WaterDragonMaverick here with the next chapter of "Sideline: Another Story" and this one is more action-packed. After the last two chapters, we'll get to see Team JADE in action against Slate Quartz. If you're wondering why I chose Slate to fight them, I'm sure that you'll figure it out/like the reason. But, the rest of Fragment Hunter is worried about why he decided to go off and fight them. So, let's see if Slate will be fine on his own.
DRAW!
RWBY is owned by Rooster Teeth and was created by Monty Oum (R.I.P)
The only things I own are my Original Characters
Slate was heading towards the amphitheater where Team CFVY said that they saw Jet Pitch, Aoi Lobelia, and Envy Sinn. His viridian eyes were hidden by his hat, but whoever saw him marching by could tell that he was angry. Soon, Slate made his way to the amphitheater and saw Team JADE talking with each other as they inspected their weapons. He also noticed that Duke Cobalt wasn't with them and that the three bullies have changed out of their Haven Academy uniforms.
Jet wore a black jacket with a silver chestplate and pauldrons, black jeans with a stylized tiger emblem on the right shin, black fingerless gloves with pieces of metal on the backs, and a pair of combat boots. He was using a brush to clean a pair of hook swords while he chewed on a twig. "I wasn't expecting to see Azalea here. Guess it's going to be just like at Sanctuary," Jet told the girls.
"Yeah. I wonder what we should do this time? We got a good laugh from those Rapier Wasps in her locker that one time," Aoi said as she placed a Dust crystal into her staff. She wore a short green kimono-like outfit that ended at her thighs and had a blue petal design that resembled lobelia flowers. She also wore a pair of sandals similar to Vixen's and they were decorated with the same lobelia design as her outfit. "Maybe we could shred her clothes so that walks around like the Dairy Cow she is?"
"That won't work. We wouldn't be able to get into her dorm room," Envy explained. She wore a sleeveless qipao dress that was a dark chartreuse color with black details that resembled snakes, had black shorts underneath, and wore short green heels. She inspected her jian sword and swung it around to test its weight after fixing it up. Her sword's hilt was designed similar to a snake and when she flicked her wrist, Envy's jian separated into a whip sword that she swung around to test. "We could always just humiliate her in battle," Envy said with a sneer as her eyes briefly turned green.
"How about you fight me instead," Slate told the bullies as he stepped forward for them to see him.
The three bullies saw the anger in Slate's eyes and just scoffed at him. "Why would we do that," Jet asked.
"Because of this," Slate said as he swiftly drew his revolvers and fired three shots at Envy and Jet's feet. They quickly jumped back and had their weapons ready to deal with Slate as Aoi started to spin her staff around. The Dust Crystals in the staff began to spark with electricity and when Aoi pointed it at Slate, a bolt of lightning fired out to zap him. However, Slate was able to catch onto Aoi's attack and jumped over the bolt before it struck him. Landing on the other side of Team JADE, Slate began to unload his revolvers at them and damage the three.
Recovering from the damage, Envy was the first to start the counter-attack as she ran toward Slate with her jian. She slashed away at him to try and land a hit, but Slate kept dodging the sword before kicking Envy in the stomach to knock her away. When Envy landed on the ground, Jet spat out the twig he was chewing on and rushed at Slate with his hook swords. Before Slate tried and defend himself against Jet, Aoi used her Dust Staff to create a gust of wind that distracted Slate while pushing Jet forward. Jet began to slash away at Slate with his swords in a combination of attacks before ending it by trying to stab Slate with the hilt of his sword and punching him back with the crescent guard enhancing.
Slate's Aura protected him from getting injured by the sharp point, but he still took a beating and Jet laughed at him. "Is this really the best that you can do," Jet taunted. "Azalea might be an animal, but at least she can fight. Then again, all she does is hit something hard and has no technique. Not to mention that she just runs and hides when she's losing."
"Shut up," Slate shouted as he grabbed at his guns again and aimed at Jet. Firing Dust rounds, Slate shocked Jet with Lightning Dust bullets and dealt major damage when they hit his chestplate. As Jet tried to recover from the damage, Aoi went in for an attack and hit Slate with her staff a couple of times before knocked him away with another gust of wind. Reloading his pistols, Slate took aim and fired at Aoi before she deflected the shots by spinning her staff around. Seeing his shots failing, Slate changed up his strategy and replaced his ammo as he nimbly dodged attacks from Envy's whip jian and Aoi's staff.
"Where is he," Sunset asked as she and Azalea searched the courtyard for Slate. "Find anything, you guys," Sunset asked with her Semblance.
"Nope. He's not in the dining hall," Silver mentioned.
"Can't find him in town," Celadon stated. "But there's a boutique that has a sale on dresses this week, so that's a victory."
"Zilch," Vixen answered.
"Nothing here," Vinyl replied.
"Dammit! Where's Slate," Sunset swore.
"Slate? We just told where to find Team JADE," Velvet said as she heard Sunset and approached the girls.
"You did? Where are they," Azalea asked.
"They're in the amphitheater," Velvet answered.
As Sunset and Azalea ran toward their destination, they contacted the others. "We found out where Slate might be! Go to the amphitheater," Sunset instructed the other members of Fragment Hunter. When Sunset and Azalea reached the building, they saw Slate was dodging attacks from Aoi and Envy as Rua teleported in with Celadon. "Glad you guys could make it," Sunset said. "Slate looks like he's in over his head."
As Slate continued to dodge the girls he fought, he succeeded in changing his ammunition to a new set of Dust bullets. Jumping above them as Jet joined in the assault, Slate spun above the three and fired Ice Dust bullets as he looked down at them. When the mist cleared from the attack, Jet's legs were encased in ice while Aoi and Envy were completely frozen. Jet growled at Slate and began to chip away at the ice with his hook swords, but Azalea was worried about the other two.
"Guess you were wrong, Sunset," Rua said. "Slate was able to handle himself against these three. I thought it would be different since I felt weaker when that Envy chick grabbed me earlier."
Azalea's eyes widened at the info and she turned to Rua. "Envy grabbed you and you felt weaker," she asked in a panicked tone.
"Why's that important," Celadon asked as the other members of Fragment Hunter joined the group.
"Because of Envy's Semblance," Azalea explained. "She can drain your Semblance and use it as her own for a while!"
Everyone was shocked to hear that one of Azalea's bullies had a powerful ability and all exclaimed the same thing. "WHAT?!" Soon, they saw Envy vanish from the block of ice in a flash of dark green light and kick Slate in the back as she teleported behind him.
"Anything else you want to share with us in case we end up fighting these guys in class or the tournament, Farm Girl," Rua asked.
Before Azalea could say anything, Aoi's prison of ice immediately shattered as a pair of laser beams shot from her eyes and her Dust Staff began to burn with intense flames. As Aoi looked up toward Slate, she has a menacing grin as her eyes glowed a dark red and fired another pair of beams at him. "Well... Aoi can do that," Azalea meekly said. "On the bright side, Jet hasn't actually unlocked his Semblance," she mentioned as the aforementioned boy managed to break free of the ice.
Getting nailed with lasers from Aoi's eyes, Slate felt intense pain before Jet kicked him in the face and knocked him back. "Just my luck," Slate muttered to himself before getting back up on his feet. All three of his opponents had sadistic smiles on their faces as they prepared to continue their fight with Slate. Rolling back to his feet and picking up his revolvers, Slate ran off and reloaded his weapons as he continued to dodge attacks. With Envy teleporting around to slash and kick at Slate, Aoi blasting lasers and fireballs, and Jet using his swords, everyone was amazed that Slate was able to avoid everything that came at him.
"I don't think Cereza could do this kind of stuff against them," Layla said as she kept watching Slate dodge attacks. "Maybe your dad's lessons are paying off," she said to Azalea. Azalea could only watch in awe as Slate avoided lasers, swords, and flames while reloading his guns. When Slate saw Aoi get behind him with her eyes glowing red, he quickly ducked so that the lasers nailed Envy and Jet instead of himself. As that happened, Slate maneuvered behind Aoi and kicked her to the ground next to her teammates. While Jet, Envy, and Aoi got back on their feet, Slate began to fire his revolvers at them and the shots didn't hit any of them.
"You missed, Deadeye," Aoi taunted as she prepared to counterattack.
"I don't miss," Slate said as he twirled his revolvers on his fingers and moved his arms similarly to how he would holster his guns. Fragment Hunter saw that the rounds Slate fired earlier were Wind Dust ammo and that they were circling above the three bullies. When they saw Slate move his arms down, the bullets flew down toward Team JADE and inflicted a lot of damage to them. When Slate began to reload his pistols again, he saw that Envy was the only one of the three not on the ground. "Ah, Grimm paste!"
Envy teleported behind Slate and turned her sword into its whip form to slash away at him from a distance. The blades cut away at Slate's Aura and Envy kept forcing Slate back before Jet used his hook swords to disarm the gunslinger and trip him. With his guns kicked to separate sides of the battlefield, Slate saw that he was in trouble when Aoi spun her staff around and created daggers of ice above Slate. "I think you just ran out of luck," Envy taunted as the frozen daggers were dropped.
Rolling out of the way, Slate avoided the ice and ran toward Envy. Using her sword's whip mode, Envy tried to catch Slate's leg to trip him again. However, Slate leapt forward to avoid the attack and grabbed at Envy before throwing his knee into her gut to knock the wind out of her. "I'm not out just yet," Slate declared as he continued toward one of his revolvers and finished loading the weapon when he grabbed it. Quickly turning around, the gunslinger of Team FCSA aimed his gun at Envy and blasted her with a few Fire Dust rounds. The flames forced her to flinch and Slate began to change his ammo again while Aoi and Jet made their way toward him. Using Ice Dust bullets on the floor beneath Team JADE, Slate froze the ground and made the two enemies lose their balance.
Firing more ice shots around the three as he circled around the battlefield, Slate managed to reach his second revolver and began to reload as Team JADE started to melt the ice. When Slate managed to load his guns with more Wind Dust ammo, he opened fire on his opponents to try and end the fight. As the projectiles flew toward Team JADE, Fragment Hunter cheered on Slate for being able to last as long as he was. Each Dust bullet bounced around the battlefield and was about to hit Team JADE when something unexpected happened. Instead of hitting Team JADE from behind, the projectiles avoided them and converged on Slate himself, leaving him to yell in shock. "WHAT!?"
Getting nailed with his own attack, Slate was knocked around and fell to the floor as Team JADE laughed at him. "Did you mean to hit yourself with that attack? Or are you not a good shot like you think," Jet said as he taunted Team FCSA's gunslinger. Slate could only growl at Jet before he picked up his revolvers again and fired at the swordsman. But to Fragment Hunter's surprise, the bullet actually moved around Jet's face and returned to shoot Slate's revolver out of his hand. Slate was so surprised by the sudden change of his bullet's direction that he couldn't use his Aura in time and his hand was bleeding as he grabbed it in pain. "Took you long enough, Duke," Jet said as Fragment Hunter saw the last member of Team JADE enter the amphitheater.
"I was cleaning my weapon while I changed out of my uniform," Duke stated as he entered Fragment Hunter's view. Duke wore a dark blue tunic with silver-colored rerebraces, a chainmail undershirt, blue pants with silver-colored greaves, and brown combat boots. He carried a semi-automatic pistol with a blade attached to the top that looked like it would transform into a sword similar to Sunset's. "Why did I need to hurt him," Duke asked Jet and the girls as he gestured to Slate.
"He's the one who picked a fight with us," Aoi explained. "He shot at us first, so we defended ourselves."
Duke eyed his teammates in suspicion before turning to the small crowd of students that he and Team JADE saw earlier in the day. He noticed the Cow Faunus' flinching reaction when he looked at her before turning to his teammates and shaking his head in disappointment. "You three should be ashamed of yourselves," Duke said before he started to leave.
"We could still use your Semblance against this guy," Envy said as she grabbed Duke's hand for a moment. Feeling the new power flowing through her, Envy then released Duke's hand before preparing to attack Slate. "Thanks for the help, Duke," she said as her teammate left the area with a disgusted look on his face.
"What does she mean by that," Sunset asked Fragment Hunter before using her Semblance to try and read Envy's mind.
"Now with Duke's Trajectory Manipulation Semblance, I'll be able to redirect any projectile to defend us and get this cowboy from any angle," Envy thought to herself, not knowing that Sunset relayed the information to the others. Unfolding her sword into a whip again, Envy began to slash away at Slate before grabbing him with her weapon. Slate tried to use his other revolver to shoot at her, but the bullet was redirected at the hand holding it and was knocked out of his grip. Slate was prepared for his other hand to be shot at, so it wasn't bleeding like the first one did, but he was now defenseless as Jet and Aoi approached him with their weapons while they had the same sadistic smirk as Envy.
Azalea looked on in horror as Slate was getting pummeled by her childhood bullies because he fought to defend her against them. Everyone else was looking at the sight in anger or disgust while they prevented Rua from going after Team JADE. "Had enough," Aoi asked as she grabbed Slate by the chin and looked him in the eye. Slate only glared back angrily in return as his hat fell off his head and his Aura shimmered in a viridian color to show that it was finally depleted. "I guess not, guys," Aoi said before she stepped away to let Jet and Envy continue beating Slate.
The assault continued as Fragment Hunter watched Slate get punched and kicked by Envy while Jet used his swords to smack the gunslinger around. Before any other attacks could be dealt, Sunset saw somebody enter the amphitheater and felt the anger radiating off of them. "What are you three doing to my student," everyone heard a familiar deep voice ask menacingly. Jet, Aoi, and Envy all turned to see that Terracotta Gaia was glaring at them and they all had similar fearful expressions on their faces. "I'm waiting for an answer, Pitch. Same with you, Lobelia and Sinn."
Team JADE couldn't even get a word in as they kept stammering under Terra's glare and they eventually ran for the nearest exit. Terra snorted as he saw the three run away like cowards before turning his attention to Slate as he tried to pick himself up. Fragment Hunter all went to Slate's side to help him and check on his condition. Aside from his bleeding hand, Slate's left arm had a cut on the bicep that would heal normally. He also had bruises all over his face and his left cheek was cut over the same place as his scar, making it bigger as everyone could see it was a little deep. "Come on, Slate. We need to get you some medical attention," Celadon said as Terracotta picked Slate up and carried him on his shoulder.
After having his wounds tended to, Slate alone in his dorm room inspecting his revolvers for damage and checking his ammunition. Soon, he heard a knock and saw that Terracotta let himself into Team FCSA's room. "I heard that Sunset could explore other people's memories now and that's how you learned about Azalea's connection to those three," he said to the injured gunslinger after closing the door.
"Yeah," Slate replied as he began to put his gun back together.
"And it sure was lucky that I showed up when they began to pummel you," Terracotta mentioned in knowing tone.
"Yeah. Lucky," Slate muttered as he avoided looking at Azalea's father and focused on his weapons.
Terra could see that Slate was still nervous about looking directly at him. "So, you decided to pick a fight with Team JADE in hopes of avenging Azalea's bullied past," the Bull Faunus stated. "Any reason why you did that instead of telling someone?" Slate looked at Terracotta in confusion and tried to explain, but he could think of why he decided to battle Team JADE specifically. "Can't answer, huh?"
"N-no, sir," Slate replied nervously as he gripped his injured arm, unintentionally causing more blood to soak the bandages.
Terracotta closed his eyes and decided to break the ice between him and Slate a little more. "When I was a newly-licensed Huntsman, I was returning from a mission in Anima and stopped by a village I training in while at Beacon. That village was Mirabelle and it was there that I encountered a gang of thugs trying to attack a woman. I ended up battling them and sending all four of the would-be rapists to the hospital," Terra told Slate. "When I saw that the girl's clothing had been torn and she was only in her shorts, I gave her my jacket and helped her to her feet. As I was doing that, I saw that it was a girl I met a few years ago on that same training mission. Her name was Ivy Dahlia Holstein, my future wife, and Azalea's mother."
Slate was amazed at the story of how Terracotta fought a group of punks that fully deserved what was coming to them and how he saved Azalea's mother. "Wow... Does Azalea know this story," Slate asked.
"She does. But the main point is that we're not so different, Slate," Terra stated. "We both fight to protect people who are treated unfairly. But, you need some extra training for hand-to-hand combat because of what Team JADE can do. I'll be glad to teach you new techniques to help fight alongside Azalea."
Slate thought over what Terra said until another knock was heard from the door and Azalea was seen opening the door. "H-hey, Slate. I just wanted to check up on you. Maybe fix up your bandages," she said nervously before seeing her father in the room. "Dad? What are you doing here?"
"I was just talking to Slate about how he can improve his training," Terracotta explained. "If you want, I can teach you how to at least throw a decent punch," he said to Slate as he clenched a fist. "I'll be heading out now. See you later, sweetie," Terra said to his daughter before leaving the room.
Azalea saw the soaked bandages on Slate went to replace them with new ones. As she did, Slate ended up paying attention to her now that she was right next to him. While he did see her figure when he accidentally walked in on her changing in the factory safehouse used by Smoke Shadow's gang, Slate never did pay attention to Azalea's other features until he saw them up close. What captivated Slate the most were Azalea's eyes and the freckles that dusted her cheeks. As Azalea was focused on fixing the bandages on his arm, Slate kept looking at Azalea and couldn't stop thinking about her. Soon, Azalea turned her head up to check on the bandage that rested on Slate's cheek and ended up making eye contact with Slate. The two kept looking at each other and Azalea could only mutter to herself as she fiddled around with the bandages on Slate's arm.
Slate thought to what Terracotta said about protecting people who were treated unfairly and thought of how Azalea was treated as she grew up. He knew that he couldn't do anything about her past, but thought that she deserved some happiness to help through the fact that Team JADE was at Beacon for the tournament. He wasn't going to let Azalea sit around between classes all the time and decided to do something about it. "Azalea, do you want to go out with me?"
And with Slate done fighting Team JADE, we have this. If any of you liked the idea of Slate and Azalea getting together, then you'll at least get to probably see them on a date together. You'll need to stick around for Azalea's reaction and how everyone else reacts, too. For the battle scene, I kept listening to "Paper Moon" from Soul Eater when I wrote it, so try listening to that while reading the fight again.
Come back next time for more of "Sideline: Another Story". In other news, THAT NEW RWBY EPISODE! AWESOMENESS!
WaterDragonMaverick, signing out.