The atmosphere was quiet. Too quiet.
In Sarge's opinion the old cliche had never been more true than tonight.
"So, can we expect these guy's to show up soon, or what?" Sarge asked his fellow red.
"Soon, maybe," Ruby replied in whisper.
Everyone was lying stomach down, on the roof of the warehouse waiting for any criminal or White Fang activity.
"We could be here for a while," Washington informed Sarge. "Back in project freelancer, we often went on stake outs for hours, and sometimes days, before moving in."
"Sounds terrible," Ruby shuttered.
Then Sun returned from where ever he had been, Sarge honestly didn't like the monkey Faunus, his attitude reminded him far too much of Grif.
"Did I miss anything?"
"That depends," Yang said with an eye roll. "Does the movement of the clouds count?"
Sun paused in thought. "Sure, why not?" He then held out some apples. "I stole some food for everyone."
Of course he did.
Dirtbag. He was just like Grif.
Good god he missed/hated Grif.
"No thanks," declined Pyrrha, while Ruby shook her head no and Yang snatched an apple from his hands.
"Do you always break the law without giving a second thought?" Blake asked critically.
"Hey, weren't you in a cult or something?" He defended, causing Blake to deliver an angry glare at him. "Okay, too soon!" He said hastily.
Just as he said that, the wind picked all around them, and they all look up to see a Bullhead's searchlights flashing around for a landing spot. sarge saw it descend in the middle of the cargo containers and extend a ramp for a black hooded individual with a metallic fanged mask to come out of. Looks like it was the White Fang after all.
"Oh no..."
Blake looked crestfallen. "You really didn't want it to be them, didn't you?" Ruby asked, ready to comfort her teammate and jump into action.
"No. I think deep down I knew. I just didn't want to be right," The cat girl replied, but then a new, but familiar voice was heard clearly from the docks.
"Hey! What's the holdup!?" The criminal Roman Torchwick emerged from the ramp, the damn dirtbag. "We're not exactly the most inconspicuous bunch of thieves at the moment, so why don't you animals try to pick up the pace?"
"This isn't right. The White Fang would never work with a Human. Especially not one like that," Blake said with a distant, but worried voice. she then stood up and unsheathed the katana of Gambol Shroud before walking off the edge of the roof, causing Ruby and Washington to follow her.
"Blake, what are you doing?!" The red leader tugged on her sleeve, but Wash clearly knew what was going on.
"Oh no..."
The ex-terrorist then jumped gracefully from the roof, undoubtedly to see what was going on with her former allegiances.
"We have to go after her," Yang declared, causing everyone to get up from the roof.
"After who?" Penny asked.
The sudden appearance of the robotic girl threw everyone, causing them all to jump. And in the case of Ruby and Wash, to physically slip and fall off the roof.
"I'm alright!" The scythe wielder declared a moment later from ground level. With that everyone turned back to Penny and her sudden appearance.
"Penny… what are you doing here?" Pyrrha asked.
"I was following social conventions and 'hanging out' with my friends," Penny explained with her cheerful attitude. "In this case my friends, being you guys."
No one could formulate a response to that, so Sarge came up with one of his own.
"That…" He began, "Is not how hanging out works lil' lady."
"Oh?" Penny did the impossible and turned her head over to face where he was standing. "How does it work then, mister invisible man?"
Sarge froze, "You can hear me?"
"Of course, my ears can pick up noise from up to three miles away, I am a very good listener." Penny told Sarge, much to the confusion of the other three people with physical bodies on the roof.
"I am also a very good listener," Caboose told the robot girl. "It is because I am very quiet."
"Your voice is different. Are you a different person?"
"No! I am not a 'different person', I am Caboose!" The blue sim trooper 'corrected' Penny.
It was at this point Yang interrupted the conversation, that she could only hear half of.
"Yeaaaahhhh. If you can excuse us, we have to go and help Blake and Ruby," Yang paused, "Good luck with the raging insanity."
"Ruby is in trouble?" Penny asked in concern. "I can help! I am combat ready!"
At the declaration Her backpack opened up, and from its dark depths comes a single sword that extended and multiplied into several blades hovering over Penny's back.
You didn't see that every day.
Ruby was lucky that activating her Aura was second nature to her at this point. It had meant that her fall from the roof was just a minor annoyance that drained some Aura.
"I'm alright!" She called up to her friends, before turning to Wash. "Was that Penny?" She asked the Freelancer.
"I think so, but we can deal with that later, let's go help Blake," He told her.
"Right," Was all Ruby said before running off, she really hoped Blake hadn't gotten into too much trouble in the last two minutes.
Unfortunately Ruby's fears were made true as she arrived just in time to see Torchwick fire his cane at Blake's feet causing a huge explosion. Her friend seemed dazed but relatively unhurt on the ground, but she quickly rolled and ran out of the way of Torchwick's continued attacks, flaming missiles destroying cargo behind her as she flipped away, this gave Ruby the opportunity to charge into battle, extending Crescent Rose into scythe form and swinging it towards the criminal catching him off guard and sending him flying into one of the assembled White Fang members.
"Blake are you okay?!" Ruby called out, causing the Faunus girl to come out from behind one of the containers, weapons drawn, and take position besides Ruby as more White Fang members emerged from the Bullheads.
"I'm fine Ruby," Blake told her, as Wash ran up to them.
"The others are on their way," He reported.
At this point Torchwick had gotten up and was now facing them.
"Well, hello, Red!" The master criminal said condescendingly. "Isn't it past your bedtime?"
Before either girl could get a word out, he fired his cane right between them, causing the two girls to scatter and then charge at the bad guy's. Ruby went right for Torchwick, while Blake attacked the White Fang.
Ruby swung Crescent Rose towards him, which he simply side stepped, she then swung it horizontally, causing him to duck under, he then fired his cane directly at her sending a massive fireball at Ruby, causing an explosion that sent Ruby flying back, dazing the young team leader, and costing her a considerable amount of Aura.
"Ouch..." Was all Ruby said as she slowly got up onto one knee.
"That looks like it hurt red," Torchwick taunted, and he then gave off a short evil laugh.
"Not as much as this is gonna hurt!" Yang yelled, as she and the others arrived on scene, Yang sending a shotgun blast in Torchwick's direction, which the criminal barely dodged.
"Where. Are. All. These. Kids. Coming. From!?" The criminal shouted in frustration as ducked, dodged and weaved under Yang's furious assault. Turning her head, Ruby could also see that Pyrrha and Sun had joined Blake in taking out the dozen or so White Fang members. Penny was also engaging the bullheads.
Wait, What?
Ruby's eyes were not deceiving her, Penny was telepathically commanding several swords to combat three bullheads that had come from the sky.
She watched as Penny formed a shield and launched two of her swords into the wall behind her, which in turn pulled their wielder back with their strings. Several of her swords swirled around her again, she seemed to command them to open their points and build up a large glowing ball of green light. With a punching action, several of the bright lasers cracked the pavement as they fired at the transports and slice each one in half, causing several of the White Fang members inside to fall to the ground and letting Ruby watch as Bullheads fall in pieces behind her.
"That… is one hell of a semblance," Wash observed from beside her, and Ruby had to agree.
The destruction of the bullheads had drawn everyone's attention, including Yang's, which allowed Torchwick to start running away from the blonde brawler, but not before sending out one last shot with his gun-cane. ''Ruby! Watch out!" Several people cried out at once, as Torchwick made his retreat. His last shot hitting the crane's supports, sending the container it had right to where Ruby was resting on one knee.
But Ruby was too slow to move, Washington acting on instinct, moved to protect her and push her out of the way. Then something weird happened.
Instead of being crushed into a red splat on the ground, the container merely bounced off Ruby and Wash was nowhere to be seen.
"Huh?" Ruby questioned, as she noticed something weirder, just millimetres off her skin, there was a semi-transparent, glowing black armour with yellow accents.
("What happened?") A voice said inside her head. A very familiar voice.
"Wash?" Ruby questioned out loud, as she got up to see everyone looking at her confusedly. Evidently everyone else could see the glowing armour.
"(This is...weird?" ) Washington said, inside her head(?) "(I don't know what's happening, am I... inside your head?" ) Wash asked, as confused as she was.
But Ruby was also concerned with the armour, could it be Wash's semblance?
("That sorta makes sense." ) Wash told her, seemingly hearing her thoughts. ("But what does it do?" )
While everyone was distracted with the sudden appearance of the glowing armour on Ruby, a desperate White Fang member lifted up his rocket launcher and fired it at the confused team leader. But rather than taking out Ruby, or even causing her to stumble, instead the missile bounced harmlessly off Ruby/Wash and was diverted elsewhere. Causing Sun to knock out the fang member.
"(Huh, neat.")
"Wash, could you, uh, leave my head?" Ruby mumbled, "Everyone is staring."
("Okay, right. let me try-") With that sentence, Ruby had another weird feeling and Wash suddenly emerged from her and collapsed on the floor, and the glowing armour faded away.
Everyone was silent as Yang stepped towards her sister. "Ruby… " She started uncertainly, "What… was that?"
"I don't know," Was all she could say back.
Any further conversation was halted when the police arrived, Professor Goodwitch with them.
Elsewhere, Felix had watched the whole incident from start to finish through the lens of a sniper rifle, having recently gotten his armour repaired and borrowing some weapons.
"Interesting," Was all he commented, as he turned his attention to the only bullhead that had remained undamaged, carrying that Torchwick dude with it.
Looks like he had found himself some allies.
At several millennia old, very few things surprised Ozpin.
Sure they still happened, mostly things like a powerful huntsman being killed by a Beowolf or a team of students stopping a Goliath.
But it has been centuries since Ozpin had been true caught off guard and surprised.
Which made this particular occasion all the more memorable.
For the fiftieth time this night, the footage on the screen played in front of him.
Miss Rose was on one knee, having been taken out the fight by one of her pawns, in this case an enterprising criminal named Roman Torchwick. A former Beacon student that had dropped out in his third year following the deaths of the rest of his team in a mission gone wrong. Looking at him years later, Ozpin could still see some traces of the smart-mouthed boy that had now wasted his potential following that fateful mission. Torchwick fired a shot from his weapon, the same from his school days, and it hit the supports of a crane, sending the cargo it held into free-fall over Miss Rose.
In most cases this would have resulted in the death of Miss Rose, baring the rescue from one of her teammates. But instead, something unexpected happened.
Miss Rose stumbled to the side like she was being pushed, and then she was enveloped in an glowing armour that deflected the container. It would then proceed to deflect a missile sent by a desperate member of the White Fang.
At this Ozpin paused the footage and enhanced it on young Miss Rose.
She was clearly visible under the armour, which reminded him of the Atlas military. But this was not one of James' projects, nor was this any other thing to do with technology.
No, this was quiet clearly a semblance. But not Miss Rose's own semblance.
This seemed to be some form of secondary semblance.
An impossibility.
Of course, there had been rumours of people with more than one semblance for as long as the concept itself was around. But they were just that. Rumours. Stories told between drunks and the boastful. Often either being lies, mistakes made in the dark, or more rarely, one of the Maidens showing off their power.
But this was none of those.
This was a clear case of a secondary semblance being developed. Something unheard of, even in stories of silver eyed warriors.
Undoubtedly, her pawn would report this to her, either directly or through another pawn.
Ruby Rose, the girl with silver eyes, seemingly had a secondary semblance.
Ozpin would have to research this, consult all of his contacts related to Miss Rose and do a lot of reading on fairy tales.
It is possible that this development could prove advantageous. But it would have to be closely monitored.
He would start tomorrow where team RPBY would be interrogated, but until then he had reports from Mistral of unusual activity in one of the forests.
This looked like a job for a certain Qrow...
Qrow would be lying if he said going to a bar was a rare occurrence for him.
But after a full day of searching, for whatever was messing with the Grimm of Mistral with no luck (Not that it was new). Qrow was fairly certain he deserved a drink with a big kick.
As such, he was now sitting on stool at the end of the counter, nursing his drink.
Oz had sent him out here to investigate reports of massive Grimm activity in the nearby forest, but when he finally arrived here he was met with a forest that was absent of Grimm, like some kinda huntsman, had torn through all the Grimm, but while trees had a great amount of damage done to them, there were no huntsman anywhere near this place.
As Qrow took a long sip from his drink, his shitty semblance must've kick in, as his day was made worse when some Atlas specialist entered the bar.
Whoever he was were, he seemed to be in very bad mood. Muttering darkly to himself as they took the only remaining seat which happened to be right beside Qrow.
Wonderful.
He went for another sip of his drink only to find it disappointingly empty. Seeing this, the bartender went over and filled it up, then the Atlas operative spoke up.
"Hey," Said a female voice he had heard somewhere before, coming from the Atlas soldier. "Get me something, with a real kick to it." The operative told the bartender, who nodded and went about mixing drinks.
Deciding to take the incentive, Qrow started a conversation with her.
"Rough day?" He asked to start the conversation, causing his new 'friend' to give a small bitter chuckle.
"Rough day? Try rough week pal." She told him as the bartender delivered a drink to her hand.
"Wanna talk about it?"
"No," Came the short, tense reply.
"Right. Right..." Qrow looked for another angle. "You apart of the Atlas special forces?" Qrow guessed, gesturing at her black armour.
To his surprise she gave a longer, more genuine laugh, before turning to Qrow, "Why is it that every idiot, that sees my armour assumes I'm special forces?" She asked him rhetorically.
"You know what? Fuck it, I might as well vent about my week." The lady in black armour took a deep breath.
"Well first, my boyfriend screws up my mission, causing my pelican to crash, then when I come to, I'm captured by this dickhead who holds onto me until an E.M.P goes off, then when I come to I'm alone in a forest with nothing but my fucking A.I, then it takes me three days to fight my way through a horde of some ugly ass monsters before reaching this shitty town." She took several deep breaths before finishing, "So you know, pretty shitty week."
Qrow took several minutes to digest this information before going forward.
So it seems she's an Atlas operative that was captured after a failed mission, but was abandoned in the Mistral woods by the kidnapper for unknown reasons. Then when she woke up, she fought her way through a forest of Grimm to reach this town.
She must have one hell of semblance to fight through a forest of Grimm without weapons.
"Well that sounds like it sucked," He then made a quick decision. "The names Qrow, and I can help with this situation of yours."
"Huh. Well my name is Tex," The lady in black armour told him, then her voice deepened and her body language changed.
"And I am O'Malley." She said with voice that was, far too deep to be natural. "Now where the hell are we?"
Elsewhere, far from Mistral, in a warehouse in Vale.
Roman Torchwick was nursing his wounded pride and wondering exactly how to make up for this blunder to his boss.
"How very disappointing, Roman."
Speak of the devil.
Roman turned around to see Cinder and her two cronies, (Jade and Silver or something stupid like that) and he gave a hearty laugh.
"Whoa! Hehe... I wasn't expecting to see you guys so soon..." He trailed off
"We were expecting... more from you," His boss told him.
Deflecting the blame, he thought of a suitable scape goat. "Hey! You were the ones who suggested working, with those stupid mutts from the White Fang." He told the raven haired woman.
Cinder chuckled darkly.
"And you will continue to do so," She then summoned a fireball in her hand and stepped out of the darkness with her two stooges. "We have big plans for you, Roman. All we ask is... a little cooperation."
"You might need more than a little cooperation," A new voice called out.
Everyone turned to see a new player, a man in full body armour that was steel with an orange trim around it.
"What do you mean by that?" Cinder asked, as she signalled for her two minions to stand down behind her.
"Well, yea see. I saw his little performance down at the docks," The new guy chuckled, "Let me tell you I was not impressed. But it made me realise that we have a common enemy."
At this Roman cut in, "You mean those annoying brats?" He questioned.
"Not exactly, ya see those 'brats' as you called them? They have some very annoying and very powerful friends," The guy in armour paused. "And these friends will ruin your entire operation, unless I help you. For the right price of course."
Torchwick snorted, "Yeah, sorry buddy, but you will have to do better than-" Cinder raised her arm to silence him.
The rude bitch.
"I am, intrigued." Cinder told the mercenary, her fireball getting bigger. "Do you have a name?"
"The name's Felix." The shadows gave the appearance of a shark like grin on his helmet. "And I have the feeling that this, is the start of a very productive alliance.
Meanwhile, farther still from that warehouse, but still in Vale, a white flash appeared and a man was left lying on the ground.
Well, not exactly a man.
"Booyah!" The ghost in glowing transparent white armour yelled out, as he popped up from the ground, "What did I tell you Washington? Motherfucking ghost!"
The ghost then made several observations at once. He was no longer in the compound, Wash and the Meta were nowhere to be found and no one that was walking in the street was acknowledging his presence.
"What. The. fuck." Church said slowly. "Is this bullshit."