Despite the immediate danger presented by Professor Lionheart and his strange condition for alliance, there was an upside to the affair that had Penny almost excited to observe. Despite the two of them working closely over the past several months, Penny had seen little of Ruby's combat ability. Nearly all of it had been within the confines of training or competition.
Penny surveyed her partner's enormous weapon with something approaching skepticism. Exotic weapons were almost a fact of life in Remnant's hunting society, but Penny had seen few of them during her time in the more standardized Atlas Academy. More than likely, Ruby would have been labeled a "problem child" similar to the likes of Team FNKI had she been an Atlas student. Of course, it was unlikely General Ironwood would have let her into his school ahead of time the way Professor Ozpin had.
Ruby would rarely volunteer herself to spar in front of the class, but there had been a few times she had been personally challenged by another student or, once, pressured by Beacon's Professor Goodwitch to take part in an exhibition. The instances Penny had been allowed to observe had been educational to the basics of Ruby's style, but even with her limited field experience she knew there was a vast difference between practice and reality. This would be a valuable experience for not just the professor, but Penny as well.
The three-count had been delivered by Ruby herself with fierce anticipation. Their opening moves were simultaneous. From the crimson glyph radiating off the headmaster's shield, a smooth, polished boulder roughly a meter in diameter sprung out and was sent sailing in Ruby's direction. Ruby, in return, had already leapt forward with a shot from her scythe, pivoting in midair to dodge the hunk of stone and then hooking it with her trailing blade and sending it back to its source. Lionheart had been ready for that, his buckler repositioned to guard his chest as the rock exploded against him in a cloud of dust and debris that engulfed him totally.
Taking advantage of the visual cover that counterattack had bought her, Ruby fired another shot to regain her momentum and continued her offensive. She was lower to the ground this time, her blade in position to take Lionheart's legs while his attention was focused on his upper half. Ruby entered the cloud in an instant and a metallic clang rang out in an explosion of force that dissipated the cover. Lionheart had anticipated this move. He was now in a kneeling position, fist to the concrete and shield totally unmoving against the enormous blade that had been blurring towards him only a quarter second before.
Weapons locked the way they were, the two were now back to back. From what Penny had been told about the Grimm Reaper style from Ruby, this was one of the most advantageous positions for her to be in. The scythe was an unconventional weapon with an unorthodox attack path. With the blade positioned inward the way it was, a simple swing would be ineffective at causing any damage. Instead, a hook and pull targeted at an open flank opposite to the wielder was the most common tactic. Unfortunately, that often had the side effect of putting the wielder within breathing distance of their opponent without a weapon between them to defend with. It was a high risk weapon very few had survived using long enough to master. Penny had a hard time understanding such a limitation. Her weapons had been designed to have nearly limitless flexibility in all the ways she might go about picking apart her target.
With a squeeze of the trigger, Ruby let loose another recoil to break the stalemate. Crescent Rose twirled a vertical 180 degrees in her grip as it left sparks against the headmaster's shield, spearpoint leveling itself at its target's right scapula. Another recoil sent it lurching for the older man's back, only to be thrown off course as Lionheart's off hand swatted it aside and he moved to stand. Ruby, thrown off balance, made a sloppy pivot only to receive a solid left hook to her ribs, only narrowly avoiding the following right uppercut aimed at her jaw by dashing backward in a cloud of rose petals to reestablish distance.
Penny reflected on how informative that short exchange had been to their current situation. The professor's famous Stalwart defense was living up to its name. Ruby had launched three highly unorthodox attacks at him in rapid succession and he had anticipated all of them, then managed a clean hit in response. He had even taken the spearpoint of Crescent Rose into account, something often overlooked by Ruby's human opponents. In close quarters, Ruby was at a complete disadvantage with a bulkier weapon that could not overpower his block, nor slip through the cracks. But, what about at range?
Ruby must have been thinking the same thing as her tactics made a notable shift. Crescent Rose folded into itself, its blades vanishing to leave a compact rifle in her hands. She fired a volley of shots. One after the other they were intercepted by the buckler before reaching their mark. Ruby didn't look all that surprised by this, however. It must have been a test of the headmaster's visual geometry. Penny had heard there were huntsmen who found estimating gun trajectory to be challenging, though it was hard for her to empathize with her subprocessor handling those calculations automatically.
Once she had finished her minor assault, Ruby must have decided she had enough data to alter her tactics. She tilted her rifle lower, aiming for the ground a few feet in front of her target. The ricochet was blocked the same as the other shots, only Lionheart's movement had been much less precise than before. Ruby saw her opportunity and began firing more ricochets with reckless abandon. Off the floor, off the walls, off the metal frames of the cargo shelving, anywhere she could get an angle with. The headmaster's defense was holding, but he was losing ground. All these trick shots were forcing him to alter his stance or take the hit and anything of Ruby's caliber was going to require focused aura to withstand without injury, even decelerating from a ricochet. The cracks were beginning to form in Lionheart's defense, it wouldn't be long before Ruby would score at least a glancing blow.
Click.
Unless her magazine ran dry first.
Now, it was a race for munitions. With a practiced efficiency, Ruby let the empty clip in her rifle drop to the ground with a heavy thud and reached to her belt for a replacement. The total action would only take her 2.43 seconds from what Penny had seen when Ruby chose to get some practice in on Amity's target range. Unfortunately, that had been enough time for Lionheart to formulate a retort. The disk of his buckler began to rotate, lighting up the black and white gems and projecting another glyph from which an octet of arrows began to pour out. Not physical arrows, though. They were vectors, a combination of hard light and gravity so flat as to be nearly two dimensional.
Ruby had barely managed to complete her reload before they were on her, fanning out and converging in a chaotic rhythm that threatened to cut Ruby to ribbons if she stayed where she was. Ruby, to her credit, knew a bodily threat when she saw one and dashed backward under the power of her semblance, vanishing into the folds of her hood as a shower of petals were born only to be shredded an instant later. The arrows followed after her, though, even as she began to zig and zag in a serpentine attempt to shake them off. Worse still, the vector's bodies only seemed to grow, leaving a pitch black web in their trail as they ate more and more of Ruby's maneuvering space. Soon, she would have nowhere to go without leaving the warehouse and that would only attract unwanted attention. Ruby must have realized this as, after planting her boots on the side of their airship for leverage, she kicked off in a flash to close the distance with her opponent. Her aim was predictable, but it was unlikely to fail. Crescent Rose had grown back into its scythe form just in time to take a swipe at Lionheart's left flank. As expected, he moved his shield to defend and, when it was struck, the vectors started to dissipate. They dissolved like tissue paper thrown in a water basin until the only evidence they existed was a few pinches of black dusting the floor. Ruby did not bother to try staying within melee range of Lionheart, instead shifting her blade forward into its warscythe configuration so she might slip the lock and regain distance. Lionheart didn't even bother to stop her, instead using this time to straighten his coat and resume his stance.
That was an unfortunate turn of events. The headmaster had just proven that, despite Ruby's edge in visual geometry, that he could easily dominate her at a range with unorthodox zoning strategies. With no edge in either front, what was left for Ruby to take an advantage in?
The next series of attacks seemed more like improvised filler than any sort of plan. Ruby' assault was quick, frantic, and noncommittal. She would dash in, throw a strike, dash out, attempt a different angle, dash out, and repeat. Over and over, as her rose petals formed a bright red carpet around Lionheart's feet, she tried desperately to uncover any sort of weakness to exploit. Nothing was becoming apparent, though, as the headmaster's terrified eyes seemed to find meaning in Ruby's random attack pattern.
Then, out of what seemed like pointless desperation, Ruby landed a hit. It hadn't been with her weapon, no, instead it was her foot. She had been positioned to Lionheart's left flank with her scythe locked against his shield on the right. With nothing left to do, Ruby must have decided anything was worth trying and sent a round kick to her opponent's lower back. The kick had done little damage due to Lionheart's aura, but it had caused him to stagger a half step forward and loosen his guard arm. Ruby slipped the weapon lock and put some distance between them again. She had a look in her eyes like she had just solved a puzzle she had been struggling at for hours. Her stance deepened, her power gathered, and everything about her said, win or lose, this would be her final attempt.
Ruby braced herself, semblance coursing through her body in flashes of scarlet as she prepared to up her velocity beyond anything that had been seen so far. Lionheart, eager to meet her challenge, widened his stance and raised his shield to welcome the assault. Ruby was on Lionheart before Penny heard the gunshot, only it wasn't her scythe that had made contact. No, it was her boots that crashed against the headmaster's weapon, the resulting shockwave shaking the building and all its wares the way one could expect from a Mach 1 dropkick.
There was no possible way Lionheart could have kept himself standing through strength alone. Upon closer inspection, Penny could make out a half dozen points on his body being enhanced by a soft amber glow. His fine aura control was incredible, he knew exactly what parts to bolster without causing excessive drain on his energy. Ruby, on the other hand, had started to grit her teeth at the pain her legs must have been feeling due to her inadequate bracing. Was her body even capable of withstanding the full power of her semblance? If that was the case, what was the purpose of such a reckless attack?
That question was answered when Ruby swung her scythe blade to Lionheart's rear flank, the older man was now exactly where she wanted him to be with no shield to defend him. A sacrificial feint into an inescapable trap. Even if he had more aura to spare than she did, Lionheart would never have enough to guard his flesh against a clean strike from such a massive blade. Ruby's grimace shifted into a grin as her finger squeezed the trigger that would ignite her victory. The recoil took hold of the weapon and sent it hurtling to its prey—
Only to be stopped in its tracks by a meager palm, gloved in amber light.
Even with his shield held prisoner, Professor Leonardo Lionheart found a way to keep his defense up. His aura, which had been allocated to most of his joints only a moment ago, was now devoted almost entirely to his right hand, which he had repositioned off his left forearm in just enough time to catch Crescent Rose before it could so much as scratch his back. This left the pair in a stalemate, locked in an unorthodox grapple with no clear direction to progress.
Clearly, though, this wasn't good enough for Ruby. Her smirk morphing into a determined grimace, she violently ejected the magazine out of her weapon and loaded in another one; identical except for the image of four arrows converging on a single dot printed on the side. Penny recognized it as the universal symbol to denote Gravity Dust. Gripping the bolt in her left hand and pulling it back, Ruby loaded a fresh gravity round into the chamber and fired. Crescent Rose's muzzle flashed black, the recoil wracking against Lionheart's palm but his arm staying firm. Ruby was hardly discouraged though. She jacked another round into the chamber and fired again. Then again and again and again. The dark flash and warped boom of each shot formed a steady, aggressive rhythm as, with each one, Lionheart's elbow began to bend. Every shot was another inch closer to victory and Penny found herself transfixed by her partner's bottomless tenacity in the face of her goal. It was like there was nothing she wouldn't do, nothing she wouldn't think of to take just another step closer to what she was after. This was how Ruby really fought and Penny cursed her terrible luck at never getting to see it sooner.
The headmaster's elbow would buckle soon, it was inevitable. The struggle was plain on his face as the glow of his aura began to falter and dim. By Penny's count, Ruby had four rounds left in her magazine. That would be more than enough to finish it.
Then he smiled.
Penny had to blink a few times just to make sure she really was seeing correctly. It was wide, audacious, almost manic. A sort of grin that made no logical sense given the situation he found himself in. Then, she saw a new glow. Every gem on his shield began to light up from under Ruby's boots, shaking with a barely restrained power as though about to burst. This wasn't Dust, it was so much more than that. The man's grin cracked open and he began to speak, but the torrent of power hid his words from the spectators. In a flash, the world changed.
It was an explosion unlike any Penny had ever seen. The colors erupting from the shield were creating a new environment in their wake. The dull, concrete and metal warehouse gave way to mountains, pathes, rivers, and bridges that hung in a blurred, impossible space. Ruby was at the center of it all; flung back and weapon wrenched from her grip in slow motion as the bright scarlets of her outfit faded away into a translucent black. She was a figure trapped in this surreal landscape, left to the mercy of its painter. She hung there for a few seconds, then began to plummet as the false world dissolved around her. She tumbled to the hard cement floor, her expression turning to agony as she started to clutch at one of her legs.
"RUBY!"
Penny wasn't certain what happened next. She hadn't consciously moved her body, nor could she recall issuing any commands to her swords. Still, she felt Ruby cradled in her arms and she saw her swords fully deployed; held back by a ring of floating pages before they could eviscerate the old man they must have been seeking out. The one in white and blue, Mel Zaffre, stood in front of the kneeling headmaster holding a glowing steel tome encrusted with Dust her left Sal Indigo, the one in orange and blue, had levelled a staff at her. Mounted at the end of it, only an inch away from her head, was a pineapple grenade decorated in metal ivy. The threat had been effectively relayed.
Penny would have had no issue surviving that kind of blast, but Ruby? Her aura was depleted and she was already injured. Maybe Penny could shield her, but it was hard to say if she would be fast enough. This was bad, there was no way out of this situation that didn't put Ruby at a significant risk of death. Even if they got lucky and Ruby only suffered a serious injury, it wasn't a guarantee Penny would be able to fix it. She had terabytes of medical information on hand, but she was far from a doctor. It was all she could hope that Ruby's current injury would be within her ability to care for.
Penny considered the girl in her arms. Would Ruby surrender at a time like this? No, the fight she had just witnessed was evidence enough of that. She had told Penny over and over how excited she was to proceed with Amity, all the Grimm she wanted to kill. Ruby would have said all of that was worth risking her life over. But could Penny do it? The clock was ticking, she needed to make a decision. Attack? Retreat? Surrender? Distract? Bargain? Sacri—
"Sal! Mel! Stand down!" Lionheart's voice was fatigued, but boomed with authority nonetheless.
"Master, she interfered," Sal responded coolly, adjusting his grip in a way that caused the grenade near Penny's head to bob slightly up and down. "You had already established the rules of this engagement, so—"
"And I ordered the two of you not to interfere either, if I remember correctly. Now, put your weapons away."
That was odd. Was he displeased that his students had moved to assist him? Perhaps he thought he could deal with Penny himself. Either way, Penny was relieved when the bomb was smoothly directed away from her face. The paper, on the other hand, stayed firmly in place.
"Master," Mel began a bit frantically, "The girl is more or less unconscious at this point. She cannot continue fighting. She failed your test. Now is the best time to apprehend both of them."
"You're making fast assumptions, Mel. You say she failed, but," Lionheart stumbled to a stand and walked forward. Clearly, he was drained from the fight. When he was in view of the rest of them, he raised his right hand. There was a deep gash on the palm, it was bleeding heavily, "from what I can see, she came in just under the wire. Ruby Rose, you have my support for the time being. Do not make me regret that."
The pair of huntsmen were gaping at the injury being displayed to them. They must have assumed Ruby's defeat when the shield started charging. Ruby, however, had held onto her weapon long enough to keep the pressure on when the blast started, just in time to slice the headmaster open when his aura reserves drained into his final attack. In the end, it wasn't skill or power that won out, it was grit.
Ruby must have still been aware enough to hear all of that, because her whimpers and groans gave way to a hoarse laughter. Her mouth struggled into a delirious grin as all the tension in her muscles eased as her body chose to give out on her. As Penny observed the injured girl in her arms, pride and concern were wrestling each other for a seat at the top of her mind. She would need to get used to these moments, she realized. If they were going to change the world the way they wanted to, Ruby would have to fight it first.