"I refuse to believe that she actually wants us to make friends with her."

"Hey, believe what you want. I'm just delivering the message."

"Didn't she just say yesterday not to worry about her?"

Mercury shrugged, tossing a handful of kettle corn into his mouth. "Mebbe she change' her min'," he said before swallowing. "I try not to ask too many questions."

Emerald eyed him suspiciously as they walked around the fairgrounds. "I swear to God, Merc, if you're just making this up so you can get close to her, I'm gonna—"

The threat was cut off as the gray-haired teen bumped her shoulder, gesturing toward a group of teens. "There they are." Crumpling up the remains of his snack in its container, he tossed it toward a nearby trashcan as he walked over.

Behind him, Emerald sighed. "Fine, just… let me do the talking."

As they approached the four other teens, Mercury mentally took note of the three males. Remnants of the former Team BRIC, if he recalled. Even together, none of them posed much of a threat, each one too caught up in his own vices to be effective in battle. Really, Aspen was the only interesting one among them. As it was, the girl was staring him down hard, the corner of her lip curled up just enough to bare her teeth. Mercury smirked; if she was trying to scare him off, it was having the opposite effect.

"Hey there!" Emerald called out in that annoyingly cheerful voice he knew she hated so much. Aspen's gaze turned to her, lips parting in a full snarl.

One of the two faunus stepped forward—Ilex, if memory served—noticing the girl's reaction to the two teens. "Do you know these two?" he asked her, looking at them suspiciously. By that point, the other two teens with Aspen had caught onto her reaction.

Emerald put up her hands defensively, taking a step back. "Hey, relax! We met the other day and got off on the wrong foot is all. We just wanted a chance to reintroduce ourselves." A few moments of silence passed before Aspen relaxed—rather, she didn't appear as openly hostile as she had before. "I'm Emerald, and this is my partner Mercury. We're from—"

"Haven," the red-haired teen, Carmine, finished. The corner of his mouth curled up into a hint of a smile, more competitive than friendly. "Congrats on making it to the finals."

Ilex sighed. "I apologize for my partner. Carmine's… He's a dick." He smiled, holding his hand out toward Emerald. "I'm Ilex, that's Rhys…" He pointed toward the other faunus who flashed something in sign language. "… and I guess you already met Aspen."

"Shame you guys aren't in the tournament," Mercury said, much to the annoyance of his partner. He kept his eyes on Aspen, who was looking off at something to her left. "Would have liked to be able to fight you one-on-one."

That caught her attention. The pale-skinned girl turned, black locks sweeping across her face as she focused her red eyes on him. "You want to fight me?"

"Sure." The word hung in the air, none of the teens outside of the interaction quite sure what was going to happen. Mercury smirked, and Aspen narrowed her eyes.

The girl's fist shot out towards him, her full weight behind it. The attack came so fast that Mercury narrowly avoided getting clipped in the jaw. As she passed in front of him, she suddenly stopped, bending her arm and jerking the elbow up toward him. The gray-haired teen caught it, though it still pushed him back several inches. He could feel the raw power in her muscles and did his best not to show how much he was struggling to hold her at bay.

"Whoa!"

"Hey!"

Excepting Rhys, all of the others immediately moved to split the two teens apart, Ilex moving between them as he and Emerald forced Aspen to pull away. The other faunus was grinning and bouncing on the balls of his feet, ready to leap into the fray should the encounter devolve further. As for Carmine, the knife that had materialized in his hand and was now being discreetly resheathed spoke volumes on just how much he trusted Aspen.

"What the hell are you doing?" Ilex asked, one hand out toward Mercury as if to hold him back.

Emerald stepped forward; not far enough to actually be in front of her partner, but enough to engage if need be. "Shouldn't you be asking her that?" she asked, pointing at Aspen.

For her part, the black-haired girl continued to stare at Mercury, head cocked. "I thought you wanted to fight."

"We can," he responded lazily, hands in his pockets, "but we should probably find somewhere more private." He tilted his head slightly, gesturing toward the growing number of onlookers.

Aspen didn't even look at them. "Where?"

"There should be some sparring fields outside the fairgrounds."

"Let's go."

"Hold on! Just… wait!" Ilex stepped between them, breaking their line of sight on each other. "I don't think this is a good idea."

"I agree," Emerald said, leaning toward her partner. "Mercury, the finals start tomorrow night. If you do something to screw it up…" The rest of her words went unspoken for the sake of the others present, but the meaning was clear.

The gray-haired teen rolled his eyes. "Relax, we're just gonna be sparring. You can even watch if you want," he said teasingly. Emerald scowled and growled in frustration, but took a step back, clearly relenting.

Seeing he'd lost his only vocal support, Ilex turned toward the otter faunus. "Rhys—" The shorter teen was still bouncing back and forth, the grin on his face having turned impatient. "Right. That would have been a stupid question." Ilex shook his head and twisted toward his partner. "Carmine? You'll back me up on this, right?"

The red-haired human crossed his arms. "What on Remnant makes you think I'd pass up an opportunity to see how our new leader performs in a proper fight just because you're jealous some other guy got her attention before you?" That shut the lemur faunus up pretty quick, and Mercury smirked at the sight.

With a strangled, impatient grunt, Rhys looked at Aspen and signed something. After a moment of hesitation, she responded in kind, and whatever she said made him laugh. Once that particularly annoying sound had ceased, he signed something else and ran off toward the nearest sparring field. Aspen followed after him and, brushing roughly past Ilex, Carmine did the same.

As Mercury made to head in that direction, however, the faunus grabbed his arm and stopped him. "I don't know what you think you're doing," Ilex threatened, the ears on the top of his head twitching in anger, "but you will stay away from her."

Mercury narrowed his eyes, having to restrain himself from putting the faunus down right there and then. "You know, my father was a drunk. He did a lot of things that most people would be put to death for. Generally, an all-around terrible human being." He pulled his arm free, poking two fingers into the white-haired teen's chest. "And yet he still had the common sense to know that women aren't property, especially ones who could kill you with their bare hands."

Ilex stared him down for a few moments, apparently thinking this was a fight he could win. Eventually, he scowled and walked off after his team. Mercury turned and began heading in that direction as well, Emerald beside him. "I thought your father hated women?"

"Oh, yeah. Like the Grimm."

(- -)

Aspen slowly dragged one foot across the ground. Like her duel with Oliver and Laurel, the field was primarily exposed dirt, only this time it made sense as they were outdoors. To the side of the small arena were several rows of metal benches, each one set higher up than the last in a staircase fashion.

Ilex sat on the lowermost seat, hands clasped together and frosty aura searing her with anger and frustration. In contrast, Carmine, sitting just a row behind and offset from his partner, was unusually calm. The sharp, woolen feeling of his aura merely rested against her, shifting ever so slightly with anticipation. Unlike the others, Rhys had chosen to stand, positioning himself on the very edge of the field where he could freely bounce around. Oddly enough, Aspen found his excitement to be soothing, his aura spreading like beeswax over her skin. Toward the upper levels of the seating was the sandy girl, Emerald. Like Ilex, her aura was heated by irritation and frustration, and Aspen could only assume by her glances that it was directed at her opponent.

Mercury stood several feet away from the black-haired girl. Metal and earth slid over her skin as he provoked her will to fight with his own. He smirked. "So, how do you want to do this?"

Aspen shifted the angle of her head a few degrees. Weren't they just going to fight? That was how it had worked with Oliver and Laurel… No. They had established rules beforehand, conditions to determine who had beaten the others. The other Hunter-students did the same in the arena, though the conditions were different. Surely that was what he was referring to. "Pins," she said flatly.

The boy's mouth twisted into an odd frown as he shrugged. "Vacuan style, huh? Works for me." Turning his body, he squared up to her in a fashion she mimicked. "How about we make this interesting, though: First pin takes it and the winner gets a favor from the loser?"

Aspen nodded. "As you say."

Grinning and still holding his stance, Mercury shuffled a few inches closer. "Hey, Carmine!" he called over his shoulder, not taking his eyes off his opponent. "You want to call this?"

The red-haired teen sighed, but stood and walked to the midline. He glanced at each of the combatants. "Go."

While attacking first had worked in Aspen's favor against the Ruby Team, she'd taken them by surprise. Against someone who was expecting her, who she hadn't seen fight, she didn't have that advantage, so she was content to let Mercury make the first move. He did just that, launching forward with a flip. Aspen was barely able to register how he was moving before slipping to the side to avoid the downward-arcing kick. Mercury recovered easily from the miss, a blast of air from the sole of his boot propelling his knee up toward Aspen's chest. Crossing her arms in front of her, she caught the strike and forced it aside. He spun with the force, switching his pivot foot during the turn to come at her head with his other heel.

She raised an arm to stop the kick before it could connect. Deciding it was time to counter-attack, she grabbed onto Mercury's leg with one hand while swinging her fist at his knee in a chopping motion. The impact sent a shock up her arm that she hadn't expected, giving Mercury a chance to twist free. That's not Aura. It was hard, like metal; not that Aura was soft, but it was more… pliable. It flexed.

Curling her fist to rid herself of the stinging still creeping up her arm, Aspen dodged backward to avoid a trio of kicks. Each attack was accompanied by a round being fired past her head, and she felt a small trickle of blood down the side of her ear as one of the bullets nicked it before the wound quickly sealed off. Growling, she lashed out, attacking with a series of her own kicks and punches. The ones he didn't avoid, Mercury blocked and countered, effectively halting her advance and putting them at a standstill.

Then, one attack hit its mark. Dropping down beneath a wide, arcing kick from Aspen, Mercury kicked upward at her and fired both an air blast from his boot and an actual bullet. Aspen staggered backward, clutching at her abdomen. She could feel the blood seeping out around her hand from several dozen pieces of shrapnel that had torn through her clothes. Trying to step forward again, she stumbled and almost dropped to one knee.

There was a collective feeling of worry from the teens on the side, and she could see some of them moving out of the corner of her eye. Their Auras pressed into her skin like a thousand needles, making the pain in her gut nearly bearable in comparison. "Don't tell me that's all you've got," Mercury taunted, not attacking despite the fact that Carmine hadn't called the match yet.

A challenge. Aspen straightened up as the black fibers began to repair the damage and force the shrapnel out. It was excruciating, but she wasn't going to give in so easily. She grinned, ignoring the faint sense of revulsion that drifted in from the sideline. Mercury smirked in return, readying himself for her attack.

Running at her opponent, Aspen kicked one of her legs back and launched herself up into her best imitation of the move the other had opened with. Mercury threw himself backward to stay beneath her leg, flipping over to land on his hands only to fire from one of his boots and slam it into the ground. The attack glanced off Aspen's leg, and she grit her teeth as she kicked at the nearly-prone teen. Mercury was able to deflect it, however, batting her leg aside with his own as he spun back up to his feet with another kick chambered and aimed at her chest. Aspen swung a fist, connecting with the attack just below his knee and knocking it away. In response, the gray-haired teen grabbed her arm and began twisting his other leg around it.

Before Mercury could use the position to his advantage, though, Aspen pulled back as hard as she could, ripping him off-balance as she twisted toward him and punched him in the throat. The boy released her and fell backward, one hand clutching his neck. Despite the injury, he was still focused enough to fire up at her with one of his boots. The bullet ripped past Aspen's head, severing several strands of hair on its poorly-aimed path. Grabbing Mercury's ankle with one hand, she formed a fist and slammed it into his lower leg.

The teen let out a strangled cry of pain as the bones shattered under the impact. Releasing the crippled limb, Aspen lifted her foot and stomped down on the other leg with similar results. Caught up in the euphoria of the moment, she knelt down over her opponent's writhing form, straddling his torso as she wrapped her hands around his neck. As her grip tightened and cut off the flow of blood, his hands came up and grabbed at her shoulders in an attempt to force her off. Eventually, his grip slackened, his arms fell to his sides, and he stopped moving altogether. Aspen tightened her grip even further and, with a satisfying crack, his neck snapped in her hands.

Rising to her feet, the black-haired girl looked around at her surroundings. The stands of the Amity Colosseum encircled her, filled with thousands of spectators, all dead. Their blood poured down the aisles, overflowing down into the arena where she stood. Littering the area around her were the corpses of everyone she had come to know since waking up in the desert: Carmine, Ilex, Laurel, Oliver, Ruby, Blake… Everyone. Somehow, she knew that she had been the one to kill them, and a new feeling rose up in her chest.

Satisfaction.

Aspen turned around and locked eyes with a new figure, one she recognized as Deirean. The man looked at her approvingly, then handed her a short sword. The shape of the blade initially seemed odd—tapering toward the middle before widening again and then coming to a point—but it soon felt natural. As she examined it, she knew immediately what she was to do with it. Turning back to the body at her feet, she was met with green eyes staring back at her as Rhys lay helpless on the ground. The girl angled the blade downward and raised it above her head before silently bringing it down point-first into the faunus's forehead.

Aspen sat up quickly, screaming as pain tore through her skull. Her hands came up to the sides of her head, simultaneously pulling on her hair and pressing on her temples in a futile attempt to relieve or distract from the pain. Familiar auras surrounded her, an overflow of sensory information pressing down on her as she struggled to regain her hold on reality.

"—et a medic or something?!" Ilex's voice, right next to her. Aspen reached out and grabbed onto him, eliciting a spark of surprise from the faunus. "Ah! Hey! Aspen, relax! Rhys is going to get help." Even as he spoke, Aspen could feel the other faunus's beeswax aura beginning to fade. "Are you alright? What happened?"

Aspen grit her teeth, keeping her eyes shut. She didn't… She didn't know what happened. She could feel that same outward force she'd felt when she'd been clinging to the face of the Goliath in the forest: She was scared. What she was scared of, she wasn't sure, but she needed to get past it. "When did I collapse?" she asked through grit teeth.

"I—I don't… Like, less than a minute ago?"

Aspen snarled. "When in the fight?"

The cloud of confusion around him settled on her. "Well… He shot you in the stomach, you fought for a bit, then he grabbed your arm and you just… collapsed." She'd had another hallucination. That was clear now that the piercing pain in her skull had receded some, but it had all been so vivid that it had been hard to tell. Ilex, Carmine, and Rhys were all still alive. Mercury too.

Aspen opened her eyes and looked over to where she felt his aura stemming from. He stood with his arms crossed, unharmed and frowning. "I guess this means I win," he said, not hiding the disappointment in his voice.

The words sparked a flare of anger from Ilex, burning Aspen. She acted instinctively and shoved him away, only for a flux of emotion to cause her consciousness to fade. The fear returned, stronger than before. Clambering to her feet, Aspen ignored the words of surprise and concern from the teens still present as she looked around at the forest bordering the small field. She needed to get away from them, away from the pressure.

So, she ran.

(- -)

"What exactly was your plan for today again?" Laurel asked idly, checking Timekeeper to make sure it was free of debris. She hadn't used it since their bout with Aspen so it should have been clean, but she didn't want to take any chances.

"Well," Oliver drawled, doing a check of his own weapons, "you'll take Aspen and Rhys, and I get the other two. We split 'em up, we can better focus on addressing their individual issues, then get them to work together better." Laurel frowned and looked down at her gun, something her partner didn't fail to notice. "Why?"

The woman shook her head. "It's nothing," she said, transforming her weapon into its flail form.

Oliver holstered his guns, leaning against the locker. "I know that face."

Laurel sighed, knowing she wasn't going to be able to lie to him anymore. "It's just…"

"You don't think my methods are appropriate," he finished.

Closing her eyes, Laurel took a breath before speaking. "Do you remember when we started having issues fighting together? Back before our first Vytal Tournament?" The question earned a nod of confirmation. "Do you remember when we stopped having issues?"

Oliver thought for a few moments. "Let's see, that would have been…" His face flushed as the answer came to him, and he he clearly had to stop himself from looking away. "…when we started dating."

Laurel felt a heat rise in her own face at his words and quickly regretted trying to make the point she was making. Still, she was already this far. "Well, maybe Ilex and Carmine need something like that."

Any discomfort her partner was feeling vanished as he gave her a look of confusion. "You want to hook them up with each other?"

"N-no! That's not what I—" The heat in Laurel's face grew immediately, and she desperately tried to purge it with her Semblance. "No amount of training was going to make us stop… ogling each other in the middle of a fight. I don't know that their issues are going to be fixed that way either."

Oliver frowned, but nodded. "Maybe you're right." As he spoke, his scroll rang in his pocket. When he pulled it out to see who was calling, his frown only deepened. "Speaking of…" He clicked the answer button and held the scroll up to his ear. "Before you say anything, Ilex, I want to make it very clear that none of you are going to be getting out of training today." As the faunus responded, Oliver's eyes drifted to Laurel, brow wrinkled with concern. Pulling the scroll away from his ear, he activated the speakerphone system so she could hear as well. "Why the hell would Aspen just run off?"

Laurel sighed quietly to herself, pinching the bridge of her nose. Of course she would do that…

-/Well, I'm not entirely certain,/- Ilex said, his voice buzzing over the scroll as he clearly chose his words carefully, -/but I think it might've had to do with her passing out in the middle of a fight./-

Passed out? Oh, no…

"What was she doing in a fight?" Laurel sighed; leave it to Oliver to miss the important details.

-/Some guy from Mistral challenged her. Also, for the record, I was against it fro—/-

"You said she passed out?" Laurel interrupted, grabbing the scroll from her partner's hands. "You're sure about that?"

There was a moment of hesitation from Ilex. -/Well, yeah. She definitely wasn't conscious./-

"But she was still breathing, right? She had a pulse?" There was an urgency to her voice that even she hadn't expected, and it earned her a strange look from Oliver that she quickly brushed off.

The teen didn't answer for several seconds. -/I mean, I didn't check, and she woke up before the medics got here./- Laurel cursed under her breath without really knowing why, though it was apparently loud enough to be picked up by the scroll. -/Wait… has this happened before?/-

"Are the three of you armed?" Oliver asked, taking the scroll back from his partner. He gave her the same odd look again, but she just shook her head. They could worry about Aspen's health later; for now, he had the right idea.

-/Uh... Yeah. Well, I am,/- Ilex answered, sounding just a little confused. -/The others ar—Wait, are you going to have us go looking for her?/-

Oliver ignored the question, choosing to let the faunus figure it out on his own. "Tell Rhys and Carmine to get geared up, and stay put. Laurel and I are heading out now." Not waiting for Ilex's inevitable complaint, he ended the call and slipped the scroll back into his pocket.

Laurel was already heading out the door, Timekeeper on her back. Goddammit, Aspen.

(- -)

Branches snapped and fell to the ground as Aspen ran past. She paid them no attention, continuing to press forward, deeper into the forest. The fear in her chest hadn't subsided, no matter how far she got from the others. She couldn't even feel them anymore, and that made the fear pierce even further.

How long had she been running? She didn't know. It was mid-afternoon, at least, but she had no destination, no plan: Just run. What was she running from, then? She didn't have time to think about it, she needed to—

Aspen's foot caught within a cluster of roots and she crashed to the ground. As she came to a halt, her mind drifted to the fear and, against her will, latched onto it. What was happening to her? She had blacked out again, and with that had come another hallucination. It had been different this time. There had been no darkness, no light: Only death by her hands. She had killed them all; not just Laurel and Oliver, but everyone she knew. She hadn't even wanted to. She just did it and was satisfied with what she'd done, and that terrified her.

She terrified herself.

Rising up to her knees, Aspen grit her teeth as the pain welled up inside her, threatening to pierce through her skin in ten thousand different places. A new sound gradually filled her ears, and she soon realized it was the sound of her own scream. It was pained, scared, and desperate.

As the scream faded, a voice reached out to her. "Your koravah: It is unsated." The girl lifted her eyes to see Deirean standing over her. The sight caused the fear in her chest to fade considerably, but it still lingered. He turned away from her, facing deeper into the forest. "Come. I have need of you, and it would appear you have need of me." As he walked away, Aspen rose to her feet. There was an ache in her ankle, but it paled in comparison to the yearning for comfort she felt. With a limp, she followed the man into the trees.


It was at this point that I accidentally started shipping Aspen and Mercury. I made jokes about his attraction to her before, but this chapter took it a bit further. They both seem like the type of people who would consider fighting as a form of flirtation, and that idea is kind of what spawned this chapter.

There are more important things to discuss, however, such as why Aspen lost this fight. Obviously, it's because she passed out, but even before that she was struggling. She's really only fought other people twice before and, in both instances, the people she fought weren't really prepared to fight someone like her. Oliver didn't want to go too hard on her and, when Laurel joined, they were both caught off guard by her strength. RWBY had just wrapped up a fight against four others and weren't expecting Aspen to be able to counter them so effectively. Mercury, however, knows what she's capable of and is ready to meet that head-on. He's also shown to be a highly skilled fighter anyway, so that certainly helps. There were, of course, other factors that determined the outcome, but I'm not quite ready to explain those yet.

On a somewhat related note, the vision Aspen had in this chapter is easily the darkest thing I've written so far, and hopefully shows just how not-quite-right Aspen is. The visions are a lot of fun to write, but they also have significance. I think I'll leave the interpretations up to you, but I don't think they're too hard to figure out.

I think this about does it for now. I hope you've enjoyed and would love to hear your thoughts. Au revoir!