Last chapter name: The last and this chapter's name come from the same source, which is from a playwright.

Ch.8 - What False Heart Doth Know

"We should get back to the Bullheads, it's getting really late." Weiss noted as another day was spent trying to find their lost teammate.

As much as they hated to hear that, the sisters had to admit that Weiss was right. Despite searching the vast majority of the city, they have seen absolutely no signs of Blake anywhere. They came across Sun once again and asked if he'd made any discovery. But he unfortunately had nothing. Though the only thing that they could even count as progress was that Weiss stopped demonizing Blake.

"Whatever Charlie said taught you to settle down." Yang brought up what she noticed earlier before lunch. Weiss only gave her a slight glare, but nothing else.

"It's like Blake never came down to the city. Where could she have gone?" Ruby said mainly to herself. She took this as a sign that when they finally get Blake back, she was going to work the extra mile to become a better leader. Sora and Charlemagne were definitely going to hear a lot of questions from her.

The girls began walking towards the direction of the Bullhead station. In the corner of her eyes, Ruby spots movement and looks up at the rooftops.

"That's Velvet, Charlie? Huh! And Blake!" Yang and Weiss immediately turned towards Ruby upon hearing that.

"Where?!" Yang asked before being pointed at the roofs. The sisters began running towards their direction while an initially hesitant Weiss bit the bullet and followed. The streets were starting to get a bit less busy so they could run without getting interrupted.

"Did Charlie and Velvet manage to find Blake?" Yang wondered.

Ruby observed how the trio they were chasing carried themselves, "No, it doesn't seem like they're pursuing Blake. It looks like… she's purposely leading them somewhere."

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's make our presence known—"

"Let's hold off on that," Weiss interjected, much to the surprise of Yang, "I want to see and observe what Blake is going to show them."

"Weiss…" Ruby spoke.

"Charlie has insisted that I be more open minded with thinking more about Blake's situation. I will see if what he's told me is true about Blake." Weiss responded.

Ruby and Yang looked at each other with a bit more relief in their eyes. At least Weiss wasn't doubling down her doubts now.

…

Traversing the rooftops, the trio of Blake, Charlemagne, and Velvet rushes toward where they think Sora might be. They wanted to minimize obstacles and traffic on the streets so free running on the roofs was the faster option. Fortunately, Blake and Velvet were acrobatically gifted and Charlemagne easily kept pace.

"Are you sure Sora is at the docks?" Charlemagne asked Blake for clarity.

Blake looked back at Sora's teammate, "I heard him mutter something about the docks when he was in a hurry. He was way too into his head to notice I was even awake. It looked like he was specifically choosing certain keychains so he might be expecting a fight."

"You told me Sora looked like he'd seen a ghost," Charlemagne said with worry. Sora's base personality was this charismatic ball of light that exuded infectious energy to probably even the most stoic of people. He thinks he even got Professor Goodwitch to smile a bit once. So understandably, hearing that his teammate looked so on edge made him worry. A lot.

"What do you think his reaction was towards?" Velvet asked.

Sora's teammate thought for a second, "Today he has had moments where it looked like he was thinking really hard about something. We had sea salt ice cream and from what I've seen from him, it looked like it was something very important to him. Maybe all of this has something to do with the past."

Blake was especially listening to this talk. She was no stranger in keeping her past relatively quiet.

"Sora I feel also leaves a whole lot of his life unmentioned."

For the ray of sunshine he is, Sora is also ironically very unspecific about anything pertaining to the past. While one can already learn a good number of things about Charlemagne through his family's illustrious reputation, Sora's only thing of note is that he lived on an isolated island. Strange she kinda felt that at the same time Sora's worldview was very… very expansive.

"Hey Charlie and Blake, we got company," Velvet took a glance over the edge of the buildings they were running on to see the rest of Team RWBY not too behind.

Blake heard the footsteps from her enhanced hearing and bit her lip a little, no doubt in her mind that the three pairs of footsteps included Weiss.

"We stick to the plan and continue to the docks. I will talk to my team about my situation after this is all done." Blake simply said, though her tension was felt by both Charlemagne and Velvet.

Velvet took another glance back at Team RWBY, taking note how they didn't seem to try to catch up to them.

"They might be trying to see what we're up to. Well it might come to their surprise that they may find themselves to be sudden aids if Sora is in trouble." This was the reasoning Velvet thought in her head.

Silently praying to Sora, Charlemagne said in his mind, "Hopefully if this adversity comes from your past, it isn't a painful one."

Learning that a potential Organization member who survived the clash between them and the Guardians of Light was a particularly painful pill to swallow. Especially this was the case since Sora partook in every fight. He was certain that all Organization members have either all been defeated via disappearing or reclaiming their will and body with the cases of Xion and Terra. Some of them have even made their peace with Sora in mutual understanding.

With his mind racing a million miles per hour, he was trying to think of who it was. Larxene and Xion were immediately crossed out because this was clearly a man in the coat. Isa has returned to being Lea's old friend and Terra is no longer under influence anymore. It's not Xehanort if what the man said was correct.

Just who was this guy? Was there more to the Organization than expected? More Keyblade wielders?

All of this took place as Sora was falling from the crane, knocked over by an unknown force. He felt a presence appear very abruptly like it came and gone like lightning. The very brief contact he felt did feel like he was clashing with another weapon and only to be blown back by sheer surprise.

Sora did a few backflips in the air and made a safe landing on the ground back to where he was when he first saw the coated man. He looked back up to the crane to see the hooded man still atop the crane with seemingly no one else. That puzzled Sora a good amount as he swore that he sensed the presence of someone else.

"Is it that girl again?"

"You weren't wrong, there really is another Keyblade wielder here." Sora perked and looked around to see who said that. That's when he noticed an individual seemingly phased onto the crane next to the crane the black coat man was on. Chills went down Sora's spine; he recognized the yellowish themed robes and leopard mask from his dream.

Sweat started to form on Sora's face, "Then that means—!" And one by one, the other cranes had new figures that appeared on them. Three more figures appeared and like the leopard masked one, each of them were masked as well. Bear, snake, and unicorn.

"Who… who are you people!? Before coming here, I had a dream of you all! Are you trying to mess with me or something?!"

Sora was initially met with silence which very much got him angrier but one of them decided to speak up, the one with the bear mask.

"Is this really the state of Keyblade wielders now? We have really fallen since the war."

"Now that I remember," the serpent masked person spoke, "we were told that this era has almost no Keyblade wielders compared to our time, that much of the teachings were lost in time. It seems like this one is the only one to cross into this realm."

Whatever was referred to, Sora really didn't have much of a clue what they exactly meant. One thing for certain is that they were definitely Keyblade wielders. This… this really was no coincidence at all.

Sora really was in a world that Keyblade wielders can still reach. The feeling Sora got from what they said, however, felt as if they belonged in a time way in the past. Young Xehanort and Ansem were two people who displayed the power to manipulate time as with those who time traveled like Xemnas, Vanitas, and Dark Riku used Replicas in the process so their hearts can safely be inserted into a vessel.

"Are you all Replicas of wielders way back then?!" Sora had to shoot out a question to hear a response.

The unicorn masked man answered, "Replicas? I know nothing of the term you are saying. Whatever you are insinuating, we are very much real. That aside..."

"You are a Keyblade wielder who does not know our ways…," continued the serpent mask.

"And yet you have managed to cross into this realm, for that…," the bear mask spoke as all of the figures standing on the cranes disappeared. A second later, the leopard mask appeared in front of Sora with his Keyblade in hand.

"You shall be tested."

With one step, the leopard masked man was already upon Sora going in with a strike. Sora could only raise Kingdom Key to deflect the trajectory of the masked man away from him. A parry wasn't even an option for Sora to take as the masked man zoomed out of range before Sora could even start a counterattack. The masked man stops on a dime and soars towards Sora.

"Can you keep up?" Seemingly it was a taunt delivered by the masked man.

"You'll see about that!" Sora shot back with a horizontal swing. With perfect spacing, the masked man stopped just outside the range of the swing and dashed to the left of Sora, facing Sora's exposed left side. No wind-up was needed with the masked man going for a quick swipe. That attack connected with air thanks to Sora's instincts, he jumped into the air right above the masked man and responded with a downward strike. Without looking his way, the masked man deflected Sora's strike and hopped to the level Sora was in the air before delivering a quick kick to Sora.

Fortunately, Sora was able to mitigate the damage with a quick guard. The boy flew back a bit before his internal alarms blared, urging him to act now. Within an instant, the masked man was back at it again with a short and quick combo of hits that Sora managed to avoid and block yet with some difficulty. Wanting some space, Sora gathered some strength to push him away. With the grace that puts Weiss' to shame, the masked man landed a distance away without a sound. In his lower posture, the masked man couldn't help but smirk a bit. Sora wasn't bad… not bad at all. His crouched posture allowed the masked man to begin dashing around Sora.

Deciding it was best to stay put and save his energy, Sora tapped into his magical energy before beginning to shoot at the masked man with magic bullets from his Keyblade. Using his natural speed and the environment, the masked man evaded Sora's bullets with efficiency and ease. Twirling around bullets aimed for his head, deflecting with his Keyblade, and running behind shipping crates. For one certain crate, he stopped and used his Keyblade to whack the crate towards Sora for his troubles. Sora stopped his shooting to roll to the side, only to avoid a blitz by an inch soon after. Soon their blades were locked.

"I don't know who you are, but why are you helping a member of the Organization?" Sora had to interrogate the masked man.

"The Organization? I don't know anything about 'the Organization' you speak of. What I do know is that you are definitely not a Keyblade wielder of our time." The masked man got into a stance, "...you have much to learn about the history of the Keyblade… and this realm." The two Keyblade wielders went in for a head-on charge. It was then unbeknownst to the both of them a shimmer appeared around Sora's blindspot; a blade from the tip of an umbrella was aimed towards Sora's right hip. All it took was another second for Sora to be stabbed from behind…

"Sora!"

The masked man noticed movement in the sky before backing off to avoid being skewered by winged spears. They also seemed to ward off the covert attack that intended to gravely injure Sora. Recognizing the spears immediately, Sora looked behind him to see Charlemagne standing atop of a warehouse. He leapt from the roof and landed next to Sora.

"Glad I got here in the knick of time!" Charlemagne had Joyeuse drawn out at the ready with his back facing Sora to cover his back.

"What are you doing here, Charlie?"

"I can be asking you the same thing! Blake notified us about your behavior and we came as fast as we could. The others should be here in a minute."

The masked man had a slight frown on his face as he pointed his Keyblade towards a random direction, "You… you were told not to interfere with the examination."

A confused Sora and Charlemagne looked at the direction the masked man was pointing at before seeing a certain ice-cream themed girl appear out of nowhere. Neo just gave a flat smirk at the masked man.

"You were assigned to make sure that thief's operation ran without interference, but now that Charlemagne Magnus has made his appearance with more to come this complicates things a bit more."

As on cue, Bullheads flew into view and started to converge onto the docks. The sounds of fighting came from where the Bullheads seemed to land near. Sora looked back at where the masked man was, but he wasn't there at all.

"Sora!" The boy got his attention snapped back at his teammate, "The others are over there. We have to help them!" A nod from Sora was the answer needed for them to start running towards the direction of fighting.

Neo, remembering her task, ran to intercept the two. Charlemagne noticed the assassin coming towards them and warded her off with a broad swing imbued with flames.

"Tsk." Charlemagne squared up to Neo. "Sora! You go on ahead, I'll catch up!"

"Right!" Sora continued on to help his friends.

Both combatants did not take their eyes off each other with tense silence, and it was Charlemagne to break the silence.

"It's been a while, eh Neo?" Charlemagne said while pointing his blade at Neo. "You still going with that silent act after all this time?" All this garnered was Neo unsheathing the blade hidden in the umbrella and readying it. The next second, she leapt at Charlemagne and only for that to result in her breaking into glass before landing a strike on him.

That was something that Charlemagne seemingly expected as an instance later he blocked a backstab from Neo. It flowed into a swipe from Charlemagne which Neo twisted above. Using the momentum from her spin, she twisted and went for another stab straight to Charlemagne's face, but his dexterity proved superior as he blocked the stab with the flat of his blade. The knight converted his block into an upper slash which Neo blocked with the umbrella sheathe. This left Neo airborne and Charlemagne pursued in order to continue his assault.

A brief exchange of sword and umbrella play was done in the air with Charlemagne ending it with an overhead strike that sent Neo propelling down towards the ground. Right before she can hit the pavement, she once again broke in glass as Charlemagne landed at the spot she last was.

"Sheesh, cold shoulder with the silent treatment." Charlemagne kept his senses to all around him, looking for any signs of Neo anywhere. "I guess it's not the time to ask what you've been doing all this time. Working with the likes of Torchwick? That's lame!" Neo's response was an attempted blindside kick to his temple, but Charlemagne ducked under that and attempted to swipe at her legs. She did successive backflips to avoid that before breaking into glass. Sensing a presence behind him, Charlemagne pivoted and went for a diagonal cut. Neo hopped a bit over the blade before landing on it, driving it to the ground. She sprung up in order to get a grapple on Charlemagne. As she wrapped her legs around Charlemagne's waist to throw him, Charlemagne planted his sword on the ground and leapt with Neo on him. With his hand still on the pommel of the sword, he pivoted up and used the momentum to throw Neo off. She flew and broke into glass in mid air.

Charlemagne couldn't help but shake his head as he pulled his sword out of the ground. Charlemagne sheathed his sword and held his hand out, summoning a mace using his Semblance. He hefted his mace up over his head before unloading the windup.

"Down you go!" Charlemagne's mace collided with the ground as it rocked the immediate vicinity and sent debris and dust everywhere. He expanded his senses around him to pick up any sign of Neo's whereabouts. Hearing a piece of debris shift as if being stepped on, Charlemagne summoned a winged spear as it soared at the location of the sound. It seemingly forcibly broke Neo's illusion as she had to deflect it with an opened umbrella. She didn't expect Charlemagne to be a step ahead as he got to her location quickly and vaulted off her umbrella.

His return trip downwards was about him readying for a skyward strike with Joyeuse. Neo prepped her umbrella to block right above her, but she noticed that Charlemagne also summoned three winged spears at the apex of his air time and maneuvered them in a way so they all strike in a 360 degree circle around her, closing off any escape. She quickly spun to deflect the two spears angled behind her and raised her umbrella to deflect Charlemagne, but she was unable to properly deal with the spear in front of her. She took the broad swing of the spear as she was thrown back.

Neo landed a bit abruptly for her tastes and stood up. Her combat style relied a whole lot on evasion and using her smaller size to counter and punish her opponents. So one can probably sense the rarity of the moment to see Neo's normally calm and smug demeanor be replaced with annoyance. Charlemagne had enough firepower where finding an opening with him was simply a mountain-climb of a challenge, and that didn't even include the skill he had that no first-year should be allowed to have. This wasn't the fight she'd be willing to be stuck down in right now.

The knight in question sensed her unease. "Look, I can end this right here." Charlemagne lowered his blade and walked forward. "I don't know why you decided to turn your back on Atlas, but you were a damn good Huntress-in-training from what I heard. You were even—wait!" He didn't get to finish his sentence as Neo disappeared in a flicker. He gradually felt her presence disappear. After a few seconds of feeling nothing around him, Charlemagne sighed and looked towards the direction of where Sora went.

Blake was launched back from a strong force. She was on a collision course to a ship container. The velocity she was launched at would've made for a rather ugly bruise for wherever the first point of contact was to be. Fortunately, her salvation came in a form of a snowflake glyph that halted her back from greeting the metal. Blake released her breath and her eyes shot open as she recognized who might've done this.

"W-weiss?!"

The heiress only gave a "hmph" without looking at Blake as she released the glyph and Blake landed with her feet. Although Weiss was still hesitant around Blake, that wasn't the main reason she didn't heed Blake much attention. She had to come face to face with something that was a much bigger issue; something very much Atlas-made.

Something that wasn't even supposed to be announced until later, an Atlessian Paladin has somehow made its appearance outside of Mantle. The fact that it also had the symbol of the White Fang decaled onto the armor irked her too. Ironwood was most certainly not going to be pleased about this.

"Oh why isn't it the heiress herself!" The voice of Roman Torchwick was heard as both Blake and Weiss turned their attention to Torchwick, who observed the scene with a platoon of White Fang goons in position. "You like the gift I brought from back home? Granted a benefactor of ours miraculously brought a prototype of this state-of-the-art military tech with quite literally the snap of his fingers, I found myself generous enough to return the gift by testing it out and letting the children play with this toy."

Blake and Weiss sweated a bit as the other half of their team arrived.

"Blake!" Both sisters shouted before noticing what they were looking at, brandishing their weapons at the threat.

"Oh my, isn't it Red? I thought this band of misfits was somehow related to you. Now why don't girlies run along and let the grown men conduct their business." Team RWBY noticed that more in the distance, White Fang members were loading what seemed to be Schnee Dust cargo onto most-definitely unsanctioned Bullheads. Their operation wasn't exactly running smoothly because Velvet was seen making work of the White Fang grunts trying to stop her, but it didn't seem like she could hold out forever.

Yang seemed ready to lob Torchwick's head off but was stopped by Ruby. "Yang! I want you to help Velvet."

"Rubes, how the hell are you expecting me to get through that robot and army?!" Yang exclaimed but she listened to Ruby's plan she was giving to the team. Not hearing what the team was discussing, Roman took this as a sign that it was time to end this ordeal.

He tapped his cane, signaling the Paladin to be ready for action. "Pleasant time finally meeting your team, Red! I'm sure you girls are so giddy about the Dust, but as an adult would say to mischievous kids: no touching."

The Paladin made an activation sound and at the same time Team RWBY got into position.

"Ready?!" Ruby exclaimed. On cue, Blake jumped to the side and threw her sickle to attach it to a nearby pole. Ruby jumped on the ribbon and was pulled back by Weiss' glyph fastening her in place. The Paladin and the White Fang got into position, but noticed how Yang just got into a low stance. Yang then ran a dead sprint towards the opposition alone, confusing everyone on the other side. The Paladin started to make its move, charging head-on like Yang. To an outsider, Yang's seemingly blind charge looked like suicide for the blond, though there was method to this madness. With the longer arms, the Paladin had the much greater range and thus winded up its arm to punch Yang right before she got into its range.

The sound of a ribbon releasing its tension was heard along with a gunshot. A streak of red homed onto Yang at blistering speeds. Smirking, Yang hopped into the air and tucked her legs. Ruby precisely positioned Crescent Rose so that the head of the scythe on the opposite side of the blade landed perfectly on Yang's soles. With Ruby's momentum, the caped girl used what upper body strength she could muster to deliver an upwards swing to further boost Yang as she flew under the Paladin and narrowly missed the robotic arm. Ruby used the sniper shot recoil to apply more force onto the swing which successfully knocked away the Paladin's arm. The unfortunate White Fang members who were right behind the Paladin were mere bowling pins being launched back by the bowling ball called Yang Xiao Long.

Velvet was making work of the White Fang members on her end. She delivered a series of wide sweeping kicks to White Fang grunts approaching her from multiple angles. A grunt tries to cut her with a vertical slash, which is reciprocated by Velvet sidestepping away and grabbing a hold of the grunt's arm. She quickly disarms him and trips his legs, the grunt loses his footing and gets kicked towards another grunt. Noticing more grunts trying to load Dust onto the Bullheads, she ran to intercept them. Two gunmen scrambled between the haul and Velvet before firing at her. With acrobatics and speed, she evaded the bullets with grace. The grunts were unable to ward off Velvet as she got into arms length with one of the grunts. With her lowered position, she landed an uppercut on the chin of the grunt, leapt and vaulted off the body of the grunt and went down to deliver an ax kick on the head of the other grunt.

Aware of the threat Velvet posed, the White Fang grunts in charge of shipping the Dust panicked as Velvet made her way to the hatch of the Bullhead. They trickled out of the Bullhead to confront Velvet, acting like the last line of defense. Velvet picked up her pace and got ready to engage but with her enhanced hearing heard something flying towards her direction at a high velocity.

"Get her!" In all of their panicked states, the Faunus of the White Fang weren't able to sense what Velvet had so unlike her, they were unable to move out of the way as Yang flew in with an aggressive clothesline that launched all the grunts back. Both girls examined the amount of unconscious grunts plastered all around the vicinity due to their overwhelming dominance.

Yang turned towards Velvet. "Didn't invite me to the party?" This got Velvet to smile.

"This is an open one, so expect more guests to arrive. You go check to see if there are more White Fang hauling in Dust, I'll deal with the pilots." Yang complied with Velvet and the blond scouted to see the other Bullheads while Velvet made her way to the cockpit of the Bullhead. The poor pilots didn't have a chance to retaliate as Velvet delivered a neck chop to render them unconscious. Dragging them out of their seats and for good measure, Velvet side kicked the flight yoke so no one could control it.

She walked back outside and approached Yang. "See anymore Bullheads to deal with?"

"There's one that's guarded over there and I see a couple flying in the distance. If we handle that one quickly then that'll give us time to prepare for the other two. Cmon, let's move!" The two girls ran towards the Bullhead. Stealthier methods would take too long to dispatch the White Fang there, so full confrontation was the way to go.

The way Yang liked it.

Right when the group of grunts noticed the two Huntresses in training quickly approaching them, Yang propelled herself using her shotgun bracelets recoil and delivered a drop kick to one unfortunate grunt. A quick shotgun punch to the side of another grunt sent him flying away, away towards Velvet as she very much used him as a springboard to jump into the action.

She landed right in front of a grunt and swept him from under his legs. This opened a visual on another grunt behind him which Yang took the perfect opportunity to launch a shotgun round at the second grunt.

Throughout the fight, Velvet analyzed Yang's fighting style. A style of kickboxing tailored made to also incorporate her shotgun bracelets. That was nice, she wanted to learn how to box. And so she did. She analyzed, applied, learned through trial and error.

It didn't go unnoticed by Yang that within the next minute of fighting, the rabbit Faunus was pulling off some very familiar moves… specifically her moves. With each strike, Velvet incorporated Yang's style with gradual proficiency.

One last grunt was left as he tried to blindside Yang with bullets. The blonde noticed at the last second as he was about to fire, in which a right haymaker courtesy of Velvet connected with the man's cheek as she quickly connected with a quick combo of fists before ending it with a spinning hook kick to send him sprawling. Velvet checked to see if he was conscious before noticing Yang with her mouth slightly agape.

"Heh," Velvet rubbed the back of her head sheepishly, "thanks for the lesson Yang."

"Wait wait wait hold on, you were bustin' my moves and this is the first time you've seen me fight!"

Velvet felt this was a good time to explain seeing they weren't in immediate danger right now. "You see, think about my mind being able to take perfect images of moments I see. Normally not many people have this trait, but you can say with my case that my brain is able to record videos and I'm able to, I guess, replay and commit to memory."

Yang took a second to think over Velvet's analogy, "So quite simply, this is a Semblance that gives you an extremely good memory."

"Photographic memory to be precise, but to a greater extent." Velvet confirmed and elaborated.

"Lucky, I wish I can look at someone and learn their fighting style right there." Yang crossed her arms with her eyes closed, pouting.

Velvet chuckled trying to cheer Yang up, though from over Yang's shoulder she noticed Weiss running up to them.

"Weiss?"

"Huh?" Yang looked behind her to see her teammate, "Weiss, what are you doing here? You're supposed to help Ruby and Blake!"

Weiss got to their location and took a second to catch her breath, bending down with hands on her knees. Yang and Velvet stood there waiting to hear Weiss explain why she was here. Velvet took a look at Weiss and noticed something off, Weiss looked to be in pristine condition. Nothing about her clothes looked like she just came from a battle against the Fang and the Paladin.

Her suspicions were validated when her Faunus senses went on high alert and on instinct she pushed Yang away from Weiss. Yang was in a state of shock on what happened in this split second, but she totally remembered that Weiss did not have a heterochromia of pink and brown eyes. "Weiss" had a sinister smirk as an umbrella with a blade at its tip threatened to skewer Yang in the eye. That didn't happen, though it did clip Velvet's cheek.

Yang backrolled away while Velvet flinched in pain for a split second before kicking "Weiss" away with a spinning kick.

She blocked the kick with the umbrella and skidded a bit back. After coming to a stop, she looked at the duo with a smirk and opened the umbrella in front of her. Resting the shaft of the umbrella on her shoulder revealed a different individual they didn't know: Neo.

Even under this circumstance, Yang had the audacity to throw a joke. "I know I call Weiss "Weiss Cream", but you definitely take the cake. But I wouldn't want an ice cream that gives more than a brain freeze." She got into a stance while Velvet did too. Neo smiled in that response as a gun shot was heard. She broke into glass as a moderately sized Dust Round flew at Yang and Velvet. Both girls had to roll out of the way. They then both saw Roman Torchwick walk in with Neo by his side.

"Oh Blondie, the brain freeze is the least you would have to worry about with her." Roman aimed the point of his cane at them.

"Hey Torchwick! Was my team too much for your rag tag group?" Yang tried to get under the thief's skin.

Roman could only scoff at Yang' remark as he took a drag of his cigar. "As if. I think they really needed your help with that Paladin. Not sure Red and the others are ready with that doll, definitely not for kids 3 and under." Roman took his cigar out and dropped it on the floor before crushing it with his cane.

That definitely got under Yang's skin as she started to worry about her team's wellbeing. She masked her worry with irritation.

"Well once we mop the floor with you two, we'll make sure to recycle that hunk of metal!" Yang launched herself at the two despite Velvet's warning. Yang's fist soared in front as Neo simply held out her open umbrella, ready to take the strike.

With the same shot composition, the Paladin's fist made contact with one of Weiss' glyphs. The student was clearly struggling under the pressure that the Paladin exuded from the robotic limb.

"Ruby, Blake?!" The pressure became even more unbearable when the Paladin added more reinforcement into its fist. Blake became slightly preoccupied with the White Fang forces though she almost dispatched all of them. Ruby was assisting both of her teammates during their endeavors. In a blur, Ruby rushed towards the Paladin's arm and gave a quick sniper enhanced slash. While the mech staggered back, it retaliated with some turret fire aimed towards Ruby. She had to rush out of that because getting hit with those Paladin rounds seemed like they hurt a lot more than normal bullets.

Blake meanwhile dealt with the last grunt by feigning a rush down strike and using a clone to distract the grunt, instead sliding between his legs to deal a backslash. Lurching forwards, he wildly swang behind his back as Blake used another clone to gain a vertical advantage above him. She finishes him off with a swing of the cleaver sheathe to the head to knock him out. Not wasting another second, she runs to rejoin her teammates.

The Paladin notices Blake and points its gun at Blake only for some sniper rounds to hit the cockpit area, bouncing off the very tough armor. It turned to notice Ruby shooting and Weiss soon shooting Fire Dust. The projectiles seemed to do nothing to the Paladin as it slowly took a few steps forward before deploying missiles from its shoulders and sending them towards the two. As the both of them backed off, the Paladin sneakily shot a couple of stun rounds towards the girls and managed to catch them mid-air. Ruby wasn't fully able to negate the shot when she went to guard with Crescent Rose and Weiss took it square to her chest so she wasn't so readily to recover from that.

"Ow!" Ruby struggled to get up and used her scythe as a support to kneel. "The armor is so tough to penetrate. Only a strong enough force would even dent the thing!" Ruby has definitely miscalculated the tenacity of the Paladin, not making a whole lot of progress albeit plenty of scratches on the platings. It also didn't help that lasers would come out to keep track of all three of them. This Paladin was truly state-of-the-art Atlas tech even as a prototype.

Loathe as she would admit it, she did not think through this too clearly. Yang would be someone who would fare well against this Paladin after she has taken a few hits from the robot. Her Semblance would allow her to convert the damage taken into energy to use. Another reason she was thinking was because it was early in the school year and they haven't gone over actual team synergy exercises in Combat Class yet. They haven't really employed synergy and strategy into a collective effort other than the fights with the advanced Grimm during Initiation, but that was only possible because they had the firepower and minds to deal with them; especially the firepower and minds of Sora and Charlemagne.

Ruby grimaced as she saw the Paladin take its attention towards Blake, who ran in and started to hack away at the Paladin with no results. It raised a gun at Blake as the Faunus proceeded to insert an Ice round into her gun and shoot it where the cockpit was. Ice obscured the pilot as the Paladin's gun fired a round away from Blake with the teen backflipping to gain distance.

"What are you doing?! Why are you working with a human like Roman Torchwick?! Nothing but a thief of a man he is!" Blake yelled at the Paladin.

The Paladin paused for a moment, hearing what Blake said. It aimed its gun at Blake, but held off on firing any rounds. It took a second before a voice kicked in from the mic of the Paladin, the pilot of the Paladin responded: "Blake Belladonna, you have no right to say that after your treacherous defection! You left us to join the humans that are fighting against our cause!"

"We can't keep fighting each other! As a Faunus, I came to understand that nothing will be fixed if the Fang and humans perpetuate this cycle of war!

"Then why do you have your ears wrapped in that bow?"

"I–I…" Blake was caught at a lost for words.

"If you were a proud Faunus, then you wouldn't be hiding what identifies your true self! You wouldn't have left your brothers and sisters to fight alone against injustice! How would Adam even think of this act, you traitor!"

Uneasy hands shook while trying to maintain hold of Gambol Shroud. Blake bit her lip in attempts to compose herself when that effort was proving a bit futile. The Paladin pilot got her good.

"You are too soft just like your father, Chieftain Ghira. Menagerie's section of the White Fang are too much of cowards to see the bigger picture. Now it is time to send a message to your father and the White Fang of Menagerie about what we do with traitors, a message they cannot hope to retaliate against with our strength. This is a message we will write with all of your blood!" The pilot waved the Paladin's gun arm to Team RWBY.

Blake was stiff as a board trying to break out of her self-paralysis. "Move, move! Why am I like this?! What he said… me being a coward… that I can't see the bigger picture. What I yelled at my parents about is what's being used against me now. He isn't all wrong… I just create shadows to deceive and run! How can I advocate for the freedom of Faunus if I can't even stay true to my own heritage?"

More and more, her bow felt like a constricting bind on her cat ears. The bow used to conceal her ears felt like something else to her now: her insistence to cover up her identity and status as a Faunus, restricting what makes her who she is. Tears started to fall from her eyes as she shut them close, failing to notice a hand gently place itself on her shoulder until it made contact. Opening her eyes, she was greeted by the warm smile of Weiss.

"W–W–Weiss?" Blake said weakly.

"Let me, Blake." The heiress responded. She took a step forward and glared at the Paladin.

"The heiress, Weiss Schnee! Under the complexion of your father's company is the savagery towards our kind. What are your final words before another Schnee is rid of this world?"

"Make no mistake, I know what you and the White Fang have done to my family just as we have done to yours. I've done some thinking for a few days and quite frankly I'm getting sick of this, all of this."

The pilot snorted hearing Weiss' words, "If you are trying to distance yourself then that isn't working! What has been done is done! There is no redemption from this pain!"

"No!" Weiss said firmly, "I am not running away from this. All this pain and suffering brought upon both sides is something I'm growing tired of; that's why I am going to fix all of this!" She flicked Myrtenaster at her side.

"I am going to take my father's place as CEO of the Schnee Dust Company after I become a Huntress and I will make this right. The White Fang might've caused me so much pain, but the Faunus who are willing to explore other opportunities to co-exist with humans are stronger. These are the Faunus who are not afraid of setbacks and will someday take back what was lost from the White Fang. And one such Faunus I can wholeheartedly respect who has these beliefs is Blake!" The cat Faunus felt Weiss hold her hand, as a sign of respect and trust.

"Lies!" The Paladin slammed both of its arms to the floor in frustration.

"Believe what you want, this is my truth now. I have been brought out from my ignorance that tried to conceal what I should cherish most: the people to support and love me, Human and Faunus! They are my strength!" With these words that came out of Weiss' mouth, Blake stood a bit taller.

"Weiss, I thought I could never make up to you. The frozen guard you always had up around the topic of Faunus did not allow me to see the suffering you've endured by the Fang. It also didn't let me see that despite your hatred for the Fang, you didn't necessarily hate all Faunus. We are both victims of circumstance, consequences of actions done by those around us. You could've easily fed into that, yet you've changed. The Weiss I see is escaping the self-confinement of her contempt, freeing herself from the binds of hatred. If you can free yourself Weiss… then maybe it's time I do the same."

Blake freed her hand from Weiss' grip, the heiress looking at what her teammate was about to do. Both hands went to the top of her head, making their way to the knot of the bow. Pulling on the ribbon caused the knot to loosen as Blake used one hand to completely pull the bow off. Ruby and Weiss got to look at Blake's cat ears for the first time.

"Woahhh…" Ruby admired not only the ears, but also Blake's newfound bravery.

Instead of shock that would've happened a few days before, Weiss just chuckled and smiled. "You hid those things from all of us? I honestly think those ears fit you much better than the bow."

Ruby ran up to Weiss and Blake to be with them side-by-side. "Uh huh! I agree with Weiss! Just wait til Yang sees them!"

"Enough!" The three girls remembered they had a Paladin to deal with. "All of this doesn't matter after I wipe your lives off of Remnant! This is for our survival, the survival of our race!"

Weiss and Ruby got into position, Blake switched her gun to Fire dust rounds. She threw her bow towards the Paladin as it floated towards the mechanation. Taking quick aim, Blake shot a Fire round. The shot split the ribbon in half as it also burnt in the air and the round made a solid thud on the cockpit of the Paladin.

With newfound vigor, Blake responded, "Then go ahead! Do your worst!" She brandished her katana and sheathe and got into a stance.

A roar was heard by the pilot as the Paladin lifted both arms towards the team as it switched from its turret guns to the arm rockets. The Paladin didn't waste another second firing four rockets. Unbeknownst to any of them, twinkles were seen out of their peripherals and even the Paladin's advanced tracking systems.

Four bullets of light came from the side and perfectly caught the missiles midway through their flight. Both Team RWBY and the Paladin were caught off guard as the explosions spread dust all over the air. A Keyblade parted the dusted as it was spinning towards the Paladin at a great speed. Being too late to act, the Keyblade smacked the Paladin to the extent that it actually got knocked a bit back as it almost lost balance.

"What?!" was what the pilot screamed.

Team RWBY, guessing who it most certainly might be, looked up at the Keyblade as it was traveling back to a source above them: Sora. The Keyblade wielder caught his weapon and landed in front of the girls, nary of an issue. They also inspected the new look of the Keyblade. The crossguard of the Keyblade consisted of a theme of pillars and clouds where the midpoint between grip and blade was an emblem of a cloud with lightning. The blade itself was structured with lightning on both sides and near the tip was the mold of a muscular man holding a lightning bolt which was the teeth of the Keyblade as they've gotten familiar with how Sora's Keyblades are usually structured like with Kingdom Key and Shooting Star. The keychain was a medal with the same emblem as on the crossguard. Hero's Origin at the ready, Sora brought his attention to the girls.

"I made it!"

Very old forces come back to make their presence known in this narrative! The Foretellers are here and why? Well we will have to let the cookie crumble. While writing this chapter, the news of KHUX ending came to us a bit out of left field though the real meat and potatoes of the developing plot was coming together. I personally have not kept up with the past few updates and as I'm writing this the ending of KHUX has already been out for a week so I will need to catch up with that.

Another thing you all might now be asking, Charlie knows Neo? What is her connection to Atlas? We don't really have any info on Neo's past at all with Volume 8 ending but really nothing explaining any revelations about Neo in terms of her life pre-Volume 2. If I don't get to a detailed account of her backstory before Roosterteeth decides to, then I will just still stick to what I have planned up.

Blake and Weiss have hastened their development about their views on the interrelationship between Humans and Faunus and Blake has even decided to ditch the bow three Volumes earlier! Let me know if the conflict of ideologies has been dealt with well so I can improve on how to deal with character drama later along the road.

With that being said, I hope to see y'all on the next update!

Peace!

REternal