune grins even wider, as Sun leans away from her, playful mock shock sprawled across his face.
The shorter of the new guys, who she now can see has one arm, nods. "Sure. But we'll need to let Pyrrha know too. It'd hurt her feelings if we left her out, and she'd spend the rest of the tournament with that polite sad smile on her face whenever we saw her. Just be ready to endure the most stereotypically lawful good sword and board fighter you can imagine, or the most evil GM you've ever been tortured by."
"How, I mean, with you growing up with-Yeah..." Sun cuts himself off before he can say anything stupid, still paying more attention to her than the group they'd just joined.
Blake shrugs "If you download the sourcebooks to a scroll, the dice, pens and paper and all the other things you need are light and easy to travel with." She cant help but smile at some of the memories coming to the fore. The good days, back when Mom and Dad had still been part of the cause.
"Cool!" Neptune crows, before he starts a bit, shakes his head and looks around the group. "Ah, sorry, Sun, Blake" he gestures at each of them "This is Onyx" he jerks a thumb at the taller, tanned guy "and Raye." indicating the shorter, one armed of the duo. "We kinda met up grabbing snacks. Had to take a break from all the, umm..."
"Striking out. Seriously, it's like all the best-looking girls are already taken!" Onyx finishes for the blue haired hydrophobe, sounding entirely too pleased about it. Neptune flinches, he'd probably been looking for a way to phrase that that made him look better.
Raye seems to have only been halfway paying attention. "Not to be a gossip, but what happened to Corvis' arm?" he asks, drawing their attention across the room to where the Valean tournament fighter is standing, seemingly alone, a sandwich in her right hand, sleek, black and tan painted cybernetic left hanging loosely at her side, partly covered by the single shoulder of her slinky black dress.
Sun shrugs "Oh, her? She got unlucky out in the Emerald Forest a little bit before Nep and I got here, had it torn clean off by a Beowolf. I suppose no one would really be talking about an injury that old by the time the rest of the transfers got here."
Onyx shakes his head. "What sort of man could I call myself if I let Vale's best looking tournament fighter in our age group finish the night all by herself." He belts back half of his punch, then holds the glass out towards his partner. "Raye, hold my punch." The shorter, pale, one armed man tilts his head, takes a sip of his own drink, and shifts to face the rest of the group better.
Onyx releases his hold on the cup, either trusting that his friend is ready to catch it, or not caring that no one is holding the drink, and confidently strides towards the tanned, muscular girl. Neptune's eyes shoot wide open and he dives forward to catch the falling glass, nearly spilling his own in the process. "Dude, wait! She's here with her boyfriend." Neptune interjects as he stands back up, only to see that the easygoing teen is already out of earshot.
Sun shrugs "Ryse is a pretty cool guy. I'm sure it'll be fine."
"He's also been incredibly protective of his girlfriend, who just got out of the hospital, since he saw her get her arm ripped off in front of him." Blake deadpans. Sun cringes, Neptune flinches, and the small smile that sneaks across Raye's mouth is enough to tell her that this isn't the first time he's watched something like this unfold.
_-*R-DxD*-_
Weiss is having, a night.
The fog machines make keeping the floors near the bathrooms clean and dry a non-issue, but also make it hard for her to catch couples trying to sneak into them together an absolute nightmare. She has had to straighten the doilies on twenty seven tables, and six of the tablecloths had been catastrophically stained and needed replacement. She had had to replace the Ice Dust keeping the ice sculptures Nora of all people had recommended she commission from starting to melt early twice. To top it all off, she has had to stop at least four separate upperclassmen from tipping a flask of something, either alcoholic or intended for use as a heavy-duty cleaner, into several of the punch bowls a dozen times, at least.
She most certainly hasn't been trying to distract herself from Neptune going around and hitting on every single single girl at the dance, ignoring her entirely. She isn't jealous of Blake for having gotten a date for tonight. Half the reason they had volunteered to take over for Velvet was to get her to slow down, to live her life and not obsess over something that, legally and reasonably, isn't their responsibility and could very well get her killed.
She certainly isn't upset with Yang for not helping her keep things running smoothly, the role of receptionist is important, and tedious, and one that her vivacious friend is well suited to.
Ruby, her dolt of a partner, however...
Weiss looks over to the secluded, hopefully not-spiked, punch bowl she had been loitering at like a wallflower to see...Nothing? Briefly panicking that Ruby had done what all of them had told her she was not allowed to do and left the dance early, she glances around in search of the prodigy.
She bumps into two wallflowers as she starts to more actively search the ballroom, and three couples. Finally, she spies the Dolt on the dance floor of all places, dancing the robot, out of time, with that Penny girl and for some reason laughing uproariously.
Stranger, the pair of Atlesian soldiers that had been either guarding Penny, or forcibly preventing the girl from socializing look to have been somehow drawn into what looks like a heated debate with General Ironwood and, she's pretty sure the students names are Louis and Coklat. They're on one of the teams that had had to be reformed on her floor of the freshman dorm hall, going by the name Cloud now, if she recalls correctly, the latter of the two leading it and wielding a rifle-axe that had likely been inspired by Professor Port's exploits in his youth.
When Coklat – his parents must have hated him to give him a name like that – pulls his scroll from his pocket, and Louis pulls his jacket open so that his leader can project the schematics to his weapon to the inside of it, she shakes her head and continues moving towards Ruby and Penny.
The debate on where Vale had gotten the idea for a long-gun with a double headed battleaxe built into its butt, and why the trend never faded is as old as the kingdoms. In the Huntress and military circles, it's also one of the most heated debates you could possibly start.
"Salutations, friend Weiss!" Penny exclaims loudly enough to be heard over the din of the dance-floor and thumping, upbeat dance music currently being played.
"Hello Ruby, Penny." She returns the greeting, doing her best to move to the beat as Ruby offers her an awkward wave built into her, less than stellar, attempt at dancing the robot. "I take it that" she jerks her head towards the debating students, soldiers and General "has nothing to do with you?"
Ruby stumbles, and Weiss shifts to catch her, which results in her almost falling into Penny, who stiff-arms her chest and may as well have punched the back of Ruby's head to keep the three of them from falling to the floor.
Ruby splutters as Weiss hops away from the more awkward of the other girls, wincing and resisting the urge to massage her abused breast. She is in public, after all. There's no guarantee no one will accidentally catch her in a photo that the tabloids would trade organs and children to get a hold of.
"Psh. Of course not Weiss. You know me! I'm like, the least sneaky girl in Beacon!"
Penny stops her mumbled apologies, which Weiss had been waving off, to turn a bit more widely and slowly than is necessary, to face Ruby. "But, Ruby, you were just telling me about how you planned an undercover sting on the White-" Ruby nudges the freckled Atlesian in her stomach and quickly shakes her head. Penny's eyes widen, then go back to normal before she takes a step back. She hiccups loudly, then continues. "What I meant to say is that, of course we would not do anything to distract my security detail." Another hiccup. "Especially not so that I can enjoy the dance like a normal girl would."
"Why do you have a security detail, Penny? And why is it made up of soldiers, not private employees?" Weiss asks, focusing on her curiosity not the quiet chuckles and subtle gestures of the other students mocking Penny, Ruby and her own, less than stellar, dancing prowess.
You are a Schnee sharing your talent with the world. Not some desperate commoner willing to gyrate and tease your way to fame and fortune. Stupid Father.
Penny pauses again, looking more robotic on accident despite her choice in dance. "Oh, that's because my father and General Ironwood have been working on a project together. General Ironwood wants me to test it out at the tournament, but is worried about it being seen or damaged before it is entirely ready." She hiccups again. "Normally I don't mind, but, with all of the other students having so much fun..."
Weiss feels a genuine smile pull at her face. Maybe, if she gives her fellow Atlesian a bit of a chance, summer break won't be so lonely. Penny may wish to have something done about those hiccups, though.
_-*R-DxD*-_
She can hear gunfire and steel clashing off of steel in the distance. The store room they had broken into is a dim, and has a light smoke haze is filtering in from the hallway the strike team had initially blasted their way into, and now out of the equally large hole the heist team had made with the second charge.
This is it. She's a traitor to her homeland, her family, her ideals, and all of Faunuskind now.
She squashes the thought down, focusing on passing crates and cans of bullets, grenades and whatever other munitions hadn't been bolted down though the hole in the wall to the waiting faunus standing out in the crisp night air, who in turns stacks the bullets on the cart that had just rolled back to the compromised base from the truck they had left in the side lot across the street and down an alley from the base.
The crates aren't particularly heavy, and she was a Huntress-in-training. But fifteen minutes of passing half her body weight as fast as the next person in line can take them wouldn't make it too hard to let her thoughts go unfocused from the exertion.
However, the ammo cans are just heavy enough that the metal corners bite into her hands in the exact way that Aura doesn't help with, reminding her exactly what it is she's doing every minute or so, in spite of the sweat rolling down her face.
The cart they had been loading rolls off across the street, seconds before one of the carts that had been filling the van skids to a halt by the hole they had blasted in the wall. The damned gorilla Faunus who had tried putting the moves on her on the way here behind it. He flexes, and shoots her a grin. The same one he had every time he got back to the base they are ransacking.
She ignores him, again, and tries to focus on the exertion, not the horndog checking her out while his cart is being loaded.
By the time the cart is mostly full, the Lieutenant in charge of this raid lopes into the room with, most, of the assault team, grinning, blood dripping from one of the steel spikes affixed to his horns.
The gunfire had stopped. "Base has been silenced, police are on their way. Finish this cart, fill the next, then we're getting out of here."
_-*R-DxD*-_
Cardin is doing his best to look like he's supposed to.
Like he's just one of the many unlucky students who had wound up going to the dance stag. Like something else isn't cutting into his pride and self esteem deeper and deeper as the night wears on.
He hadn't been surprised to find out that Suriel's boss's boss had allies. It's that he had gotten confirmation they exist at all that he hadn't been expecting. Dad had made it pretty damn clear before he first let Cardin into the Locked Room back home, when he told Cardin about the supernatural world and the Winchester family's loyalties and duties that he's starting at the bottom of the food chain. He'd expected to be fed shit and kept in the dark at least until he graduated Beacon.
Dad had worked his ass off to make sure Lord Anael's missions and political plays went as well as could be managed, and been promoted alongside his master. So, he'd kept his mouth shut and did as he was told when his team was introduced to Lady Fall's farcical team. He accepted that, despite the team leaders showing up to the dance as a couple being what most of the students would expect, the politics, and mission objectives necessitated 'Sky' to be Cinder's date for the night.
Emerald was easy on the eyes, if not so much on a guy's self-esteem, though he'd admit Mercury had struck him as a decent guy, and he doesn't begrudge the assassin the chance to shoot his shot. Cardin could tell Emerald probably only had eyes for Cinder. But who was he to get in the way of Mercury's dreams?
Plus, the two of them have been working together under Cinder longer than his team had been one, it makes sense that they be the 'couple' keeping an eye on the students and faculty that may cause trouble. Which led to the plan, and Cardin's wounded pride.
Mercury and Emerald leaving to 'put a sock on their dorm door' works as a subtle all clear for Suriel and Cinder. Best of luck to Merc, but if he blows it, Cardin fully intends to make a move himself. A slim chance is better than no chance, which is what he has with Cinder.
They had made it sound like an all hands on deck operation, so he had been kind of pissed when his suggestion that him and Cinder's shortstack minion, Neo, be 'dates' to keep watch after Mercury and Emerald left.
"Neopolitan is a mute, and, with your history of bullying Faunus, it would be too much of a stretch for most of the student body to believe you asked her to the dance successfully. Even if that weren't the case, she has an important operation elsewhere in Vale the night of the dance."
That had stung, and left him with some things to think through later.
Three dances after Mercury and Emerald leave, 'Sky' and Cinder will do the same. Ten minutes to infiltrate the CCT Tower, then they'll hang a sock of their own on CRDL's dorm door.
Him, Russel and Dove will stay until the dance is over, sleep on the couches in the common room, and he's supposed to notify Suriel and Cinder when enough students are up and about so that she can be seen taking a 'walk of shame' back to the transfer student dorms. The perfect alibi should tonight's operation go anything less than perfectly.
He resists the urge to check on Dove again. The fact that he's part of this mission at all has Cardin's blood boiling.
The doctors had finally found out why both Dove and Reg had been dizzy, disoriented and constantly dealing with migraines since that extra credit work for Grimm Studies had turned into a firefight. Both had suffered at least one break along their spinal cords right up by their skulls. 'C1-C7' he thinks the doctors had said at some point in the torrent of medical jargon he couldn't keep up with when he got an explanation.
The bones were keeping the connection, and their Auras were trying to heal the damage, but every spar, every training exercise, anything more strenuous than sitting around was jostling the slowly healing connection loose. One good hit in a real fight, and it might tear all the way free, and that would be fatal.
Suriel had taken the doctors note barring Dove from Combat Class and burnt it up. "You're either strong enough to serve me, or you'll be replaced."
Coklat hadn't even been allowed to physically enter Goodwitch's classroom after he gave her his note. He shakes his head, and looks around the ballroom.
With the official dance a little over halfway over, some of the early arrivals are slowly starting to trickle out. Established couples that had been more swaying against each other than dancing drifting towards the doors whispering to each other.
Bigger groups of friends that probably had after-parties planned or to set up moving in boisterous gaggles. The pair of Atlesian soldiers are moving away from whatever argument they had gotten pulled into with their General and a pair of students and towards Rose, Schnee and Polendina dancing badly and laughing, probably at themselves.
He supposes Rose is cute, but a kid. He isn't about to brave a pair of soldiers for a girl even more awkward than his fellow team leader. He dumps his empty punch cup in a garbage can and moves closer to the middle of the room.
Corvis is alone again, but Ryse had nearly kicked the crap out of the moron that had shot Schnee down for either trying to make a move on her, or just chatting with someone else who looked to be at the dance alone earlier. The blue haired numbskull had probably ruined every guy's chances with the Heiress for the night before it had started, and while she may not be all that curvy, those legs.
He pushes past a trio of rodent Faunus' who reek of pot and are swaying like they're drunk. still looking for someone he might have a shot with to keep tonight from being a complete bust.
He spots Nora Valkyrie, and the girl had been fucking flaunting her assets all night, despite being in a pretty conservative dress. She had also been trying to physically drag her partner, who must be a moron or gay, back to the dance floor for the slow songs.
He knows how trying for her would go without needing to think past that. Add to that the fact that the bitch is a devil he'll probably end up helping kill pretty soon... Yeah, not interested. Pretty much every other single guy at the dance must have come to the same conclusion, barring the knowledge of just how tainted of goods she is, as those two had been left alone.
After Ren finishes walking from the dance floor, his partner hanging from his arm and dragging her feet, he can see Belladonna and Wukong. A few beats into the slower song, she rolls her eyes, reaches behind her and grabs the dumb monkey's hand from where it had been hovering near her back to actually hold her. Idiot.
Just beyond them he can see Arc and Nikos. The preachy unholy abominations had been attached at the hip all night. He's pretty sure that if Arc plays his cards right, neither of them will have to die without having swiped their v-cards once he and Suriel catch up to them. He could definitely fuck with that, but his job tonight isn't to make a scene, it's to keep his damned eyes open.
A few of the better looking Faunus girls are hanging around in groups or leaning up against the walls alone, but he really isn't into bestiality.
Mercury and Emerald walk past him, the former smirking, one hand shoved into his pocket, the other wrapped around Emerald's waist, holding her close to him. Emerald has a pretty fearsome scowl on her face, despite having her head rested on his shoulder. The murderous glint in her eyes is enough for him to decide that Merc can have her, he isn't touching that one with a ten foot pole.
Time for his part of the job then. Time to hang around the dance hall until the teachers start kicking everyone out at eleven like the bully that works as a bad guy in every cheesy kids' movie made. Joy.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spots Xiao Long walking towards a side-door, pedestal resting on one shoulder, guest book held in the arm swinging at her other side. Now that's more his speed.
He moves back across the ballroom, weaving through the thinning crowd, reaching the door she had been headed for just as she steps back out of it. "Finally done on forced wallflower duty?" he greets her, balancing the Winchester allure with casual conversation as best he can.
"Yup." Is all she gives him, not even turning to look his way, instead searching around the room, probably for her friends.
She starts walking towards the food table, and he moves to follow. "I mean, it'd be a real shame for you to get all dolled up and only dance once."
She stops, and finally turns to look at him. "Are you...Hitting on me?"
"You don't have to be so crass about it. You're a beautiful girl, and it's kind of a shame you had to come alone tonight." He replies, offering his most winning smile and debating whether or not putting a hand on her shoulder will get him punched in the face.
Yang rolls her eyes and turns to stride in the opposite direction she had been walking. "I'd say I'm flattered, but racist asshole ain't my type. Try again with someone more bigoted and dumb." Fuck. And if the way she's swaying her hips isn't a silent 'you might want it, but you'll never get it' he doesn't know what is.
Sonofabitch...
Grumbling to himself he turns and stalks off in the other direction. When he finally looks back up, he spots Rose and Schnee heading for the main entrance. He makes like he's rubbing his forehead, using the action to disguise turning on the mic/radio bead in his ear. "Just a heads up, Rose and Schnee are either headed off to munch some rug, or take a walk. You may have company soon, Boss."
_-*R-DxD*-_
Sure, the crowd is thinning out, and the Dance is winding to a close, but Jaune is having too damn good of a time to leave just yet, and he's pretty sure Pyrrha feels the same way. She'd honestly laughed and openly smiled tonight more than she had the entire first semester, he thinks. He also hasn't been able to get the scent of cinnamon and apples out of his nose since the first slow dance. Not really sure he wants to going forward either.
The two of them, along with Blake and Sun, are probably the only other freshmen still dancing. The upbeat dance songs had stopped playing around half an hour ago, when the last big group of friends had ambled out of the Ballroom.
Most of the other couples aren't so much dancing as swaying with the beat and rubbing against each other. He feels kind of out of place, and can tell Pyrrha does as well. "Wanna catch some fresh air?" He asks as the song they had been dancing to tapers off.
Two more couples leave the floor at the same time as them. One drunkenly leaning against each other – everyone had figured out which punch bowls had been spiked and which were clean pretty quickly after Weiss had stopped fussing – and the other couple are acting almost as sickeningly affectionate as Cinder and Sky had when they left.
He hadn't really trusted Ruby's new 'friends' from Mistral after she met them, 'lost' on the top floor of the wrong dorm hall looking for their room. Cinder's date is, well, crap, not really proof of anything other than bad taste actually.
"Tonight has been, nice." Pyrrha quips as they both lean across the balcony railing, a crisp breeze rolling over them.
Jaune nods, and does his best to make wrapping his arm around Pyrrhas waist to pull her against him seem natural. "I'm glad I actually caught the hint when you and Weiss put on that little act last weekend."
Pyrrha lifts her left hand to cover her mouth, and he can hear the light chuckle for once, thanks to the quiet of the night and being otherwise alone on the balcony. "Actually, that was entirely Weiss. I was just as surprised as you were."
Down on the ground, Weiss and Ruby walk past, Ruby flailing animatedly as she fails to keep balance in her heels, Weiss clearly doing her best to maintain her poise next to the utterly embarrassing display. "I do feel bad for her though. She and I aren't exaggerating when the two of us complain about people seeing our fame or fortune, not who we are."
Jaune cocks a grin "Well, I saw you for yourself right away, didn't I?"
Pyrrha rolls her eyes fondly. "Because you spent more of your time for the last half decade on an entirely different planet." She accuses him, though it's clear from her tone she's just teasing.
"I came home for the holidays and summers!" Jaune protests "It was just like any other boarding school. My family knew where I was the whole time, and we kept in touch."
She nudges him with her elbow "Even if I decided to just accept that excuse, Jaune, you still were completely oblivious to how attracted I am to you."
"Well, I mean..."
"Jaune, are you trying to say that between me accepting the fact that you were a devil at face value, not being upset about waking up being spooned by you in our underwear by some of your devil friends, and leaping at every chance to train with you, despite that having been all my life was before Beacon wasn't enough of a hint for you to make a move sooner?" Pyrrha gently cuts him off.
He grumbles, but doesn't argue; she kinda has him there. Though, the question as to exactly what they are is still kind of, yeah. For a few minutes they just lean there, simply enjoying the night air and each others presence. It definitely isn't neither of them knowing what to say or do next. Totally not that.
Down below, another gaggle of students amble past. Sun and Blake are at the back of the group arm in arm and more talking to each other than the rest of the group from the looks of it. He notices Neptune chatting animatedly with Pyrrha's friends from Mistral, well, the other tournament fighters she had introduced the team to. Onyx and Raye, he thinks.
None of the other students look familiar, but it's a pretty even spread of boys and girls, a few couples, but mostly single looking. "Looks like Sun talked Blake into that after-party. Did you want to go too?"
Pyrrha shakes her head "No, I think I'd rather we just take the long way back to the dorm then turn in. I doubt we'll get many nights this relaxing and calm in the future." Jaune nods, shifts his arm from around his - partners – and he isn't sure if that's the wrong word or not now, waist to clasp her hand and leads them back through the Ballroom. It's even more empty than it had been before.
Cardin, Russel and Dove along with a handful of dejected looking students he doesnt recognize still line the walls, looking at the dozen or so couples still dancing. About half of the girls in the former group look very much like they had been crying at some point during the night. They make their way to Beacon's grounds in silence, and meet up with Nora and Ren shortly after stepping back outside.
The team takes a winding path through one of the more decorative stretches of the Academy's grounds. The only illumination coming from what little of the moon can be seen, scattered shards casting a patchy, uneven light making the wooded path seem more mysterious than well traveled and familiar.
By the time they make it back to their dorm its nearly midnight. Pyrrha and Nora had been having some sort of silent conversation with their eyes and expressions most of the walk, and it had both him and Ren feeling a bit nervous.
Ren and Nora duck into the dorm first, and Jaune can't help but think that there is still... Something... He needs to say to or do with Pyrrha before they return to their room for the night to be complete.
"Umm... hey there, Sairaorg?" Nora chirps from the other side of the half-open door, shattering whatever moment had been hanging in the air, as both he and Pyrrha turn to look.
The hulking young devil has an apologetic look on his face at first, but it is swiftly replaced with a more laid back smirk. One Jaune knows he usually wears when he wants to get something taken care of quickly, then get on with whatever it is he'd rather be doing. Pyrrha lets out a huff, and Jaune suppresses a sigh as they enter the dorm and close the door behind them.
"So, the three of you that Jaune reincarnated have finished acclimating to life as devils?" Sairaorg begins without preamble, receiving a trio of nods for a response. "Good to hear. Jaune, have the stray fallen angels that were giving you trouble backed off?"
"They, um, they have. No overt moves have been made against any of us for a few weeks now." He replies, not really sure where Sairaorg is going with this.
The older devil nods, his smirk not wavering as he uncrosses his arms and leans back on JNPR's futon. "Nothing more underhanded either? All of your regular summoners are fine? No one's gone after that paper pact scheme you're running?" Jaune nods an affirmative. "And all of the Strays in your territory have been dealt with?"
"Well, I mean-" Sairaorg levels a flat glare at him. "Yeah, either taken out by us or dead from a Grimm outside the walls by now."
"Perfect, your established and have nothing pressing to take care of. I'll see the four of you at the next Young Devils Ball three weeks from now." The older devil quips, standing up and making his way to the transportation circle hidden under the rug in the middle of the team's dorm.
"Sairaorg, we-"
"You have been coming up with excuses to not attend with your peerage, Arc. They happen for a reason. I suffer through the insanity every other month, and you need to far more than I do if you wanna gain any sort of ground or credibility."
At that, golden light flares from the edges of the rug, and Sairaorg is gone.
"Crap." Jaune grumbles, walking over towards his dresser.
Nora and Pyrrha lock eyes, Nora with a look somewhere between nervous and pleading on her face. Pyrrha's shifting from apprehensive to resolved before she nods, blushing lightly. Nora offers his partner a shaky smirk, then both of the girls features return to normal. The entire exchange hadn't taken more than a moment. Both girls reach behind their backs and tug down on the zippers hidden in the fabric there.
The dresses pool at the floor, leaving the two standing in their underwear. Pyrrha in a matching, lacy red set, and Nora in snug fitting pink boyshorts and a white, glinting, sequined strapless bra. "Um, girls, you're, we-"
"Have totally seen us in our skivvies before thanks to how Jaune had to heal us after we got reincarnated. It's not that big a deal, Renny." Nora cuts her partner off as she starts rummaging through his hamper. She perks up after a few minutes of digging, and pulls a t-shirt out and drops it over her head.
Jaune can feel the blush consuming his face when Pyrrha crosses directly in front of him and slides the top drawer of her dresser open. She pulls, something, out of it, then unclasps her strapless bra, slides it off and tosses it at her hamper.
Despite her facing away from everyone else in the room, Jaune wheels around to look away from her. Ren makes a strangled noise as Jaune reorients himself just in time to see Nora dropping the panties she had been wearing in her hamper. "Night!" she quips as she starts climbing her lofted bed.
Jaune feels a slender hand rest on his shoulder, and turns to see Pyrrha, now wearing a plain gray sports bra, her lacey, eye-catching red panties and nothing else. She glances away, blushing heavily. The smile on her face is unmistakable, however.
"Tonight was wonderful, Jaune." She tells him, before moving to climb her own lofted bed.
"I'm going to take a shower." Ren announces preemptively, before grabbing a towel, his shower caddy, and walking from the room with stiff legs. As soon as the door out to the hall clicks shut, Nora's blankets shuffle up over where her head probably is.
Dammit, If he tries the same thing now, it'll be obvious.
_-*R-DxD*-_
Lacey's lungs are burning, her legs feel like lead, and nothing had been going right since they left the munitions depot. All of the soldiers had been incapacitated, but the police had been after the small convoy within blocks of them leaving their staging point.
The box van had gotten away clean, she thinks. Both panel vans that had served as transport for the agents actually doing the work had had their wheels shot out almost immediately.
They had piled out, split into three separate groups, and scattered on foot. All of them had different safe houses to report to if things went wrong.
The three big groups were all going to start scattering further once they got some distance from each other. That is the plan at least. Her breath is hot against her mask, making her face sweat more than the rest of her body.
Torchwick's representative fishes her scroll out of her pocket as they round a corner. Lacey is just able to make out the message from over the slightly taller girl's shoulder. 'Get away clean, keep your eyes peeled for any animals useful enough to add to the Matchsticks'
"VPD! Freeze!" A megaphone enhanced voice booms from their left. She turns, to see one of the roads blockaded by a half dozen squad cars, right around twenty officers set up behind them, guns drawn.
She desperately wishes she had Resonant Chord on her, with a tap she could set it vibrating, then a swing to enhance the sound into a shock-wave that would have every cop blocking her path to escape flat on their backs.
About a third of the group she is with hadn't turned with the rest, sprinting pell-mell down the road towards a run-down business park. Another third scatter down a half dozen side alleys, headed for the labyrinthine maze of the older part of the city.
The rest, herself and Neopolitan included, had intended to continue on down the road blocked off into one of the seedier shopping districts. She can't use her Semblance too openly. Even if she gets free, it would make getting into Beacon next to impossible with it being kept watch for.
The officer with the megaphone shouts for them to drop their weapons, and some of the other White Fang thugs move to comply, the extra magazines for the rifle she doesn't know how to use feel as heavy as the foreign weight on her back the weapon they load creates.
Explosions are loud. Loud and distracting.
She cuts a look at the mute girl, pulls one of the magazines from her belt, and forces her aura into it, activating the Dust, and enhancing it with her Semblance.
She pitches the impromptu bomb at the blockade, and moments later it erupts. The bang of detonating Dust amplified into a crushing shockwave knocking out or down most of the officers that had been barring their path.
The rest of the Faunus that had been fleeing with her, as well as the human crook had already been moving when she threw. Lacey has to be stationary to use her Semblance at range still. She tenses her legs to follow her current comrades, comrades she hopes she will be able to betray and see arrested once she has her license.
Two barbs dig into the back of her neck, and its all she can do to keep from screaming as electricity courses through her, spilling her to the ground as her muscles cease and spasm.
As the cuffs are fixed around her wrists behind her back, she cant help but think how glad she is Resonant Chord isn't with her tonight. Having her weapon locked in an evidence locker, and logged on a criminal database would be a guaranteed end to her dreams of Beacon.
_-*R-DxD*-_
Weiss takes a deep breath of the crisp night air. The night had went, better than she had expected, after being rejected by Neptune. Ruby, and to a lesser extent Penny, had made the night quite enjoyable. Even after the awkward ginger had been reclaimed by her protective detail, Ruby had managed to keep her from, 'fussing'. She hadn't been, of course, just performing her duty as one of the events organizers.
Ruby had still thought it was, and badgered her once she tried to go back to it after the Atlas soldiers killed off their attempts to talk with the girl for the third time. Dancing had been a bit awkward after that.
And between her best friend's lack of confidence with new people, and the disturbing regularity that those same new people focused on Schnee and not Ruby or Weiss, they had opted to take a walk, hoping that the other students enjoying the small portion of the venue that can be found outdoors would be better.
When they hadn't, the two of them had decided to just do what they set out to and just take a walk. At first they had talked about the dance, how cute of couples their friends had made. Then Weiss had tried to steer the conversation towards the dresses some of the other girls had worn, though Ruby had made the most inane assertion that she could guess what sort of weapon a girl would wield based on the dress she chose. Ugh...
That had eventually led to them just chattering about plans, the semester, the Vytal Tournament and what they might end up doing next year.
Weiss realizes that Ruby not only had failed to answer her last question, but stopped walking alongside her. She turns, to see the girl watching the Academy's skyline. "What is it, Ruby?"
Her partner points, Weiss follows the finger and spots, someone, dressed in what looks to be a dark gray catsuit of all things, dashing along the roofs towards the CCT Tower.
Ruby pulls her scroll from her purse, drops it and sets off towards the tower at the best jog she can manage in heels. Weiss follows suit and easily matches the younger girls awkward pace. They get to the tower less than five minutes later.
"Umm, Weiss, aren't the CCT Towers supposed to have guards on duty twenty-four seven?" She nods, glancing around nervously. "You call campus security, I'll get our weapons here." Weiss walks away from her team leader just enough that the rocket lockers touching down won't interrupt her call.
By the time she hangs up, help on the way and her and Ruby cleared to start looking into what, hopefully, is just a group of lazy guards, her partner has the lockers open and Crescent Rose in hand. She plucks Myrtenaster from her own locker, along with one of her speed loaders for the Dust cartridges and follows Ruby into the tower.
The tower is completely abandoned. No guards in the reception hall. None by the elevators or in them. They checked a few side closets and rooms. Not a single soul.
Neither of them say a word until they are riding the elevator to the top floor. "Weiss, something feels really, really wrong right now." The heiress can only really nod in agreement.
The doors slide open to reveal more nothing. "Hello, is anyone there?" Ruby calls out. Weiss had given up on that before they had finished checking the ground floor. Ruby starts moving to the right as she circles to the left side of the curved chamber.
When they are about equidistant from the door, a woman with long black hair hanging over one shoulder clad in a skin-tight catsuit with its front half unzipped and a plain black mask stands up, smirking at the two of them. Ruby, ever the awkward one leads with, "You know, it's not a masquerade, so why don't you-"
The infiltrator cuts off the prodigy's quip by pulling a Dust crystal from her belt, and with a flash of what is probably a Semblance, materializes an arc of jagged glass crystals in front of her.
Ruby spins Crescent Rose in a tight wheel in front of her at the same moment Weiss' raises her rapiers tip to snap an ice glyph to life in front of her. The crystals, whether they impact defenses or the wall, explode into a shower of sparks and ash on contact. Ruby nods at Weiss, and she dashes towards the infiltrator.
By the time she reaches proper range, the woman has what looks to be a pair of black glass scimitars in her hands. She parries Weiss' initial thrust, steps to her left and slashes at Weiss' stomach with her right-hand blade.
Weiss draws her rapier back in time to catch the strike, but immediately has to brace her right arm against the blades flat to keep from being overpowered. With a deafening crack Crescent Rose makes Ruby's presence known, forcing the interloper to push off with her blade and twirl away from both the ranged attack and the Heiress.
Weiss rushes at the woman with another thrust, which the woman ducks under, stepping further into Weiss' guard before sweeping upwards with her trailing blade as she stands back up, sending Weiss stumbling back with a wince. Ruby takes, she hopes, just as much of the intruder's Aura down as she connects with a shot from Crescent Rose. Weiss taps Myrtenaster to the floor, and an ice glyph spins to life beneath the woman before flaring out of existence and freezing her to the ground.
The legs of her catsuit flare crimson, and with the hideous shriek of ice being rapidly melted the room is filled with fog, the woman freeing herself and evading Ruby's next shot in one motion. She charges straight at Weiss, slicing at her with both blades, alternating right and left with each strike.
Weiss can't help but compare the woman to Winter, the one time her sister had deigned to spar with her without holding back. Where Winter had been precise and patient, waiting for Weiss to give her an opening to exploit, this woman is coming at her with pure, fluid aggression. Pressing down on her like a waterfall.
After blocking or dodging half a dozen sweeping slashes, Weiss is able to sidestep the woman and connect with Myrtenaster. Her blade skitters off Aura, and the woman sneers at her, before delivering a brutal backhand that sends Weiss sprawling to the ground.
She rolls to the right, evading a downward slash of both black blades and buying herself enough time to get back to her feet. Another shot from Crescent Rose smashes into the woman's shoulder, jerking her entire body to the right, leaving Weiss in her blind spot, and with enough time to spin Myertenaster's revolver, and enhance herself with an acceleration glyph. She rushes the interloper, and scores three quick hits before she can even react. She only needs to keep the harlot focused for a few more seconds so that Ruby can finish reloading.
A few seconds of distraction is childs play with the scales so tipped in her favor. The woman finds a rhythm almost immediately, but if the scowl on her face is any indication, Weiss has her undivided attention. By the time her glyphs effects start to fade, she can hear the action of Crescent Rose clack forward.
Ruby's next shot goes wide, and the prodigy lets out a startled shout. Weiss shifts so she can see both her opponent and partner, and is surprised to see the younger girl being pressed back by a tall Faunus with large, black feathered wings, hair in a long topknot and ponytail, clad in a black suit and long beaked mask. In either hand is what looks to be a dark orange hard-light Jian in either hand.
Checking on her partner proves to be an immediate mistake, and the masked woman nearly launches Myrtenaster from her hand following up a parry with a brutal chop to Weiss' hand that causes her Aura to flicker.
She takes a half step back, centers herself, and is just barely able to catch a glimpse of the second masked interloper easily staying inside Ruby's guard, his blades flickering before they impact her- Weiss sees blood arcing away from her partner with every cut that connects.
Resolving to end her fight quickly to help out her partner, Weiss charges back at the once again smirking, silent woman. Her thrust connects, and the woman's Aura flickers, again, but her smile doesn't falter. She pivots on the point of contact, and slams her left hand blade into Weiss' gut. Following through, the woman crashes her left fist into the base of Weiss' skull, toppling her to the ground.
She slides to a stop just in time to see Ruby's Aura shatter, which makes no sense. The woman kicks Myertenster out of, and away from Weiss hand, then delivers a second, far harder kick to her gut, sending her sliding across the floor as her Aura shatters.
She is stopped by her head slamming into one of the many consoles.
She tries to blink, to stay awake and fight the darkness creeping in at the edges of her vision. She knows she is probably concussed and passing out is just about one of the worst things she can do right now. The second interloper strides over to her, sneering beneath his mask.
He raises one of his blades above her just as the Heiress falls unconscious.
So, that was a thing, heh.
Beta'd by MasterPrince713
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