Black Paladin

Chapter 14: The underground, underground crime syndicate, and the breach

Pyrrha Nikos: "They are creatures of Grimm, the manifestation of anonymity."

After almost an hour of staring blankly at the ceiling, Yang asked, "Blake, are you awake?"

Blake whispers, "Yeah."

Yang asks, "Why do you think he asked us about being a Huntress? Like, what was he trying to say?"

Blake guesses, "Maybe he was just curious."

Yang asks, "You think?"

Blake responds, solemnly "No."

Yang asks, "Weiss, are you awake?"

Weiss says, aggravated "Of course I'm awake! You two are talking. And I think he... When I said I wanted to honor my family's name, I meant it. But, it's not what you think. I'm not stupid. I'm fully aware of what my father has done with the Schnee Dust Company. Since he took control, our business has operated in a... moral gray area."

Blake quips, "That's putting it lightly."

I cough, "Blake, the passive aggression isn't helping."

Weiss coughs, "Regardless, that is why I feel the need to make things right. If I had taken a job in Atlas, it wouldn't have changed anything. My father was not the start of our name, and I refuse to let him be the end of it."

Blake says, "All my life, I fought for what I thought was right. I had a partner named Adam. More of a mentor, actually. He always assured me that what we were doing would make the world a better place. But of course, his idea of a perfect future turned out to be not perfect for everyone. I joined the Academy because I knew that Huntsmen and Huntresses were regarded as the most noble warriors in the world. Always fighting for good. But I never really thought past that. When I leave the Academy, what will I - how can I undo so many years of hate?"

Yang says, "I'm sure you'll figure it out. You're not one to back down from a challenge, Blake."

Blake grows louder, "But I am! I do it all the time! When you learned I was a Faunus, I didn't know what to do, so I ran! When I realized my oldest partner had become a monster, I ran! Even my Semblance! I was born with the ability to leave behind a shadow of myself; an empty copy that takes the hit while I run away!"

I begin, "You both have a drive, and right now I admit, I am jealous. I always thought I had a goal, but when it came right down to it, I had turned away from that goal. I don't know what I should be striving for. I never really knew my mom, and I never found a banner I could stand behind. My goal was always to escape, to be free to go wherever, whenever the fancy struck me But that isn't a goal, it's not a plan, and it's not even truly an objective. It's a child's idea of freedom, one that I can't blindly follow anymore."

Yang continues, "I'm much the same I've just kinda of always, gone with the flow, y'know? And that's fine, I mean, that's who I am. But how long can I really do that for? I wanna be a Huntress, not really because I want to be a hero, but because I want the adventure. I want a life where I won't know what tomorrow will bring. And that'll be a good thing. Being a Huntress just happens to line up with that. I'm not like Ruby, she's always wanted to be a Huntress. It's like she said, ever since she was a kid, she'd dreamt about being the heroes in the books. Helping people and saving the day, and never asking for anything else in return. Even when she couldn't fight, she knew that's what she wanted to do. That's why she trained so hard to get where she is today."

Weiss says, "Well, she's still just a kid."

I retort, "She is barely younger than us."

Blake finishes, "We're all kids."

Yang jokes, "Well, not anymore. I mean, look where we are! In the middle of a war zone and armed to the teeth!"

I snark, "This was my childhood."

Blake sighs, "It's the life we chose."

Weiss says, "It's a job. We all had this romanticized vision of being a Huntress in our heads! But at the end of the day, it's a job to protect the people! And whatever we want will have to come second."

After a restless several hours Yang began, "Hey Weiss, it's your... Ruby? Hey, where's Ruby?"

Oobleck awakens, "What?"

Zwei comes running into the room, barking.

Yang asks, "Zwei?"

Blake asks, "What's going on?"

Oobleck demands, "Grab your weapons! Your leader may be in trouble."

After going out and searching, we found a large sinkhole, and Yang yells, "Ruby's scythe!"

Blake says, "Oh no."

Weiss asks, "Do you think she fell?"

Oobleck, looks up, asking, "Fell?"

I point at the hole, and I ask, "Should I take us down?"

Oobleck looks down at the hole, and yells, "Oh my. Of course! Of course, OF COURSE, OF COURSE!"

Blake asks, "What is it?"

Oobleck demands, "How could I be so stupid?!"

Yang asks, "Dr. Oobleck, what's wrong?"

Oobleck says, "Mountain Glenn! Yes, an expansion of Vale that was inevitably destroyed by creatures of Grimm! Previously home to thousands of people! Working people commuting to the city, the main city! Developed a subway system to the inner city! Grimm attacks increased! Population in danger, now desperately searching for shelter! City evacuates into the metro tunnels and what do they find? The southeast quadrant of Vale is known for wild forests and deep caves!"

Yang asks, "Doc, what are you saying?"

Oobleck explains, "My dear, we're not just looking for an underground crime network, we're looking for an UNDERGROUND crime network!"

I ask, "So they were working in the caves?"

Oobleck explains, "No, no, Mountain Glenn was Vale's first serious attempt at expansion. It worked for a short period of time, thanks to an aggressive perimeter defense, and unique transportation; the city developed an elaborate subway system to carry citizens safely from the new territory into the main Kingdom! Sadly, without the many natural barriers Vale had to protect its borders, Mountain Glenn was doomed from the start! As the end drew near, the citizens of the territory made one last attempt at survival: They took up shelter beneath the city! In massive caves that they had cleared out for the subway. And they had cut themselves off from the surface!"

Yang askes, "An underground village?"

Oobleck explains, "In a manner of speaking, yes. A safe haven. Until... an explosion opened the mouth of another cavern, filled with subterranean Grimm. After that, the Kingdom officially sealed off the tunnels, creating the world's largest tomb. If Ruby is down there, we must find her…"

As we don't have another plan, I levitate the five of us down the hole in the ground. As we descend, we find some White Fang patrols. We quickly dealt with them, as we moved down the tunnels. Explosions rang out as my bolts of lightning burst forward, Yang firing shotgun shells, Weiss launching bolts of ice and Blake moving forward with her sword flashing. Professor Oobleck followed us holding Crescent Rose.

As the path opened up into a massive cavern, chasing the White Fang grunts that had attempted to stop us, we find a long visible train. We rushed toward the prone form of Ruby and the angry form of Torchwick, and I launched bolts of lighting to cover our approach. We can just hear Torchwick order, "Somebody kill her!"

Roman and the grunts that aren't hiding from my sweeping bolts of lightning, open fire toward Ruby as she rushes toward us. Ruby's escape is nearly interrupted by a foursome of White Fang, until Yang blows them all sky high.

As Ruby jumps into her arms, Yang yells, "Ruby!"

Weiss asks, "Are you okay?"

Ruby says, "I'm fine, I'm fine! But listen! Torchwick's got all kinds of weapons and robots down there."

Blake demands, "What?!" as I hand Ruby Crescent Rose.

Ruby explains, "Androids, mechs, they're all loaded up on the train cars!"

Oobleck scoffs, "Ahhhh, that's ridiculous. These tunnels are sealed, the tracks lead to a dead-end."

Roman's voice rings from the speaker system, "Get to your places, we are leaving now!"

The train starts moving towards the tunnels.

We all pause, "I think that's what the train is for."

We all pause for another moment, looking at the train.

Ruby yells, "We need backup! I'll call Jaune!" As she tries, her Scroll flashes "Low Signal".

Ruby continues, "I can't get through!"

Weiss asks, "So, what do we do?

Oobleck: "I believe we only have one option…"

Ruby turns around, yelling, "We're stopping that train!"

We sprint after the train, and we jump onto one of the last cars. We remove the White Fang in the last cars and hop to the roof.

Oobleck demands, "Hurry, children! We must get to the front and stop this train!"

Weiss asks, "Err... Professor?"

Oobleck demands, "Doctor…"

Weiss points down into the train, "What's that?"

We all look down, "Weiss.." I begin calmly, "That is a large dust bomb."

We all cringe away from the hatch.

Ruby points forward on the train, "We've got baddies!"

Dozens of White Fang members can be seen climbing onto the top of the train.

Oobleck says, "Well, I didn't expect them to go—"

The bomb underneath them charges up and starts beeping.

Oobleck finishes, "—easy on us. Time to go!" He stands and points toward the next car.

As we start running away, Oobleck stops me.

Oobleck demands, "Obsidian! Detach the caboose! It will kill us all!"

I nod and move the edge of the train car, draw Balta, aim, and suddenly the connection comes loose on its own.

I look, yelling, "It decoupled itself!"

Oobleck demands, "What?!"

Yang guesses, "I guess he really doesn't want us on this train."

As Oobleck looks back at the detached cart, it explodes in the tunnel.

Oobleck says, "That's not good…"

Ruby stands next to another open hatch, "Err, neither is this!"

Blake demands, "Another bomb?!"

Oobleck runs to the next train car, exclaiming, "No. No. No." he opens the hatch and looks in, then yells back to us, "They ALL have bombs!"

The bomb beneath us powers up and starts beeping, and the cart we're on detaches itself, forcing us to run to the next cart.

Yang demands, "This doesn't make sense!"

I turn around, feeling massive amounts of Grimm surging into action, confused.

More White Fang members are climbing the train and cautiously approaching.

One White Fang Member yells, "Get the humans!"

We jump forward to attack the incoming White Fang members. Oobleck turns around and watches the detached train car explode. Only this time it creates a hole allowing multiple types of Grimm to emerge.

Oobleck explains, "Oh, dear…"

The horde of Grimm begins advancing quickly toward the runaway train.

Oobleck yells, "He's leading Grimm to the city!"

Weiss demands, "What?"

Oobleck yells, "It's the cars! They detach and explode, creating openings for the Grimm!"

Blake yells, "That's insane!" But I can feel them, tons of them approaching the train.

Another train car detaches itself.

Oobleck yells,"We have to hurry!" He gestures to Yang, Weiss, Blake and I, "You four, go below and try to stop those bombs!"

Ruby, "What about us?"

Oobleck says, "We're going to stop this train."

The four of us drop into the train, and Yang says, "I guess this is what we trained for."

Weiss reaches into her pouch and tosses Blake a magazine filled with Dust vials.

Weiss explains, "Here, this should help you."

Blake slides the mag into Gambol Shroud, and then the four of us charge forward. As we do, a blow rocks the train, and a massive Deathstalker falls, climbing onto the back of our car. "Go, I can handle this." I call, as I level Balta, firing a bolt of lightning, and charging. It snaps at me, and I morph my arm and leg as it clamps down onto me, stopping it cold. I stab forward, getting Balta shoved in its eye. I hold, and I fire a bolt into it, killing it, as it falls, I reach out, and summon Balta back, as I let off slashes of electricity, knocking back our faster stragglers, and I advance to the next car.

I see a woman, with a long red sword standing over Yang, the White Fang's signature mask. I growl, "Get away from her." I fire forward, bolts of lightning, fire and ice all mingling together, and she stops all of it cold with a slash of her sword and looks over me. I feel the same fear that the woman in the hall inflicted but infinitely worse.

I pause, and she dashes forward I bring Balta up to defend at the last second, and it doesn't work. Her swords pushes Balta down, and it slams into my shoulder like a truck. I drop under the force of her blow, and roll backward, bring everything I can forward, invisibly. I charge forward, slashing a wave of fire, and sprinting through it, Diva morphing into my pistol as she bring her sword up to block Balta's overhead strike. Diva slips up, and fire point black into her jaw. Her aura flutters badly under the onslaught. She steps back and slashes forwards, a arc of fire sweeping toward me with a vengeance. I draw Balta and try to replicate my feat of consuming fire, from my first fight with Yang. It succeeded slightly, but not nearly enough, and the force of the fire throws me toward the back of the train.

As I stand back up she draws a new sword, an ominous white, and as she swings it, the darkness in the room bends away from, and I know I had stepped in something messy.

She dashed forward, faster than before, and swings for my head, and I bring up both Balta and Diva to stop her swing and she knocks me down. As I roll back up, morphing Diva back into a sword, and she continues to pursue. Her sword swings toward my head, and I keep Diva and Balta between her blade and me.

As she moves forward, slashing downward, I bring my swords up to try and stop her, and again she cuts right through them. I feel the blade dig into my aura again, and while before the blade was painful, this time it burned. I leap back, the sting in my shoulder and a whiff of smoke curling from my shoulder. She pauses and I drop Diva, the pain ringing through my shoulder. I gasp and after a moment she demands in a voice almost familiar, "What are you?"

I look up, grabbing my shoulder. "What is that sword?"

She looks down, a strange emotion spilling from her, pride and terror, "This is one of the largest collections of light dust on Remnant." she said, pride in her ominous voice, "I had to rob nearly a dozen SDC trains to get this much."

I curse, light dust? Of all the things in the world that she could use. Just the most potent dust on Remnant, one known for causing Grimm pain.

She moves forward, holding up her sword, "What are you."

I sprint forward, hooking her sword in the altering form of Diva and Balta. At the base of her blade, Diva sits and I fire all 5 remaining charges, severing the white blade from its handle, and knocking her back. I look down, the blade shattered, the cylinder blasted apart. I grieve for a moment, then I remove the white blade from Balta, and grasp the bottom, holding it out, "I am Obsidian Sinclair, and I refuse to let you crash this train."

"You're with her then?" She asks slowly, drawing another blade, a bright red one, nearly glowing with power.

I sheath the white blade, and level Balta again, "Yes, and whatever you did to her, I intend to inflict on you."

I level Balta and send beams of fire and lightning interwoven with shards of ice. She backsteps for a moment, deflecting everything I can throw at her. She snarks, "Well, at least I can say you started it." I pause, and she bolts forward again, striking hard and fast.

Using Balta as best as I can, grasping it with both hands for better leverage, I defended myself from the onslaught of blows. She swings again and again, faster and harder than I could even retaliate against. She swings up and in overhead sweeping blows and jabs at, a speed I couldn't hope to match. She slowly cut through my remaining aura, blow after blow chunk by chunk. I continue to fall back, and as she rains through my staunchest defenses. Her fiery sword striking harder than I could have imagined.

I backpedale, repeatedly, steering the fight away from Yang, and to keep myself from being bisected. I step back, again and again, morphing my legs for speed, my arms for strength, and my knives striking with all the power I can muster, before being shattered by the force of her fiery blade. I retreated to the previous car, Balta gathering nicks aplenty as my aura retracted from its edge, moving to preserve me.

I gather parts of the train, as a shield against her fire, but it seemed to intensify at the slightest hint of metal, melting it nearly instantaneously. As we back into the open car further behind, I sprout my wings, giving her the first pause of the day. I lift up, and launch plumes of feathers, doing my best to impale her with the impossibly hard rachis of my feathers, to drown her in fire and lightning and ice. I let loose with everything I could muster, and she all but ignored it, her sword flashing. Worse, she was deflecting pulses of fire, lightning, and shards of ice with with her damned hand.

As she adapted to me, hovering about, she unleashes arks of fire, and despite my best efforts, she hits me with one of her massive swaths of fire. The force behind it knocks me back and forced me to drop Balta. My broadsword clatters to the tracks and falls into the darkness. The second and third waves of fire shredded the rest of my aura, and my wings, I crashed on the train and as I look up, the women is standing there. As she moves, I dig to the very bottom of my bag of tricks for one that I have been hesitant to use. Primarily because it requires standing very still, and I still couldn't figure out why it worked for my Grimm, but not for me.

And a secondary, smaller, relatively unimportant, entirely unrelated, and entirely secondary reason: Pyrrha doesn't exactly approve that I invented it.

I turn invisible. The woman stops and looks where I was kneeling just a second before, and the moment she looks away, I strike, my arm morphing into a Deathstalker tail, and moving to slam into her arm. Her flaming sword intercepts me, and without my aura… my hand impaled itself on her sword. I quickly pulled my hand back, as a scream ripped its way from my throat. I slam back into view as I cradle my newly split hand.

I feel instinct surge within me and I jump sideways, catching myself on now visible geist hands, and roll into the wall of the train. She looks into the distance, as a red oval appears, and as she steps into it, she calls, "For someone so rash, you are rather weak." and disappears into the red-orange circle.

I pause for a moment, kneeling on the ground, my hand in shambles, my arms, and legs looking like I got into a fight with the wrong side of a lit keg of burn dust, my wings shredded down to a skeletal outline. My original sword, Diva, lying in a shattered mess on the floor near Yang. Balta lying somewhere down the tracks, the Grimm and several cave-ins behind me. Every single one of my daggers shattered, lying in black, formerly molten heaps.

I push myself up, my geist hands visibly forming crutches under my arms. I walk back into the room where I left Yang to see her standing up. She asks as she stands, a bit horrified, "What the hell happened to you?"

I groan slightly, and I point to the top of the train. "We need to go."

We move slowly toward the front of the train and climb to the roof joining our team. The pain involved with retracting my wings or fixing my hand at the moment would be far too much, regardless of the horrified gasp from the other three.

We all see the rapidly approaching bulkhead cutting the rails from the city, and Yang asks, "What do we do?"

Weiss responds by creating an icy wall around us to shield us from the blast. She is far more successful than I could have been at the moment.

We wake shortly after the crash to the sound of a code red alarm. As I wake, I can feel the Grimm on all sides, as my senses come back in full, unrestrained in my possibly concussed state, I can feel everything. The rage, the anger, the confusion, the hunger. As it all flows in, I realize I can't stop it. Nearly the whole city was losing it in sync, the Grimm were approaching what can only be described as ecstatic. The emotions, the oppressive emotions, even as four bright spots of determination burn into reality around me, I couldn't tune it all out. I couldn't tune any of it out.

The King Taijitu just before me roars, an attempt at intimidation. It fails. It just serves to pop the powder keg that has built inside of me, and I turn my nearly glowing solid red eyes to the snake, and I roar, less a human war cry, and more an animalistic demand.

Unbeknownst to me, or even my teammates, my eyes developed a deep, darker-than-black center and a hazy black ring at the edges as I did do.

I stalked forward, the Grimm seemingly giving me passage, backing away, as I place my hand onto the King Taijitu, a series of vivid red lines branch out from my hand into the massive snake, something the girls hadn't seen yet, and as it reaches the head, the snake thrashed, and it begins to dissolve like killed Grimm do. But instead of dispersing into black smoke, it seemed to curl back into the snake, and as the snake dissolved, the snake became lighter, reaching a bone white as it visibly separated from the ground. Then, in a instant, my hand seemed to expand, as the white, still shrinking ball begin to smoke a white color and pierse into my hand. In an instant and blink of black energy, my wings grew to their previous state, my hand healed, and I seemed to lighten overall, just a shade.

I stood tall, the emotions somehow seemingly to multiply, and I cried out for it to just "STOP!"

In that instant, across Vale, and for miles beyond, every Grimm stopped. Stopped moving, stopped attacking, just stopped. Those fighting Hunters and Huntresses, those pursuing civilians, even those approaching the city from underground all just stopped, and looked a certain square in central Vale.

Another being stopped, mid word. Far away, in a land Obsidian would only recognize from the oldest of Grimm, a women stopped. She turned as well to Vale, and for a moment, a smile played on her lips, them a scowl of rage, as the location and the timing connected, as one word screamed out in her mind, Ozpin.

❅Weiss❅

I stood, quietly looking at my teammate, equal parts awe and terror at the power he just displayed. He healed himself by consuming a King Taijitu, he called out a command and Grimm around Vale listened. Weiss looked down at Myrtenaster, and for the very first time I asked myself, truly asked myself if I trusted Obsidian, and the power he could wield. I looked to Blake, looking down at Gambol Shroud, seemingly the same question crossing her mind. I turned to my left, Ruby, not Yang looking down at their weapons, but fear naked in their eyes, almost hiding a iode of inadequacy. In that moment, my fear shifted, and I knew that I could trust him, but for how long would he be willing to deal with me, with any of us, he had Pyrrha, who could hold her own, he had Ruby, who he was shaping into a living weapon. Even Jaune was improving under his outsider, noninvasive method of pushing him to be good enough to even bother actually training. Something he hadn't even offered us. I looked up as I heard him growl again, rage burning through every sound emanating from him, and power rushing from every cell of his being, "DIE!"

Around Vale, every creature of anonymity who had looked toward the voice died. Disintegrated in that moment. Hunters looked toward where they had looked, Oobleck specifically looked, and a frown graced his lips for a moment, as he began to walk, calling Zwei to follow. The Atlesian Knights that had begun to drop from Atlesian Dreadnoughts and strike craft alike began to patrol for threats.

Cinder

I looked to the direction the pain in my hand pointed, and I could feel a presence similar to the mistress. Equal parts fear and curiosity overtook me as we watched Grimm disintegrate en-mass, the pain in my hand growing. For a moment it was nearly unbearable, then it abruptly stopped. I turned to Mercury and Emerald, "Let's go, Roman needs his escort."

I very slowly recalled my wings, and my more obvious features, only moments before JNPR dropped from the sky. I turned and saw them, and looked to my team. The fear present in all eight almost forced me to step back, I looked down, and for a moment began to wonder what I was becoming, before I heard Yang quip, "Well, had I know you could do that, I may have been a little less productive yesterday, y'know fighting all those Beowulves?"

I hear a slight guffaw from Ruby, as Blake asks almost calmly, the fear dissipating in all eight of them, leaving something I am entirely unfamiliar with hanging in the air "Which part, the eating a Grimm thing or the Lord of Anonymity thing?"

I look up, panic and fear a the second part of her statement, and she realises that may have not been the best choice of words. The backstep I take, and the wide eyes seems to shake all four of them.

Ren comments, cutting through the bullbing tension, "I want to know how a simple search and destroy turns into a Grimm invasion on central Vale."

"Well, you see there were these…" Ruby begins, and we all laugh at her storytelling. Knowing that this day is only going to get longer.

AN: So, I am going to cut the chapter here, mostly so I can get it out soon. Some comments I want to make here and now.

Raven is an experienced huntress, and a certified badass. I feel the need to explain, Obsidian is the best in his grade, maybe the second years barring the prodigies like CFVY, for the simple reason that while they trained in safe (For hunters) conditions, he was performing what is essentially search and destroy missions for a decade. He has equal field experience to most people a year or three out of Beacon can equate to, and his semblance is possibly the most fundamentally versatile of anyone in first year. Raven has both similar pre-Beacon experience, but has a decade? More? After Beacon as a Bandit Chieftain. Killing Hunters, and Grimm, and looting towns, things that require even more skill and power than hunting simple Grimm. Obsidian is going to have problems fighting people for the rest of this story, because of one very simple reason.

Aura/semblances. As I am going to demonstrate over the next several chapters these are super versatile, and due to the semblances physics breaking/bending properties, that I plan to abuse, are even worse.

No, this isn't him spiraling out of control with his Grimm powers. I plan to get far more in depth with how his powers work later, and if Rooster Teeth changes how Grimm work, I will change how he works*. His powers over Grimm aren't something he has ever felt comfortable using, nor experimenting with. Creating one or a dozen of loyal Grimm, he tried that, but when Pyrrha disagreed, I stopped that, because he doesn't have the drive to do that, he feels it is wrong, this was saving people from Grimm, and as such allowable, but he is terrified of being associated with actually being a creature of Grimm, as such 'Lord of Anonymity' isn't something he would respond well to. **Shameless cross promotional plug warning** I have some of this detailed over in Reclaiming in Black, but both stories are going to have it eventually.

*But there are limits) [Like he has an aura because he was born with the ability to Grimm-out, not having it grafted onto a stump of an arm.]

Weiss's abandonment-ish issues. This has been coming for a while, for me anyway, and season 5 segmented it for me, Weiss has issues with people leaving her, much like Yang and Ruby do, but thinks about it differently. Her mom was all but forced by her father, and given the Winter comment, so was she, but Weiss feels that were her fault for not being strong enough to keep then in her life. It all but says as much in Mirror Mirror 1. And her independent creed in the season 4 song This Life is Mine, was to stop letting Jacques control how she lived, because of her friends, and I think, her family. This is not going to be a romantic relationship, this is going to be much more of what Yang and Ruby have than what Ren and Nora have.

See you next time-V