Last chapter name: The last chapter's name comes from a playwright.
And one thing before the chapter gets along the way, I've gathered based on reviews and PMs that people generally either don't mind Charlemagne's inclusion or they like it. That doesn't mean that there's been a few who expressed discontent on factors such as how much I seemingly delve into his character in proportion to even Sora. I'll address some things people have said:
1. "Charlemagne is an OC" - Charlemagne is not an OC and I've expressed this in the first chapter when I said this is the exact Charlemagne from Fate/Extella Link. If he's an OC that means this is a 100% original character that I have 100% manufactured myself, but Charlemagne from the Fate series is a character created by Type Moon who I am trying my best to maintain his character from the game. The only reason why I gave him the last name of Magnus is because it'll be weird not having a last name in the RWBY-verse (and another reason is spoiler related in Fate/Extella Link).
2. "Charlemagne is taking over Sora's role as the MC" - I won't lie to you guys when I say that Charlemagne is one of my favorite Servants from the Fate franchise. If you guys played Extella Link, he understandably gives off very main protagonist vibes and since I'm trying to stay true to his character, I can understand why some people might think I'm kinda doing Sora dirty. The main thing, however, that I can certainly point towards on my part on this rising worry is that I'm not too far into this story yet I've crammed character development of the likes of Charlemagne, Jaune, Blake, and Weiss. It looks like Sora hasn't gotten a vast majority of the spotlight in this RWBY Volume 1 time frame. Even though I've set up story elements for Charlemagne, Sora is still very much at the forefront of this story (especially with introducing the Foretellers and all that Melody of Memory and Union Cross plot stuff in the mix). I am very aware that this may seem like a slow start (doesn't help with my upload times) for Sora in this narrative, but we haven't covered a fraction of the overarching story I have planning and I'm gonna try my best to make sure Sora is conveyed as the MC with Charlemagne as an important ally. Like some people have said in past chapters, the story is starting to pick up.
Overall, the brunt of the concern is that Charlemagne is seemingly taking a considerable amount of spotlight. I've mentioned that Sora is a very very well-rounded character already having an entire game series dedicated to his development. If I stopped writing this story right now then the case about Charlemagne getting more development within this story is plausible, but that's because of what I said in 2. "Charlemagne is taking over Sora's role as the MC" is me taking time to use Volume 1 for developing less complete characters than Sora. Jaune already has his Semblance and in my opinion I gave a lot more substance to Weiss' change of heart in Volume 1 than in the actual show. Charlemagne won't become like the case of Jaune where Miles wanted to flesh out his self-insert to the point he felt more MC than Ruby, and post-this-current-arc is where we'll see a lot more Sora. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk and let's get into the story!
Ch.9 - Shrouding Dark Cloud
"I made it!" Sora looked back at Team RWB with a smile. He felt a bit of a deja vu moment, likely thinking about that moment when he went into the Realm of Darkness to help Riku. Instead of their friend, Aqua, who was corrupted by the darkness it was a giant robot. To Sora, he couldn't help but see this robot as something that looked like the mechs from the toy store that he explored with Woody and Buzz.
Thinking of that actually gave him an idea, one that would take advantage with prior experience handling these sorts of controlled machinery. Hopefully it wasn't much harder than operating a Gigas. Sora then noticed that Blake was not wearing her bow.
"You decided to ditch the bow, eh?"
"It started to feel a bit more foreign the more I wore it. Got any bright ideas to take this Paladin down?" Blake had barely any time to finish her question as the Paladin immediately started firing machine gun rounds at the students as they dispersed to avoid the gunfire.
"All those weapons can be a start." Ruby suggested as she fired rounds to distract the Paladin from the others and used her Semblance to evade the machine gun rounds. "Then it will be easy to destroy this thing!"
Ruby's suggestion made Sora speak up the idea he had a bit prior, "No! Maybe I can try to hijack it!" The three girls reacted like Sora grew a second head.
Weiss gave the team a bit more reprieve by making the floor ice around the Paladin as it slipped, having to spend time getting up. "Sora, this is top grade Atlas machinery. There's a learning curve in using this sort of thing!"
Sora just smirked, "Oh trust me, I've flown a ship!"
"Whatever it is you have planned for that, hopefully that Keyblade's transformation can help," Blake said.
"Then we need to get that big guy to land a hit on me!" Sora then started to run at the Paladin, leaving Blake and Weiss to have incredulous looks on their faces.
Weiss voiced her shock, "I think he lost it."
The Paladin noticed Sora running at it, aiming with the multitude of weapons it had in its arsenal. Not having a good feeling about facing off against Sora, the pilot unloaded a barrage of missiles and bullets at him. Rather effortlessly, Sora weaved around the artillery with a mix of natural speed and Flowmotion. Adding insult to injury, Sora had Hero's Origin by his side and lined up the flat of the blade with a missile. With extreme timing and precision, Sora guided the missile back towards the Paladin as it blew up in its face.
"Grahh!!!" The Paladin pilot screamed within the cockpit, "These damn pest of kids!" He then noticed that Sora jumped up to gaze straight at the cockpit with a smile on his face. That surely ticked the pilot off.
"I'll wipe that look off your face!" The infuriated pilot had enough and made the Paladin wind its fist back. That just made Sora's smirk widen even further as the Paladin's fist sailed towards him. Time seemed to slow down as the girls watched as the metal appendage got closer and closer to Sora, wondering what had gotten into Sora to just remain in his position vulnerable to a mean punch.
Abruptly, Hero's Origin expanded outwards before collapsing onto the handle. Sora held the Keyblade forward as the blade started whirling around a base, until what seemed to be a shield took place. Holding firm, the Paladin's fist made contact with Sora's shield.
No one barred Sora expected a complete CANCELLATION of the punch's force. What seemed even more out of the blue was that the shield began to gather what looked like energy.
With the Paladin's arm still outreached, Sora climbed onto it before hopping in front of the cockpit. The boy then cocked his shield back, the shield looked like it was winding something up.
"Back at ya'!" Thrusting his shield forward, the shield released energy in the form of a fist decking the Paladin full on. The mech was launched off its feet as it stumbled and collided into a shipping container that ended the knockback.
"It's down! Let's restrain it—!" Sora called out to Team RWB, although all the girls were in states of shock when he looked back at them.
"Hey! We don't have all day! Weiss, use Ice Dust!"
Weiss stammers before letting it go. She configured her rapier into Ice mode and launched projectiles of Ice onto the Paladin, binding it into place on the shipping container. Seeing what the girls might be doing, the Paladin pilot panics and begins initiating artillery weapons.
Ruby observes the Paladin before noticing a newly made gap that must've been chipped off the armor. It looked to be wires connecting to the shoulder missiles that were being primed and loaded. Quickly swapping into Lightning rounds, Ruby shot that gap with precision and watched as the missile loading process started malfunctioning, jamming it in the process.
"Dammit!" The Paladin pilot angrily wrestled with the controls and interface with no success. The missiles didn't look to be functional anytime soon as the pilot began trying to wrestle the Paladin out of the ice. Cracks began to form on the ice, eliciting a frown from Weiss as she prepared to shoot more ice Dust.
"Blake, gimme the sickle!" Sora called to Blake as she complied and tossed him the sickle while she held onto the ribbon. Due to the vertical nature of the shipping container the Paladin was pinned to, it was easier for Sora to wrap the ribbon around it multiple times over. He got it done quickly using Flowmotion to make a few loops around the shipping container.
"Don't worry, we'll getcha outta there soon!" Sora decided to throw some banter at the Paladin as he embedded the sickle on the ice.
"Piss off!"
"We don't have a whole lot of time to waste," Ruby said as the group got back together to observe the Paladin, "How are we gonna get that guy out so Sora can somehow try to operate it."
"From what I've heard with talks between SDC members and military technicians, there isn't a way to access control of the Paladin other than a certified pilot key. The White Fang might've bypassed that so that White Fang personnel can operate it. We'll have to give him a reason to get out" Weiss looked at Blake to see if she could verify the guess.
"This is news to me. The Fang never got a hold of a Paladin when I was there." Blake tightened her grip on the ribbon when the Paladin started to budge more.
Sora pointed his Keyblade at the Paladin, "Hey, you chicken! Come out and fight us yourself!"
The Paladin stopped moving for a second before the mics went live, "Hey, human scum! First of all, I'm a frog Faunus! Second, you will all receive no mercy from this Paladin!" The mech then resumed to squirm in the ice with more force.
Ruby had the urge to reprimand Sora for making the pilot even more angry before she had an epiphany.
"Chicken, frog…"
Surely anyone who read her mind at that moment would've been extremely confused on why she said something Sora called the Faunus pilot. But her mind was pulled to a moment in time when Taiyang cooked turkey for Thanksgiving. And that's when the light bulb lit up.
"That's it!" Ruby got the attention of the gang, "We are gonna need fire Dust!"
Weiss raised an eyebrow, "And why would we need to waste fire Dust again like in the Initiation?" The ice began cracking even more with the continued struggles of the Paladin.
"Just start shooting!" Ruby loaded in fire rounds in Crescent Rose before repeatedly shooting the cockpit of the Paladin. "Blake, go get your weapon!" Weiss switched the chamber of Myrtenaster to fire Dust and began her salvo of flames while Sora began shooting base Fire magic. Blake ran to retrieve her weapon as she started to run around the shipping container to unwind the ribbon.
"Ruby, what are you up to?" Blake thought.
The pilot stopped to see Ruby, Weiss, and Sora just shooting the Paladin with a barrage of fire. Condensation and moisture soon started to form as the pilot looked around and saw the ice around him beginning to melt. He started to laugh, "You kids are really too stupid to comprehend this. All you are doing is melting the ice!" As such, enough ice was melted off for some limbs to begin breaking free of ice.
"Ahahaha!!! Finally!" The Paladin was nearly out of the ice, the students shooting fire began getting a bit more uncertain. The area around the Paladin started to get hot from the constant barrage of fire. Blake now had her epiphany, having thought out the logic of what Ruby was trying to do.
"Ruby, your intellect is really showing… as expected of a leader." Blake thought back to an instance of Combat Class a week ago.
There was a sparring match happening in Combat Class. Blake and her team watched a panda Faunus go up against another student. A brief exchange of the Faunus' bo staff with the other student's sword ended with the Faunus having to use her staff to spring herself upwards to avoid a lower swing from the sword.
The other student quickly used his wind Semblance to blow a gust of wind in order to throw her off balance. It looked like she was about to lose grip, until what looks to be an abnormal growth on her hand actually helped her maintain stability on the bo staff. She used this to maneuver her position and grip of the staff and deliver a downwards swing onto the head of the other student, sending him crumpling to the ground. An alarm was sounded later.
"His Aura has gone into red. Therefore, the winner of this match is Zhanshi Po!" Claps were heard from the audience as Zhanshi bowed to her opponent and Glynda.
Blake was rather impressed with Zhanshi's recovery, but she was even more impressed with what Ruby was about to say.
"Huh, that makes sense. Pandas have longer wrist bones, allowing more stability on bamboo stalks with their little thumb-like bone. Being a panda Faunus, that must be a panda trait she has to compliment her staff fighting style." Ruby mainly mumbled to herself.
Her cat Faunus teammate had to speak up at that point, "Ruby, I know you are a weapon nut, but I didn't think you were so insightful about pandas."
"Huh?" Ruby didn't think Blake could hear her, surprising her that she did. "Oh, haha, Patch has a zoo that I used to go to a good amount as a kid. As I got older, I became interested in the animal traits of Faunus, so I'd read up about many kinds of facts about animals that Faunus get their traits from. I'd swear you are a cat Faunus with your love of tuna if you were a Faunus." Ruby chuckled.
Blake almost choked on her spit thinking for a split second her cover was blown. Another second and she mentally composed herself, "Heh, you are one interesting individual." Blake smiled, and this got a bright smile from Ruby.
Watching the determination in Ruby's eyes as she shot round after round at the Paladin, Blake put faith in her that her intuition was correct.
"I'm sure this is what Ruby has thought of. The pilot confirmed that he is a frog Faunus…"
Transitioning to Ruby's mind, she elaborates further, "Frogs are amphibians. That means that they are cold-blooded like reptiles are. Faunuses don't 100% share all traits of their respective animals, but there is one common trait of cold-blooded animals…"
The pilot switched the Paladin's arms to guns as he continued to laugh, "Ahahahaha!!! Haahahaha… haha… ha— huh?" He began feeling more fatigued, beginning to finally notice after his fit of laughter that the cockpit got hotter and hotter as bullets of fire continued to pelt on the metal skin of the Paladin. It got to the point where actions started to become harder to do, raising the arm of the Paladin became almost an impossible input.
"W-what?!"
Blake narrowed her eyes, seeing slight pauses with what the Paladin is doing, "Like most cold-blooded animals, amphibians are extremely susceptible to heat. Faunuses with amphibian traits are rarely seen in Menagerie and Vacuo because of the heat. Luckily our leader knew about this and capitalized on Weiss' ice lowering the cockpit and his body temperature, making the drastic temperature increase all the more unbearable." She finally got her weapon together as she climbed up shipping containers and threw her sickle to make it hook onto a tall overhanging lamp.
There weren't too many fire rounds left to be fired before the Paladin became extremely sluggish. Weiss and Sora noticed this as Ruby's smile grew exponentially. The last of the ice melted with the Paladin free from its ice prison, but the operator of the Paladin itself was trapped in a hellfire of his own lest he freed himself from it. And with his survival instincts on alert, he followed it. The hatch of the Paladin opened up as steam arose from the opening, the pilot finally emerging with a rifle loosely gripped in hand.
"Blake, now!" Ruby called out. From her perch, Blake swung and made her falling trajectory towards the pilot. Sluggishly, the pilot aimed towards Blake and shot rounds from his rifle. Blake was able to deftly use her Semblance to evade the bullets. Before the pilot even had the thought of reloading, he was struck by a bullet of lightning courtesy of Weiss that gave him a jolt. That was enough for Blake to home in and deliver a flying spinning kick to the man's cheek, sending him flying away from the Paladin. Before he could collide with the floor, Sora shot a Blizzard and pinned him onto a shipping container.
Blake took a deep breath as she turned from her position on top of the Paladin to see her friends walk up to her with grins on their faces. Ruby was specifically happy and proud about this result.
"Smart idea, Ruby." Blake gave her team leader a compliment as Ruby responded with a "Dohh, you…"
"So Ruby, any insight on that method of madness?" Weiss checked the fire Dust left in Myrtenaster, slightly irked by the low quantity left. Ruby went into detail with her analysis, which garnered a smile from Blake who knew Ruby's intentions well, along with her explaining her interest in animal and Faunus traits after Sora asked how she knew what she knew.
Sora threw a thumbs up, "That's pretty amazing Ruby. And now we got our hands on this Paladin." The boy jumped up to the cockpit as Blake let herself off for Sora to get on. Even with the cockpit open, the area around it was still hot from all the fire so some parts of the cockpit was hot. "Oo! Ah, hot! Okayy, let's see." The pilot key was still inserted into the Paladin as it technically was still on.
"It's common with Atlas military crafts to have an emergency switch so passengers can get out quickly!" Weiss told Sora. It took a few more moments of looking around for Sora to see an emergency cockpit on/off lever.
"Thanks Weiss, I found it!"
Weiss crossed her arms, "Sora, are you really sure you can do this? Atlas military tech like this requires many hours of training."
"We'll see about that Weiss." Sora responded as he pulled the level and the cockpit closed. The buttons and controls lit up, making Sora giddy with excitement. Sora looked up to the screen to see the sudden abundance of the UI pop up with many readings and options that did make him sweat just a little bit.
"Don't worry Sora! Just pretend you are operating a Gigas. It's no big deal, right?" Sora gripped the control sticks and began piloting the mech. Outside, the girls were relatively surprised to see the Paladin controlled by Sora managing to stand up.
"Shoot, where's the microphone button. There's too many buttons… uhhh… here!" Sora pressed the button and began talking towards the girls, "Hey, testing testing, you all hear me right now?"
"Yea Sora we can hear you!" Ruby responded to Sora so he knew they could hear him, "Hey listen to me, we need to find Yang and Velvet! Yang met up with Velvet near that Bullhead over there and I think they went that way! They probably still need our help!" She pointed at the direction the two girls went.
"Alright! Then let's go!" Sora managed to guide the Paladin towards the direction Ruby pointed at, leaving the girls behind with his headstart.
"You know, the more we're around him, the less I'm starting to question if he's actually an average islander who was isolated from the Kingdoms." Weiss brought up, the other girls shrugged and they soon pursued the Paladin.
"Stay. Still. Dammit!" A frustrated Yang was attempting to land one good hit onto Neo to no avail. The diminutive girl might've felt a bit outclassed by Charlemagne, but he was one of extremely few exceptional talents at Beacon. Yang might be one of the top of her class in combat, but she's still a first-year Huntress-in-training and someone who definitely hasn't dealt with a seasoned mercenary.
Every jab and hook was redirected with little effort by Neo, kicks were met by leg blocks that further frustrated Yang. And every now and then, Yang was reminded by a rather resilient and sturdy umbrella to the gut about how little progress she was making. It was already hard to hit Neo due to her small size, but that really did hide her deceptively strong strikes to crucial points of Yang's body.
"She should not be hitting this hard!"
Yang reared back for a hard right straight and Neo broke into glass. Arm outstretched, Yang was taken aback as it was hooked by the umbrella handle and was dragged down forcibly, chin meeting Neo's knee dead on. That did not force her back much since the umbrella was still hooked onto Yang's arm, so Neo followed that up by kicking the underside of Yang's knee. The blond was forced to take a knee by the strike to the joint as she was pelted with a few side kicks to the face which ended with Neo's heels in her face as she used it as a platform to vault off of. Shaking off the daze, Yang's eyes turned crimson.
"Rahhh!!!" Yang bellowed and rushed at Neo. Meanwhile, Velvet was faring much better with her opponent. Roman, being the one to teach Neo his style of fighting, tried doing the same thing Neo did to Yang on Velvet. Being a member of one of the best second year teams on Beacon was a rather big step up compared to Yang. Velvet's normally timid demeanor did not show in combat as she was able to see through Roman's parries and counters. Although Roman managed to score a few advantageous moves, Velvet would respond with as much if not even more as she pressed on. Velvet's pure hand-to-hand combat ousted Roman's as he progressively had to use his cane for defense. He had no time to fire with the cane either because even with distance, Velvet would close in quickly with the agility as a rabbit Faunus.
Velvet delivered a roundhouse kick that pushed Roman back onto a shipping container. He had to push himself to the side really quick to avoid being kicked again. She chased him with a few flip kicks. While she was midair in the middle of one of her kicks, Roman saw this as an opportunity to strike her where she was vulnerable. He was sure that a broad swing with the cane would catch her, but she had the set up. Velvet grabbed the cane and twisted herself in order to throw it and Roman aback.
The crook tumbled and stopped near a bunch of Bullhead equipment, facing away from Velvet.
Roman was about to get up until he saw what caught his eye: a bucket of cleaning grease. A devilish glint appeared in Roman's eyes as he noticed Velvet slowly making her way towards him.
"Ya know, you Beacon students are quite the nosy individuals. At your age, I'd have fun, party the night away! Live a little! Opportunities like that won't be as abundant once you're out of that pretentious institution." Roman's words were meant to distract and stall Velvet a bit. He bit his bottom lip when he heard Velvet's footsteps become faster.
"A crook like you has no place to tell me how to live my life. I'd take one year of Beacon over a second of crime."
"Ahhh… suit yourself."
With accuracy, Roman grabbed a wrench and threw it back at Velvet. Velvet quickly kicked the wrench away, but did not anticipate Roman throwing a bucket at her. While she did try to side step away from it, some of the contents managed to get onto her.
"What?!" Velvet noticed the viscous substance that got onto her clothing, which turned out to be cleaning grease. However small of a time it took her to process this, Roman wasted no time loading his cane and taking aim at Velvet. He shot fire Dust at Velvet's feet… and watched as the grease combusted onto Velvet.
"Rahhh!" Velvet had to process suddenly being on fire. Fortunately, she still had Aura to protect her albeit it wasn't full Aura. Really the only reason why she wasn't burning is because her Aura is preventing that yet it didn't mean the Aura was progressively being shredded by the combustion; she WILL burn when the Aura runs out.
Yang meanwhile witnessed what just happened and her red eyes were filled even more with anger. Completely ignoring Neo, she propelled herself with her shotgun gauntlets straight to Roman. Roman gave Velvet a front kick before having to quickly duck under a blazing haymaker by Yang. Yang zoomed back and delivered an uppercut that Roman was able to bat away. A double jab with her left fist into a wide side kick from the right leg was negated with timed blocks with Roman's cane. It didn't take long before Yang resorted to just sending in a barrage of fists in attempts to overwhelm Roman. Due to her rage, Yang's hot headed style became even more erratic yet less calculated. Roman found it easier to deal with Yang's attacks even though they packed more punch.
It was also in her blind rage that she completely forgot about one crucial thing: Velvet. Roman decided to speak out on it.
"Hey Goldilocks! You wouldn't want your friend to be too sunburnt right?" Yang's eyes widened at the mistake of not prioritizing Velvet's safety. She was so focused on trying to cave Roman's face in that she failed to help Velvet get to some sort of water source. Roman took this opportunity to get a quick cane whip across Yang's face and twirled it into shooting position, shoving it right at Yang's abdomen and pulled the trigger. The blonde flew back and was embedded into the side of a shipping container.
From her duel with Neo and Roman, Yang's aura was extremely low as it began to flicker. She struggled to free herself from the shipping container as she saw Neo appear next to Velvet who was trying to roll and extinguish the fire. Neo held the grip of her umbrella and pulled out the hidden blade. Yang watched in horror as Neo raised the blade up, preparing to skewer Velvet with her already weakened Aura; no doubt it'll take a couple stabs to break her Aura.
"Velvet!!!"
A sniper shot was heard and Neo had to deflect it with her umbrella sheathe. Yang looked at where the sniper location was to see Ruby perched at her vantage point on a crane, shooting more rounds at Neo. The ice cream themed girl backflipped away from the rounds as the shipping containers behind her abruptly were knocked about, a Paladin seemingly charging straight at her.
"Oh you gotta be kidding me!" Roman said in distaste.
Being in quite the unfortunate position, Neo had to phase out of there with her glass breaking illusions before the Paladin trampled her. Meanwhile in the cockpit, Sora noticed the condition Velvet was in.
"Weiss! Help Velvet!" Sora said from the Paladin mic as a line of glyphs formed to go where Velvet was. Weiss skated past and quickly picked up Velvet and projected more glyphs to point towards the harbor waters.
"Oh my! How long have you been burning? Velvet! Hold your breath for me, ok?" The rabbit Faunus nodded as Weiss quickly threw Velvet into the harbor. As Velvet came into contact with the water, Weiss shot ice Dust from her sword to freeze the water around Velvet. This immediately cooled the burning grease on Velvet as it stopped burning off Velvet's dangerously low Aura. The Schnee heiress quickly summoned a propulsion glyph to shoot Velvet up and made sure to catch the Faunus as she didn't want her to roughly land on the ground.
"T-thank you Weiss!" Velvet hugged Weiss out of gratitude. "Burning like that… was honestly very painful even with Aura."
Not entirely used to physical intimacy in general, Weiss could only awkwardly reciprocate the hug and patted Velvet's back. "I'm g-glad you're safe, Velvet."
While Weiss was tending to Velvet, Roman grimaced as he was locked into battle with Blake. The cat Faunus proved to be very tricky and elusive, something that Roman picked up on. All of his dirty tricks were something that Blake anticipated a whole lot more than Yang. During their duel, Neo appeared to try to get a blindside on Blake only to back off with a hail of bullets being shot by the armgun of the Paladin.
"Not this time!" Sora continued pressuring with his bullets which forced Neo to run behind a shipping container. Neo grimaced with her lack of firepower. She shined the brightest against combatants one-on-one, but she definitely did not have the tools to go against a Paladin. On instinct, she had to duck to avoid being knocked out by a big scythe zooming past her. In a flurry of rose petals, Ruby engaged against Neo. In terms of weapon range, Ruby had Neo beat. It was harder to contest Ruby as she constantly held up a general radius of offense and defense with her sweeping blade. Neo waited for the opportune time to strike as Ruby attempted a horizontal swing. Neo embedded her umbrella on the ground to halt Crescent Rose's swing and Neo used this to prop herself onto the umbrella grip and deliver a quick kick to Ruby. The caped girl threw Crescent Rose at Neo which forced Neo to roll to the side as the scythe boomeranged back to its owner.
Neo was about to engage again yet was forced to back away even further when a blade flew from above and embedded itself into the ground where Neo was standing. Both girls recognized the sword as its owner landed right beside it.
Charlemagne plucked Joyeuse from the ground as he got into his usual combat stance. The air was tense while the silence permeated. Not wanting to fight Ruby on top of Charlemagne–who Neo was unable to outmatch–the mercenary decided it was time to retreat. Without much of a sound, Neo flickered off.
"Running from a fight you can't win." Charlemagne simply said as he sighed and looked at Ruby. "Are you ok?"
Ruby nodded quickly, "Mhm! We should go and stop Torchwick!" Charlemagne responded with a sound of affirmation as the two ran towards the group in combat with Torchwick. As they turned the corner, Charlemagne recognized the Paladin immediately.
"Why is there a Paladin here?!"
"The White Fang got their hands on it, but we managed to subdue the pilot and now Sora is in control of it!" Ruby filled Charlemagne in really quickly. It was then that the two also noticed White Fang grunts at a Bullhead salvaging what Dust crystals they could load onto without taking too long as the engines started to come alive. Charlemagne quickly pulled up his Scroll and clicked on Sora's contact. After a brief pause, Sora picked up the call.
"Charlie?" Sora asked.
"Sora! Leave Torchwick to us! Go get the Paladin to stop those White Fang grunts from flying away and try not to blow up the Dust!"
"Right!" The Paladin soon disengaged and ran towards the Bullhead. Charlemagne and Ruby met up with Blake as those two broke apart and were glaring at each other.
"One… after… another." Roman looked at the three students preparing for him to do anything. They were confused when Roman just took out a cigar and lit it up. A quick drag was taken and Roman held his arms out. "You lot have made this night a lot harder than it should, but it isn't only you kids that have made it such. Ladies and gentlemen, I think it's time to call this off." Roman snapped his finger.
Not wanting to risk anything, Blake quickly unraveled some of her ribbon and threw it at Roman to snare him. The ribbon didn't reach its destination when a hulking figure with a bear mask landed in front of Roman so the ribbon would wrap around the imposing blade he wielded.
Blake's eyes widened, "A… Keyblade?"
Charlemagne narrowed his eyes, "Another masked person?" Ruby meanwhile charged straight at the man who was in their way.
"Hmph." That was all the masked man had to say before completely stopping Crescent Rose by grabbing it by its shaft. No matter how much Ruby tried to pry it out of his hands, it wouldn't even budge a bit. The man started to swing his Keyblade around, which dragged Blake with it as he also did the same with Crescent Rose. With a heave, he was able to throw Blake and Ruby back. Charlemagne did not hesitate to take his turn to engage against the masked man.
A brief lock of blades happened as Charlemagne was surprised with this man's overbearing strength. With the strength that might exceed a seasoned Alpha Ursa's, the man pressed onto Charlemagne even more. Cracks began to form on the ground as Charlemagne had to think of something quick. He summoned a winged spear to his side as it flew to strike the masked man. He put off the pressure and deflected the spear without issue, allowing Charlemagne to jump backwards away from the man.
"Invi!" The man suddenly shouted as he got into a low crouch. He leapt off the ground and descended with the intent to drive his Keyblade down.
"This doesn't look good!" Charlemagne immediately sheathed Joyeuse and ran to where Ruby and Blake landed.
The result of the man's pound attack left little to the imagination. Utter destruction ensued with the ground violently bursting forth as rock flew everywhere. Charlemagne was able to grab Blake and Ruby as he held them close to him as they hid behind a wall of four winged spears Charlemagne summoned. The spears rotated for full circular coverage.
The students thought that was the end of it until they remembered that the man seemed like he called out to someone. They didn't see anyone else come forth, but they saw a torrent of flame, ice, lightning, and wind come from behind the masked man. The wave of magic consumed the rock spires and broke off chunks of them to incorporate the rocks into the wave as it headed straight for the students. Ruby and Blake's eyes widened in fear as Charlemagne had a face of conflict.
"Is it now the time? It seems so soon, but if I don't do anything I'll risk their safety! Shit, it's now or never—"
Charlemagne didn't finish his thought when two shimmering forms landed in front of them and casted a sort of barrier. The barrier parted the sea of elements, protecting them all in the process. When the wave ceased, all three students stared at the ephemeral forms in front of them: identical clones of a young girl in the same sort of garbs as the masked people, but she has a fox mask.
From behind the bear masked man, a woman with a snake mask stepped to the right of the man. "You we're right, Aced.…she is here."
Both fox mask clones said nothing as they charged at the other masked figures, bobbing and weaving to make their movements unpredictable. As they were upon them, the two opposing masked figures and Roman broke into glass.
The students soon ran to where the fox mask clones were, but as soon as they arrived the clones simply dissipated.
"Cmon, get your asses on board now!" The White Fang members quickly got on the Bullhead before it began lifting itself off the ground. Not all the Dust from the Schnee cargo was in the shipping container, but they had to make due with all the interference from the Beacon students. With the shipping container secure on the belly of the Bullhead, the pilot began to take off.
They didn't expect a Paladin-sized turbulence to happen so close to the ground.
"You are going nowhere!" Sora got the Paladin to get a hold of the Bullhead's rear as he was attempting to drag it down. The Bullhead pilot pushed the throttle at full thrust as Sora's Paladin began to slide slowly on the ground. It didn't take too long before more of the Paladin's grip on the aircraft loosened. It didn't help that Sora didn't know a lot about the many controls of the Paladin such as the stabilizers on the feet that enabled it to plant itself on the floor.
Knowing that the Paladin was gonna lose footing, Sora made the split decision of ejecting out of the Paladin. He also didn't want to risk using the Paladin guns and blowing up the Dust. The Bullhead freed itself as it finally began to fly away. Seeing nobody around, Sora felt it was the perfect time to let a bit loose. Channeling his magical energy, he pointed the Keyblade towards one of the Bullhead engines and channeled a lot more Blizzard magic than he allowed himself to do even since he arrived onto Remnant.
"Blizzaga!"
The sizable ice projectile zoomed towards the Bullhead, intent on freezing an engine to make it stop flying. With it above the harbor, the Dust should be safe as the water would cushion the landing force. Sora was sure this was going to work—
WOOSH*
Out of absolutely nowhere, the No Name Keyblade flew into the path of the Blizzaga and split it in half. It redirected itself as it sailed straight for the Paladin and rotated like a freak buzz saw. Sora jumped off the Paladin as No Name cleanly bisected the mech. Sora grimaced with the now out of commission mech and watched the No Name Keyblade return to its owner.
Sora glared daggers at the black coat man standing upon a crane. His Keyblade hand trembled in anger as he decided to speak up.
"I don't know why you all are still here, but you guys picked the wrong world to mess with." The black coated man had nothing to say to Sora, all that was said was nothing but him disappearing from view.
Sora looked back at the retreating Bullhead. A good thing to get out of this was that the White Fang wasn't able to get all the Dust. This however, was not on the forefront of Sora's mind. He had a thousand mile stare, thinking about everything he had come to learn. His mind was so fixated on his internal thoughts that he didn't notice Team RWBY, Velvet, and Charlemagne approaching from behind.
"Sora?"
Charlemagne did not receive a response from Sora as the Keyblade wielder was completely in his thoughts.
Maybe… Remnant has a history with Keyblade wielders of the past.
Damn I made some homies wait almost 6 months for this chapter. To be completely honest though I didn't get to work on it until like a month and a half ago.
There's been a lot happening in life and I've gotta prioritize those. I wish I could have some Shadow Clone work on this story regularly. That's the downside of not being a writer first: this story is prone to take a backseat in my plans.
Hopefully my version of the Volume 1 climax is satisfactory to you all. Volume 2 might come after a chapter of filler and a Sora-centric arc. Who knows with my pace, Volume 9 of RWBY might be completed by the time I get to Volume 2 of my story lol. By the way, I'm thinking of massive changes on Volume 2. As you guys might already have thought in your mind that I implemented a whole lot of the Paladin stuff and Mount Glenn fights already. I see in a lot of crossover fics that the progression of the story is accelerated by all these added factors to the plot. I know I definitely want to get out of this early RWBY fluff.
Anyways til next time!
Peace,
REternal
