In accordance with what had become something of a habit of hers throughout the eventful several hours that preceded their mission rescuing Oscar, Opal landed with almost textbook grace and efficiency. Her grapple arrow preserved her kneecaps from an untimely demise, and her confidence blossomed into a veritable conflagration of determination to see her mission become a success. Although her landing strategies often minimized the noise she made such that her arrival onto the scene of her missions was almost silent, it seemed that her allies adopted their own similar takes on the trend. Even normally bombastic, boisterous individuals like Nora and Tenebris landed without even the slightest indication of unconcerned excitement being conveyed through their typical mid-freefall comments.
While Jaune finished gliding down towards the ground with his upgraded shield and Nora carefully maneuvered her explosion-induced flight enabled by Magnhild back toward their landing zone, Opal slowly scanned across their surroundings. Iridescence had already assembled behind her, with an enormous concrete wall encompassing almost everything around them save for a single opening that separated the Atlesian tundra from their destination's courtyard. Beyond said courtyard was where, presumably, Oscar, Emerald, and her allies would be located – an old military base that hadn't seen use since the kingdom of Mantle became entirely subservient to their Atlesian overlords. Aside from a sealed-off garage connected to the main base on one side, the military base seemed more like a large, decrepit concrete cube than anything else.
Not that the place's appearance mattered that much, in the grand scheme of things. Beacon's architecture had once portrayed it as an almost fantastical, infallible bastion of excellence and bravery, yet had faltered under the weight of Grimm after Penny's untimely demise. Haven depicted itself as the ultimate venue that'd hone its students' minds, bodies, and spirits as close to perfection as possible, and yet its Headmaster had almost succeeded at causing its destruction.
Honestly, Opal almost thought that the simplicity of the military base made it more intimidating than if they were walking straight into an active Grimm hive. At least if that were the case, all parties involved would have some understanding of what to expect, headed in.
"It's quiet…" Opal uttered.
"That it is," Ren agreed, coming up beside her. "I'm afraid that this doesn't quite bode well for the probability of this mission being ended quickly, by any means."
"It's certainly a rather ominous atmosphere, we've dropped into…" Pyrrha agreed.
Jaune landed just in front of everyone. "Listen, let's not worry about that stuff too much. It doesn't matter if Emerald and everybody else she's working with have decided to make this place extra creepy by keeping quiet or not – what matters is that we get the job done."
Nora emerged from behind their teammates. "Hey, since when did you start acting like the calm, cool, and collected team leader?"
"When Oscar's life started depending on us," Jaune answered.
"Oh…" Nora nodded. "Still, don't make a habit of this, alright? Usually Opal's the team leader that always has the whole 'cool factor' going on, you know?"
"Nora does have a point," Ren agreed.
"Wait, since when was I always the 'cool' one?" Opal questioned.
"I believe it might've been since your performance at Beacon," Pyrrha supplied, providing the faunus a knowing look. "And then when you fought Arach Nid, and then Cinder, and then Tyrian during Robyn Hill's victory party…"
"And then leading the charge into this trap Emerald's probably invited us into," Lux finished. He crossed his arms, shaking his head whilst staring at the looming structure a short distance away from their position. "I really don't like this. If Emerald's drawing us out here for revenge, then delivering one of her targets right to her front doorstep seems… risky."
"If we didn't bring her with us, Iridescence would be down its leader and one of its most effective fighters," Aurora reminded. "And don't forget that if Opal and Yang weren't here, Emerald might very well kill Oscar the moment she saw we didn't bring her targets."
"Killing Oscar would lose her some pretty important leverage, though," Tenebris commented.
"Emerald would also lose any reason to waste her time fighting us," Jaune insightfully added, gesturing with his shield toward the entrance to the installation's interior. "She could just leave with the relic, and then this mission would be lost before it ever even started."
Opal provided her partner an apologetic shrug. "You know, they do make some good points…"
"Yeah, they do." Lux sighed, his grip on his quarterstaff tightening. "Which sucks, because now I don't really have much ground to stand on. I still don't like this, but… I guess we'll just have to watch each other's backs, in there. On our own teams, and maybe across teams, too."
"That would raise the probability of this mission's success rather tremendously," Ren mentioned, drawing his weapons from their holsters. "Shall we begin?"
"Since she's the one that Emerald's after, I think Opal should make that call." Jaune drew his sword before letting its tip point dip downwards. "How about it, then?"
"Yeah…" Opal closed her eyes. Breathing deeply through her nostrils, she wrapped her hand around her weapons' sheath, her heart preparing itself to endure whatever came next. "I think it's about time this mission begins, in earnest. Iridescence? JNPR? Let's head inside."
Silently, the two teams advanced toward the concrete structure, each step making the abandoned base appear as though it were growing larger than their initial landing had ever properly depicted it. Opal's stride didn't falter in the slightest, though, and she led her team and their allies onwards without allowing even a hint of fear to appear on her face. There wouldn't be any room for indecision, nor questioning one's probability of survival in the fight ahead.
Both Iridescence's and JNPR's members' body language betrayed their similar degrees of determination.
Tenebris left his weapon upon its magnetic seal, but the stalwart expression upon his face revealed he was more than ready for their battle to begin the moment they entered the military base. Aurora kept her assault rifle held close to her armored chest, breathing a soft sigh in a manner not unlike that which Opal had released previously. Lux was perhaps the most silent on their team, though Iridescence's leader needn't a sixth sense to understand that his gaze was undoubtedly switching between their imminent arena and his girlfriend's back.
From his position leading his own team beside Iridescence, Jaune exuded an almost unsettling degree of calm despite the tension that permeated the air around them. Ren's expression retained its habitual neutrality, while Nora didn't make any efforts to hide the grim smile she'd decided to give their destination. Pyrrha swallowed nervously as they stopped before the solid steel door that separated the Atlesian tundra from the coordinates they'd received less than an hour before this mission's being coordinated.
When her free hand connected with the door, Opal quietly hissed as the glacially frigid metal leeched away at her warmth even through her aura. Further inspired to enter the building sooner rather than later, one push against the metal signaled the true beginning of their mission. Opal entered first, Jaune second, and their respective teams followed close behind.
Immediately upon entering, instead of focusing on where the installation's singular active light would instinctively lead her eyes, Opal scanned the base in search of their rescue target. It didn't take long before she found Oscar tied firmly to an uncomfortable-looking chair, situated atop one of the place's catwalks and accompanied exclusively by one bodyguard.
As if their sense of timing had become intrinsically tied together, Opal and Jaune's forward advance slowly faded into oblivion. Their teammates stopped purposefully at their leaders' sides, muscles tensed and ready for whatever action-packed encounter awaited them.
"Tyrian Callows…" Opal muttered.
"And thus the prodigal Team Iridescence finally arrives!" Tyrian theatrically greeted, spreading his arms like wings. "Accompanied by the insignificant ants that comprise the historically ineffective Team JNPR of Beacon Academy. How very intimidating!"
"Just shut up already, Tyrian," another voice spat. "Your job is standing guard and making sure they don't free the farmhand, not running your mouth and annoying us to death."
All eyes drifted downwards from the catwalk in search of the feminine voice that had scolded one of Mistral's most infamous mass murderers without hesitation. Highlighted by the only artificial illumination the military base had to offer was none other than the chocolate-skinned female fighter Opal had dreaded another encounter with since Haven Academy. Below the particularly tall crate that doubled as her pedestal and simple seat stood two more masculine individuals, their arms crossed and expressions as standoffish as could be.
Emerald Sustrai. Hazel Rainart. Mercury Black.
Three among the once-unknown number of elite criminals and murderers who had forsaken all morality in place of allying themselves with Remnant's resident devil herself. Three individuals whose covert actions had killed thousands upon tens of thousands of individuals over the year that had passed between the start of Beacon's school year and tonight. Their first encounters with the villains felt like they occurred an entire lifetime ago, now.
More invested in premeditating however many ways she could imagine this meeting playing out in her head than acknowledging Emerald's presence, Opal remained silent. Iridescence, Jaune, and JNPR itself all followed her example, appearing unwilling to disturb the delicate situation they'd willingly walked into.
"Well then, it looks like you didn't bring Yang with you," Emerald observed. Her face briefly adopted a somewhat contemplative look before she simply let her head tilt off casually to one side. "Not that it's that much of an issue, really. Dealing with even one of you is more than enough for me."
Another few seconds passed, and Opal's mouth remained shut. 'Alright Opal, right now, our best option is to negotiate or otherwise avoid escalating the situation as best you can. We all need every ounce of our strength for what's coming after this mission.'
"I'm guessing that you would've killed Oscar if I hadn't come, huh?" Opal questioned simply.
"Something like that," Emerald admitted confidently. "It'd only be fair that someone paid for what you and Yang did to Cinder when we were at Haven. If you or she didn't come… then his life would've been a good start."
"Oscar's life isn't something you can place an arbitrary value upon, Emerald," Opal admonished. "He isn't some sacrifice for you to make onto the altar of your twisted sense of whatever justice is."
"My sense of justice?" Emerald scoffed. "That's rich, coming from the person who's murdered others, too. Your hands aren't clean, Opal. Arach Nid. Cinder. You're not a saint. You aren't the one that can pass judgment on my actions."
"And both those lives being lost will haunt me until the day I die." Opal paused, memories of those fateful battles flooding back into her mind. "Arach Nid left me with little choice but to kill him unless I wanted everyone with me to die. Cinder died because of her own hubris when we were fighting below the vault of the Spring Maiden. Neither time did I want to be the reason that they lost their lives."
"You're lying!" Emerald shouted. "All you're trying to do right now is cover your bloodlust and pretend that you're somehow on the right side of history, here. If you really didn't want Cinder to die, then she would've still been standing here with us right now."
Inwardly, Opal suppressed the urge to sigh in exasperation. It was becoming increasingly obvious that there wouldn't be any getting through to Emerald anytime soon, and the only thing further conversation would succeed at accomplishing was raising the Fall Maiden's ire. There weren't many options left for her to take before this encounter devolved into physical conflict.
"Emerald, I don't want any more blood being spilled," Opal explained. "I don't know if anything could ever make up for your loss, but I'm politely asking that you return both Oscar and the relic to our custody immediately."
For the briefest of moments, Emerald's eyes flickered with genuine magical fire. Slowly and methodically, she rose into a standing position atop her crate and stared menacingly down upon the feline faunus. "That's not happening. Not while I'm still standing, and Cinder's death hasn't been avenged!"
From his position beside Opal, Lux transitioned his quarterstaff into its rifle configuration and held it close against his chest in anticipation of their imminent battle. "Unless you're planning to include Tyrian and his still-broken aura into the mix, you're outnumbered. Badly."
"And that would be where yours truly factors into things."
From his position previously hidden behind Emerald's crate, yet another figure emerged into the proverbial spotlight. Despite being slightly shorter than Hazel, the newcomer's height made him effectively tower over Mercury as he passed the shorter assassin by. His hazel eyes gleamed with unknown intent, an unlit cigar danced between his fingers, and a Komodo dragon tail trailing on the ground behind him distinguished him as Emerald's only other faunus ally.
It took hardly ten seconds before Opal, Aurora, and their allied fighters from Mistral identified the man. It was almost everything Opal could do to avoid releasing an uneasy gasp of surprise, although thankfully, Aurora's audible shock was barely even registered in her sensitive ears.
"That's…" Aurora uttered.
"Liumang Bakuhatsu, at your service!" Liumang provided a mildly theatric bow to his adversaries, an intimidating smirk appearing upon his lips as he exited the motion. "Or rather, my own service, if we're being brutally honest with all this."
"Did you need to make a dramatic entrance like that…?" Emerald questioned.
"If your definition of what classifies as a 'dramatic entrance' includes slowly walking out from behind a wooden crate, then I'm afraid there's quite literally no hope for you," Liumang retorted with no small amount of amusement. "You should've seen me during my organization's height – those were the days I made some real showy entrances."
"Alright, his name's Liumang," Tenebris stated, cracking his knuckles. "And he apparently ran some sort of organization at some point. Does anyone know what he's talking about?"
"First time I'm hearing about him," Lux said, warily eying the stranger up.
"Liumang Bakuhatsu used to lead a criminal cartel named after himself in Mistral," Opal explained, never once taking her eyes off the man. "His organization fell out of fashion shortly after Aurora and I left for Beacon, but Liumang himself was never caught. He's one of the kingdom's most wanted criminals of all time."
"And the same one whose cartel attacked our clans before the school year started," Aurora added, her grip on Sapphire tightening. "Liumang's almost completely the reason we didn't attend Haven Academy when we were old enough to begin training to become Huntresses. Our parents didn't want us living in the kingdom where we'd both still be within his reach."
"Looks like the two heiresses have working memories, after all," Liumang snarked. He stashed away his cigar within his jacket, then focused his gaze upon the female fighters in question. "I never forgot about how you two messed with my operations before the cartel started getting picked apart by the authorities. It just so happens that this right here's just the perfect job opportunity to make sure you two little shits don't get away with what you did, back then."
"We were in Mistral for over an entire month before we left for Atlas," Aurora recalled. "Why not attack us then?"
"Because there's such a thing as knowing when the time's right to strike, kiddo," Liumang said condescendingly. "Sustrai has dibs on Malachite, but boy I can't wait to vent my frustrations out on you, Borealis… it'll be nice and cathartic."
"Over my dead body," Tenebris growled.
"Is that so?" Liumang asked. "Well, it's your lucky night, then, because right now, that is extremely easily arranged!"
"Calm down, Tenebris," Aurora gently urged. "Why ally with Emerald, though? She's obviously just using you as fodder for her personal revenge quest."
Liumang shrugged casually. "Because my hideout blew up, it's fun, and revenge is just one of those things that's so indescribably sweet whenever you achieve it. Besides, I can't have you messing with my interests and easily getting away with it, y'know? It'd set a pretty damn awful precedent for my cartel whenever it makes its comeback. I'm sure you understand."
"This conflict was an inevitability for everyone involved," Hazel stated, his hulking arms crossed over his barrel chest. "Whether we find ourselves here because we seek petty revenge or not, the fact remains that all of you – including RWBY – have allied yourselves with the same man who has effectively murdered thousands of misguided children over his lifetimes."
"That's ironic, considering who you've been working for all this time," Jaune retorted. "Ozpin? Ozma? Whatever you want to call him, he's saved more lives than your boss ever has. You can't tell anyone that you're the heroes, in all this."
"You might accuse us of amorality, Jaune, but Salem doesn't wish for the complete annihilation of civilization all across Remnant," Hazel calmly argued. "All Salem wants is to end the cycle of violence that she's seen being carried on for millennia, now. That same cycle being perpetuated almost exclusively by your 'ally,' Ozpin."
"If she truly wished to achieve some sort of worldwide peace, she would know that genocide isn't the answer," Pyrrha stressed.
"Heh, and there these guys go again with preaching their philosophical bullshit," Mercury halfheartedly complained, hooking his thumbs into his pockets. "Every single time we run into you guys, it's the same thing. You always talk about how sunshine-and-roses your side is while we're the ones who're Remnant's resident supervillains. Well, guess what? This entire world isn't worth the trouble; trust me, I know that from experience."
"You're wrong," Nora contested. "Ren and I lived on the streets of towns all across Mistral when we were younger, we know that the world can look like it doesn't care sometimes, but we know that there are people out there that do care. People who are worth saving."
"Nora's right," Ren agreed, standing taller beside his partner. "One need only look so far as the adoptive family of ours that stands before you now, to see the evidence behind these claims. Remnant itself and its peoples are well worth fighting for, despite their flaws."
"Yeah, right," Mercury scoffed, shaking his head. "It looks like you two are just another pair of idiots who think 'goodness' is even a real thing. It's about time someone gave you two a reality check, here."
"I'm growing rather tired of all this constant prelude…!" Tyrian stressed. "Honestly, there's a difference between appropriate theatrics and simply poor timing, and all of you have long since crossed that line!"
In the moment that followed, neither Opal nor Emerald immediately responded to the scorpion faunus. Emerald's disgusted gaze fell upon the complete group her personal adversary had brought with her, while Opal herself glanced elsewhere. Oscar couldn't move because of his binds nor speak on account of his gag, but what he could do was throw Opal a pleading look, praying for both her safety and his own salvation. Somewhat peculiar though it might've been, Opal didn't question why the Relic of Knowledge remained upon his belt.
"You know what?" Opal began, returning her attention to the criminal quartet's leader. "I think that Tyrian might be right, this time. Negotiations didn't lead us anywhere."
"That we can agree upon," Emerald stated, drawing her pistols. "Liumang? Mercury? Hazel? Don't hold anything back when this fight starts."
"Like I even would if you ordered me to," Liumang said.
"Whoever becomes my opponent won't outlast me," Hazel stated.
"And whoever becomes mine are gonna find some new holes in their bodies really quick," Mercury finished.
Emerald and her allies sank into action-ready positions, but Opal remained undeterred. Her other hand wrapped itself around the hilt of her katana in anticipation of whenever she'd unleash her first iaijutsu-inspired strike. Iridescence and JNPR needn't be verbally commanded to ready their weapons (or in Tenebris' case, mainly his fists) and prepare themselves for what would become their most intense conflict yet.
Another brief time passed where all activity inside the abandoned base boiled down to several almost inaudible breaths being taken. It was then that floodgates opened, and almost a dizzying number of actions happened simultaneously.
Fully taking advantage of her immense mobility, Aurora managed to wrap her cables around a pair of vertical support beams and launch herself into the fray almost instantly. Liumang inhaled deeply through his nostrils while Tenebris chased after his teammate to support her through the fight ahead. Aurora aimed her assault rifle, but her opponent was faster.
A distinctly sharp whistle escaped Liumang lips, throwing a condensed beam of translucent energy out onto the battlefield. It released two audible, innocuous cracks before both Aurora and Opal realized what was coming next, and the former just barely reeled herself towards safety before Liumang semblance-induced explosion erupted upon the spot she'd just been.
Somewhat similarly to Aurora, Mercury wasted little time before sending himself hurtling forward, either. One heavy bullet shooting from his prosthetic foot propelled him on an exact collision course with both Ren and Nora, though it was the latter reacted to the anticipated assault first. Nora swung her hammer to intercept Mercury's foot, though the silver-haired assassin's attack proved stronger, successfully stunning his opponent for his efforts.
Mercury's follow-up kick never connected, though, with the man himself being forced to turn the attack that would've otherwise connected with Nora's skull into a bullet-boosted escape from StormFlower's bayonets when Ren dashed forward to his partner's aid. The ensuing staredown that occurred between the trio could've melted iron.
Having chosen his targets in Mistral's invincible girl and her partner, Hazel marched forward with such calm composure that his movements seemed almost mechanical in nature. Their shields raised, Jaune and Pyrrha exchanged an unreadable look before nodding at one another and charging toward their opponent. Unlike their teammates, they would be the ones who made the first move against the veritable living colossus that Hazel really was.
Three brutal battles blossomed over the seconds that followed, which left Emerald, Lux, and Opal the only combatants whose engagement hadn't yet been confirmed. It was after another second of coldly staring down at Iridescence's faunus fighters that Emerald's eyes wreathed themselves in magical fire once more. Upon the Maiden crouching down and creating fire that condensed itself beneath her feet, Opal dared think that with her partner present, she would be prepared for anything Emerald threw her way.
Over the many minutes of intense combat that followed, several things proved that particular notion as incredibly incorrect.
Emerald unleashed the flames from their invisible binds beneath her feet, sending herself rocketing toward the singular target of her bloodlust almost master than the eye could follow. Her arms stretched out behind, telegraphing the attack that would soon follow, and Opal took advantage of the opening that unwise decision gave her without hesitation. Her katana was unsheathed into a blisteringly swift slash that connected with Emerald's chest-
Only for the Fall Maiden to immediately vanish into thin air.
Yet Opal wouldn't be given enough time to question her opponent's disappearance, as her faunus ears twitched around in the direction of a disturbance behind her. Whirling around and sheathing her weapon again in anticipation of another strike, Opal only caught a glimpse of what awaited her moments too late to counter. Emerald spun through the air with her sickles trailing behind her, a lethal look in her eyes that informed that she was more than eager to rake her weapons across Opal's face the instant she had the chance.
Fortunately, Opal wasn't fighting this battle by herself.
His timely interference further accelerated by a brief burst of speed brought about by his semblance, Lux committed two actions in brutally quick succession. He worked with his momentum to prepare a whirlwind-speed kick into Emerald's elbow and fired off a round from his rifle straight into the woman's chest. Once again, the Fall Maiden's form briefly turned hazy, and her physical form faded into oblivion an instant later.
From the moment her partner landed behind her, the faunus fighters shared a look of realization between themselves. Understanding each other's thoughts like second nature, they pressed themselves back-to-back in preparation for whatever illusions came their way next.
"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Lux asked. Firing once through another 'Emerald' as she dashed toward them revealed the assailant as yet another fast-vanishing illusion.
"If what you're thinking is that Emerald becoming the Fall Maiden must've augmented her semblance, somehow…" Opal interrupted herself to destroy another illusion, its immaterial sickles entirely unable to block the brutal slash that almost decapitated the harmless target before it disappeared. "Then yes, we're thinking the same thing."
"Yeah, that's pretty much it," Lux confirmed. "Emerald wouldn't be using her semblance this liberally otherwise, especially against multiple people. Remember what happened when she used it against just a few of us all at once?"
"Right, she immediately went unconscious," Opal recalled, bisecting yet another illusion before she could even sheathe her weapon another time. "But this isn't her fighting seriously, or else she'd just attack us while we're busy with her illusions. She must be looking for an opportunity."
"Oh, what made you think that!?"
Exactly the same as when she'd initiatory rocketed toward her opponents, Emerald propelled herself forward via explosive jets of flame, with the only alteration being her warpath directed her straight downwards from the ceiling rather than the crate she'd once stood upon. Effectively divebombing her opponents, additional flames gathered around her readied sickles, forcing Lux and Opal to jump away from one another.
Emerald's landing was accompanied by a plentiful flume of fire and smog expanding in all directions. Blasting himself overtop the dangerously hot smokescreen, Lux landed beside Opal just in time for them both to witness what came next. Without warning, a pair of flaming whips arced outward from within the haze, prompting the faunus fighters to hastily retreat even closer to the door they'd originally entered through to escape the immense heat.
"If you want to fight, Emerald, then quit hiding like a coward!" Lux barked.
One quick burst from his semblance blasted away the smokescreen with ease, although Emerald's magically-born whips remained undisturbed. Her flaming whips slowly fading away and disappearing entirely where they began at the tips of her sickles, Emerald rose from her low crouch on the ground, glaring daggers at her feline faunus foe all the while.
"You really are in a hurry to get yourselves killed, huh?" Emerald commented. "Still, it looks like you were right about one thing, Lux – my usual tricks aren't gonna work on either of you, anymore. You've already seen my semblance in action, which means you can probably work around it no matter what I come up with mid-fight. Unfortunately for you… I don't really need it. I have my wits, skills, and the powers Cinder gave me. That's all I'll need to kill you, your girlfriend, Yang, and everyone else!"
All it took was simply pointing a sickle toward her opponents, and an enormous fireball swelled into reality that made those created even by fully-grown Sphinx seem harmless by comparison. It surged toward the two faunus as though launched from an ancient cannon, illuminating Lux and Opal both in its impending orange glow.
"Incoming!" Opal declared.
"Yep, I definitely see that!" Lux shouted back.
Without time to spare, the faunus fighters were forced into leaping away from one another to avoid the incoming attack. While the fireball burning through thick concrete expanded the abandoned installation's entryway several times over before crashing harmlessly out into the arctic tundra, Opal focused her attention exclusively upon her adversary as she closed the gap between them.
Substantially unlike her previous illusions, the palpable intent hidden behind Emerald's eyes informed her she was dealing with the woman herself rather than another hallucination. Opal unsheathed her weapon just in time to block Emerald's sickles before they slammed into her shoulders, and the pair pressed against each other with all their might, both unwilling to surrender even an inch of space.
"Emerald, whatever you're thinking this revenge quest of yours will accomplish, it won't bring Cinder back!" Opal asserted.
Her reactions saving her from an intimate encounter with her opponent's knee as it shot up toward her stomach, Emerald flipped away from melee range. From the same second Thief's Respite completed its transformation into its pistol configuration, Emerald landed upon her knee and opened fire with an unrelenting storm of bullets.
"Do you seriously think I don't know that!?" Emerald barked back, scowling deeply as her opponent successfully deflected every bullet in quick succession. "This isn't about somehow bringing her back to life! This is about giving you exactly what you deserve!"
This time, Emerald's magical abilities found their use in another form besides brutish flames. Small pillars assisted the Fall Maiden in switching from a kneeling position into a full sprint, and those same pillars then shot themselves ahead of their magical mistress like missiles.
Forced into using her semblance for the first time, Opal briefly amplified herself just enough to shred the incoming pillars as Emerald initiated their second melee engagement. When the Fall Maiden then lashed out with her sickles in a furious flurry of sweeping strikes, Opal matched her beat-for-beat. Their bodies blurred with their sheer speed, yet Opal's katana met Emerald's every attack before her curved blades could even successfully graze her.
Just when the faunus began considering whether she should engage her semblance again to earn some sort of advantage, Emerald's actions broke their stalemate first. Inhaling deeply, an unnatural orange glow muffled by the Fall Maiden's flesh manifested within her cheeks. Upon realizing what was coming next, Opal disengaged from their melee by leaping backward, only to find herself chased by the unrelenting plume of fire Emerald let loose from within her lips.
Having rendered herself airborne to escape her opponent, Opal braced herself for flesh-searing heat to completely envelop her.
Until an impressively large column of arctic air intercepted the Maiden's magical flames, perfectly nullifying them just moments before they would've licked at Opal's clothes. Upon landing, she discovered the source of the phenomena standing right beside her at the recently expanded entrance of the military base.
"Thanks for watching my back, Lux," Opal thanked.
"Don't mention it," Lux dismissed, effectively shrugging with his rifle. "Just doing what anyone on Iridescence would've done for their leader."
"I think you meant what any lovestruck idiot would do for their girlfriend," Emerald corrected, her scowl deepening further. "Even if you didn't help kill Cinder yourself, if you keep trying to defend Opal… then you'll just become another name on my list."
"Then that's fine by me," Lux said without missing a beat. "Unlike you, I still have some humanity left inside me. I'm fighting to protect the people whose lives you are throwing into jeopardy because you're too brainwashed to understand why Cinder died at Haven."
"Brainwashed?" Emerald echoed harshly. "Don't pretend like I don't have agency, Lux. This isn't about carrying out Cinder's orders; right now, this is about me getting my revenge."
"Revenge for what?" Lux retorted. "Opal defending herself against a national-scale terrorist who was trying to destroy an entire gods-damned Huntsman Academy?!"
Emerald's nostrils flared. Sheathing her weapons, the magical flames around her eyes blazed even more brightly than before, and newfound flames manifested all around her and began condensing themselves into deceptively small spheres within her hands. What with how intense the heat became even from their respectable distance away from the Maiden, Opal wondered how Emerald wasn't burning herself right now.
"Wanna know what this is revenge for, you idiots!?" Emerald shouted. "Then here it is! This is revenge for taking away the first person that I could call family! The first person who ever actually cared about me!"
Their opponent didn't wait another instant. Emerald threw her hands forward with her palms outstretched, unleashing two gargantuan geysers of bright flames that practically thawed out the military base the same breath it was cast forth. Falling back upon faith and trust in one another's abilities earned over months, Lux and Opal avoided the oncoming assault relying only upon their respective skillsets.
When the time came that she needed to dodge, Opal pooled her semblance into her legs and launched herself upwards, latching onto a vertical support strut before launching herself back into the fray.
When the time came that he needed to dodge, Lux made the most of his impressive semblance and casually blasted himself into the air. Upon catching a glimpse of what his girlfriend was doing, another conservative use propelled him toward Emerald too, his rifle transforming back into its quarterstaff configuration.
Upon their arrival, neither faunus fighter gave Emerald the chance to prepare another magical attack. Lux lashed out with a furious flurry of jabs while Opal amplified her speed enough that the salvo of slashes she released left visible trails in the air around her. To her tremendous credit, despite being outnumbered and outranged by her opponents' melee weapons, Emerald either blocked or dodged their strikes at almost every turn.
Almost.
"Emerald, if you think Cinder really cared about you, don't delude yourself!" Opal urged, and another slash forced Emerald into a desperate roll backward and away from the combined assault, her aura flaring angrily. "You were her tool! You were her last resort to make sure she could win, even if she died! Why stay loyal to the memory of someone who never once put you as a priority over anything else?"
The inheritor of the previous Fall Maiden's will didn't immediately respond; instead, she gripped her head and unleashed a pained noise from somewhere deep within her chest. When Emerald opened her eyes again, tears spilled down her cheeks, and an eerily familiar death glare latched directly onto Opal's gaze.
"Shut up…" Emerald whispered.
Encapsulated within that singular look was the same mix of anguish, depression, borderline insanity, and overwhelming rage that Emerald had thrown Opal's way before disappearing at Haven. Instead of taking advantage of the girl leaving herself exposed, Opal hesitated, and Lux remained at her side.
That hesitation provided the only opening Emerald needed.
"Shut up shut up shut up!" she screamed.
Neither Opal nor Lux noticed the flames beneath her feet until she'd exploded back into motion, furious tears glistening under the moonlight as they fell behind her. Exceptional reaction times didn't prevent Opal from being tackled by her opponent nor save her from being stunned by the impact. Emerald's momentum only grew, and one of her arms seemingly ignited.
Besides the military base's interior giving rise to its frigid courtyard, the last thing Opal fully recognized before Emerald's flaming fist slammed her down into the earth was Lux recklessly sprinting outside to offer his assistance once again.
As his time combating Mistral's most annoying goodie-goodie orphans progressed further, Mercury found himself and his opponents' battle bringing them ever closer toward the left side of the abandoned military base. On paper, it would've seemed like Ren and Nora were pushing him back and asserting their superiority over the assassin. Unfortunately for the b-list loving couple, this wasn't the case whatsoever; rather, their fight was being masterfully maneuvered by Mercury himself to lead his opponents where he would possess an advantage. Whether they realized it or not, only moments after they reached the leftmost portion of the base, Mercury effortlessly turned the tide in his favor.
Neither Ren nor Nora were slouches insofar as mobility was concerned, but with vertical support struts, metal pillars propping up the catwalk, and plentiful empty cargo containers around their slice of the battlefield, Mercury's mobility style left him feeling right at home. Unless the pair miraculously mastered parkour over the next five minutes and Mercury fought sloppily, neither of his opponents would be able to even obtain a glancing blow upon him.
And if there was one thing he wasn't, it was an accidentally sloppy fighter – all necessary proof behind that claim laid in the metaphorical pudding that was Mercury's performance against the Mistral-born pair, now.
Another shot being fired into the support strut behind him made the metal ring like a bell while Mercury himself flew at Nora, his leg spinning around in to deliver a devastating axe kick down onto her skull. As anticipated, the girl blocked the attack with her hammer's massive head, but Mercury carried his momentum forward and simply spun around with his other leg to complete his original attack-
Only for that attack to be instantly transitioned into another shot from his prosthetic foot that sent him flying backward when Ren came charging in with a defensive slash with his weapons' twin blades. That single breath Mercury spent skidding along the ground to stop himself before deciding upon his next action proved all the opportunity Nora needed, though. One button being pressed along Magnhild's shaft sent electricity coursing through her veins, and the vengeful Valkyrie suddenly appeared right before her adversary.
But even with her semblance boosting her speed, her fighting style was painfully predictable.
"You're pretty fast-" Mercury thrusting a push-kick forward to intercept Nora's latest hammer swing effectively cut himself off. Although pushed back some few feet, eventually, his prosthetic leg defense weathered through most of the temporary boost Nora's semblance earned her. "But you really suck at taking advantage of your semblance. I'm pretty sure I could block some of these attacks of yours with my eyes closed."
"Oh, yeah?" Nora growled, pressing herself further against her weapon to try and push him off-balance. "Well all it'll take is one good hit and you're going down!"
"Pfft. Like that'll ever happen," Mercury mocked.
Without even surrendering his continued block against the girl, Mercury fired downwards with his other prosthetic. Effectively utilizing Nora's hammer as a foothold and taking advantage of how suddenly off-balance she was now that Mercury was entirely airborne, that same prosthetic crashed into her temple, sending her flying into a nearby cargo container. Upon his landing on the ground again, he wasn't given even a moment to relish in that simple victory.
His expression intensified in the aftermath of seeing his partner punished for her strategic oversight, Ren re-engaged Mercury. The assassin dodged the flurry of bullets that came out from StormFlower's barrels with a showy backflip and proceeded to effectively dance around Ren's bayonets with minimal effort whilst looking for an opening for another counterattack.
"If your girlfriend wasn't faster than me, you sure aren't gonna be either, guy," Mercury admonished tiredly. "Just give up and return to wherever you came from – you aren't hitting me anytime soon by flailing around with those stupid bayonets."
"I would argue against that assertion."
Ren had spoken calmly, but the look on his characteristically neutral face intensified as he began sprucing brief bursts of bullets randomly in between his graceful swings. Inspired into taking his opposition more seriously, Mercury's brow furrowed with the concentration it required to ensure his safety more effectively against the specialist's assault.
"Is that right?" Mercury asked. "And why's that, exactly?"
"Because a lifetime of discipline and self-control can always triumph over unbridled talent," Ren calmly argued. "Unrefined and untested by genuine difficulties, even prodigious fighters such as yourself could fall apart once faced with an opponent – or opponents – who can match them."
'He thinks I'm unrefined? This guy doesn't know anything about me!'
Having successfully earned his enemy's disdain, Ren's argumentation was rewarded with an unexpected front kick into his abdomen. Much to the man's credit, Ren released little more than an uncomfortable huff from his lungs and rolled away with the attack to minimize the damage it dealt – until Mercury followed-up the kick with a gunshot from his prosthetic, anyways.
Practically reducing the container she'd crashed into to scrap metal with an explosion that sent her sailing forward, Nora caught her boyfriend midflight. Successfully disentangling themselves whilst still midair, they both landed firmly on the ground some short distance before Mercury, both their bodies and weapons prepared for about bout with the assassin.
"Thanks for the assistance, Nora," Ren said.
"Not a problem, Ren," Nora responded. "I know you would've done the same for me."
"Which offers my previous point additional credibility," Ren said, looking more firmly at his opponent again. "Nora coming in and rescuing me midflight proves that despite our origins, her discipline has earned her the right to fight alongside self-proclaimed prodigies like yourself."
"There you go again with even more crappy logic!" Mercury growled. "You wanna know something, you idiots? When I was training to become the assassin I am right now, I had tons more self-control and discipline than anyone, and guess what that got me?! Nothing!"
Sufficiently angered by the assertion, Nora didn't hesitate before transforming her weapon into its grenade launcher form. Four explosive ordinances were thrown forward in rapid succession, and Mercury hardly needed superhuman reaction times to either avoid or counter each attack.
The first grenade flew harmlessly upon him simply sidestepping the ordinance.
The second and third were avoided with slightly more difficulty, with the assassin ducking underneath the second only to flip sideways into the air such that the second sailed between his chest and the decrepit concrete beneath him.
The fourth detonated halfway between himself and the dynamic duo via his prosthetic firing an otherwise aimless bullet directly into its path. When the pink smoke cast outwards by the small explosion slowly dispersed, Mercury found himself smirk arrogantly at his opponents.
"Wanna try that again?" he mocked.
"You're a liar!" Nora claimed.
"Oh really?" Mercury asked, feigning surprise. "You and your boyfriend over there are the ones that're pretending that there's even one person on Remnant that's actually worth saving, and I'm the liar? You're delusional."
"Maintaining an active belief in humanity's abilities for compassion is incredibly preferable to an involvement with utter nihilism," Ren firmly asserted. "Whereas our beliefs might become vindicated throughout our lifetimes, nihilism provides its believers justification for detaching themselves from humanity. Detaching themselves from morality itself."
"And what's wrong with that?" Mercury shook his head. "You guys really don't know anything about me, huh?"
"It's not like we ever had the opportunity to know anything about you before Beacon fell," Nora responded accusingly.
"Then let me rephrase the question," Mercury commented annoyedly. "What do you idiots even think you know about me?"
Perhaps suspicious of the question, Ren narrowed his eyes, but his voice retained its typical neutrality. "Insofar as anybody among our team and our allies are aware, you're simply the son of an infamous assassin who based their operations somewhere out in the Valean wilderness where nobody could find him. Until his sudden disappearance, he was the single worst scourge the continent of Sanus had ever known."
"Then it looks like becoming a remorseless killer runs in the family, then," Nora claimed spitefully. "You could've walked away from that life! But instead, you just let yourself become another soldier that Salem will exploit until you aren't useful anymore."
Surprising even himself, Mercury didn't sneer, shout, scream, or rush into another flurry of combat at the accusation, no – he laughed. Unlike anything he'd ever heard emerge from his throat before, the scornful rumbling that shook his chest, involuntarily tilted his face toward the ceiling until it subsided what felt like an entire minute later. Nora and Ren had both cautiously taken another step backward when he looked upon them again, and their expressions easily betrayed their newfound wariness of him.
"Run away?" Mercury echoed. "Believe me, I wished I could've done something like that before everything in my life turned into complete garbage."
"What do you mean…?" Nora questioned cautiously.
"Okay, lemme give you a hint." Mercury provided the pair his darkest smile. "Why haven't I used my semblance once ever since you guys realized I wasn't some random student playing around in the Vytal Tournament?"
"I dislike where this is headed…" Ren said nervously.
"Oh, is that the case? Then congrats, you're on the right track!" Mercury praised mockingly. "Here's a little-known fact among goodie-two-shoes like you idiots as a reward. My father could steal semblances."
"That's… that shouldn't be possible," Ren said.
"It shouldn't have been, but it was. Every law enforcement agent kept it a secret from the people to prevent a panic, but he could do it," Mercury explained frustratedly. "Even if he couldn't use them himself, my father could take peoples' semblances away and make them that much easier to kill. Wanna guess what happened to me?"
Nora hunched over slightly, almost hiding behind her weapon as the implications behind his words sank into her mind. "That's… that's wrong."
"Oh, you think so? We haven't even hit the best part yet!" Mercury shifted his attention back towards Ren, who shifted uncomfortably beneath the assassin's gaze. "You think I was born strong? Well, I wasn't. I was my father's mistake, the kid who killed his wife just by being born, and the worst fighter imaginable even months into my training. Marcus Black beat me daily, forcing me to become strong… so I became strong."
No buildup betrayed his actions upon his sentence's conclusion. In the blink of an eye, Mercury had launched himself forward faster than ever before, arriving between his two opponents and performing a split-kick that only by some unknowable miracle the pair managed to block before it connected. Mercury shot from his foot directly into Magnhild's shaft to stun Nora and buy himself some time to pressure Ren away from his partner – the plan worked perfectly.
Unable to hold his ground against the force added onto Mercury's initial attack by the assassin's aforementioned additional kick, Ren doubled back some few feet to provide himself some space to defend himself. Mercury didn't give Ren even an instant to recover his breath, though, and darted forward with such unnatural speed that his enemy didn't even realize their battle had continued until his legs were already swept out from under him. Using every ounce of his prosthetically-enhanced strength, Mercury kicked off a nearby container and prepared an axe kick that'd smash through Ren's aura and completely crush his windpipe.
But having recovered from the assassin's secondary kick, another burst of electricity allowed Nora to move even faster than that. Her intervention appeared in the form of another heroic swing that forced Mercury into aborting his axe kick, instead converting the momentum into a downwards shot that sent him flying off to the side. Another launch later and he'd landed atop another cargo container, the assassin's anger only growing with time.
"That didn't do anything, though!" Mercury declared, watching with complete contempt as Nora helped her boyfriend back onto his feet. "All that discipline and self-control I gained from not just killing the bastard while he slept… or even fighting back when he beat me!"
They didn't give him even another instant before they committed to their counterattack. Ren sprung from the ground and onto the container Mercury found himself, smoothly transitioning into another dizzyingly graceful round of blade-dancing with his bayonets. Being considerably occupied by the conscious efforts it took to avoid his opponent's attacks, Mercury only found himself with the option to retreat some distance further backward once Nora threw herself and her semblance-augmented swings into the fray.
Mercury shot himself into a backflip to avoid the pincer maneuver that was an overhead strike from StormFlower's bayonets and Magnhild's hammer configuration. Simultaneously forcing the pair to abort their assault and sending himself flying back towards relative safety, Mercury shot with both his legs into his adversaries' chests. At that moment, two things occurred.
Ren and Nora both blocked the attacks with surprising speed, and Mercury himself sailed backward. More cargo containers neatly pressed up against the one he'd been fighting atop mere seconds prior, effectively forming an above-ground arena built exclusively from sheet metal for their battle to continue upon.
Even further, that invisible furious feeling that'd been building this entire time inside his heart swelled with additional strength. The dynamic duo might've been pushing him back, but only because he wasn't focused exclusively on killing them.
Once Mercury started fighting seriously, however, nobody could withstand his skills. They wouldn't become the trendsetting exception.
"Wanna know what my semblance turned out to be!?" he shouted.
Unlike previously, Ren and Nora didn't pressure their opponent further. Their faces contorted in what could only be described as remorseful reluctance to assail him while his heart remained so completely exposed. Their sympathy made him feel sick.
"My semblance allowed me to fly!" Mercury yelled, his voice growing hoarse under the intensity of his sheer emotion, and a twisted smile across his face. "Wings manifested around my feet made from my own aura, I was completely free! I could've gone anywhere, anytime! I could've maybe even run away! But guess what happened!?"
Eyes widening with fear, Nora hastily transformed her weapon into its grenade launcher form and immediately fired another grenade at him. Hardly paying attention to the attack, Mercury's body moved on instinct, immediately kicking the ordinance aside such that the ensuing explosion hardly even rustled his hair.
'She's afraid, huh? Good.'
"Marcus Black took that away from me, too!" Mercury continued, regaining only the barest fraction of his previous self-control. "The second he understood I'd become stronger than he could ever be, that his failure wouldn't stay his stupid tool, he removed my semblance."
"Why would someone do that to their own child…?" Nora trembled.
"Don't know," Mercury answered almost casually. "Why would they amputate them against their will?"
In what could've possibly been the first time since his commitment to stoicism manifested within his soul, Ren's expression dropped. His horrified expression might've conveyed his reaction better than his words ever could, but his lips released a single-worded question, nonetheless.
"What…?"
"Here's the real kicker about my father's semblance – he was getting sloppier with it as time went on. People's semblances were coming back to them because he couldn't constantly focus on holding them all… and he was afraid I'd get mine back. His solution? Drug me. Amputate me. Give me prosthetics." Mercury stared scornfully down at his mechanical legs, and it was everything he could to do keep himself from going berserk. "The same second I could walk and fight like normal again, I murdered that piece of trash for what he did, but my semblance still didn't come back. Without normal legs, it couldn't come back."
Ren recovered his composure first. "For what happened to you, Mercury, I provide my sincerest condolences, but-"
"You think I want your gods-damned sympathy!? Shut up, already!" Mercury practically screamed. "Now do you understand why morality is bullshit? I never did anything wrong! I always followed orders, never fought back, but this still happened to me! You could've shut your mouths and fought me normally, but you just had to go ahead and make this personal! Now I'll show you exactly what happens when you pretend taking the high ground will magically solve all your problems!"
Practically breaking the sound barrier by pushing his prosthetics to their limits, Mercury moved like the swiftest Grimm imaginable. One armored boot crashed into Ren's chest while the other swept underneath Nora's feet, and Mercury carried his momentum into another kick that cracked directly into the side of his male opponent's skull.
Nora shocked herself with enough electricity that'd enable her to bench-press a Megoliath, but Mercury still dodged her counterattack of a swing with ease, kicking Magnhild straight out from her hands and shooting from his boot into her stomach all in a single motion.
Although Nora went flying within reaching distance of her weapon, and Ren recovered fast enough to protect his girlfriend if the need arose, Mercury could read the room perfectly. His first serious assault had been an absolute victory, which meant that the close-knit duo before him could only delay their loss. Victory was an impossibility for them, now.
"Say whatever prayers you want, because even though you're good at covering each other's backs…" Mercury bounced on his mechanical feet, loose, limber, and ready to re-engage at lightning-speed. "You two turned tonight into the last night you're ever gonna see."
Whereas everyone else's battles had silently escorted them almost everywhere that could've conceivably served as a battleground in the abandoned military base, Jaune slowly discerned his endeavor was unlike most. Fighting alongside his girlfriend against Hazel, their struggles had brought them closer to Emerald's original perch before their base-spanning conflict's true beginnings. Although Hazel had initially allowed himself to be pushed back, Jaune's intuition informed him well that this was merely the massive man reading the room and understanding what improvements his opponents had made since their last meeting at Haven.
In truth, Jaune wasn't sure if he should've been thankful for the temporary mercy or insulted that Hazel wasn't taking them seriously, to begin with, but eventually settled on cautious acceptance. Even if Hazel had been using his lackluster commitment to their fight to better read into his and Pyrrha's capabilities, this didn't mean Jaune couldn't discover some useful truths about their halfhearted battle's inner workings, too.
One distinctly important truth was that between himself and his partner, neither of them were being quite pushed to their absolute limits by merit of simply landing Hazel as their adversary. Considering the man was about as close to the human version of a Megoliath as they came, Jaune realized this was perhaps the best-case scenario of an initial scuffle he could've hoped for. That having been said…
There was no substantial justification within his mind that their beginner's luck would last forever. Their armor, auras, and shields would defend them well if and when the time came that they endured some of Hazel's attacks, but none of that accounted for the fact Hazel hadn't even bothered utilizing his semblance, yet.
'Focus! Now's not the time to worry about that! Thinking ahead is great, but only if you know you won't get yourself killed in the process; right now, focus on Hazel!'
In the immediate second that followed, Jaune would thank himself for the advice.
As Hazel threw his enormous arm forward like an organic battering ram, Jaune raised his shield in his defense. The criminal's strike augmented in strength by his muscle mass and weight combined, Jaune grunted with immense exertion as he stubbornly fought to maintain his position until his backup arrived to attack on his behalf.
And attack they did.
Immediately after a smaller shield spontaneously sailed straight into the living titan's forehead, Pyrrha came sprinting onto the scene to take advantage of the opening she'd earned herself. Jumping mightily into the air, she attempted an efficient slash with her xiphos across Hazel's shoulder only for the man himself to catch the blade midair with a massive hand. Hazel withdrew his fist from exerting its pressure upon Jaune's shield and released another punch, this time aimed at Pyrrha's chest.
But his negligence in not eliminating JNPR's leader as an immediate threat would prove rather mildly inconvenient, for him. Moments before Hazel's attack would've met its mark, Jaune unleashed a comparatively quick gravity-amplified shield slam directly into the brute's center of mass. Making the most of the instant her assailant's grip around her weapon loosened, Pyrrha kicked from Hazel's chest towards safety, with Jaune quickly forfeiting some ground to regroup beside her, desperately dodging the overhead smash he'd earned for saving his partner some unnecessary hardship.
Hardly half a second after Jaune hastily entered another combat-ready stance, Pyrrha already transformed her sword into its rifle form and fired several precise shots at their foe. The two tree trunks that called themselves Hazel's arms came up to form an almost impenetrable barrier in his defense, utterly neutralizing the invincible girl's short salvo with negligible effort.
"It'll take much more than rifle rounds to take down someone like me," Hazel explained.
"Okay, seriously though, what're you even made out of?!" Jaune exclaimed.
Purposefully cracking his neck, Hazel shrugged. "Sterner stuff than most. You have an enormous amount of aura too, which means you above all others should know that there are those fighters that exist whose auras might seem almost inexhaustible when fighting those even mildly weaker than themselves."
"Good point, but I do not approve of what you're implying!" Jaune confidently retorted, hardly missing a single beat. "Pyrrha! Let's attack him again! Even if he's super strong, he's still only another person! He'll slip up eventually, and that's when we'll win this thing!"
Pyrrha provided a firm nod. "Right!"
"And I'll take his left!" Jaune replied, and they started running.
"Not quite what I meant, but understood!" Pyrrha returned.
Over the following few minutes of action, despite Hazel's predilection for inspecting them rather than legitimately fighting them, never before could it have been said that Jaune and Pyrrha had worked more effectively together.
First, Jaune successfully scored a firm slash across the criminal's abdomen, which Hazel punished with a haymaker that the boy narrowly avoided.
Second, Pyrrha threw her recently recovered shield into Hazel's elbow, striking him off-balance such that her follow-up attack effortlessly raked across his shoulder. Before the man could bring his arm around to clobber her, the invincible girl peppered his upper back with an assortment of speedy strikes.
Third, Jaune bought his partner additional time to escape Hazel's counterattack with another inconvenient one of his own, striking the criminal's calf with his sword hard enough to make the attack miss completely. The aura around Hazel's calf flared but briefly – he had much, much more durability left where that came from.
Coincidentally, Hazel also somehow possessed much more of a capacity for strategy than he'd initially been letting on. Jaune rapidly realized this upon landing beside Pyrrha with their backs facing Emerald's original perch, witnessing Hazel transition his missed punch's momentum into a sweeping strike that effectively turned his arm into a club. Both reasonably unwilling to take more damage than necessary, Jaune and Pyrrha pressed their backs against the crate behind them to ensure their safety.
That proved a pitifully temporary solution, as before they could resume their assault, Hazel picked up a rusted, heavy-looking tire rim from the ground and hurtled it toward them like a cannonball. With the attack moving too quickly to rely on Pyrrha's semblance to stop it, both JNPR fighters quickly jumped off to the side as a cohesive unit, leaving the tall crate to almost explode into splinters when the tire rim came crashing through.
Neither Jaune nor Pyrrha wasted another breath before readying their weapons again.
"It looks like you really have become stronger," Hazel observed, seeming mildly impressed by their skills. "You and your teammates have become a true threat worthy of recognition as equals alongside the likes of Team RWBY, now… but you still aren't enough to overcome me. You're like flies attempting to take down a colossus, in the grand scheme of things."
"Yeah? Well, I beg to differ!" Jaune argued. "After all, you haven't even done damage to our auras, yet!"
"You certainly aren't wrong…" Hazel's hands dipped into the pouches upon his thighs, retrieving fire dust crystals which he unceremoniously stabbed into his forearms. His skin spontaneously set itself alight, and his tone only grew more menacing. "Though that simple observation of yours is almost guaranteed to change, now."
"How are you doing this…?" Pyrrha questioned. "When you infused yourself with fire dust during the battle at Haven Academy, you seemed only capable of shooting fireballs, not setting your skin alight?"
"Understand that dust infusion is a lost artform, kid, and one with a wide variety of applications offered to its practitioners," Hazel explained all-too-calmly for someone with solidified fire currently coursing throughout his body. "Many ancient cultures practiced it with such discipline that its masters were venerated as living legends before the consequences of direct dust infusion cut their lives short."
"Then that means you're just another somebody who'll die young too, huh?" Jaune inferred. "In that case, it's surprising you've even lived this long, considering what you do for a living."
"Not so."
"…huh?" Jaune blinked.
"Do you understand the average life expectancy of an individual whose fighting style revolves around direct dust infusion?" Hazel paused, letting the implications sink in. "Now… guess how many times past that life expectancy I might be, now."
"Ohh…" Jaune nodded. "Oh, shit."
"Whether you believe it or not, Salem does reward her followers' loyalty with gifts," Hazel continued. "One that she provided me was the augmentation of my vitality. Imagine what a dust infusion specialist could accomplish with their craft if they were effectively granted decades more onto their lifetime?"
Jaune exhaled nervously. "Pyrrha? Is it just me or did it get really hot in here, suddenly?"
"Don't worry about our chances, Jaune," Pyrrha answered with a reassuring smile. "Hazel couldn't defeat us by himself at Haven, and he won't now that we've grown even stronger than we were then."
"Okay, yeah," Jaune agreed, nodding. "Then let's not waste any more time!"
"Agreed," Hazel added, breaking into a dead charge in mere seconds.
"It'd probably have been better if we didn't let him make the first move, but…" Jaune shook his head, and glanced to his right. "Pyrrha! Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"I think so!" Pyrrha answered.
As Jaune watched his girlfriend run off in what would become a broad semicircular maneuver that'd bring her back around their opponent, he felt his confidence surge again. 'Of course she knows what I'm thinking. Just another day in the life of Pyrrha Nikos, huh?'
"If this is your attempt at a heroic sacrifice so that she can assist your friends, then understand that your death will come shortly!" Hazel shouted.
This time, the borderline herculean series of attacks that followed pressed Jaune to his greatest limits. Scorching hot flames flared across Hazel's flesh, increasing in intensity with every jab, hook, and smash the massive man threw his way, forcing Jaune into continually forfeiting his footholds, lest his shield risk somehow melting underneath the pressure of the sustained high-temperature assault. Rendered unable to perform any counterattacks of his own or disengage from the fight without leaving himself vulnerable, it was everything Jaune could do to minimize the damage he sustained.
Which, to his credit, the aura monitor his scroll displayed upon his hip informed him that he accomplished with incredible success. It might've helped that his aura was abnormally strong, even among licensed Huntsmen, but Jaune wasn't in any mood to question the miracle that was his endurance right about now.
And much to his relief, it turned out that his partner was almost upon his opponent, again.
Pyrrha's discus rolled mercilessly across their enemy's back with its bladed trim poking outwards, leading Hazel to hesitate just long enough for the woman herself to come leaping upon him from behind. Even if only slightly, her xiphos successfully stabbed directly into Hazel's flesh, earning a noise of discomfort from the titan as the pressure she continually exerted down on the wound continued to grow. Pyrrha leaped down in front of Hazel before his hands could've grabbed her from atop his shoulders, and Jaune performed an opportunistic slash across his ribs.
Their combination attack concluded with their cumulative strength being shoved into their shields, Jaune and Pyrrha both slamming their mightiest shield bashes into Hazel's stomach, sending him skidding some short distance away.
"It's working!" Jaune cheered. "I almost can't believe this is working!"
"Don't give him time to recover!" Pyrrha urged. "Let's keep going!"
Not bothering to waste time with a verbal answer, Jaune gave his girlfriend a nod before they both found themselves sprinting toward Hazel to further exploit whatever advantage they might have earned for themselves. Only some seconds before they would've reached an effective range to begin their assault anew, though, Hazel crouched and threw his arms wide, palms facing outwards to his sides, and his eyes clenched shut with concentration.
"Reject!"
An explosion of concussive force and flaming dust radiated omnidirectionally outwards from the criminal's body. When the shockwave hit them, Pyrrha and Jaune had only barely raised their shields to defend themselves, though they still found themselves flying back almost twice the distance they'd raced forward when the brunt of the attack connected.
Upon landing and subsequently recovering from the shock, their weapons and armor were almost uncomfortably warm to the touch from their intimate encounter with the dust explosion. Jaune didn't need to glance down at his aura monitor to understand that although his aura would've weathered the attack without much issue, his girlfriend wasn't exactly blessed with that same innate advantage.
"I'll assume that was another of your techniques?" Pyrrha asked.
"It was," Hazel confirmed, calmly rising back to his full height. "Dust infusion into one's body causes it to slowly seep directly into the individual's bloodstream. If you train hard enough, your aura can essentially coax your body into purging it from your system, causing variable effects."
'Which means that he really wasn't lying about having tons of tricks up his sleeves… and that explosion happened when he was using only one kind of dust!'
Jaune clamped down on the instinctive nervousness that threatened to impair his mind. Breathing deeply, he felt his aura recover with the familiar swiftness that neither his teammates nor their friends could claim to possess themselves. It was about time he took full advantage of that utility alongside his semblance.
Temporarily depositing his sword within his shield-holding hand, Jaune gently placed his hand upon Pyrrha's shoulder. His aura became visible as his semblance transferred his soul's abundant strength into his partner's, restoring her protective barrier to its former durability in relatively short order. More importantly, his semblance amplified his partner's… which meant that for as long as the temporary boost lasted, even Pyrrha wouldn't know what she was capable of until she started fighting again.
Jaune removed his hand from her shoulder, offering a small smile. "Think that you can read my mind a second time, Pyrrha?"
"If what you're thinking about consists of turning yourself into a punching bag while I prepare a series of attacks with my semblance, then yes," Pyrrha answered, carefully speaking quietly such that Hazel couldn't overhear them.
"You know exactly what to do, then," Jaune said.
"For the record, I don't like this plan that much," Pyrrha commented, backing away several steps. "It places you at unnecessary risk for the second time this fight."
"Hey, don't you worry! I'm still the same Jaune Arc you met the first day at Beacon, but even better than before, when it comes to fights like these!" Jaune offered encouragingly. "Maybe Hazel's way stronger than either of us right now, but… I'll live. We both have absurdly strong auras, so maybe this all balances out? That's my thinking, anyway."
Pyrrha sighed fondly. "Just promise me that you don't do anything reckless?"
"Who, me?" Jaune pretended to ask. "I wouldn't even dream of it. Now let's do this!"
His partner didn't need to receive the command twice. Pyrrha backed further away, leaving her boyfriend completely alone and face-to-face with the single most physically imposing fighter among Emerald's allies. Jaune sucked in one last steadying breath, raised his shield and sword in a defensive posture, and slowly advanced toward his adversary.
"Oh? You're approaching me?" Hazel asked.
"Yep," Jaune answered simply. "Just kinda figured it's about time I stop looking like a coward in front of my girlfriend, y'know?"
"If that's really your reasoning for whatever this is, then you're still even more of a child than I previously thought," Hazel stated.
"Even if that were true, I'm still man enough to march into danger if that means it'll protect the people I care about." Jaune stopped only a short distance from the goliath. "And between you and me, you're the only one that hasn't moved since that last attack of yours. It's your move."
Hazel's breath puffed from his nostrils. "Giving your opponent the initiative? That's probably the biggest mistake you've made yet."
From the second Hazel sprung forward with surprising speed for someone his size, Jaune became acutely aware of how correct his opponent was. Not long after the imposing mammoth of a man came upon him, Jaune was already losing several feet of the ground he'd marched forward under the weight of Hazel's plentiful heavy hits. Try though he might have to take some small jabs whenever he saw a fleeting opening, it seemed that those attacks hardly even registered in Hazel's mind before his assault continued with an extremely effective selection of physical and dust infusion-based attacks. Essentially cowering behind his shield and praying that both it and his aura would endure long enough for his self-sacrificial strategy to yield some results.
"Tell me something, kid," Hazel started, his attacks softening slightly. "What drives you to fight with so much conviction when you've witnessed the worst this world has to offer? You've seen what dangers and loss the Huntsman life could bring people like you."
"I have seen that, but I've also seen exactly what happens when people like me don't stand up for the people!" Jaune protested, daringly poking his head above his shield. "My grandfather fought in the Great War, and unless my family name wants to be forgotten someday, I have a legacy that I have to uphold!"
"A longstanding legacy of maintaining the status quo and fighting for those that don't give a damn about anything outside his hopeless war…" Hazel grumbled. "You're a misguided fool!"
Insufficiently braced for the small-scale explosion that came alongside Hazel's next heavy punch, Jaune found himself flying backward some distance at record speeds. Weighed down by his armor and weaponry, Jaune's skidding along the ground ended sooner than it would have otherwise, but his body still groaned in pain in the aftermath. Slowly propping himself up onto his elbow, he could only watch and bear witness to Hazel marching forward, his skin still flaming, and his fists prepared to crush Jaune's bones once he closed the distance.
It was then that a familiar voice piped up from perhaps three feet behind him.
"Need help?" Pyrrha asked.
Jaune sighed. "Yeah. Definitely."
Hazel stopped dead in his tracks. "Oh."
Twisting his neck around to inspect Pyrrha's prepared assault, Jaune felt his heart soar with renewed optimism. Hovering all around Pyrrha and her outstretched arms were crushed containers, steel rods, and every last piece of miscellaneous scrap metal that wasn't outright bolted down throughout the immediate area. Vivid green eyes narrowed with concentration, and as Pyrrha clenched her hands into fists, her aura flared, and her semblance-powered salvo was truly unleashed.
But even when faced with several tons of industrial and military-grade steel hurtling toward him at beyond-human speeds, Hazel didn't waver; rather, he simply grit his teeth and continued fighting. His dust infusion-based flames gained greater intensity such that his defensive strikes melted through some of the attacks Pyrrha cast forth, completely nullifying the invincible girl's magnetic grip, and thereby preserving his aura in the process.
Yet Hazel wasn't invincible. One crushed container molded into a compact cube crashing into his flaming arm but not melting completely was all Pyrrha needed for her assault to achieve substantial success. Additional slabs, spheres, and other semblance-shaped configurations of solid steel struck their marks one after the other, pushing through Hazel's defensive flame cowl with enough speed and strength that he was, eventually, thrown backward a not inconsiderable distance from where his forward march first started.
"Alright, Pyrrha!" Jaune cheered, climbing back onto his feet. "You're doing it! Your semblance is really pushing him back!"
"Sorry!" Pyrrha shouted forward. Her eyes widened as she caught her mistake, upon which point she looked at Jaune and lowered her voice. "For taking so long, I mean. Not… not for attacking him, of course."
"No problem!" Jaune dismissed, glancing at the leftover metal that still hovered around his partner. "You have a good grip on all that metal with your semblance, still?"
"Your amplification of my aura won't last much longer, but for now?" Pyrrha nodded. "I think that I do."
"Can you still move around and fight with your weapons?"
"Now that I know I can manage," Pyrrha said.
Watching his partner deftly summon her discus and xiphos back into her hands with such ease only she could manage, Jaune found himself grinning. "Then let's move! Between you, me, and your semblance, we can actually win this!"
Almost startlingly similar to before, Jaune and Pyrrha broke into another sprint while Hazel was still climbing back onto his feet, though this time, they were accompanied by an ally composed of several tons of solid steel. Only the briefest amount of time before Pyrrha's next metallic attack would've initiated their tide-turning offensive, Hazel's arms stretched outwards in the same foreboding posture as they had previously.
Only this time, they knew what was coming. They stopped on a dime, hid behind their shields, and braced themselves for the oncoming storm.
"Reject!" Hazel shouted.
Familiarly uncomfortable heat infected their shields and armor, but the shockwave that ensued hardly unsteadied Jaune and Pyrrha from their defensive postures. Pyrrha's plentiful steel assault didn't fare well by comparison, however, with what little was left over from her first salvo being melted into useless slag by Hazel's second explosion. Even so, Jaune refused to submit his heart to fear in the face of this adversity – their fight wasn't anywhere near finished, yet.
And judging by how considerably the fire dust stabbed into Hazel's arms had shrunk, it looked like their chances of success weren't quite as abysmal as one would've originally assumed.
"If you think that same trick will work twice, think again!" Jaune shouted.
"That attack wasn't meant to, actually…" Hazel huffed, pushing himself upright again by pressing down upon his knee.
"Then what was your goal if not to eliminate us with that?" Pyrrha asked.
"To buy myself time for this." Hazel's other hand emerged from its nearby pouch, revealing its acquisition of a perfectly refined earth dust crystal.
Neither JNPR fighter had the time to realize the implications until he'd already jammed it into his opposite forearm. Hazel groaned as the crystal's effects manifested in the form of an all-encompassing carapace of solid stone across his entire body, which, if appearances were any indicator, would probably be extremely durable. His breaths might've been growing heavier with exertion, but Hazel's focused expression made it obvious that he remained leagues away from being forced into submission.
"Once upon a time, I gave you the option to run from the shadow war you'd involved yourselves with, but your allegiance to Ozpin is clear, now," Hazel rumbled darkly. "You've made your choice… and now you'll suffer the same fate as everyone else he's brainwashed into fighting and dying on his behalf!"
"You're wrong!" Jaune vehemently protested. "We haven't been brainwashed. We just remember what it's like to defend the people we care about! Unlike you, we haven't betrayed them or their memory fighting for the same monster who's caused so much death on Remnant!"
"Don't you dare speak about Gretchen!" Hazel shouted. "Neither of you have experienced true loss… but you certainly will soon."
Fear might've made itself known inside Jaune's heart, but he didn't let the emotion bleed through onto his face; instead, he sank into another combat-ready stance alongside Pyrrha. Her look of unbreakable willpower provided him with the burst of courage he knew he'd sorely need when their battle resumed.
"That won't happen," Pyrrha countered. "Not unless we have anything to say about it. We will rescue Oscar!"
"No…" Hazel raised his fists. "You will die here, tonight."
It wasn't that long into Aurora's continued efforts fighting against Liumang that she found their fight slowly bringing them both further toward the right side of their battleground's respectably large expanse. The enormous warehouse-sized main room of the military base contracted and expanded again into an abandoned garage replete with outdated vehicles machinery abound, with the machinery-laden immediate area seeming a solid third the size as the room their battle had first begun inside. Thankfully, the garage was similarly decorated with several vertical support struts and catwalks that provided Aurora all the leverage she needed to prevent herself from becoming an easy target.
And considering that she was continually being forced to dodge and weave around the garage almost as quickly as Liumang's semblance-born attacks could be cast forth, their arena's enabling of her unique mobility style was something of a blessing. What wasn't a blessing was the fact that her opponent, by all appearances, was having the time of his life making hers an almost literal living hell. Throughout their entire fight thus far, Liumang had been smiling and laughing while his opponent fought with every ounce of her strength to simply stay alive, to the point that Aurora hadn't yet a single opportunity to strike back.
It was obvious that Liumang had intentionally pressed her into a place where he wouldn't have to worry about friendly fire. Furthermore, his pressuring Aurora into the garage and away from the main base provided him the distinct advantage in maximizing the amount of time it'd take for her reinforcements to arrive. Aurora hadn't seen where Liumang's opening blast had detonated, but she knew that with how quickly their battle had taken them elsewhere, it'd still take some time before Tenebris could reorient and throw himself into the fray.
Which meant that Aurora would simply have to fight all by herself, for now.
Taking the calculated risk to turn her defensive efforts into her first offensive strike, Aurora practically slingshotted herself through two support struts. Rushing toward Liumang with her naginata extended before herself like a spear, she attempted to stab into his chest before another release of his semblance forced her to retreat, only to be reminded of another impactful trait the man possessed.
Despite being just slightly shorter than Hazel, Liumang proved himself as perhaps the most unexpectedly swift and limber opponent Aurora had yet faced.
Exercising unusual dexterity for someone his height, Liumang deftly backflipped away from her naginata. His evasive maneuver left Aurora unable to stop herself before Sapphire's blade embedded itself in the frozen concrete where Liumang once stood, and the man himself landed almost animalistically on his hands and feet some short distance away. Another inhale through his nostrils followed the action, and Aurora instantly wretched her naginata free before her cables sent her flying to safety.
It might not have been much of an advantage, but Aurora intrinsically understood that she was about as consistently slippery a target as possible on Iridescence. If one didn't account for those brief bursts of mobility Opal could achieve with her semblance, Aurora was about the most problematic opponent a heavy hitter like Liumang could've chosen as his adversary.
This assertion was offered validity when Liumang's next whistle pierced through the garage, and Aurora successfully outmaneuvered the condensed energy that surged toward her before finally detonating in another impressive fireball. Aurora didn't even look at Liumang again in the aftermath, and wisely decided to continue moving as unpredictably as possible around the battlefield – she wouldn't allow herself to be hit that easily.
"Come on, keep dancing!" Liumang taunted, now standing upright. "Make this entertaining for me before it comes time for me to really make you pay for messing with my business."
At the same time Liumang whistled another instance of his semblance into reality, another of Aurora's cables latched around the railing of a nearby catwalk. Liumang's condensed attack released its typical trio of ominous cracks before violently detonating, though Aurora had already long since sailed past the catwalk upon which the strike detonated.
If there was anybody that she could've expected to have found working with Emerald, Mercury, and Hazel, the number one crime boss Mistral had ever known wasn't anywhere near the top of her list. It made her wonder what details she might've been missing out on when Liumang had explained away his alliance with Emerald as more of an amusement than almost anything else, but Aurora quickly crushed that particular curiosity. Thinking about anything beyond their current combative exchange would probably just help get herself killed.
"You were the one that attacked us, first!" Aurora argued back, whipping herself off to one side midair to avoid another explosion. "The Borealis Clan never did anything to slight your cartel!"
"Your clan enjoyed exorbitant amounts of wealth, didn't they?" Liumang whistled ahead of her position this time, but his arrogant smile didn't fade whatsoever when she yanked herself away from that explosion, too. "That's enough justification for me! Holier-than-thou noble families who care more about the 'fine arts' than reality are just annoying! Weak!"
"Then if lacking strength is what helped you prioritize your targets, why bother with attacking the Malachite Clan?" Aurora asked, landing squarely on the rail of another catwalk. "Their inner council and guards are some of the most formidable non-Huntsmen fighters around, aren't they?"
"Oh, they were formidable alright," Liumang agreed, planting his hands on his hips. "But they were my big targets because of their weapons. If my cartel acquired even a handful of those Huntsmen-grade goods, we could've taken Mistral for ourselves… but they fought back. You defended them right alongside Malachite. Now you're both dead for messing with me. I don't need another stain on my reputation, you know?"
"That's all our lives mean, to you?!" Aurora questioned incredulously. "We're just blemishes that continue to tarnish your reputation just by existing?!"
"Yeah," Liumang deadpanned. "What about it?"
Aurora didn't respond with further dialogue; rather, she let her actions speak for themselves. An annoyed growl punctuated her slingshotting herself again with gusto, this time aiming her blade directly at Liumang's neck instead of his chest. She ignored the part of her consciousness that screamed at her that the linear angle of her approach would easily doom her if Liumang released another use of his semblance.
In an unmistakable stroke of simultaneous misfortune and fortune, however, Liumang didn't take that particular shot, though that didn't make his following actions any less painful. His smile expanded into a full-blown grin shortly before he masterfully executed his counterattack, brushing aside her blade with the back of his hand and shooting his foot into her stomach. Her armor blunted the majority of the impact, but the extreme force behind the attack still sent some portion of the force straight into her aura.
When Liumang's kick concluded with his leg almost pointing upwards, Aurora's forward momentum carried her closer to the nearby garage entrance. Briefly before she crashed onto the ground, she sent a fire dust-coated cable at Liumang, attempting to whip him across his back for his troubles, only for the criminal to gracefully avoid that attack, too. Aurora reeled in the failed attack and maneuvered herself such that she landed firmly on one knee instead of an entirely ungraceful heap and caught her breath.
Her newfound position provided her two courses of moving forward, with varying degrees of risk involved if either were chosen. Either she fled through the garage entrance behind her to try and regroup with Tenebris whilst leaving herself vulnerable to an explosive attack from Liumang from behind, or she remained where she was and continued fighting back.
Aurora quickly committed herself to that second option.
"Well, would you look at that?" Liumang casually started, speaking like their battle was an average night for himself rather than an actual deathmatch. "Armor actually protects the idiots who bother wearing some… while I'm hardly trying."
"That's just the thing…" Suppressing a pulse of irritation, Aurora pushed herself back onto her feet and stood tall alongside her naginata. "How exactly are you fighting like this? Someone like you shouldn't be anywhere near as dexterous and strong as you've been while almost constantly using their semblance."
"What, did you never pay attention in class?" Liumang asked. "Listen, aura augments what the body can accomplish by default, right? Well, when you're talking about the amount of aura people have to work with and how much it can accomplish, some folk are just born absurdly strong freaks, in that department. Hazel's a great example. I'm another freak that happens to have allied himself with the same crew, is all."
"Jaune would probably qualify as another, then…" Aurora muttered quietly, only for an unnatural disturbance somewhere behind her to make itself known. "Although it looks like my team's monster has almost arrived!"
"Is that the case?" Liumang asked.
"Yep," Aurora chirped.
Nothing else could be said before the mechanical roar like that of a turbine erupted from some distance behind her. Preceded by the sound's intensification, Boomstick charged past Aurora on its wrathful path aimed at Liumang's upper torso. Liumang snickered and casually leaned back to avoid the attack, and the weapons' thrusters cut out immediately after, leaving it to fall onto the ground with a metallic clatter behind him.
"Neat. Backup's not gonna do you much good, but still," Liumang began, slowly straightening himself again. "Good effort, kid."
Tenebris stopped beside his teammate. "Welp, that was worth a shot."
"And an awful one at that," Liumang said. "I mean, like, geez… you gotta work aiming."
"Eh," Tenebris sounded, shrugging. "Wasn't putting my all into that one, really."
"You're gonna need more than your all to kill me, buddy," Liumang stated.
"Then let's put that theory to the test," Tenebris said, raising his fists and giving Aurora an expectant look. "Liumang's after your head, so… we ready for this?"
"Yeah," Aurora said. "Thanks for backing me up."
"Not like I've got anything better to do, y'know?" Tenebris quipped.
Relieved beyond words by her teammate's arrival, Aurora offered him an affirmative nod and returned her attention to their adversary. Liumang's hazel eyes glanced between them repeatedly, obviously waiting for them to make the first move – an invitation that Aurora and Tenebris were readily willing to accept, both springing into action in record time.
Aurora hooked some cables over two nearby vehicles and catapulted herself ahead of her teammate, and Tenebris broke into a sprint at the same time the gravity dust within his weapon initiated the process of it being called back into its master's hands. In response to their sudden movements, Liumang's eyes lit up with thinly veiled exhilaration.
"Now this is more like it!"
Once more, Liumang reminded everyone in the room that his evasiveness was nothing to sneeze at via twirling sideways into the air to avoid both his opponents' attacks. Aurora went flying overhead while Tenebris' weapon passed harmlessly beneath the criminal before reaching its owner's waiting hand.
But what their enemy hadn't accounted for was that Aurora and Tenebris had relied upon one another for months upon months by now, and neither needed words to understand they couldn't waste their shot at hitting Liumang while he remained midair.
In almost the blink of an eye, the pair switched their strategies accordingly. Aurora twisted around such that her forward movement translated itself into a downward thrust with her naginata. Tenebris triggered his weapon's thruster function in unison to reattaching it to its magnetic seal upon his back, turning his sprint into a potentially devastating tackle, should his attack connect. It was a textbook pincer maneuver.
It was one that Liumang evidently saw coming, too.
Liumang aimed his lips beneath himself and whistled sharply, detonating the earth beneath himself, blowing his assailants' attacks off-course and riding out the shockwave himself off to safety, landing atop an outdated armored van of some variety. Aurora landed safely on the ground, and Tenebris deactivated his weapon's thruster to assist in stopping himself.
"Not gonna lie, that was a respectable combo move you two pulled, really using those noggins of yours, but…" Liumang threw up his hands dismissively. "It's not anywhere near enough."
"Okay, now he's grating on my nerves…" Aurora grumbled.
"Now he is?" Tenebris asked incredulously. "I hated this bastard from the moment he showed his gods-damned smug face."
"And I'm beginning to understand why," Aurora said, transforming her weapon into its assault rifle form. "How about we try something different? You attack him up-close and personal, and I'll support you in the meantime from range – sound good?"
"You had me at up-close and personal!" Tenebris declared.
Not half a second after that declaration, Tenebris had already dashed straight back into the fray to pursue their opponent. Aurora interspersed assault rifle fire at random intervals in hopes it'd keep Liumang from continuing to fight the same as before, but the gunfire did little except spur him into remaining mobile. His problematic agility fulfilled the dual purpose of making her self-assigned task that much more difficult while also maximizing the time it'd take before Tenebris' renewed thruster-enhanced sprint allowed him to catch up.
Which turned out to be all the better for Liumang, since this strategy of his enabled him to throw several additional semblance-born explosions from between his lips all the while. Tenebris didn't miss a beat himself, though, and alternated between either shielding himself from some poorly aimed detonations or dodging those that would've otherwise hit him directly. Overall, Tenebris hardly lost any time whatsoever despite Liumang's efforts.
"Didn't know you had such a good dance partner, Borealis!" Liumang threw out, whistling another condensed explosion at his encroaching competition.
"Didn't know crime bosses from Mistral liked listening to themselves talk this much!" Tenebris shouted back.
As the condensed explosion neared, Tenebris slowed down just barely enough to rip off a military vehicle's door, subsequently throwing it directly into the impending attack's path to protect himself from the ensuing inferno. Having conquered most of the space between them, Tenebris followed-up the motion with another ranged launch of Boomstick, but Liumang only leaned aside to prevent the heavy weapon from hitting him.
Once Tenebris hopped atop the military vehicle the criminal presently stood, and their melee engagement began, Aurora's ranged gunfire ended abruptly. If she didn't want to risk friendly fire, then she'd instead have to watch from afar and wait until the situation arose that her intervention could make some substantial difference. Whether that intervention manifested in a ranged or melee form didn't matter.
Meanwhile, Tenebris and Liumang's close-quarters scuffle revealed their respective skills as somewhat evenly matched. Insofar as their respective degrees of technique were concerned, Liumang's superior height and dexterity offered him little in terms of advantages when faced with the comparatively compact brawler Tenebris had honed himself into. Even so… Liumang still didn't look even marginally unsettled.
As both their fists connected knuckle-to-knuckle in the insignificant space between themselves, Tenebris followed up with a quick jab aimed at Liumang's abdomen. Liumang brushed aside the attack with the back of his arm and tried kneeing Tenebris in the face, but he doubled back one step just in time to avoid the counterattack. Tenebris forced himself into regaining the initiative with a variable mix of strikes that resembled those of a champion boxer's, although Liumang and his formidable defenses prevented all of those attacks from hitting anything besides his guard.
"I remember Emerald mentioning that you were your team's best bruiser, Griseo!" Liumang mentioned. "With the skills you're showing me here, you probably woulda made an incredible right-hand man in my cartel! Damn shame you were born in Vacuo instead of Mistral, eh?"
"If that's your attempt at flattery, then save your breath!" Tenebris asserted. "You might not know this about folk from Vacuo, but loyalty means more to people like me than anything else. I don't need compliments from a criminal like you!"
Another armored punch punctuated his exclamation, and Liumang's own fist readily shot forth to meet its match. Much to what looked like the criminal's mild surprise, Liumang was forced into putting some effort into bracing himself against Tenebris' fist to avoid being pushed back. It wasn't much, but that simple exchange made it apparent that Iridescence's personal bruiser held the slightest of advantages in terms of raw physical strength; or at least, that was his onlooking teammate's sincerest hope.
"Then consider the compliment retracted," Liumang stated. "And besides, the more this fight drags on, the more it becomes clear that you really are just another simpleminded Vacuan brute fighting for his friends!"
This time, it was the reptilian faunus who forced himself into an effective offensive. Liumang's first heavy haymaker of an attack had Tenebris crossing his arms defensively before himself to negate the impact, and the myriad of quick follow-ups kept him dodging, patiently waiting for whenever the sustained assault would slow down.
"You say that like it's a bad thing!" Tenebris caught his opponent's fists within both his palms, forcefully bringing Liumang's incursion to an unexpected halt. "Vacuan stubbornness is what's kept the kingdom relevant for decades, now!"
"Then how about we figure out how much that stubbornness helps keep your heart beating while I'm crushing your windpipe?" Liumang threatened.
"Thanks, but I'll probably pass on that offer!" Tenebris tensed. Utilizing the strength-augmenting upgrade within his armor to its maximum effectiveness, he pushed Liumang back several steps with seeming ease and wound up another punch. "Now let's find out who's really stronger! Take this!"
For possibly the first time throughout their entire fight, Liumang clamped his mouth shut, his expression turning intensely serious. Faster than his opposition's fist could travel, his whistle pierced through the room. Tenebris aborted his imminent attack in favor of throwing his arms into a last second-defense… but no explosion ensued.
'It was a feint!' Aurora realized.
Just as quickly as his atmosphere of arrogance disappeared, Liumang regained that particular guise. Quickly leaping overtop Tenebris' shoulders, he hooked his arms underneath his enemy's and threw him aside like an insignificant paperweight. Another inhale preceded what could only be a follow-up usage of his semblance-
And Aurora instantly pounced upon his position. Her target whipped his head around too late for the mistimed semblance-based attack that flew from his lips to come anywhere near connecting with his new assailant. Aurora didn't miss a beat once she landed on the vehicle before him, carefully making sure to keep her distance from Liumang whilst attacking him with a vicious flurry of stabs from afar with her naginata.
"If I didn't know any better, Borealis, I'd have thought you had feelings for Griseo!" Liumang teased. "You came racing back in to fight me again pretty quickly, wouldn't you say?"
'Don't let him get under your skin…'
"Unlike you, I have empathy!" Aurora spat, still stabbing with her weapon at rather incredible speeds. "I wouldn't stand back and watch while my friends, my family get brutalized by some ruthless monster like you!"
Against her better judgment, Aurora allowed her irritation to control her actions and thrust forward on a more predictable angle of attack than her previous stabs. Liumang caught the naginata blade by firmly clapping his hands together, flashing her a wicked grin as she tried and failed to wretch her weapon free from his vice grip.
"Welp, it's been real exhilarating, Borealis, but this is where your journey ends!" Liumang inhaled, his next words emerging with manic glee. "Now say goodbye!"
Essentially coming out from nowhere, Aurora's ally intervened moments before she would've almost certainly met her demise. Tenebris loosed an impassioned shout as his attack connected with Liumang's abdomen, his armor's upgrade turning a punch that would've normally just thrown him off-balance into an outright meteoric strike that sent their foe careening across their battlefield's vehicle-laden expanse.
"I said this one before, Liumang," Tenebris started, deactivating his armor upgrade help preserve its uptime. "You aren't hurting Aurora, Opal, Lux, or anyone else while I'm still breathing! If you think you can kill my friends with me around, you've got another thing coming!"
After landing firmly upon another armored vehicle an impressive distance away, Liumang nodded. "I'm beginning to see that! Funny thing is, I almost felt that punch, too! Think you might have another one in there between the two of you?"
"Plenty!"
Aurora and Tenebris didn't stop to recognize that they'd shouted their response in perfect unison. All they exchanged between themselves was a respectful nod of thanks from Aurora preceding a hum of acknowledgment from Tenebris, and they spontaneously threw themselves forward. As expected of elite fighters such as themselves, they avoided every focused semblance-based attack Liumang whistled at them until they were close enough to attempt another team attack.
Tenebris released his weapon from its magnetic seal. His armor upgrade activated again and, with his weapon being driven forward like a one-armed battering ram, his attack could be cataclysmic to Liumang's chances of victory if it connected.
Aurora's actions betrayed similar potential devastation, twin cables coated in highly refined fire dust and her naginata both only a bare half-second away from putting Liumang's aura through a nightmarish offense that'd kill most others if it caught them.
Somehow, Liumang didn't suffer through any of their quite-literally killer moves. His unexpected dash forward caused Aurora's cables to overshoot their target by an entire half-meter, which left Liumang only the issue of dealing with his attackers' weapons. Grasping their weapons with either hand as leverage and moving like a man possessed, he kicked Aurora and Tenebris both directly in their stomachs. As they reoriented themselves so that they'd land on their feet, Liumang himself leaped backward onto a particularly large tank that towered over almost everything in its immediate vicinity.
"Give up, Liumang!" Tenebris warned, having stopped himself first. "You can pretend you're better than us all you want, but that doesn't change that you've only been playing defense this entire time!"
"Come quietly and there doesn't have to be more bloodshed!" Aurora urged.
"Bloodshed's everything though, especially when dealing with idiots like you! Besides this fight's only getting started!" An especially dark look infected Liumang's expression, his hand patting purposefully atop the portion of his jacket that covered his side. "After all, you haven't even seen my actual weapon, yet."
"You own one?" Aurora uttered.
"You don't know if he owns one…?" Tenebris asked.
"If he does, this is my first time hearing about it," Aurora explained. "He became Mistral's most wanted criminal because of his semblance and his body count. Nobody ever reported anything about him using any weaponry in his fights…"
"Then consider this your personal front-page news report. Unlike Hazel, I'm not mentally disabled," Liumang said mockingly. "I actually have a weapon and have kept it under wraps for those really special occasions like tonight."
"Does that mean you'll be hilariously out of practice, then?" Tenebris questioned.
"That's impossible, kid," Liumang stated. "Because I know this weapon better than anyone ever possibly could."
Adopting a smile that would only usually find itself worn by complete maniacs, Liumang dipped his hand inside his jacket to retrieve his weapon. When his hand emerged, it brought with it a simple, incredibly old, and sickeningly bloodstained leather whip. For whatever reason, Aurora couldn't help but think the sinking feeling she only now noticed in her stomach wasn't caused by the kick Liumang had scored on her moments ago.
Tenebris didn't share in her newfound trepidation, though. "Not very proud of weapon maintenance, huh?"
"Nah. It's just that this thing reminds me where I've been… and exactly what needs dishing out, whenever its time that my weapon sees some action," Liumang said. "It's actually tied to the thing's name."
"What would that be?" Aurora asked, morbid curiosity guiding her tongue.
That curiosity quickly turned to terrific amounts of unease as Liumang's intense gaze focused itself exclusively upon her. His maniac smile might've faded, but the apparent pride in whatever answer was forming in his head only exacerbated the feeling. From his position beside her, even Tenebris seemed to realize that they wouldn't like the answer they were given.
Liumang thereby opened his mouth, and their fears were confirmed.
"Justice."
Authors Note: Welp. This was a big ol' chunky chapter… huh. This chapter was gonna probably be much shorter in my head but uh… yeah, combat takes awhile to get done right in the to-be-expected RWBY action fashion. I'll uh… not do my usual random trivia corner since this chapter (again) speaks for itself with everything that's going on. This should save some time, at least, y'know? I will have one or two things to say, though…
Did Hazel do a good old-fashioned JoJo meme? Yes. Did Pyrrha do the RWBY Chibi meme of her apologizing instinctively? Yes. Do I regret it? No. Moving on… Liumang continues to be extremely fun to write, and Mercury had me googling some neat trivia facts about kicks that helped me in making his action a little more compelling. Next chapter this rescue raid finally concludes, and Volume 7 will follow shortly thereafter! It should be pretty fun, I think.
Peace!
