The room was thick with dust, the air was so flushed with debris from the destruction of the old patrician wall, it was like a dry indoor fog. The hallway and what may have once comprised a living room were now one and the same, in the centre of which sat the cause of the wall demolition. A Tall grey-haired boy with shiny metal comprising both of is legs. Mercury convulsed as he coughed twice, once from the stupid dust and again from the bruise on his midriff. He had not expected to be hit with blunt force, his previous encounter with the girl had given the impression that she preferred armed combat.
Swearing under his shallow breath, Mercury got awkwardly to his knees, facing down his short opponent. The girl was standing in the rain streaked doorway of the Capsule corp building, silhouetted against a flash of lightning. "You've been busy, huh."
Ruby looked down at her opponent, a sharp and confident look on her face. She was impressing on Mercury as well as on the empty room that the time for talk had ended. In a flash of red, her sniper rifle was soaring straight at Mercury, coiling and transforming in mid-air from the firearm to the deadly scythe edge. The silver blade missed Mercury by millimetres and went spinning into the room behind him. Not allowing his astonishment to show, he turned a gloating look on her, as if he were about to say, 'you missed' but to his confusion noticed that the girl in red was smiling. He also noticed the colour red in his peripheral vision as well and turned to see a long strand of red ribbon still sailing past him. It was a moment too late that mercury realised what Ruby had done. The blade of the Crescent rose ripped into his right side, causing a severe blow to his already damaged aura that made him cry out in pain and surprise.
The spinning weapon formed a kind of violent serrated disc sailing on a ribbon back to its mistress, who caught it in her free hand. Ruby gave Mercury a second to compose himself and smiled wider as his aura dispersed to nothing. Their eyes met and the smile dissolved into a scowl and vanished completely the moment Mercury shifted his weight, launching himself at Ruby with a flying kick which missed and sent him sailing past his mark back onto the floor. Mercury recovered quickly, landing on his hands and spinning around in a flurry of roundhouse kicks to meet Ruby's guard that appeared just beyond the spot where he had landed. But the guard was just for show, Ruby was moving so fast that none of the kicks that Mercury send her way made contact. He was fast, fast enough to be able to rival Yang at one point, but Ruby had her semblance as well as her knowledge of instant transmission. Mercury's eyes were wide with shock, as this girl seemed to vanish and reappear in the wake of his kicks. She hadn't been this strong last time.
Losing patience, Mercury let fly a blast from the bazooka in his left boot sole, aiming the kick where Ruby's face had just appeared. He reasoned that no matter how fast the girl had become, there was no way she could avoid buckshot at such close range. But just before the mechanism registered the pulling of the trigger, a mass of red fabric collided with mercury's face, confusing his aim; while Ruby performed a backflip knocking mercury's foot high and off course, while using her other foot to get inside his guard and deliver a vicious blow to his chin. The heavy impact and strange ballet like posture rendered Mercury quite defenceless to what came next, a straight Mae Geri kick to Mercury's stomach. Leaving the ground entirely, Mercury skidded through the air and landed hard against the opposing wall, which creaked ominously.
"You lasted longer against Yang!" Ruby snorted, allowing her scythe to stick in the ground beside her. "If that's all you got, you're wasting my time. Just give up!"
From his position lying on his back several feet away, Mercury did not answer, but his hand slowly began to move, rising from his side to hover over something near his chest…
Outside the old house the rain had started falling in earnest, what had been a dull thudding on the roof inside had now become a consistent rap. Weiss' clean white clothes juxtaposed against the faded and grey ruins made her look angelic, whereas Emerald clad in green seemed to blend in now that the clothes were soggy and darkened. Her green fringe now concealing half of her face only showed one eye, red and threatening. She looked a lot like her mistress with that hairstyle Weiss thought to herself, as well at her fighting with two sickles.
But the green weapons were in their gun forms and fulfilled their purpose aptly when Emerald fired a single shot at Weiss. A propulsion glyph was at her feet long before the trigger was pulled, and the heiress sailed by the six-millimetre round in the opposite direction, her rapier poised to impale Emerald. Weiss allowed a confident smirk to spread her face as Emerald's red eye widened inches from her own, she knew that nobody was fast enough to avoid what she had just done. But her breath caught in her chest, and she realised that she had stopped. Looking down, Weiss saw a long green blade pressing into her own. Emerald had been surprised, but quick enough to morph her own weapon into the sickle. The second of her guns was pointed at Weiss' face, and she only had a few seconds to react before the hammer fell. But a burst of white engulfed the two of them, and all that could be heard over the rain pounding the rooftops above was a furious cry.
Emerald backed out of the mist cloud, an outraged expression on what was visible of her face. She moved somewhat lopsided, this was because her second weapon, the one in its pistol form had been frozen solid in an ice block the size of Emerald's whole torso. She cursed under her breath for her stupid mistake, not considering in the heat of the moment that the heiress would have some close-range abilities. But her revelry was not prolonged, for in the next instant, Emerald was under siege. Weiss had shot forward straight out of the mist of her own creation, her weapon held before her like a sword fish, she reached Emerald and let fly a merciless barrage of strikes, and Emerald was not ready this time. Her heavy frozen weapon was weighing her down, impeding her ability to dodge. She was lost in a hail of rainwater and violence pounding at every inch of her body, as she stood helpless to defend herself. Being stabbed at from so many different directions, she dared not raise her arms from her face. If it came up against metal that sharp...
The final strike from Weiss was particularly savage and aimed straight at Emeralds stomach. With this both her stance and aura caved under pressure and she fell back onto the floor with a soggy crash. The frozen green gun sailed through the air and met its fate at the end of the long metal rapier. The iceberg split in two and fell unceremoniously to the ground like its master, and the gun broke along with it.
Weiss looked down at her opponent, her aura depleted, and her body now exposed to damage. That blow to the gut would have been fatal had she not held out just long enough. But now she was getting to her feet, looking frightened and angry. Weiss allowed her to compose herself, she wasn't partial to attacking her enemy while they were recovering. But this turned out to be a misstep, as Emerald seemed to lose her nerve, lashing out at Weiss with a wild leaping slash, easily parried by a fencing expert such as the heiress. When she turned around to chide her reckless adversary for such a cheap tactic, she found herself looking at empty space. Emerald had vanished. Weiss turned back around, looked at the surrounding buildings and streets, but still no sign of Emerald.
"Giving up already?!" She jeered at the empty air, allowing her rapier to fall limply by her side as a show of confidence. "That didn't take long. If you don't intend to fight me, maybe you'll tell me what Salem wants with some stupid little radar?!"
Weiss listened but no answer came, just the steady patter of rain. Suddenly there came a great whoosh of something green sailing right by Weiss' right ear, caught off guard the heiress instinctively backed off and turned to face the threat. There stood before her, absolutely nothing. Then suddenly a sharp pain stabbed at Weiss' left shoulder. She faltered, lowering her weapon and falling to one knee. Looking at the ground Weiss could see a pair of brown boots walking around her, from her back to stand a few feet away. She looked at the shoulder that Emerald had just attacked and sighed in relief when she saw that her aura had held, although her sleeve looked distinctly ruffled, indicating it had been a near miss. Glancing back at the boots, Weiss saw that it was no longer just one pair of laces. The feet had now duplicated into many, and as Weiss straightened up, she understood why. She was surrounded by Emeralds, at east twenty replicas of the woman she had been fighting now stood in a vast circle around the heiress, each with a sickle in one hand and a grim expression. The phantoms also appeared to be holding their free hands over their covered eyes, but Weiss could really see what for. Weiss was attempting to stay calm but at the same time, each copy of Emerald reared back and extended the whip like chain from the sickle handle and sent it her way. Her only chance for escape was to lean back in some mockery of a limbo contest, as the chains sailed over her, she distinctly felt the presence of solid matter, but could not see which one it was. She straightened up and closed her eyes as the Emerald's reared for a second volley
'Okay' She thought to herself, trying hard not to panic. 'Just relax Weiss, you won't be able to sense it if your all tensed up…' She recalled practicing this on the lookout with Goku, how the images had seemed to spark up out of the darkness when she gave in to serenity. But that had been in a calming environment, and she wasn't sure it would be so easy this time. But in her uncalm and troubled mind, a single spark resounded, a faint signal from a single direction. She opened her eyes and saw the red eye of one particular Emerald, as her blade whip came sailing through the air straight at Weiss' face.
"Gotcha!" with a triumphant smile, Weiss raised her rapier and caught the blade flying at her. The other chains sailed straight through her, mere harmless illusions. The chain coiled around the straight blade like a grappling hook and locked into place. Before Emerald had time to register what had happened, Weiss let forth a furious blast of ice which travelled up the chain and froze the whole weapon solid.
"What the-?" Is all she had time to say before Weiss twisted her sword violently and smashed the sickle into pieces. There was one long and tense silence between the two women as thunder crashed and lightning flashed around them. The defenceless Emerald staring down the capable huntress, who was poised for more combat. But a sound from the old house caught both their attentions. It sounded like something had been thrown against the wall. Weiss looked over in concern, thinking about Ruby, but it was one second too long. When she looked back, Emerald had vanished again. No doubt she was as eager to lend her friend aid as Weiss was to help Ruby and knowing this the Heiress made a beeline for the Capsule corp building.
"What in the he…" Ruby started to say, looking in complete incomprehension at Mercury, who after touching his own chest, had started to shake convulsively on the ground and shriek like a man on fire. Indeed, the way his body was glowing with orange light, one would be forgiven for assuming he had been set ablaze. But Ruby knew that this was impossible in weather like this. But then it suddenly stopped, and Ruby was startled to see Mercury's muscles bulging, every single vein bulbous and prominent with that same ominous orange glow. The light had also spread to Mercury's mechanical legs via wires that had not been there during their encounter at Beacon. Gripping her scythe with renewed tension, Ruby took an uncertain step backwards as Mercury leapt to his feet again.
There was no confident smile, no look of cocky superiority upon the face of the man now staring into Ruby's silver eyes. There was primal, animalistic fury that went perfectly with the black eyes, and one look told the huntress that there was no reasoning with this punk now. She wasn't as surprised as Mercury must have thought she'd be, because she knew what that strange light was, and she knew what she could feel emanating from the bulky thief. He was excreting aura amplified by energy siphoned from Cinder, which she assumed given the orange glow as opposed to golden. She also knew that such power would increase Mercury's strength and speed to that beyond the limits of a normal human. She didn't know where Mercury had gotten such abilities, but it didn't matter. She wasn't powerless and had a few tricks of her own. At the very least Ruby knew what to expect, which gave her a distinct advantage. Mercury then transformed into a giant monkey, and Ruby felt her jaw drop before it was half broken by a devastating haymaker.
The sound of splintering wood accompanied Ruby's ascent through the ceiling, and only managed to stop when her cloaked form burst through the capsule corp roof. She sprawled on her back, clothes ripped, hood drooping over one side of her face, exposing over one wide silver eye and the pale lips open wide with uncomprehending shock. The rain hammered against the earth and the cold water helped bring her back down to it, because Ruby was quite frankly in a state of complete nonreality. She was totally certain that what had just happened was real, and the pain she felt in her cheek was certainly compelling evidence that it hadn't been a mirage. With a shaky breath, Ruby sat up and gingerly got to her feet, amazed that her aura had held through all that punishment.
What had happened? Mercury had been powering up, and suddenly his body had warped into a giant Beringel, which had attacked her faster than her eyes could even register. She had fought creatures like that before, but they had been slow and bumbling. She felt like she had just been smacked in the mouth with a knuckle duster. A black shape flew up out of the hole that Ruby had made, and the giant Ape landed before her. She knew in that moment she wasn't dreaming. The beast was tall as an elephant, dark armoured muscular arms flanking a bulbous chest, reinforced with what looked like plate mail made of bone. Two glaring red slits of eyes glared down from a stubby white head, above a wide mouth that seemed to be fitted with a dozen needles on each jaw.
The beast was so hulking and heavy set, Ruby was baffled that the roof beneath its stubby legs was supporting it and when it took a shuddering step forward, she half expected the roof to give. Ruby was completely wrong footed, she was aware of how to go about fighting grimm, but how the hell had somebody found a way to transform into a monster? Deciding that it might be some aspect of energy that they had not been told about, Ruby decided to treat this thing like a normal grimm.
She decided that blunt force wouldn't cut it with that armour protecting it, and thus raised her scythe behind her and cocked the sniper rifle without breaking eye contact with the thing that Mercury had become. The beast was still lumbering towards her, looking appraisingly at the young huntress, and she stood fast watching and waiting. All it would take is one chance. The transformed Mercury stopped moving, about three paces from Ruby and raised its great arms, like two great black tree trunks either side of it and bawled its hands into hammer like fists. The low growl turned into a snarl for a single moment and the giant fists fell like guillotines, at the exact same moment that Ruby moved. Weaving between the two blunt attacks and coiling her blade behind her, Ruby tensed her body, aiming for the monster's throat. As the monster's attack failed, Ruby heard the grunt of effort that told her the attack had hit the ground, yet strangely felt no shock wave. She just assumed it was because she had been in the air when it happened. But it happened all over again, just before the blade pierced the inky skin, a powerful force hit Ruby hard in the face and sent her flying away from it. Far worse than the first collision, like she had just been struck with a chrome washing machine, Ruby fell onto her back once again looking up at the murky sky with that same sense of surrealness as before.
It took a little longer for the world to stop spinning after that impact, the huntress felt like she was still floating. But throbbing pain in the middle of her face mingled with the rain, and Ruby came back with a shudder swearing and gripping her nose. What the hell was going on? The stupid monkey had missed her, yet it had managed to nail her directly on the nose, with nothing! It had inflicted far more damage this time, and Ruby felt her aura dwindle to a fraction and shivered as her protection field phased out of existence. Monkury wasn't letting up either, done with stomping on his tiny legs, and now thundering towards the red mass of cloak on the damp roof, using its massive arms to propel it forward.
Ruby managed to scramble to her feet, fumbling for her scythe but could find nothing. Before she could locate it, the giant fists were upon her, ready to crush. Before the blow could fall however, a flash of white in front of Monkury's eyes caused it to pause for a crucial additional second, which was all Ruby needed to hop backwards, seeing in the moment before it was destroyed that her salvation had been an icicle projectile. 'About time you showed up' She thought, sighing with fond relief. In the distance Ruby could hear more incoming and jumped down to the street level to avoid what turned out to be an additional five icicles. As her hands met wet sidewalk, she felt her hand brush against cold steel, and looking around saw the Crescent Rose. It must have fallen when she had been struck the second time. Looking up Ruby could see Weiss suspended in mid-air over the circular building, pointing her rapier down at the monkey. She was aiming her shots at the beast's arms, trying to pin it down. When she finished her barrage, she turned to her leader and shouted over the thunder.
"Where the hell did this thing come from, did it show up while you were fighting?! And where's Mercury?!" She looked angry as she said it, and Ruby couldn't help but wonder why.
"That is Mercury! He turned into a Beringel! You think Salem can do stuff like that?!" Ruby yelled back, noticing how shaky her voice had become due to her dealings with Monkury. Weiss scoffed.
"Don't be ridiculous! People don't become gri-" she stopped mid-reprimand as the sound of an impatient roar rang out to the stormy night. The giant monkey had risen its arms and they were icicle free. Ruby saw all five of them embedded in the roof of the capsule corp building. Bizarrely they seemed to have missed their target. But the monster was on the move again, and Ruby knew their time was short. She was starting to feel suspicious about this creatures' big arms.
"Hey!" She called out to Weiss, as Monkury stopped looking at the suspended Weiss and back down at the red huntress. Weiss followed the monkeys lead and looked down. "Remember the mission where we became teammates!?" Ruby pointed to a nearby skyscraper, the tallest one in sight. "Ya know, with the Nevermore?! Same thing okay, aim for its legs?!" and smiling widely at her teammate, Ruby grabbed up her scythe and sped off in a burst of speed, as Monkury followed her at tremendous speed. Leaving Weiss in a state of total in comprehension. Why would she aim for its legs? The arms were a much easier target.
Ruby skidded to a halt at the foot of the tall building and looked over her shoulder. The beast was thundering across the street towards her and, looking up she could see Weiss still airborne in a perfect vantage position. Willing every bit of aura, she had left into her feet, Ruby began to ascend the skyscraper as silently as a ghost. This was juxtaposed greatly when Monkury reached the glass and began hammering up the side of it like a great quadruped spider. Ruby allowed her aura to distribute evenly when she was high enough and going fast enough. Touching her foot to the wet glass and looking back for just a moment to check the monster was still following her, Ruby Kicked her semblance into high gear and pelted up the slick building, Monkury crashing and howling in her wake. Weiss watched on incredulously, pondering what she was supposed to do to that monsters' feet. She recalled what Ruby had said, 'Their first mission'… urgh how could she forget? 'the Nevermore'… she had iced its tail giving Ruby the chance to…
The heiress' eyes widened as comprehension dawned. That's what she meant by 'go for the legs'! At the apex of the building's colossal height, Ruby called out, looking past the murder monkey below to her ice queen sniper.
"NOW!"
Closing one eye, Weiss lined up the shot. The creature was moving fast towards her leader, but Weiss' ice was faster. With a single shot, two icicles burst from the end of the rapier. They soared through the night like a pair of Olympic javelins and hit home with a heavy and satisfying crunch. the left leg and groin of the Beringel had been pinned to the side of the building and it could do nothing but feebly clung on with its arms. It was strange, Weiss could hear the cries of anguish despite her lower altitude, but they didn't sound like a creature of grimm. They sounded distinctly…
The heiress looked and felt the presence from both the grimm and Ruby, and it was like being in a car crash, powerless to stop anything, she simply froze up and braced herself.
Ruby allowed gravity to work its magic, thrilled at Weiss' aim she pelted towards the monster with her scythe blade in pursuit, cloak streaming behind her. She had surmised in her own mind that the arms of the beast were hard to hit, probably additional speed granted by the aura Cinder gave Mercury, but she had also known that he would never expect anyone to go for the smaller legs of a Beringel. With her aura gone, she knew there was only one way to take this thing out. Ruby was so full of adrenaline and pride at her own deduction about the legs, she couldn't hear the cries of the creature, or of the team mate so far below.
"Ruby, wait! I don't thi-"
"KAIO-KEN ATTAAAAACK!"
With a single shout, Ruby's body changed, it went from red to somehow redder than red, and her scythe cloak and form all seemed to mesh together into a whirlwind of flame and violence that began to pivot and zigzag its way down the building, smashing every single window with its terminal velocity. Spinning with the force of a jet turbine, the red blur connected with the helpless grimm, and ripped it clean off the side of the building. The blur continued to arc in great knobbing movements quick as the blink of an eye down the side of the building, carrying the monkey along with it. Weiss knew what was coming and flew back, staying in the air. With one final burst of aura, Ruby felt the armour give, and she flew forward to land neatly on her feet at the foot of the tower, Crescent Rose clutched in both hands over her shoulders, coming to a stop in a shower of raining glass and rose petals, the red flame dissipating behind the being she had just overpowered.
Time was seeming to lag in the wake of what had just transpired, even the concept of light appeared unsure of what to be, shut out amidst the debris. Ruby found herself surrounded by the glittering remnants of the glass and water, falling crystal snowdrops around her. Her adrenaline faded to placidity, then sprang to euphoria, she had just defeated one of the toughest grimm types with almost no aura and had used the Kaioken for the first time in battle. It was only when Weiss slowly descended and landed in front of her, wearing not a triumphant haughty smile, but a look of shock, disgust, and fear that Ruby noticed there was something wrong. She looked at the blade of her scythe. It was red, too red. She swallowed, dread was building inside her, pumping through her veins like…like...
She turned slowly on the spot and could not breathe for what she saw. A long, jagged, horribly wide smearing stain of something red was coating the side of the building, at the top of which, still nailed to the side of the concrete was a pair of robotic human legs, and a severed human pelvis. At her feet, there lay a human torso now parted in two from a clean cut straight down the middle, the look of great suffering forever painted on both halves of his face. The face of Mercury Black.
Ruby took a step backward as the rain fell upon the fresh stench as the body began to leak, leak the darkest red she had ever seen…
A hunched form shuddered as a gust of wind rolled into the derelict old office, but continued whipping draws open, emptying their contents onto the floor. The figure was swaying, panting from apparent strain, sweating profusely from what must have been an extremely physically taxing job. She only stopped when she found what she was looking for, and with a sign of relief, she took the small circular object into her hands. Turning to go, she saw that the door she had came through was blocked. But this was not the usual case of a dark shape blocking the light. No this was quite the opposite. The darkness was quite oppressive in this place, given the lack of natural light, but the tall figure standing in the doorway was itself giving off an ominous light. A dim glow, not enough to discern facial features, but enough to see the vague outline, enough to see the furrowed brow, enough to see the bulging, clenched fists.
"Put. THAT. DOWN."