Ruby's scroll had run out of power, so it was hard to tell what time it was when they all got up. The sun was till far in the east, so she got the impression that it was just after day break. Ruby's shadow was long as it paced up and down the courtyard of the lookout, awaiting a sign. Goku and Weiss were sitting down a little ways off, the heiress showing Goku her failing summoning glyph. The dazzling emblem shone on the floor for a few moments, but inevitably shank and faded to nothing every time she tried. She shot a nasty look at Ruby, who had been skipping very loudly in front of the lookout entrance.

"I can't concentrate with that stupid noise?!" Weiss raged as she stomped on the area where the glyph has glinted moments before. Goku smiled amusedly with his eyes.

"The battlefield won't be silent; you gotta learn to keep your head under stress. Some of the most important decisions you'll make'll be under pressure."

"I-I-I-I CAN'T DO IT ALRIGHT!" And Weiss shouted so loudly that even Ruby, absent minded as she was, and stopped looking at the door ad turned to face her. Angry tears were forming under those bright blue eyes and the grip the young heiress had on her sword looked painfully tight. Goku sighed and knelt down where Weiss had collapsed. The glyph she had produced was even feebler than the last and it dissipated the moment Weiss let go of her sword. Goku raised his hand to Weiss' ear, and flicked it.

"Ouch!" Weiss rubbed the spot on her ear which felt like it had been stung by a bee. "What the hell was that for?"

"Feel better?" asked Goku, smiling deviously. Weiss said nothing, but she had to admit that the sudden burst of pain had brought her back to earth somewhat. It should have made her even angrier, she had been getting more and more frustrated…but now she just felt normal.

"Watch me." Said Goku, and he raise his own hand to the spot where Weiss' glyph had been conjured. The same yellow ball of light appeared to issue forth from his hand and hover there like a miniature sun. Weiss looked from it to Goku, whose face was not strained or pressured; he looked completely at peace with the world, eyes closed and mouth lolling open slightly. He might have been asleep if he wasn't crouching.

She had seen this before obviously, when Goku had demonstrated how to use the Kamehameha, he had shown the girls how to manifest energy. Weiss in particular found it to be quite difficult, as it required a huge amount of focus. The wave of aura that she had released had looked more like her ice dust than the bright blue wave that he had produced. The ball in Goku's hand suddenly twisted into whirl of shape and size and shot into the ground, the tile which it hit crackled into flame for a few seconds and then faded.

"See" said Goku, with eyes full of enthusiasm. "It's not just about relaxing, it's about will-"

Goku stopped talking and looked up; a squeak was heard in the windy distance as Ruby ran head long into Guardian Buu, who had also stopped dead. Goku and Buu shared significant looks. Something was coming.

"Go and wake up Blake!" Goku barked at Ruby, who was still moving rather hesitantly on her new knees. "You guys need to fuse, NOW!"

Nodding her understanding, the small girl in red disappeared, with a swiftness that seemed different than her semblance somehow. Next, the old man spoke to Buu, with the same alert authoritarian voice.

"Buu, can you go and find ?! We need him back here, now!"

Buu looked puzzled for a moment, but then nodded and raising his finger to his forehead, he vanished without a trace.

Goku turned to Weiss, who looked on with wide frightened eyes. His own relaxed somewhat and he spoke more calmly.

"Two power levels are approaching fast" he explained, Weiss gasped in horror, how had they been found so quickly? They weren't ready; Yang and Vegeta weren't even back yet!

"W-w-well what do we do?!" Weiss was shocked to see a smile on his face, and not a panicked or apprehensive one. It was wide and confident, toothy and childish. It was a look of anticipation.

"Well I guess I get to see what you girls are made off. I suppose you should know that one of the power levels belongs to that Adam guy that your friends were talking about. The other guys a stranger to me."

Goku cracked his knuckles and looked on into the cloudless sky, where no such approaching cavalry could be seen. Weiss looked as hard as she could, but couldn't see a thing. It was just the sky.

"Come on princess, you're still using your eyes." Murmured Goku, standing with his own eyes closed. "Feel where they are."

Weiss did as she was told, she looked in the direction that Goku had indicated and closed her eyes.

'Relax' she whispered to herself inside her own mind, 'relax and…' a strange vision came before Weiss, an odd blur, with a kind of wavelength coming from it. Weiss suddenly realised that she was sensing another person's aura. This was incredible, she could feel the persons strength…buts also their emotions. This person was hard, impatient and mutinous, and he was standing next to someone ecstatic, loyal and deranged. She did not recognise this man either.

"That is Adam…" Weiss muttered in a similar fashion to Goku, and when she opened her eyes, a small black dot could be discerned in the distance, and it was slowly growing larger. Weiss recognised the build of the ship. It was her fathers, they had stolen Atlas tech from Beacon after it fell. Weiss' grip on her sword hilt was painfully tight again.

"Look at the size of that thing," said Adam, gazing in awe of the lookout, "How can something so large stay airborne without any support?"

There was a long silence, as neither Seer nor Tyrian seemed interested in anything that Adam had just said. The mad Faunus was just gazing longingly into the grimm's mirrored depths and Salem was just sitting with her eyes closed, sensing their way forward. Sighing at the stubborn silence of his two companions, Adam began his battle preparations. They had swung by Watt's workshop on the way here and he had given Adam his repaired blade. He hated to admit it, and he would never tell the doctor this, but the human had done a good job. There were no cracks or furrows anywhere around where it had snapped, and the swing was just as fluid as ever. If anything, it felt lighter and from the way it drew blood at the slightest touch on Adams finger, it was sharper too.

Excitement was beginning to mount inside him. Despite their kinship, Adam never really thought that he would be able to like Tyrian, but regardless of his own personal feeling about faunus dignity, he was grateful for his backup to be a faunus. The last thing wanted was that Cinder worshiping illusionist girl or the smart mouthed legless moron. He didn't need thieves, he needed strength, and Tyrian was well known for that, strength with an enthusiasm of a particularly nasty variety. He managed a small smile. 'You won't escape me this time, my dear.'

"Are we close my Queen…are we close?" Tyrian was muttering again, addressing Salem for what must have been the ninth time in the past half hour. He had gotten ready to fight as well, his Pincer like wrist blades were drawn and his concealed tail was swaying from side to side beneath his coat. Salem opened her eyes and looked from Tyrian's eager face, to Adams set features, to the approaching airborne fortress, and began to speak again as she closed her eyes once more.

"I can sense my child here…but the scent is confused…it is almost like he is here…and not here at the same time."

Adam's fist tightened as the castle grew closer, and it took a great deal of discipline to not turn around and tell Salem to cut the crap and be more specific. Adam was getting sick of this mystical mumbo-jumbo, he didn't exactly care about maidens or witches, only about killing Blake and her traitorous family and then returning to the betterment of the White fang. The sooner this was over the better. He did not want this to be too dragged out; her death would be swift and satisfyi-

"INCOMING!"

Tyrian and Adam both reacted at the same time, though in different ways to the approaching bright blue light pulsing towards the aircraft like a tidal wave. Adam's fear made an unsanctioned appearance as he prepared to throw himself from the plane- he knew that attack would destroy the plane! He instinctively grabbed Tyrians arm and tried to drag him out too, they were close enough to jump to the castle at this point, and Adam liked to avoid spilling faunus blood if he could help it, even a freak like Tyrian. However the scorpion man did not seem to want to leave the plane, he had attempted to grab that stupid grimm communicator, with the obvious intention of taking it too. But the grimm was the one steering the plane with its tendrils and there was no removing it, not without going into a swan dive. With a huge effort, Adam pulled him free.

"It's too heavy, quickly!"

"NO, WE CAN'T, my lady, MY LADY!"

Adam grabbed the screaming faunus by the middle and threw himself from the plane, just as the blue light connected with it. The plane exploded with fire and what seemed at a glance to be ice, the force of the impact was enough to propel both Adam and Tyrian to the side of the structure. Adam stabbed at the stone with his blade and Tyrian grabbed hold of his leg. He immediately looked down at the descending wreckage of their transportation and began to bawl at the loss of Seer.

"Hey, listen!" Adam barked, emboldened by being in charge again. "We have a job to do remember?! She's still alive and she'll be proud if we complete it without her!"

Tyrian looked up at him, pouting with tears still in his eyes. But then his expression hardened and he swung forward and pierced the white stone with his own weapon, and proceeded to clime at a steady, almost insect like pace, his tail writhing like a snake behind him.

Weiss faltered slightly, her footing not having been perfect for the attack, but straightened back up to admire her handy work. The Kamehameha wave had blown that stolen Atlas tech to kingdom come, and there were no signs of any survivors. Rather pleased with herself, Weiss turned to Goku. She was unpleasantly surprised to see a stern look on his face, along with a pair of annoyed folded arms.

"What?" she asked innocently, if not a little defensively. She was getting the impression that her attack was being scrutinized. Goku spoke, and he sounded like he had just witnessed something indescribably disrespectful, like urinating on a grave stone.

"You're supposed to let the enemy arrive first, its common curtesy. That was nothing short of a sucker punch. There's no honour in that."

"There were guns on that thing, I've seen them being built! They are like mobile fortresses!" Weiss shot back, positively outraged that this dirty old man was lecturing her about curtesy. Surely he realised that these guys were monstrous killers who had more deaths to their names than she could possibly imagine.

"Anyway, it doesn't matter." and Weiss saw that Goku had his eyes closed again. "They survived; both of them are scaling the lookout."

"What!?" Weiss started at this information and swiftly reloaded her weapon, she had to be ready. She was willing to bet her name that they would make a highly impressive entrance. The two of them stood ready as the sounds of grunting and splitting rock began to grow more audible. After a few minutes, a shape shot over the edge of the lookout, it flew high in the air like some great misshapen tumble weed before spreading out into the form of a person and slamming to the ground with enough force to make the floor crack beneath his brown booted feet. The man had wide yellow eyes and a ferocious look on his face. His long plat trailed down his brown form and almost touched the ground. His arms were clad in bladed armbrace's that glinted in the sunlight.

He looked from the heiress to the old man and licked his lips in anticipation. Weiss had never seen this man before, but she though that his form was distinctly odd, his leather clad form seemed uneven in places, and it was clear that this was due to him hiding something. What she did not know, but she somehow doubted that a couple of wrist blades were not all this mystery man had to his arsenal. Rather jarringly, the man seemed to lose his vigour for battle, standing up straight and looking back over the edge. When he spoke, it was not in a snarl or growl like Weiss had expected, he spoke in a loud, reserved and declamatory fashion.

"Come along, faster! We cannot keep the queen from her prize!"

Something that might have been a threat answered the strange man, but neither Weiss nor Goku were close enough to hear what it was. A few moments later, a series of shuffles and grunts could be heard just below the rim of the lookouts edge. Then a black gloved hand grabbed at the ledge and yanked the leader of the white fang over the edge up onto the lookout. Weiss felt her stomach lurch a little at seeing the faunus again. The last time they had met, Weiss had been cradling Yang and her bleeding stump of an arm, while he watched on in vengeful hatred. However, the lameness of his entrance had diminished his mystique somewhat, He on the other hand did not seem to have noticed her yet; he was scrambling to his feet and taking a few choice steps away from the edge of the lookout. It was clear that he was not exactly happy with being this high up, and even less so about having to climb most of the way. When he did look up however, his first sight was Goku, standing there at the forefront of the Lookouts castle, as if preparing to defend it from invading forces.

"You!" he bellowed at Goku, who smiled pleasantly, looking wholly at peace despite Adams tone. "No disappearing acts this time, I don't know what you are old man, but my sword is the last thing you'll see before you die!" and Adam drew his sword to point at Goku. Weiss didn't need to look too closely to tell that he was not feeling even the slightest bit threatened. Goku stood facing the two men with his arms casually folded and his face loose and relaxed.

"Sigh…it's been so long since I've heard a villainous speech…I guess the more things change the more they stay the same." Goku said this with a massive air of nostalgia, as if looking back on the glory days of a wonderful career. "So, they did find ya. Fixed you're little bread knife too I see..." Goku flexed his arms and fingers, cracking them against each other. Adam flinched slightly as he moved; he wasn't going to be caught off guard again, not by this old timer. Goku then turned to face the other man, who had returned to his hunched posture, "You, I don't think we've met."

Tyrian stood up straight again and looked at Goku with a mad kind of hunger burning in those yellow eyes. He looked furious, but with a deep breath seemed to master it. He swooped in a flamboyant bow and declared "Why my name is Tyrian, servant and favourite of the goddess of all grimm. She requests an audience with one of your number."

Weiss raised her eyebrows, 'queen of the grimm', 'an audience'? She had thought these guys were here to kill them. Adan certainly couldn't be here for any other reason than Blake and herself. This all seemed to be lost on Goku as well, as he did not answer or even give any indication that he had been paying attention. Adam couldn't deny that his tone was starting to make a vein throb in his temple, but the faunus took a deep breath and put a lid on the boiling brew of vengeful desire. Instead he turned to Weiss, who stood defiantly with her weapon raised, her hand and expression without fear.

"Where is Blake, Schnee?" He barked, disregarding her weapon.

"She's gone to change, but if you want a fight, I will suffice" said Weiss, proffering her weapon a little more accurately, pointing the blade directly at Taurus' heart. He smirked maliciously.

"I'll get to you eventually, I don't know how you and your whore friend escaped my forces in Beacon...but this is it Heiress...no more running." Weiss said nothing but Tyrian started to giggle at the prospect of violence. He had been hyperactive all day and Adam wanted to get even with this old guy.

"Tyrian, you take the Schnee Bitch...make her suffer for her families crimes against our kind."

'Our kind?' Weiss thought as she looked at the man she now knew as Tyrian 'so he's a faunus…but where is his…'

Tyrian instinctively looked over towards where the ship had once been, towards where in his mind, Salem's council had resided. Upon seeing nothing but empty blue sky, the faunus turned back to face his prey, and a singularly murderous smile spread the mad features. This faunus looked thoroughly unhinged Weiss thought, and gripped her sword a little tighter. Tyrian got into an offensive position, his body a little more low slung, closer to the ground to allow for attacks towards the girls dainty little ankles. He would start at the bottom and work his way up...until he had the express pleasure of removing her eyeballs.

He would have charged at that moment, if not for a small noise behind him. The sound was so faint that Tyrian would not have noticed it under normal circumstances, but all his senses were on fire in such a quiet area, and the small scrape of something sturdy on stone floor made him turn around. He immediately stood up straight. There on the edge, right by the precipice of oblivion, barely in one piece was Seer, the tentacles dragging it forward, the crystal in the centre struggling to transmit its otherworldly signal due to several large cracks on its surface, giving the pale woman on the other end a distorted look that greatly exacerbated her look of cold fury.

"My lady...we knew you were not lost...our orders!?" asked Tyrian, the mad grin still ripping his pale face in two. Somehow her communication grimm had managed to escape the crash as they had. Adam did not look back, as he had expected this. Tyrian was greatly pleased that his mistress would get to see him paint this white place with the blood of her enemies. Salem's expression stayed hard as ever, and her mouth barely moved as she stared straight past Tyrian, glaring at Goku.

"As you were, gentlemen."

...

It happened so fast, that Adam thought he had been struck by the old man again. But even as he fell backwards, pushed by some invisible force of immense strength, the old man still stood a few yards in front of him, smugly staring back. It was the last thing Adam saw before he careened over the side of the lookout and fell back towards the earth.

Nobody moved; everybody was momentarily distracted from the shock of what had just happened by a vibrant display of cherry blossoms floating in a circle just about where Adam had fallen. They danced and twirled in an imaginary wind, gleaming with a sinister sweetness. As the petals began to coagulate and form a single shape, the company on the lookout noticed at once that they were not cherry blossoms; they were rose petals, petals that glowed with power. At once, the display of floral energy vanished, and the fused girl stood straight backed and proud before them all, her dark eyes closed, her hands firmly clasping her purple halberd.

Without meaning to, Weiss made eye contact with the girl that she had come to know as Rory and smiled. She had been worried that the reason they had been taking so long was that the fusion had not worked, as it had done on occasion. But now she knew that this attention seeking girl had just been waiting for the right moment to strike, a true huntress indeed. She gave Weiss a cheeky little wink, and vaulted nimbly over the edge, after Adam, just as Tyrian made a mad swipe with his weapon, directed at the girls head. He roared in frustration at his inaccuracy, before turning to Salem, his face slightly bashful.

"Forget him! He is useless to me now! Seize the girl!" Salem yelled, her temper clearly being tested at this loss, but her resolve stood strong as she continued her staring contest with the ever silent Goku, whose thoughts were descending fast, down towards tree and river where those two kids were. He could only imagine the thoughts going through that twin mind of Ruby and Blake. He thought, with perhaps more affectionate understanding of their pride as warriors than as a mentor 'Good luck you two.'

Adam was spinning and blind, his mask had shattered and flown off in the rush of angry wind that now whipped his face as he fell through the nothingness. He had gotten used to the weightless sensation of falling by now, it having been about five or ten minutes sine he had been struck dumb by the mystery attacker, but he was far from calm. He was dead, he knew it and there was no way to save him now. He struggled and strained at his mind to think of a way to save himself, to stop falling before he...

Adam let himself go limp, his body falling more steadily now and gathering speed as it hurtled towards the earth. He had decided to go out with dignity, not straining to live like some frightened child, he had fought honourably for his cause, and the was alright with this, he was alright to die like a man, falling towards the earth, like a- Adams body suddenly tensed in shock. It was all he could do to not immediately perish from whiplash as his fall was halted by a dark shape above him, silhouetted by the bright unguarded sun above. He strained his brown eyes to see what was holding him, but too late, they were already speeding off towards the ground.

The figure let go of Adam a little too early, and he flew headfirst into the side of a cliff. The force of the impact had been lessened by the fact that he had only been a few feet off of the ground when the mystery figure had released him. Despite this reprieve that had spared his life, Adam felt his bones creak from the force of impact and his stomach churned from the return of the normal rules of gravity that he had almost forgotten about. He did not waste any time ion scrambling to his feet, grabbing for his sword, but his hand fell on empty air and Adam looked down in horror to see that his sword was missing.

With a roar of anger and panic he cast a glance around the surrounding wasteland for any sign of his blade, but all he could see were a couple of mesas and a few bushes. Something made a noise behind him and Adam spun around- TWACK! Something hard hit him square in the face, and Adam felt his nose break. Blinded by pain and his own blood, Adam spun to the floor again, howling and cursing his own ineptitude. This was the second time he had been hit with a rock after falling from a great height, only the first time had ben his own doing, this time…

"Jeez…what kind of reaction time is that?"

The strange voice was coming from somewhere above Adam. Blinded momentarily by the bleeding gash on his forehead, he could not see who was causing it. It suddenly occurred to Adam that he was bleeding, even though the battle had not really commenced when he had fallen, there was nothing that could have depleted his aura…except. The white fang leader touched at his face with his gloved hand, something was irritating him. A small wound, like a paper cut was etched into his skin just below his right eye. Adam was trying to thing what had caused it, when the voice answered the question for him.

"All that aura, and you couldn't even handle a few petals, ha!" the voice laughed sarcastically, and Adam recognised, as if from a past life, the simpering, overconfident nature of that laugh. A short, obese woman came to mind. He stumbled slightly in his sightlessness as he felt his way towards this mystery speaker. Adam had thought he had deduced that it had been his mask that had caused the cut on his face, but now that he thought about it, the voice was right, it had been those weird petals that had cut his face. He had not known at the time, it had all happened too fast, but the image of a split second surrounded by red rose petals seemed to teeter on the edge of his perception, barely glimpsed for the speed of the attack

Adam struggled to remove the blood from his face, presumably while the stranger watched him closely; he felt eyes on him that was for sure. Once his vision had returned to normal, Adam immediately looked up. He was standing at the foot of a small plateau; he had not seen where he was going in his fallen state and on top of this small hill of stone stood the silhouetted figure that had broken his fall, and presumably his nose. He staggered back a few paces so the sun would fall on the mysterious woman's face.

This was quite surreal for Adam, as he both recognised the face, and did not recognise it at the same time. It was chalk white with long black hair down her back, with a bow on her head that hid a pair of faunus cat ears. It was these details that he recognised. Apart from that she was a total stranger; the frilly dress, the stocking suspenders, the dark smiling lips and bright red eyes. Eyes that seemed to boar into him, her gaze made him feel for the first time in a long time, rather ashamed, as though he were viewing something indecent.

"Took your time, didn't you?" said the mystery woman, and for her calm and soft tone, the spite in her words was palpable in every syllable. "Personally, I'd call it an improvement." She gestured to her own immaculate face, in a mocking reference to Adams bleeding forehead and cut up eyes. He bared his teeth and again instinctively reached for his sword hilt again. The woman's smile widened and became even more superior even more patronising.

"W-who the hell are you!?" Adam thundered, his bravado failing to cover up the faunus' fearful look at the large purple halberd in the girls hand. He hated to admit it, but he was in trouble here, without a weapon he was helpless against this opponent; she was armed and had abilities he could not even understand. He didn't even know the stupid woman's semblance, but he knew that she was powerful and dangerous. He considered running, but thought that with her speed and abnormal strength, she would catch him easily. The only way out was through, but di he measure up? There was no other option that to try.

He stared up in fury at this petulant woman whose strength perplexed him so, in her right hand that absurd looking axe and in her left…
Adams stomach turned to ice, he gawped in horror as the girl held his own precious freshly repaired sword in her unworthy hand. She was looking at it impassively, no longer smiling.

"This sword…this is the sword that cut my quarter sisters arm off…" she said, speaking very quietly so that Adam could barely hear her. She released her halberd and allowed it to keel over and fall on its side with a tumultuous crash. She drew the blood red blade from the sheath and examined it, much in the way that Watts had done back at Salem's place. A twinge of annoyance creased her face for a second as she allowed the sheath to fall to the floor…and crushed it into twisted broken metal.

She kicked the wreckage forward off the edge of the plateau and Adam watched it fall like a downed plane until it crashed against the hard ground and shattered into debris. Looking at it, Adam felt rather cold, lifeless, as though he had been the one crushed beneath someone's steel tread. There was one thing that he knew, there was no repairing something that damaged, one half of his weapon was gone forever, and in that instant Adam gained a full appreciation for his own spite. He could hate more than just one girl, now yes this one was on his list too. They would all die: the girl, his Blake, and all her little human friends! It was just a matter of time…just a matter…of time.

A soft thud caught the fuming faunus' attention and he saw his katana sticking out of the dirt ground. He scrambled forward to examine it. No cracks, no bends, no damage to the body of the blade at all. For the last time, Adam looked up and saw the purple halberd speeding towards him. He only managed to throw himself out of the way by inches. He was blinded again by the cloud of dust that the impact created, a cloud that dissipated completely with a swipe of the red blade. There stood the girl, leaning casually against her weapon, a dull look of boredom on her face.

"You can keep that, it's only fair that you at least try to hit me." Adam's blood boiled, he was done, and he had waited long enough. Putting all of his weight behind the sword, Adam charged at the mysterious woman. Meeting his advance, she drew up her halberd in front of her and the two weapons locked, and the cold deadly eyes met the red seductive ones. There was something about them, the way they were a little narrowed, a little analysing…with the blue around the lashes…

"Blake?"

Hey, its been a minute. Thank you for reading. Same mission statment im afraid, im in the middle of exams and this has taken up pretty much all the free time in the past three months. I am still generally keeping to my schedule of uploading installments on this story on Tuesdays, today was just an exception because of the lack of uploads. Sorry about the lack of activity, once I get these exams out of the way, i can write full force again. I have more ideas for different stories in the works aswell. If you think they will interest you, please check out my other stories except for the bleach one which as we have established, is quite the piece of shit. Thank you again, I would not have found the time to do this without the criticisms and guidance that i recieve from reviews and PM's.

Sincerely, with much love and hugs

Johnathan Soulless X