Now that I've finished A Knight and A Tigeress Find Love and Thinking back I figured now was the time to pick this back up and finish it. Our Head Now isn't going to be as long as my last storyline, right now I'm going to head through and tweak up all eight chapters over the course of the next week or so. Nine will come out next Saturday or Sunday.
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Amber was riding a white horse with a green cloak with golden armor and her hood up on its back. She was going down a single path with a wooden fence to either side cutting through the green. The animal comes forward as the sharp sound is heard once more, and the two stop when they come across the scene of a young green-haired girl curled up and crying next to a felled bicycle.
"What's a kid doing all the way out here?"Amber dismounts from her steed and slowly approaches the child, who looks up as the mysterious stranger kneels down to her level and gives a friendly smirk. The girl flinches in fright when the woman reaches into her clothes and pulls out an apple. The child happily reaching for it.
"Huh?"
Dust from the ground behind the child is kicked up confusing Amber then suddenly the image of the child happily reaching for the apple disappeared.
Dropping the fruit and leaping back quickly as the horse turns to run away, Amber ditches the cloak and pulls out her weapon, expanding the double crystal-headed staff to full length. Amber sees a green-haired girl running towards her, twin revolvers blazing out shots, each of which is deflected against the Maiden's hand.
Amber twirls her staff around her body, kicking up the winds and blasting it towards her opponent, forcing them to slide back. Amber turns to see another assailant, male from first glance, coming up from the fence, landing on her staff as she forces him and the red-eyed one back with another attack.
The silver-haired one simply leaps on a post and launches himself back at her, forcing Amber to unleash a stream of fire from the red crystal on him, but her attacker merely curls up and lets his legs take the brunt of the damage, flames burning away the grey pants as the complex machinery and lit-up metal making up the robotic prosthetics underneath is revealed. With his artificial limbs, he continues to come forward through the fire and kick Amber with the blow knocking her to the ground, only for the first attacker to land on her from above, cracking the very ground underneath.
The two jump back and get ready to fight again when Amber gets up, head bowed until she looks up with orange energy pouring from her eyes. Now Amber was pissed.
The winds erupt from the Maiden, swirling around and making her enemies cover their faces from the force, when she lifts off the ground and spreads her arms to the sky, lightning now rumbling in the clouds for her to aim at the two, who barely get out of the way in time. Calling upon more of the storm, the two continue to dodge each bolt as quickly as they can. The two ambushers fire on Amber, but the invisible shield now covers her whole body, taking each shot as she reaches to her side and clenches a fist, making the leaves rise into the air and come to her.
With a raised arm, the leaves turn from green to frozen ice, and she rains the newly-hardened projectiles down on her foes, who are unable to avoid the attack. Amber continues this assault until she senses someone running towards her from behind, face set in determination, and summons a fireball to launch at her third adversary, who manages to leap over the slides across the ground, kicking up dirt.
She faces her palm to the dirt, the yellow fabric on her sleeve glowing, and coalesces the dirt into several glass shards, which she aims at the floating Maiden. Amber is knocked back from the damage, face down in the dirt until she looks up with normal eyes just when the sharp sound is heard again. She first sees the area empty, but the green-haired girl flickers into view for a moment, and Amber slowly realizes what's happening as the second assailant also shifts into her frame of vision, with the third coming forward in spurts, swords raised to kill.
The woman in the red dress attempts to slice Amber with the two blades, only for the Maiden to deflect each hit and kick the assailant away just as the first two come forward in her stead. The two miss their initial attacks and cautiously pull back from their efforts, but the second lands a blow on her only for Amber to rush at him, Amber manages to punch the green-haired girl into staggering back, the illusions falter for a moment. Then kick the annoying boy away right before turning around and seeing arrows landing at the ground around her, which erupt in a high whistling noise and a burning explosion from each projectile. She feels the full force of it all, her Aura disappearing entirely from the damage.
Amber slowly gets up from her hands and knees. She swipes at the three with a gust of wind that succeeds in blowing them off the assault, but the false-legged boy races back towards her in an attempt to re-engaged until he was blasted back by a bolt of lightning from the now burning eyed Maiden. She suddenly turns back and sends a fireball at the first attacker, only for it to disappear and the real thief to be revealed on the other side, also getting a blast of flame. Amber may not have fully understood her powers but years traveling allowed her to get a firm enough grasp on them.
With all three of her attackers down, Amber grabs her staff from the ground and uses it as support to walk over to the green-haired girl, wincing and clutching her side all the while. She only has time to look up in fear before Amber growls and raises her weapon to finish the fight just when a quick whooshing noise ends with a sudden thump right as she gasps in pain.
Eyes wide, Amber collapses forward, an arrow sticking out from her back while the red-dressed bowman lowers the bow and smiles once more. She drops her weapon and calmly comes forward, taking out a white glove as her companions force their defeated foe to her knees. Amber and the amber-eyed woman meet eye to eye before the villainess lifts up her now gloved hand, the back of it marked with the red symbol of an open eye in a compass shape, broken on one side by five diamond shapes.
She reaches down, palm towards Amber when the white suddenly opens a small red portal, out from which a Grimm bug comes out.
Amber's pupils contracted, begging in a whisper. "Please don't-"
The creature spits out a web of black, attaching to Amber's face in a familiar pattern. When she looks up, screaming, her one free eye is blazing, a final blast of wind erupting from her as the glow fades into the inky strands, up through the glove, and into Cinder's body. Her own victorious eyes light up with power, a shower of sparks surrounding her, and a black and red circle appearing under their feet. Amber closes her eye...
This was it, the powers of the fall Maiden were now hers, and thus first step into her plan would soon be complete.
However footsteps were heard racing towards the ritual, and Cinder only has a moment to look up and see a blonde-haired boy wearing a white diamond-shaped chest plate cut off just at the lower abdomen, placed over his shoulders are a pair of white spaulders with rerebraces set under them.
Welding a double-edged blade he swings it down but not on them, severing the web and making the three leap back in surprise. He catches the unconscious Maiden by her head before she could hit the ground, and Cinder watches to her hand as the glove burns away into nothingness.
"No! No! No! NO! This cannot be happening! I had a plan! UGH!"
Cinder looks up with a scowl, her right eye now brimming with power, as she gets up from her position and raises her arms, embers circling around her she attempts to summon some fire to destroy the blonde fool.
"AH!"
He cries out and pulls his left hand away from the Maiden as if he was burned. His arm seemed to cramp and his muscles twitch wildly. He drops his sword and grabs onto his arm in an attempt to stabilize it. Mercury was the first to capitalize on this and launched himself in the air bringing his lag in to crush the boy's head. He seemed to realize this and grabbed the Maiden's staff and attempted to shield himself with it. Mercury instead lands and roundhouse kicks his opponent knocking him to the ground.
Jaune had been walking through the woods on his way to the city of Vale when he saw clouds just appear and lightning form.
Whatever was going on must be an intense battle of dust weaving.
Jaune made his way over and observed three people, one of which was in a red dress, shot the brown-skinned girl with the staff and the two others pulling their victim up by the arms, it looked like an execution.
Not on Jaune's watch, his legs were strained as they carried him, the woman cries out in pain as something was splattered on his face.
Unsheathing his blade he hopped over the wooden fence and swung his blade down on a string of black hair. It didn't take a genius to figure out it was the source of her pain.
The assailants all jumped away, surprised, letting their captive fall, Jaune swiftly intervened and grabbed her with his left hand, some of the stuff on her face was glued onto it and even seeped past his glove. The tar-looking substance glowed brightly for a second before disappearing altogether.
Then there was pain, it was sudden and encompassed his whole arm, releasing the girl's head like he was burned, every muscle in his arm twitched and spasms in pain.
"AAAHHH!" That was all Jaune could do to vocalized it as he dropped his sword to stabilize his arm.
The gray-haired guy took advantage of the opening and leaped into the air attempting to bring his leg down to likely cave Jaune's head in, he saw a staff on the ground and picked it up to block his attack, unfortunately, he roundhouse kicked into the dirt.
A moment later Jaune sees a weird swirl on the ground and it screamed dangerous. His arm, still cramped, was better than before. Jaune let go of the staff and pulled out his shield using it and his own body to shield the unconscious girl. There was a high whistling noise then a burning explosion, after it had ended Jaune looked to his arm and knew he was outmatched, even worse he knew that attempting to save the girl beneath him would be a fool's earn, but before he could attempt to flee he was knocked back to the ground, his shield forced away from it as a hand came to grab this throat and drag him up to meet amber eyes burning with anger.
Cinder saw the shield, twin yellow moon crescents, and the distinctive blond hair.
An Arc.
Of course, Ozpin would see fit to protect the Maiden. I mean a Maiden out in the middle of the wilderness with no protection? It seemed too prosperous to be true and was! He must've been shadowing Amber from afar and now the ritual was interrupted and the glove was gone. Sure some of the power were hers now and the rest still there for the taking, but this boy humiliated Cinder and that would not stand.
The scowl held contorting her typically beautiful face. "Well aren't you the convent one aren't you? Just in time to save her but not in time to help." She peered into his eyes which was filled with fear.
"Good. He should be afraid." Cinder thought.
In the blink of an eye, she had him by the throat, his free hand came to scratch at the appendage sealing his airway.
"I suppose it's to be expected… Ozpin would never have been content with a Maiden running around freely. It's quite unfortunate for your arm to cramp at a time like this." Cinder grinned menacingly. "Lucky for me I guess." She applied pressure to his throat cutting off this oxygen supply.
"Ozpin isn't that the headmaster at Beacon? Maidens? What is she talking about?" Jaune makes to ask but the pressure place on his throat changed it into a choking sound.
"Oh god! No!" Jaune was forced to peer into her burning eyes and a vicious grin.
His left arm was a bit stiff but didn't hurt anymore, soon joining his right in resisting as futile as it seemed…
He felt something…
Coursing through his arm, the red-dressed beauty looked at him in shock and she yelped as she was blasted off him. Looking down he saw electricity briefly dancing between his fingers. He heard a snarl and saw her pick up his sword and raise it up to finish him.
However, a man with graying black spiky hair, red eyes, and a gray dress shirt with a long tail with a red tattered cloak seemed to appear out of nowhere behind her and brought a massive sword to knock her to the side.
Qrow was soaring in bird form looking for Amber when he noticed a group of people on the exact road she was going to take.
Diving down and getting a better look he saw a beauty in a red dress get shocked into dropping some blonde kid. Next to her was Amber, and Qrow got into action quickly, diving down he and shifting back into his human form he swung Harbinger and knocked her over to her pals, Qrow got in front of Amber's form and red dress eyes widened he could only see her shimmering face but new she looked past him at the blonde kid her eyes then narrowed, she shifted her hand and a weird swirl appeared under Qrow for a second before the ground under him starts to glow, and he gets himself and Amber out of the way just as it explodes.
Then shifted around and put his weapon in gun form. Only to find that the three are gone. Qrow scanned the area and found nothing, then turns his worried gaze to the marked and comatose face of Amber and checked Amber's pulse and was relieved to find her heart was still beating.
"Whew! Okay gotta call Oz for a pickup."
"Agh." He heard a groan from the blonde and looked over to see him gripping his head in pain.
"Hey! Kid are you ok?" Qrow asked.
Jaune's head was pounding. He felt as if someone had taken a hammer and whacked him in the back of the head.
He saw first-person images of various people and places he didn't recognize. Jaune heard the man say something but what that was didn't matter right now.
The pain and ringing continued until Jaune heard something… it was… a woman crying out in pain?
With that Jaune collapse and faded out of consciousness.
Qrow saw the blonde fall slumped to the side and appeared to stop moving, what's more his left arm had a few sparks of electricity before it too faded. Qrow checks his pulse as well and found him to be alive as well but didn't respond to his attempts at waking him up. Qrow sighed and pulled out his scroll hitting a familiar number on it, letting his scroll ring until it was finally picked up.
"Qrow, was your assignment successful in finding Amber Autumn?" Ozpin asked.
"Yeah I found her, but she was attacked." Qrow responded and he heard some shuffling through the scroll.
"Is she alright?" Oz quickly said.
"Unconscious and badly bruised, but yeah she's alive. There's something else though." Qrow's eyes shifted over to the blonde kid.
"What is it?"
"Some blondie came to her rescue but was beaten back from what I can tell, he's also unconscious right now." Qrow explained.
"Does he have an ID on him?"
"Let me check." Qrow patted his pockets and found a wallet.
"Hm, it says here his name is Jaune Arc. He's Roland's son Oz."
"I'll send you a pick up just wait there."
"Yeah, not like I can go anywhere Oz." Qrow ended the call and looked to Jaune.
"Interfering is not going to end well for him." Qrow thought with a frown.