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Volume 4 Chapter 6: Fiery Inferno Part 1
That Night
Ren was having trouble sleeping, as he was currently tossing and turning in his bed. While at the same time he was seeing flashes of memories from a town being on fire while people were being killed by a giant horse imp Grimm hybrid. But the dream ended when the Grimm looked at him and let out a loud shriek, this caused him to jolt awake while breathing heavily. So to calm himself and to avoid waking his teammates Ren used his semblance on himself to take the fear away for a bit.
He looked around the room, and to his joy he saw that Nora was still sleeping without much trouble. When she mumbled "...Hmmm... pancakes..." in her sleep a smile crept onto his face and he decided to leave the room to get some air. He made his way to the roof of the dorm building, where he sat down to sit in silence to look at the stars and the broken moon that was shining its light over Remnant.
Looking at the night sky, Ren got lost into his own thoughts. Wondering if he would ever be strong enough to avenge those who had fallen to the Nuckelavee all those years ago and if his parents were watching over if they were proud of him. He was quickly snapped out of his thoughts when he heard the door to the roof open, and saw Ruby standing there. "I'm sorry, I didn't know there was someone up here." She immediately apologised sounding a bit more naselly than normal.
"It's fine, can't sleep either?" Asked Ren.
"No, still thinking about what happened earlier today." Replied Ruby, after which she let out a sneeze which caused Ruby to let out some rose petals.
"Catch a cold?" Asked Ren.
"I don't know, we did get frozen solid for a bit." Said Ruby, as she chuckled at the bad joke she had made but also had a bit of a worried expression on her face.
"Is there something wrong?" Asked Ren, who immediately noticed the worried expression on Ruby's face.
"I'm worried about Rock, all of us are actually. He's been pushing himself over the edge and... and we're worried that this mission is gonna kill him." Said Ruby, as she sat down next to Ren.
"Are you sure you're not worrying too much?" Asked Ren.
"You haven't seen him the way we have Ren, he's become more violent and reckless since he got the double gear system. We're worried that something's going to happen to him." Said Ruby.
"But he's been doing this for fifteen years, and up until that points he's been fine. So maybe don't worry too much." Said Ren.
"I get that, but we've been suspecting that it wasn't always that easy for him. Like the death traps we've encountered so far were extremely deadly and tricky, I feel that he's gotten lucky up to this point or that he had people to help him out when it got to the point that he needed it. But I honestly worry that he'll get himself killed, and that we would lose him as a teammate." Replied Ruby.
"Have you told him that?" Asked Ren.
"I... I haven't." Said Ruby, to which she added "I honestly don't even know how to approach him about that." It was then that Ren used his semblance on Ruby to turn her emotions off. "Why did you do that?"
"I could feel that you were beginning to become anxious about it, so I used my semblance to mask your emotions and to make you feel calmer." Replied Ren.
"Thanks Ren, that does feel better." Replied Ruby.
"You're welcome, maybe think about what you went to tell him." Said Ren, who stood up and got ready to leave.
"Where are you going?" Asked Ruby.
"I've had enough fresh air, and I was able to clear my mind. I'll leave you to think it over." Said Ren, who then walked to the stairwell.
"Thanks, I hope you sleep better. Have a good night." Said Ruby.
"You too." Replied Ren, who then entered the stairwell and left Ruby on her own to think about how she was going to approach Rock about her worries.
The Next Day
The next day the group, minus Ruby who was feeling a bit sick and was in the infirmary to get checked, were sitting in Professor Goodwitch's combat class at the end of the school day and had just witnessed a fight between Yang and Arslan from Team ABRN which got drawn got out for a quite a long time due to both fighters being good in hand to hand combat. Along with the fact that Yang's semblance kept making her stronger while Arslan was able to use her aura to increase her durability against Yang.
So in the end after a fight that lasted nearly twenty minutes both fighters had their aura drop into the red, and Professor Goodwitch declared the match to be a tie between the two fighters. But afterwards the two fighters collapsed from exhaustion, so now they were being brought to the infirmary so they could get some rest after the fight. And with the two being taken out of the classroom on stretchers Professor Goodwitch was able to address her students.
"Due to that match taking so long, and class almost being over I think that there will be time for one last fight. Now I want it to be a quick one, if anyone drags this out longer than it needs to be they will be having detention with me for the next week. Now let's see who our first combatant will be." Said Professor Goodwitch as she tapped a button on her scroll, causing the screen above her to start spinning the photos of everyone who was taking part in the class.
After a few seconds the screen stopped, and it revealed that Pyrrha was the one fighting next. Professor Goodwitch turned to Pyrrha and asked "Miss Nikos, who would you like to fight against?"
Without hesitation Pyrrha replied with "I would like to fight Rock, if that's not too much of a problem."
"Not at all, now both of you should get to the changing rooms to get ready for the match." Said Professor Goodwitch, after which the two students nodded, left their seats and made their way over to the changing rooms.
In the meantime their friends in the audience began to talk amongst themselves, "So, who do you thinks going to win?" Asked Nora.
"You want to make another bet?" Asked Jaune.
"Sure, it's certainly going to be a lot more interesting than the one from a couple of months ago with all those weapons that he has collected." Replied Nora.
"I hate to break it you Nora, but he is only allowed to use his buster and none of the weapons that he had obtained from those robots. Professor Ozpin made it a rule that he can only use them in combat outside of school." Said Weiss.
"That's a shame." Said Nora, who began to pout a bit but then she lost the saddened expression on her face as she added "But you guys still wanna make a bet?"
"Sure, I'll bite. I'm putting my money on Pyrrha." Said Weiss.
"Surprised to see you take part in this." Said Blake.
"With Ruby feeling a bit sick, Yang recovering from that fight and Rock about to fight Pyrrha someone on this team is going to have to indulge in Nora's antics." Said Weiss.
"Understandable, I'm also going for Pyrrha." Said Blake.
"So that's two for Pyrrha, what about you fearless leader?" Asked Nora.
"I'm going for a tie between the two." Replied Jaune.
"Really? But without his weapons it will be exactly like last time." Said Nora.
"I know, but now he can go all out and he doesn't have to worry about his identity getting exposed from the fight." Said Jaune.
"That makes sense, I'm also going for a tie." Said Ren.
"What about you Nora?" Asked Jaune.
"I don't know, both are my friends. Both are strong and are great in combat, but I just can't choose between the two... You know what, I have faith in both of them so I'm also going for a tie." Said Nora.
Ren simply nodded and then turned to Weiss and Blake to ask "Does that mean that you don't have faith in Rock?"
Blake got a sheepish look on her face and replied "No... That's... that not it."
"Lets just say that Rock has become scared of going all out due to the strain that the Double Gear system has been putting on him, while also making him more aggressive and likely to hurt people. We've seen it the last couple of days, he's gotten hurt more often and it's gotten us all worried about him. So with him under the influence of the double gear system and all of it's side effects we aren't sure of the outcome but we believe that Pyrrha will be the most likely to win." Said Weiss.
"I see." Replied Ren, after which he thought to himself "Ruby said something similar last night, I should probably keep an eye on that."
"I'm sure it will be fine, right?" Asked Jaune, who then got a slightly worried look on his face as his friends didn't respond to his question.
Meanwhile
Rock and Pyrrha had made their way into the changing rooms and had changed into their respective armours, and were sitting in silence waiting for them to be called into the area. That was until the silence was broken by Rock who asked "Any particular reason why you wanted to fight me again?"
"I'm sorry, what?" Asked Pyrrha.
"Why did you pick me, out of everyone in our year why me specifically?" Asked Rock, who then noticed a slight look of guilt on Pyrrha's face, so he asked "Do you... feel guilty over what happened during the breach." Pyrrha didn't respond, instead she mumbled something that Rock was unable to hear. So he asked "I couldn't hear you, could repeat that please?"
"It's not just that, sure I feel guilty that I couldn't help you and that it lead to you getting arrested by Ironwood. But it's so much more than that, out of everyone I've ever fought you gave me the biggest challenge. And still, you were holding back to prevent your identity from being exposed. Our friends usually give me a good challenge due to their varied fighting styles and Jaune is getting better, to the point that I actually think that he could fight me and have it be tie. But everyone else still puts me on a pedestal, like I'm some unreachable standard. And then there is you, when I was younger I heard stories about you. I thought you were this mythical figure, going up against... impossible odds and still putting a stop to Wily. But here you are, the same age as us, attending our classes and after we learned your secret I really wanted to know which one of us is stronger." Said Pyrrha, who had stood up from her seat and was now standing in front of Rock.
Rock stood up to face Pyrrha and said "If that's how you feel, fine. We'll go all out, just don't hold anything back." After which the bell was heard and he said "That's the bell, lets go."
"Right." Said Pyrrha, after which the two left the changing rooms, entered the combat area and stood opposite of one another.
"Are both combatants ready?" Asked Professor Goodwitch, to which both Pyrrha and Rock nodded in response. "In that case, get ready to fight on three, one, two, three, start!"
A bell rang, indicating to both Pyrrha and Rock that the fight had started. Pyrrha turned Miló into its rifle form, while Rock instantly switched to the Double Gear System and started to charge up his buster using the power gear. While charging it he rushed towards Pyrrha at full speed using the speed gear in order for him to dodge some of shots coming from Miló, but he still got hit by two of the shots doing some damage to him. But he ignored the pain and instead kept rushing towards Pyrrha.
Getting close enough to her, he unleashed the powered up shot from his buster which got blocked by Pyrrha's shield Akoúō. Only for Rock to follow the attack up by delivering several punches to Pyrrha's gut, catching her off guard which also stunned her for a bit. This allowed Rock to deliver an upper cut to her, this knocked her weapons out of her hand and he then punched her to the ground, after which he began to charge up a buster shot. Fortunately Pyrrha had gotten out of her dazed state, and she used her semblance to grab her shield. Akoúō was thrown at Rock's head which caused him to become distracted, allowing Pyrrha to touch his foot.
Rock became magnetised from this, and he was flung into a nearby wall where he became stuck to the wall as Pyrrha kept using her semblance on him. She then used Miló in its rifle form to take several shots at Rock, ensuring that he would be stunned long enough for Pyrrha to turn the Rifle into its spear form. She then used her own semblance to launch herself towards Rock, attempting to damage the robot using her spear.
But Rock, who had become less stunned from the shots taken at him, began to try and free himself from the influence of Pyrrha's Polarity by trying to move around a bit, but it didn't work as he was stuck to the wall. So he switched to the speed gear, and began to move around at a rapid pace building up an immense amount of speed. To the point that so much kinetic energy was being built up in one place, that it caused a massive explosion and Rock was launched at Pyrrha while firing several charged shots with the use of the power gear at her. With each hit she got pushed even further to her limits.
He got close to his opponent and bumped into Pyrrha mid-air led to the two becoming engaged in an arial battle, as Pyrrha had began to use her semblance to keep the two in the air through manipulating the magnetic waves around her. Rock wasn't influenced by it due to him making use of the speed gear to move around Pyrrha. And so the two clashed, Pyrrha managing to land several hits on Rock using both Miló in its spear form and Akoúō being launched at Rock.
He managed to dodge some of the shots taken at him due to his use of the speed gear, but he still took some hits due to Pyrrha predicting where he would rush to next and using her polarity to keep her weapons under control. While at the same time Rock, with the use of the double gear system, managed to land several punches and kicks on Pyrrha while charging up his buster. After it finished charging he deliver a mid-air slide to catch Pyrrha off guard, and shot her in the back with a powerful charged shot doing an immense amount of damage.
Rock expected this to be the final hit that would end the match, only for him to get launched into the ground by Pyrrha's Polarity. He struggled to look up, and saw that the magnetic waves around Pyrrha and in the room itself were beginning to distort. Causing anything made off metal to be pushed towards the wall, he even managed to see Jaune in his armour getting stuck to the wall and struggling to prevent himself from being squished by his armour.
Pyrrha stood on top of her shield and began to move to the top of the room, Rock realised that he was in a lot of trouble if he didn't do something now. He checked how much energy he had left, and saw that there were only a couple of bars left on his buster. So he activated both speed and power gears at the same time, using the speed gear to be able to move his arm and with the power gear he was able to charge up a powerful shot. In the meantime Pyrrha had launched herself to the ground using her extra strong polarity, and was about to hit Rock when the powerful charged shot hit her shield causing her to loosen her grip on the magnetic waves in the room, freeing everyone and everything as well as falling to the ground on her back taking an immense amount of damage from the fall.
But Rock wasn't safe either, as Pyrrha's shield was still falling out of the air and before he could move out of the way he was hit by the shield, knocking him to the ground as well. With both fighters lying on the ground and not moving, Professor Goodwitch called the match "And that's the match, both fighters are in the red and have lost the same amount of aura and energy. Therefore the match is a tie."
Upon hearing this the entire room looked at her with shocked looks on their faces, no one being able to utter a single word at what just happened during the match. Hearing nothing but silence, Professor Goodwitch was the first to speak up "If Miss Nikos' and Mister Light's friends would be so kind as to take their friends to the infirmary that would be much appreciated. Class is dismissed, I'll give my feedback over this match next class I just need to collect my thoughts on what just happened."
And so Blake, Weiss, Jaune, Nora and Ren went down into the arena to help their friends up, while the rest of the class began to slowly leave the room. Blake had picked up Rock, while Ren and Jaune were holding giving Pyrrha support by letting her lean on their shoulders. The group was about to leave the room when they were stopped by Professor Goodwitch calling out to them "One more thing, Mr Arc would you be so kind as to stay behind. There is something I wish to discuss with you."
"Uhm... sure thing." Replied Jaune, who let go of Pyrrha who was then supported by Nora letting her teammate lean on her shoulder. He then turned to his friends, saw that they had concerned looks on their faces and said "You guys can go to the infirmary, I'll be fine."
"If you're sure about it, then we'll leave you to it." Said Ren, after which the group left the classroom.
"Professor, why did you keep me here. Shouldn't I be helping my friends get Pyrrha and Rock to the infirmary?" Asked Jaune.
Professor Goodwitch sighed and replied "Mr Arc, did what happened during the battle not seem a bit strange to you? Pyrrha suddenly getting a power boost to the point that she was able to control the magnetic waves in the room?"
"I... I don't know what you're talking about." Replied Jaune, getting a raised eyebrow from the combat instructor.
"Really, Mr Arc. Your semblance allows you to enhance people's auras, ensuring that they get healed from wounds or injuries much faster. Miss Nikos' semblance got enhanced to the point that she was able to do all of that, a semblance that is tied to someone's aura. And you mean to tell me that you have no idea how any of that happened, you're sure that you didn't use your aura from a distance to help her in the fight?" Asked professor Goodwitch.
"Are... are you suggesting that I helped my partner cheat?" Asked Jaune.
"I don't know, did you try to help your partner cheat?" Replied Professor Goodwitch.
"NO! I didn't, I don't even know what happened. I just thought she had gotten strong enough to do all of that, besides all my semblance does is boost aura to heal. There is no way it should be able to boost it to the point that people get stronger abilities." Replied Jaune.
"Well, maybe just maybe your ability allows people to unlock dormant abilities over time. After all, you did bring your partner back from the dead during the breach so who knows. Your semblance might allow you to amplify other semblances to the point that they grow stronger. Maybe this is something for you to think about, anyways you are dismissed enjoy the rest of your day." Said Professor Goodwitch.
"Thank you professor." Said Jaune, who was about to leave the room only to be stopped when the professor called out to him.
"And Mr Arc, it's preferable that you keep this to yourself for now. This would be a pretty big development, and would lead to a lot of trouble if this were to get out. Understood?" She asked.
"Yes, I understand completely." Replied Jaune.
"Good, then you can leave." Replied Professor Goodwitch, after which Jaune left the room to go find his friends while she watched her student leave. When she was a hundred percent sure that he was gone she pulled out her scroll and said "Did you get all that?"
"I did, this certainly is an interesting development in regards to his semblance." Replied Professor Ozpin on the other end of the scroll.
"What do you want me to do Ozpin?" Asked Professor Goodwitch.
"Keep an eye on things, see how they develop and maybe if he needs any help give him guidance. But for now, keep your distance we don't want people to become suspicious." Replied Ozpin on the other end of the scroll.
"Very well, you think he might be able to reverse the effects of her injuries?" Asked Professor Goodwitch.
"I think that at this moment it would be too soon to pass judgement, this new ability is too weak and he would have to train it. But for now we should keep our minds off of it, and instead focus on his development. I'd rather not have a student perish for the cause. But regardless, I'll leave you to it." Replied Ozpin, after which the connection was cut.
"I will." Replied Professor Goodwitch, after which she looked at the room and saw that it was quite damaged from the fights. She sighed and added "Might as well fix the damages." After which she activated her semblance and began to use it put the room back to the way it was.
Meanwhile in the infirmary
The group had gotten to the infirmary before Jaune had been dismissed by Professor Goodwitch, placed both Pyrrha and Rock on beds and had caught both Yang and Arslan up on what had happened during the match. And as they had finished explaining what happened to the other two, Rock was given an energy tank to regain his energy while Pyrrha's aura was slowly beginning to return to her.
"Dang, so all that happened while we were here!" Exclaimed Yang.
"Oh it was wild, everything metal in the room was being pushed away and we had to hold onto stuff to avoid getting pushed away. It was crazy!" Exclaimed Nora.
"Dang P-money didn't think you had it in you." Said Yang, making Pyrrha slightly blush at the compliment.
"I'd say that it was quite a risky move to do that, people could have gotten hurt." Said Arslan.
"I know, but I don't know what happened. It was like a sudden surge of power that came over me in that moment, I'm sorry if I hurt any of you." Replied Pyrrha.
"Don't worry... sure it was a bit reckless but no one got hurt." Said Weiss, before turning to Rock "Speaking off recklessness..."
"Oh, don't you start." Said Rock with an annoyed tone in his voice.
"...Rock, we saw that you had pushed yourself to the limit again with the use of the gear system. You've seen what it does to you in the last couple of days, you need to be more careful with it." Added Weiss, ignoring the last comment.
"I know, I know and I was trying to be careful with it. I just needed to get out of Pyrrha's grip, you know since being made of metal can be a bit of a disadvantage when facing an opponent whose main power is polarity." Replied Rock.
"Like Weiss said, just be more careful with it. We don't want you to end up destroying yourself." Said Blake.
"What's this about Rock destroying himself?" Asked Ruby as she entered the infirmary, with her voice still sounding a bit nasally.
"He pushed himself too far again." Replied Weiss, causing Rock to get an angry look on his face.
"Rock." Ruby said.
"Yes Ruby."
"I don't think I need to tell you off for that..."
"I know Ruby."
"...That being said, I still think you need more control over yourself. We can only help you so much, you still need to do something to keep yourself from losing control."
"I will, that's a promise." Said Rock, after which he asked "How is your cold by the way?"
"It's getting better, the nurse said it wasn't anything too major. But she couldn't explain why I was sneezing up rose petals, maybe it's a sign of my semblance returning or something else." Replied Ruby.
"If you're not feeling up for it you can stay at Beacon while we go after the next robot master." Said Blake.
"No, it's fine, it's no anything too major."
"You shouldn't push yourself if you're feeling sick Rubes." Said Yang.
"It's only a cold, I'll be fine." Replied Ruby, as she let out a sneeze, which let out some rose petals and the force of that sneeze knocked Ruby into a nearby wall. "I'm fine." She muttered.
Rock helped Ruby to her feet and said "If you're sure about this, then we won't push it any further."
It was then that Jaune entered the infirmary, and upon seeing him Weiss said "Ah Jaune, we were waiting for you. Could you explain..."
"No need to ask Weiss, professor Goodwitch already talked to me about it and she thinks that due to my semblance amplifying aura to help heal people that it might also lead to people's semblances getting amplified and getting stronger. So, if any of you see your semblances grow or get stronger you might know why." Replied Jaune, only for him to facepalm and added "And Professor Goodwitch asked me to keep this secret until we know more, so could you guys keep this to yourselves?"
"Sure, this sounds like something big. We'll help you with it, right guys?" Asked Rock, to which the rest of the people in the room nodded in response.
"Don't worry about me, your secret is safe with me. A semblance like that could be dangerous in the wrong hands, I shudder to think what would happen if Grimm could heal themselves." Replied Arslan, allowing Jaune to let out a sigh of relief.
"Good that we got that sorted." Said Weiss, as she got a message on her scroll and then added "I need to leave, I asked Ironwood yesterday if I could have a meeting with Winter to check in on her. And she now has time, so I'll meet up with you after the meeting at the lab."
"Yeah, I need to make some preparations before we can leave. Like finding out who has been stealing all the screws I have been collecting, or the upgrades I asked Auto to make. So Yang, Ruby get plenty of rest before we leave." Said Rock.
"Sure thing." Replied Yang, after which Rock and Weiss left the infirmary to go do their own things. All the while their friends stayed in the infirmary.
Later with Weiss
A little while later Weiss was sitting in Beacon tower in front of one of its computers, waiting for a call from Atlas to come in. After a few minutes of waiting, a call arrived from the Atlas Military and she couldn't press accept soon enough trying to press it so fast that she nearly cancelled the call. But luckily she pressed the right button after composing herself, and she was met with a very tired looking Winter.
"Winter... are you alright?" Asked Weiss with a sound of concern in her voice, the sound of her voice catching Winter's attention.
"Weiss... it's good... it's good to see you. I'm doing better after what happened yesterday." Replied Winter.
"I was so worried that I was going to lose you." Said Weiss, as some tears started dropping down her face.
"Dry those tears of yours sister, it's going to take a lot more than getting frozen solid for me to go down." Replied Winter, trying to reassure her sister. "And I must say, you fought with great valiance. I would comment on your form, but other than that, you did a great job taking out that robot."
"Thank you, but why were you there in the first place?" Asked Weiss.
Winter stayed silent for a bit, thinking about what to answer to her younger sister, wondering whether or not she should share the information with her. But ultimately she made her decision and replied "I was on a mission out in the tundra, the prison transport that was carrying the members of the Emerald Spears crashed several days ago and none of them have been seen since then. We were investigating what had happened, but then that snowstorm happened and due to how close we were to the origin we were send to investigate."
"THE EMERALD SPEARS HAVE DISAPPEARED! How! How is that possible!" Yelled Weiss.
"I do not know, but that is not something for you to focus on right now." Replied Winter.
"Should I at least tell Rock, this is something he should know about?" Asked Weiss, feeling concern for her friend as she remembered what had happened several weeks ago.
"If you feel that it is important you can, but this is something that should not be shared with the public due to the secrecy of the mission. And an entire group of anti robot terrorists would not paint the Atlas Military in a good light. Do you understand that Weiss?"
"I do." Replied Weiss.
"Good, now Weiss there is something else. You were the one to take down that robot, and you remember our family semblance right?"
"Off course I remember it, but are you sure. I took out a robot, we were taught that we can only summon that which is biological after we had slain it in battle."
"Correct, but how do we know that for sure? Grimm aren't natural, they don't even have a soul and can still be summoned. Same goes for the Arma Gigas you are getting better at summoning. So you have to ask yourself Weiss, do we truly know everything about our semblances?"
Weiss stayed silent for a couple of seconds to think, but then replied with "I don't know, it's not something I have ever thought off."
"Then maybe take some time to think about it." Said Winter, who got a slight pained expression on her face.
Weiss noticed this and asked "Winter, are you ok after being frozen solid like that? No permanent damage?"
"Do not worry about me Weiss, I have had a check up and there has been no permanent done to me from getting frozen. But I am required to take some physical therapy to ensure that being frozen in that block of ice wouldn't have led to anything serious. I recommend that your friends also get a check up same if they hadn't already, just to be certain that nothing bad will happen to them." Replied Winter, who then looked at the watch on her wrist and said "Our time is up unfortunately, stay safe sister. I wish you and your team the best of luck in taking down the other robots and stopping Wily. I love you sister." After which the screen turned off, leaving Weiss alone in the room of the tower.
"I love you too." Muttered Weiss, as a few tears dropped down her face at the thought of nearly losing her sister the day before. After a couple of minutes she dried her tears, turned the computer off and left Beacon Tower to go and meet up with her friends.
Meanwhile, at Dr Lights Lab
While Weiss was finishing her conversation with her older sister, Rock was just exiting his dad's lab when he was startled by Blake, Yang and Ruby approaching him, while Ruby exclaimed "Hey Rock, what are you doing outside the lab? Weren't we supposed to meet inside?"
The sudden noise made Rock a bit jumpy, who then turned to Ruby and the other two and said "Ruby, don't do that, you nearly gave me a heart attack."
"But you're a robot." Replied Yang.
"Fine, you would have blue screened me."
"That's possible?" Asked Blake.
"I don't know, I do have a computer chip in me, so really anything's possible."
"So, why are you outside the lab. Wouldn't it be easier to meet inside?" Asked Ruby.
"Right, about that. You girls know how I have been complaining that the screws I have been collecting and some upgrades that dad and Auto were making for me have been vanishing?" Asked Rock, to which his teammates nodded. "Right, well, I think Wily might have bugged the lab. So before you three got here, I put camera's in the lab to ensure that I would be able to catch whoever it was."
"And now you're meeting us outside to ensure that Wily won't listen in on our conversation, smart thinking." Said Ruby, the compliment causing Rock to blush a bit.
"Where did you get the camera's from?" Asked Blake.
"Simple, from professor Greene, because she teaches stealth and security she always has a couple of extra security camera's lying around that I could borrow." Replied Rock.
It was then that Weiss arrived at the lab, and upon seeing her friends looking at her with concerned looks on their faces she replied "I'm fine, don't worry, Winter is doing ok."
"Good to hear that." Replied Yang.
"So why are we outside the lab and not inside?" Asked Weiss.
"Wily might have bugged the lab, so we're taking some necessary steps to hinder him." Replied Rock.
"Very well then, are we going after the next robot master?" Asked Weiss.
"We are." Replied Rock, who showed his team a picture of Torchman that he had printed out from the computer. "Say hello to Torchman, a robot that was designed as a camping advisor while also teaching children about fire safety and also a devoted martial artist. Who is said to have created his own martial art and is able to copy the fighting moves of others."
Upon hearing the last part, Yang pumped her fists together and said "A martial artist you say, I'm definitely going to have a lot of fun fighting him."
"I'm sorry, did you say that he teaches kids about fire safety?" Asked Weiss, to which Rock nodded.
"That's sounds incredibly backwards, that's like making a robot who teaches kids about diseases and have him be covered in rusty nails. That would be incredibly dumb." Added Blake.
"Hey that's not very nice, Rusty Nails Man tries his best." Replied Rock, to which Weiss and Blake gave him a 'are you serious' look, while Yang and Ruby were snickering at the comment. After which Rock burst out laughing and added "I'm kidding, I'm kidding, Rusty Nails Man doesn't exist... or does he... no he doesn't exist... or does he..."
"Rock, can we get going?" Ruby interrupted, who then let out a sneeze that released some rose petals.
"Sure, but are you absolutely certain that you'll be fine to come along. You can stay here, and we can ask someone to come with us. I"m sure that Nora wouldn't mind coming with us." Said Rock, with concern in his voice.
"I'm fine Rock, really. A small cold won't stop me."
"Alright then, if you're certain. Then we'll get out of here, girls grab on we are teleporting out of here to forests of Mistral because that's where he is." Said Rock, after which his teammates grabbed onto him and a few seconds later the group was turned into energy and teleported away from Beacon and towards Mistral.
Several minutes later the team landed in the forest of Mistral, and upon landing both Ruby and Weiss rushed to the bushes to throw up from the teleport, all the while Blake was looking a bit frizzled and said "Still... still not used to this."
"You girls ok?" Asked Rock.
"Yeah, we're fine." Replied Weiss, while Ruby simply nodded.
Yang then noticed a sign that read bandits and said "We should probably stay away from there."
"You're right, cause I'm seeing some robotic bats flying through the air on the other end. So we're probably fine." Said Rock, while Blake used the Acid Barrier mixed with Gambol Shroud to shoot the bats out of the sky.
"Well let's go then, that robot won't defeat itself." Replied Ruby, after which the group began to make their way down the path and a few seconds later they were immediately met with several purple tents. "That's odd." Noted Ruby, after which the doors to the tents opened and the group was immediately shot at. Forcing them to the group, while Ruby used the scramble thunder with crescent rose and took the tents out clearing the path.
"Were those..." Wondered Blake.
"...Robotic tents?" Said Weiss, finishing the sentence.
This prompted Rock to start chuckling like a madman, after which he exclaimed "Fifteen years, and he made TENTS AS ENEMIES! Has he gone senile or did he just run out of ideas for new robots!" After yelling that out, he took a few seconds to take a deep breath and said "Ok, got that out of my system. Sorry about that."
"No it's fine, robotic tents are just stupid." Said Yang
"But perfect for camping, imagine the amount of time you'll save if you had tents to could pack up itself when you're done." Said Weiss.
"You're not actually planning on creating those are you?" Asked Ruby.
"Maybe I will, maybe I won't." Replied Weiss, playing coy.
"Let's keep moving." Said Blake, which the group did. As they continued moving through the forest, they encountered several new robots. Owl's that have lightbulbs in them that lit the way for the group, and which were simply minding their own business. Some orange rabbit robots that were moving towards the group, but were taken out by some shots from Rock's buster, Ruby using the Scramble Thunder to fire electric shots at them and Blake using the acid barrier on Gambol Shroud to fire acid shots to destroy them rabbit robots. Once defeated the robots left behind an explosion that the group had to dodge.
As they continued moving forwards, they saw a long lane of mushroom robots that had flames coming out of their heads and which were blocking their path. So Weiss used Myrtenaster to create Glyphs above the robots and then switched to the tundra storm, mixing the two abilities let to a massive snow storm that destroyed the mushroom robots and froze some nearby trees.
Moving on they came across some tank enemies, as well as more owl's floating around, so Weiss switched to the Block Dropper and had the blocks drop on top of the robots allowing them to move onto the next area by passing through a gate. Once they entered through the gate, it closed and it got a lot warmer inside of the room.
"You guys smell something burning?" Asked Blake, only for her answer to be immediately answered when a wall of flames formed behind them.
"We have to move! NOW!" Yelled Rock, after which the group began to run as fast as possible from the wall of flames. Whilst doing so they took out more mushroom, tank and even a few shielded enemies. All of them were panicked at the wall of death that, despite trying to get away from it, kept coming closer and closer as it was somehow sentient and aiming for them. The group had almost made it to the end of the room, when Rock noticed a timer on the door and so in a moment of desperation he activated the speed gear, grabbed his friends and rushed out of the room before the gate closed.
Once they escaped from the room Ruby immediately turned to Rock and asked "Are you alright?"
"Am I alright, what about you guys?" Asked Rock.
"We're fine, you made sure of that." Replied Weiss.
"No heatstroke from that room?"
"Nope, completely fine." Said Ruby.
"Lets just keep moving." Said Yang, the rest of the group nodded and continued on their path. Not knowing that they were being watched by two pairs of eyes from within the trees.
As they kept making their way through the forest they were met with more and more enemies placed in their path, but the group was able to dodge some of them and take out some of the others with their weapons. And so they kept moving forwards, and while the forest began to get darker and darker from the trees beginning to obstruct the sunlight from coming through. The group didn't give up, and continued on.
After a while they came across a camp site, with a massive but safely made campfire in the middle. The group though they were in the clear, but they were wrong as out from th bushes jumped a massive looking bird robot that was also on fire.
"Oh cool, a robot phoenix!" Yelled Ruby.
"That's a robotic turkey, his name is Sparker." Replied Rock.
"Sparkey, but wouldn't flamey make more sense, we're dealing with fire not electricity." Said Weiss
"Who cares it already came precooked for us, how nice." Joked Yang, who had to dodge out of the way of Sparkey shooting it's flaming feathers at her. After which it began to jump around the area like it was mad, and began to lay several robotic eggs. All of which hatched, and a swarm of baby robot bird emerged from the eggs. The large group of robot baby birds saw the heroes, and on orders from their mom they began to charge at the group all of them trying to peck them.
Rock tried to shoot most of them out of the sky, but some of his shots missed and he was met with a small group of robot birds pecking away at him. Thankfully Blake used her blades to slash away the little birds, while Ruby used Crescent Rose to slash the remaining ones into two whilst they were still in the sky. And while that group was dealing with the small birds which just kept coming at them from the bushes and trees, Yang and Weiss were focused on the flying turkey. With Yang launching herself into the air, and delivering several punches to the bird with her shotgun gauntlets.
This managed to stun the bird for long enough for it to fall to the ground, allowing Weiss to shoot several small icicles at it. Some of them managed to land on their target, but some were blocked by the bird shooting out more of its flaming feathers at her. The collision from the shots created some mist, meaning that the bird wasn't sure about where its targets had gone to. That was until the dust cloud got cleared up by the Tundra Storm that Weiss was using, and the robot was caught right in the middle of that attack.
The massive bird tried to fly into the air again, and while he was successful in being able to life itself off the ground the damage done by that attack led to the robot falling to the ground and exploding. This lead to some explosions in the trees, as all the robot birds the big bird had spawned were taken out as well.
"We did it! Now who wants to roast some marshmallows?" Asked Ruby.
"Do you actually have some marshmallows on you?" Asked Weiss.
"I don't, but we could take a rest by the fire right?" Asked Ruby.
"I don't think there is time for us to rest, Ruby. But maybe when we get back to Beacon we could roast marshmallows there." Said Rock.
"You would want to do that?" Asked Ruby.
"Sure, might be nice to relax after today."
"Awww, look at you two organising a date like that. How adorable." Cooed Yang.
"IT'S NOT A DATE!" Yelled both Rock and Ruby, causing them both to blush.
"Sure it's not." Replied Yang with a teasing tone in her voice.
"Whatever, let's just keep moving." Said Rock, and so ignoring what just happened the group started to move away from the camp fire and deeper into the forest base. And after taking out some more tank enemies, that were trying to shoot missiles at them, by using a combination of the scramble thunder and block dropper on them. The group entered another gate that closed, and the group made it to another room that was hotter than the rest of the forest and had a ton wooden blocks and logs that were placed across the room as obstacles.
And behind them another wall of fire formed, so Rock not wanting to take another chance on nearly getting burned alive immediately activated the speed gear, grabbed his friends and rushed through the room as fast as possible. Managing to dodge the attacks from some small floating robots that shot their flames at the group, and other robots in the room. And while running through the room with the speed gear, Rock managed to grab an energy tank and a small gear that cooled down his systems a bit. Allowing him to make it out of the room and past the gate.
Preventing them from being roasted alive by the wall of flames, so Rock turned off the speed gear and took a few seconds to rest up. Yang patted him on the back and said "Good thinking Rock."
"Yeah, thanks."
"Will you be ok to keep moving after using the speed gear for so long?" Asked Blake.
"I think so, let's hope that it was the last one." Said Rock, after which the group kept moving. Once again failing to notice that they were being watched from the trees by two pairs of angry looking eyes, that were starting to curse up a storm about the fact that their second death trap had failed to take the group out.
Not noticing that the group made it to the next area which was littered with large open pits, between which there were a lot of wooden platforms hanging from the trees. On which the group began to jump from platform to platform while managing to dodge some small flames that were being dropped from the sky by the owl robots that were floating around.
In the next area there was a large cliff, and the only thing that could take them to the other side was massive block hanging from one of the trees by a chain. "Oh, how are we going to make that?" Asked Yang, as she looked down the cliff and was met with nothing but darkness as she couldn't see the bottom.
"I got this." Said Blake as she got Gambol Shroud ready, and threw the blade into the massive block. "Everyone grab onto me I'll get us to the other side." The rest of the team nodded, and held onto Blake who took a few steps back, ran towards the edge and jumped off of it. Thanks to the blade of her weapon the group was able to make great distance, only for it to seem like they wouldn't make it to the other side. Hearing something going on with the chain that the block was attached to Yang used her shotgun gauntlets to propel the group forwards.
The extra speed allowed the group to make it to the other end of the cliff, where Blake took her blade out of the block as the chain on the block snapped and fell into the abyss. "Woah, that was close. Good job Blake." Said Ruby.
"Thanks, but I don't think I would have made it without Yang's help." Replied Blake.
"It's no biggie, we're partners, we have each others backs." Added Yang.
"Yeah, you're right Yang."
"Aren't I always?"
"That's debatable."
"That's not very nice, Weiss."
"Regardless, we made it. Lets keep going, I have the feeling that we're getting closer and closer to Torch Man." Said Rock, to which his teammates nodded and so the group continued moving forwards.
This time just making it towards a simple area, with just some tree branches and logs acting as platforms for the group to walk across. All the while dealing with more tank and mushroom robots that were standing in their way. Which were taken out by Weiss using the Tundra Storm to freeze them solid, which were then shattered by Ruby shooting them with the Scramble Thunder.
They then made it to a relative open area, and the group let out a sigh of relief at seeing barely any robots and the fact that at the other end of the long path was the door to the encounter with Torch Man. The group started to make their way down the path, only for them to be stopped when a massive explosive device dropped down from the sky onto their path and exploded. Creating a massive explosion that knocked the group down and dazed them for a bit.
When they snapped out of that daze they saw that a massive flame pillar had surrounded them from all sides, there was no way for them to escape but enough room in the pillar for them to not get burned. Rock heard some familiar laughter coming from outside the flaming pillar, aimed his buster at the sky and yelled "Show yourself!"
"Very well then." Replied the same voice from which the laughter originated, after which two figures started floating above the flaming pillar. One of them was shaped like a grenade given human form who was standing on a floating platform, the other one was red with two flamethrowers on his arms and two gas tanks on his back which acted as a jetpack and allowed him to fly.
Rock gasped and said "Grenade Man, Burner Man, you two are here?"
"Hello Rock." Said Burner Man, as he and Grenade Man let out some evil laughs.
"Did you miss us, we missed you. We missed having a playmate." Replied Grenade Man.
"Surprised to see us, Wily gave us some upgrades and the mission to ensure that you wouldn't make it to Torch Man. He didn't say how though, so prepare to get burned." Said Burner Man who got ready to engulf the area in flames. Only for him to have to dodge blasts coming from Team RRWBY's weapons. "Hmm, I see how it is. You know, I wanted to give you a fighting chance. But now, you'll just die instead of burn."
"How is that any different!" Yelled Yang.
"Simple, one of them you can survive." Replied Burner Man, as he started to laugh maniacally. After which he and Grenade Man started to fly around the pillar to make flames come closer and closer to the group. The group tried in vain to do something against this, Weiss even tried to freeze the flames with the Tundra Storm but the heat simply melted the ice. And so they could do nothing but watch on it horror as the flames started to come closer and closer to them.
To Be Continued
A/N: Heya guys, it's been a while, and that's no understatement. Sorry about the long gap, I deeply apologise for that. Some stuff happened in real life, that I don't want to get into, but I will say that it led to it being hard to write for a while. So once again, sorry about that. But I'm glad to be back and to have a chapter out. Now the reason why I'm splitting it into two is because if it was one whole chapter it would have been too long, especially with the stuff planned for later on. So I hope you all understand, and enjoyed this first part. Part two will hopefully release not too long after this one, hopefully.
By the way, this story has now reached over 30000 views. I just want to say that that is amazing and I'm thankful to everyone who took the time to read this story.
Anyways, a quick thanks to the following people for supporting this story now:
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And now, onto the reviews:
Jacob9495: Glad you liked the character development on Weiss and Ironwood from last chapter. And happy that you noticed the small crossover with the other series I put into last chapter.
BlueSkies: Hopefully you liked this chapter as well, and the development of those and other characters will continue in the future.
ThatBlueInk: Thanks for the review, hope that you'll keep reading.
Alloy101: Very thankful for the reviews that you posted, as for Sora do not worry about that. He along with the rest of the smash roster will at one point show up in this story. Just gotta find the right time and place for it.
And with that being, thank you all for reading and I'll see you all in the next chapter for part 2 and to see what comes next.