Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY
Chapter 19: True Paladins-Part 2
Junior's Club was one of the top nightclubs in Vale, despite the open secret that it was run by a crime family. While it had started as just a front for other illegal activities by Junior's father, Junior himself ran the business legitimately and it accounted for a large portion of his organization's wealth. Accordingly, his henchmen spent just as much time and effort maintaining the club as anything else and it was remarkable how separate the two sides of this enterprise were kept.
That wasn't the case now, as all of Junior's men instead of working to get the club ready for tonight, were just milling around as their boss argued with a group of teenagers at the bar about information about criminal activities.
It was certainly one of the stranger scenes that these men had witnessed.
"I told you; I don't know anything about Torchwick or whatever his plans are!" Junior all by shouted, slapping his hand down on the bar top.
"That's bull!" Yang replied in kind, making her glass of Strawberry Sunrise shake slightly. "You're supposed to be the best information dealer in Vale. Even if you didn't care about Torchwick or your men, you would still have tried to learn something, so at least to make sure this didn't come back to bite you."
"There was nothing to learn. He paid upfront and I lent him some of my men. The next thing I knew, they all had been arrested for robbing some Dust shop. It took my lawyers more time and money than I would have liked to get them out of jail and back to work."
"Would any of those guys know anything?" Jaune asked from his seat further down the bar. Nora was next to him, fiddling with one of those drink little umbrellas while Neptune was leaning on the wall, trying to look cool and aloof.
"They knew jack, which is honestly why they were able to get out of jail at all. It could have been a lot worse for them. I got them doing all the crap jobs around here, which is the least they deserve for botching a simple robbery and getting their asses kicked by some schoolgirl."
Junior was cut off by Yang downing her drink quickly and slamming the glass onto the bar top, glaring at the taller man all the while. He was curious about this reaction but decided not to venture further; he wanted this whole business done with.
"Anyway, they didn't know anything, and I don't know anything about Torchwick," Junior continued. "I thought he was just a two-bit thug myself until I saw his name all over the news. You're right that I did look into it, and all I found out is that he isn't operating out of Vale City anymore."
Junior stood up and gestured to the door. "That's all I know and all I care to know, so you guys can be on your way and do…whatever Huntsmen students do."
Yang frowned, knowing he wasn't telling the whole truth but unsure how to proceed. Despite bringing the others for the express purpose of being her backup, she didn't want to resort to violence unless she had to. Punching Junior hadn't helped much last time, though it was very satisfying, and this time she needed some solid leads to go on.
She decided on a subtler approach, one that would hopefully use Junior's information network against him.
"Well…if that's the case, then I guess we should be heading out," Yang said, getting up from her seat and stretching. The others gave her a worried look, worried if they were just going to give up so soon but Yang gave them a quick smile to let them know she had a plan.
Junior was just as surprised by the turnaround. "R-really. I…Ummm…Great! Don't let the door hit you on the way out."
"Oh, you don't need to be so pushy. I'll probably be seeing you again tonight." Yang gave him a bright grin. "This is a pretty sweet club after all. I'll probably bring my two sisters with me, and if you thought I could tear up the dance floor, wait till you see what they can do."
"What does that have to…wait…there are three of you?" Junior asked, gearing turning in his head as he remembered a particular rumour that had been making the rounds in the nightclub industry. He had been so focused on Yang herself that he hadn't thought that she might be more than just some random, psycho brawler.
No, it couldn't be that she was actually…
"My sisters are just like me, by the way," Yang said offhandedly. "Except one wears all-white clothing and the other all-black."
Junior's face paled at this information, confirming in his mind that he was dealing with the same girl from the rumours. He hadn't had the time to double-check the information, but if half of what he had heard was true, her trashing his club again would be the least of his worries.
It was said that over a dozen clubs and bars had been razed to the ground in the last year, not one trance left behind and the police were completely powerless to stop them. Only the vaguest of descriptions of the perpetrators existed; three young women of yellow, black, and white. They were insane and merciless, spelling the end of any business they entered.
Yang was pleased that her ruse had worked, as it appeared that even an information broker like Junior wasn't immune to the absurd tales of the rumour mill. She had mixed feeling about playing up this particular rumour, not just because it was about her and her sisters, but because it had been blown completely out of proportion.
First, only three clubs had caught fire this past year, not a dozen, and one was just a simple grease fire that scorched part of their kitchen, nothing serious. Another had burned down but it had been proven that it was deliberately set by the owner as a part of insurance fraud.
The last one…yeah that was, very slightly, her fault.
It had started just after Weiss and Blake turned seventeen during their last year at Signal. Seventeen was the age when you were considered an adult by the Kingdom regarding most things; most importantly for Yang, it was the legal age for drinking. She had already gotten into the clubbing scene and decided to take her two sisters out for a night on the town in celebration.
She had taken them to a small nightclub in Vale for their first drink. It had gone well at first, the two of course choking on their first swig but seemed to be okay with sipping the lightly alcoholic drinks Yang ordered for them. She left briefly to freshen up in the bathroom, fixing her hair a bit before planning to hit the dance floor.
When she returned, she learned something about her sisters; they couldn't hold their liquor in the slightest. After just one mildly alcoholic drink and they were already stumbling around drunk, slurring their words, and barely stopping themselves from falling over.
One young man saw this as the perfect opportunity to score and started to aggressively flirt with Weiss. The white-haired girl was, of course, completely uninterested and told him as much but this hotshot wasn't going to take no for an answer.
Before Yang could rush forward, Blake intervened to help her dear twin in the most logical and reasonable way…by kicking the douchebag right in the face and knocking him into the wall.
One of this guy's friends didn't take kindly to this justified assault and tried to grab Blake. Weiss did what any loving sibling would do; grabbed the guy by the throat and choke-slammed him through a nearby table.
A third guy rush forward and the Xiao Long Twins dealt with him in the same reasonable manner; tag-teaming him to drive his face into the floor with a Pop-Up Tombstone Piledriver.
Even this wasn't enough to dissuade any more of the first guy's companions from stepping and even convinced some other nearby drunks to get into the emerging brawl.
Seeing her beloved sisters about to be swarmed by a bunch of drunken jerks made Yang's blood boil, and when she got mad, her hair caught fire. She dashed forward, ready to beat up everyone in the club to protect her precious little sisters…when she slipped on a fallen shot glass and stumbled. She ended up near one of the windows, with her hair brushing against a curtain and, well…
Since when had drapes been flammable anyway?
The place quickly caught fire and the building was promptly evacuated, with Yang hauling Weiss and Blake over her shoulder and cheesing it out of there as fast as she could, the twins laughing all the while. She got them onto her motorbike and floored it back to Patch, sneaking onto both the ferry and back into their own house. She then spent the next day convincing her father that the twins' subsequent hangover was just a cold and that they hadn't gone to a club or anything last night. Blake and Weiss didn't remember anything from that night, so Yang succeeded in her ruse.
In the days after, Yang followed the story of the burned-down club, feeling relief that all the security footage had been lost to the fire and, thanks to the panic and general inebriation of most people there, no one had been able to describe the trio beyond their clothing colours. It was unlikely that they would be identified from just that, as long as they kept their heads down for a while. Everyone else had gotten out safely and the fire was contained before it could spread, so that was good.
She was upset that she had, accidentally, burned down an otherwise respectable business. It wasn't their fault that a bunch of jerks decided to visit the club the same night they did and that things got out of hand. She wanted to do something to make up for her mistake, but repaying the cost was far beyond her or her family's means.
Luckily, she didn't have to do anything. The owner managed to get a very good payout from their insurance and rebuilt the club in no time, bigger and better than before. The owner even commented that having the club burn down was the best thing to happen to his business.
The overall happy ending to this affair didn't stop some pretty outrageous rumours from cropping up. Yang figured that the 'no trace left behind' came from the fact the club had been rebuilt further down the street with a new name and the 'police were powerless to stop them was from the fact that, with so little to go on and with the club owner not pressing for a conviction, the police quietly dropped the case.
It boggled Yang's mind that the incident had been blown up to such silly and untrue lengths, but if it helped her right now with Junior, she was willing to play it up. Whatever Junior conjured up in his mind would be far worst than what she could actually do, and hopefully, make him willing to give up the information she wanted.
Junior was indeed beginning to sweat, his mind racing with all the terrible ends this girl and her sisters could meet unto his organization. Had her first time here just been a warning? Was she a harbinger of an even worse beatdown, one that would leave nothing standing no matter what he and all his men tried to do? Was this all some karmic punishment for living a life of crime?
"Junior? Junior!"
The voice of Melanie brought Junior back to the present and he looked over at the white-clad woman.
"What?" he asked, impatient.
"The ice cream maker is broken, again."
"What do you want me to do about it?"
"We want you to fix it, of course," Miltia replied, walking up to stand beside her twin. "If you don't, we'll have to take drastic measures."
"What will you do, leave?" Junior knew they had nowhere to go, and they certainly wouldn't go running back to their mother anytime soon.
"Worse," the twins said in sync, "we'll unionize."
Yang's group simply stared at this odd scene before turning to look at one of Junior's henchmen that was standing nearby.
"Well…" the young man said sheepishly, "we don't even get dental."
"Don't even get dental," Yang repeated, shaking her head, and looking at Junior with a disappointed stare.
Before the crime boss could respond, the yellow Xiao Long strode right past him and headed for the club's kitchen.
"Show me the patient and I'll see what I can do," she said towards the Malachite twins, who after a moment and a raised eyebrow, led the way. After a few more moments, the rest of the group followed, Junior trailing behind.
Just like the bar and music system, Junior didn't skimp on the kitchen. It was remarkably large and surprisingly clean, containing several stoves and other appliances, all top quality that could have come out of a five-star restaurant.
The odd one out was an old, battered soft-serve ice cream machine in the back corner. It had once belonged to a small diner near the docks that closed a few years ago after decades of business when the owner died, and all the equipment was auctioned off. The Malachite twins had badgered Junior into buying the machine, as the two had grown to love that diner's ice cream, being just the right temperature and texture for their palette.
Junior had given in, seeing it as a small thing to keep his bodyguards happy, but with how often it broke down and how much the twins nagged him to fix it, he was hoping Blondie here would just smash the thing to pieces.
Instead, the fiery brawler carefully examined the machine, moving the big box of metal as if it was as light as cardboard. She pulled out a multi-tool from her belt and unscrewed the back plate, taking a look inside.
"There's the problem," she said after only a few seconds and proceeded to take the ice cream maker apart.
In a quick, neat, and efficient manner, Yang took the bulky machine apart, piece by piece. When it seemed that most of it were laid out on the kitchen floor, Yang reached in and yanked out a small, rusted piece of metal, tossing it aside before putting it all back together.
She plugged it in and turned it on; it spattered and made a horrible clanking sound for a few seconds before it smoothed out. Yang grabbed two cones and quickly made a vanilla and strawberry soft-served, handing them to the Malachite sisters.
"Like…thanks…I guess," the pair said, taking the cones and digging in.
This whole exercise had taken less than ten minutes.
"Well, if you don't have anything else that needs emergency repairs, then we'll be taking our leave," Yang stretched her arms as she began to make her way out of the kitchen. "You can put my repair fee against my tab, which you can leave open, as I'll be back soon with my sisters to take in all of what your club has to offer."
'Stop! Stop!" Junior shouted, just before Yang could leave. She and her group turned to look at the tall man, curious about what he had to say.
Junior paced back and forth for a moment, scratching his head. He was scared of this girl, but she had also just helped him and despite all his flaws, Junior did have his sense of honour.
"Okay…Look, I don't have anything concrete on Torchwick, honestly, and you're right, I did look into it, and I found nothing. To be frank…that scares me." Junior admitted, clearly uncomfortable with showing any kind of weakness, to kids no less, but he was resolved to share everything he knew.
"Whatever set-up he's running with the White Fang, it's getting most of its supplies from outside the Kingdom, so there's been little traffic through the main underground channels, but I have heard a few scraps of info from smugglers making runs outside the city. A while ago, I intercepted a transmission from a smuggler group, saying they were 'Heading out for a winter holiday and made sure to pack their red scarf.'"
The round of blank stares made Junior elaborate.
"That's a code used in this industry. Winter equals cold, which means north. Now, what is north of Vale that's associated with red?"
"Forever Falls!" Jaune said, unable to hide his excitement.
"So Roman and the White Fang are hiding out in the forest?" Yang was pretty pumped at this, as it was finally a solid clue. Trips by Beacon Students to Forever Falls were fairly regular, either to cull the Grimm or collect Red Sap for Professor Peach. It should be easy for them to find an excuse to head out themselves and look around.
"Hold your horses, Spit-Fire," Junior said. "That was before that fiasco at the docks. If Roman's smart, and everything points to that he is, then he would have ditched that location for something else."
"Then where is he now?" Neptune asked, his 'cool' demeanour failing at what seemed like another roadblock.
"Easy kid, I was just getting to that," Junior continued. "I got another intercepted message talking about 'Heading for a beach vacation" and "Planning a hiking trip". Beach means warm which means south, so to the south of the main city. But they said 'hiking', not 'fishing', which is the usual code for going to one of the coastal cities. Hiking would mean mountains, and what prominent mountain is there south of Vale?"
"Mountain Glenn," Nora answered.
"Wait, isn't that place, like, completely crawling with Grimm," Neptune asked.
"Yeah, which makes it a dangerous place to holed up," Junior answered. "Smugglers have used it from time to time, though not in years from what I know. I can't be sure that Roman's made his new base there or anything, but it's the best lead I got. That's all I know so…we good?"
Junior was almost pleading at this point and Yang took a long moment thinking, tapping a finger to her lips before giving a bright smile.
"Yeah, we're good. With a good lead like this, my sisters and I will be too busy to come to visit your club anytime soon, which is a real shame but that's just how it is. Come on guys, let's get moving."
She waved to her friend that they were done, and they headed towards the door. Yang made sure to blow Junior a kiss before leaving, with Nora giving a wave of thanks as well. The door swung shut behind them and silence reigned in the club.
Junior rubbed his forehead, wrapping his head around the fact that he had just completely caved into a group of teenagers. Not even the best police interrogators had managed to make him crack during the, remarkably few, times he had been hauled in for questioning. It wouldn't do his reputation any good when word about this got out.
Still, if they could take down Roman, that would be good for him. The smuggling groups in Vale shouldn't be so tight-lipped about their current activities with him, forcing him to intercept scraps of radio transmissions. Roman had probably paid them off, which was a serious attack on his power in the criminal underworld. If Blondie could bust Roman, then he could pass all this off as him manipulating a Huntress into taking down a rival.
It was something at least. If not, then he would be dealing with an absolute mountain of problems and headaches soon, which would take more time and energy to deal with and…
"Junior? Junior!"
The man in question whirled around, ready to scream at Miltia for bugging him again when he saw what she wanted. The red-dressed girl was holding a vanilla-strawberry-swirled ice cream cone, offering it to Junior as she continued to snack on her cone.
The taller man looked down at this little offering for a moment before taking it. He didn't like ice cream much and this didn't change his opinion, but it did help calm him down. He finished his cone quickly before looking around the club and all the milling henchmen.
"What are you all lazing around for? We have a club to open soon, so get moving!"
The men all sprang into action, rushing around to complete all the various tasks needed to get the place ready for tonight. Junior turned to the twins, who had just finished their ice cream.
"I want you two to do an inventory of what we have in stock."
"I'm pretty sure we have plenty of food and booze for tonight," Melanie replied.
"No. I want you to take inventory of everything we have and arrange to stockpile more of the essentials; food, weapons, ammo, the works."
The sisters were a bit stunned at this sudden order.
"W-why do we need to do that? Is something going to happen?" Miltia asked.
Junior looked around the club for a moment, taking in everything he had built here.
"Something bad is coming, I can feel it. A storm is coming to Vale, and I want to make sure that we'll be prepared for it. No matter what…I intend to survive."
Weiss stepped out of one of the public washrooms near the CCT Tower, stretching her arms into the air and taking a deep breath. It was great to finally get out of that work get up and back into her regular clothes, and better still to be able to breathe again with the chest bindings off. She walked to a nearby bench, set the bag containing her disguise and hacking equipment down beside her, and pulled out her Scroll.
She had the utmost confidence in herself that she would succeed, just as she succeeded at everything she put her mind to, but she had still pulled off quite a feat. Even with the time saved by finding the SDC's server right away, she still only had a limited window to find as much relevant data as possible and get out without alerting anyone. The fact she managed to do all this and then get out with no one, either person or machine, the wiser was truly remarkable.
Sometimes Weiss even impressed herself.
Still, while she had pulled off an amazing feat, what Pyrrha had done in the main lobby was nothing to sneeze at. As she was returning from the basement and making her way out, she couldn't help but see the huge crowd that her friend was drawing. She could barely make out Pyrrha and Ren in the middle of a sea of people and she had no idea what they had done to get the rapt attention of so many people.
She would have to ask later, as right then was a perfect opportunity for her to slip out without anyone taking notice. She made sure to send the all-clear to Ren's Scroll; she had it set up so that sending a specific text message would make the Scroll ring with a specific tune. That would let Ren know that she was done and away, at which he would pretend to take a call before informing everyone that Pyrrha had an important meeting to attend and had to depart, giving the two an excuse to suddenly leave.
Based on the sheer number of people surrounding them, it would still be a while before they could extract themselves from the CCT Tower. She hadn't seen Ruby when she exited the building; she had sent her a text but hadn't received a response yet. As she waited, she decided to quickly go over what she had pulled from the SDC's server.
The Schnee Dust Company had lost a lot of Dust over the last few weeks, by the truckload in most cases. The attempted robbery at the docks was the most brazen attempt but there had been numerous Dust thefts in the small coastal cities along the southern coast. Far more than what had been shown on TV, with the data spelling out that the SDC was covering up the scale of the issue to protect their stock prices.
Weiss could barely contain her disgust. This company was withholding valuable information about a violent terrorist group just to protect its image and to make sure people didn't know how bad their security was. She didn't think her opinion of the Schnees could get any lower but here they were, endangering everyone for their self-interests.
Still, they did launch their investigation into the robberies and gathered a good amount of data that she could use. The most interesting information was that everything pointed to the robbers taking the stolen Dust further inland instead of smuggling it out to sea. The scale of all this led to the speculation that there must be a large base of operations somewhere up in the mountains of Saunus. There were multiple likely locations listed in the report, but one name stuck out to Weiss.
Mountain Glenn. The failed satellite city of Vale was an immensely dangerous place, but still had numerous buildings and underground facilities to hide and store contraband. It was listed as 'unlikely' in the report, due to the Grimm presence and the sheer distance from the coast making overland travel difficult and dangerous.
But Weiss knew this group had access to Bullheads, and they could easily transfer the Dust to them and fly them to Mountain Glenn without alerting either people or Grimm. It was beyond any regular group of criminals, but Roman Torchwick and Adam Taurus were a cut above, so this place jumped to the top of Weiss's list of possible hideouts.
Still, she couldn't be certain with just this data and would need to see what the others could dig up to help narrow it down.
Weiss closed her Scroll and stretched again. There was still a lot of work to do, but they now had a solid foundation to work with, all thanks to her impeccable genius. She figured she deserved a little break, so she got up from the bench and started walking around, seeing if she could find Ruby while also checking out some of the nearby shops.
She passed by a clothing store that had a sign in the window that caught her attention. It was an advertisement for Beacon students, that they could get a dress and suit together for half-off. 'So every couple can look their best for the big dance' was the tagline.
That reminded Weiss that the big dance was coming up, which brought a mixed set of emotions for her. On one hand, it was a great chance to show off both her singing and dancing to everyone, but it was also the time she was most likely to get hit on by guys, all asking her to be their date for the dance. She could already feel a headache coming from all the terrible pickup lines she was going to be subjected to.
She wouldn't be the only one, as Blake and Yang, being the pinnacle of beauty that they were, were almost certain to be asked out as well. That brought another set of emotions to the White Xiao Long, as the thought of a bunch of boys hitting on her sisters made her blood boil. She had been okay, barely, with them dating boys back on Patch but she didn't want them to do so here.
It wasn't just because she disliked boys in a romantic setting but that she didn't want others getting close to her sisters; it was almost as if they were trying to take her sisters away. It was a silly thing to get hung up on, but it was the truth. It went beyond simply protectiveness and into something else, something Weiss couldn't put her finger on.
Yang and Blake had made it clear to her that they weren't interested in dating right now, so any romantic advances would be unwanted, so Weiss started to think of a solution to this problem. They could just say they already had a date lined up, but then it would be expected of them to have one for the dance itself or else their credibility and trustfulness would go down with the student body. She certainly wasn't going to force herself just because of peer pressure but there had to be a solution that solved this issue just right.
She toyed with the idea of having each member of JNPR take one of them to the dance, as friends. She trusted them completely and it could be a fun time, but it might be a lot to suddenly ask of them, especially with all they've dragged them into recently.
Looking at the sign, and the deal it was offering, an idea began to stir in her mind, of a way to hold off guys asking them out to the dance and a way to make a big splash at said dance, big enough to keep future pestering at bay for a while.
Weiss walked into the store, intending to kill two birds with one well-priced stone.
In one of the countless alleys of Vale, Ruby was trying to move her suddenly stationary friend. She had wrapped her arms around Penny's middle and was lifting with all her might.
"Find a penny…pick it up…" she sang to herself between strained breaths, "and all day long…you'll have good luck…shoot!"
Her final heave failed, and she stumbled backwards, having not moved Penny an inch. It was as if she was completely rooted to the ground and her singing a vaguely related song hadn't given her the strength to overcome her obstacles.
Had she been lied to by cartoons and anime?
"Penny! Come one Penny, wake up," Ruby again got close to the frozen girl's face, trying in vain to get her to move or say anything. With her eyes all dark and empty, it really looked like she had shut down with the power off. She was too heavy for Ruby to move by herself, and she had no clue how Penny worked or what she could do to fix her.
At that moment, Penny's eyes lit up and a smile appeared on her face.
"Salutation!" She cheerfully and loudly gave out her customary greeting, causing a surprised Ruby to stumbled backwards.
The smile faded from Penny as her memory banks reloaded what had just happened a few minutes ago, how she had failed in her primary directive of keeping her synthetic nature a secret and that her first friend ever knew about it.
"I…Friend-Ruby…I can explain…" her attempts to speak were hampered by another round of hiccups, making it impossible for her to speak coherently.
"Penny! You're back! Are you okay? Do we need to go to a doctor…or would it be a mechanic? Anyway, are you okay?" Ruby's worry was clear, and she rushed to Penny's side, even placing a hand on her forehead to check her temperature.
"I'm fine, friend, I'm fine," Penny assured the fretting Ruby. "My central cognition systems were overloaded and required a reboot and…I'm fine."
Ruby took a step back and silence filled the space between them. Penny eventually broke it.
"I was created by my father and the military of Atlas as the next-generation weapon system to help protect the world. I'm the world's first synthetic person capable of generating an Aura," She looked down at her palms, revealing to Ruby how her skin had been scraped off by the truck and exposed metal was underneath. "I'm…not real."
"Penny…"
"I have conscious, and I have a purpose but is that all I need?" Penny was almost talking to herself now. "I'm not flesh and blood, I wasn't born like other girls. With that, is anything I have real? Are the feelings and memories real? Is it all artificial or…"
She was cut off as Ruby suddenly grabbed her hands. Penny's pain receptors were turned off since stopping the truck, but her sensors still picked up that Ruby was gripping her hands very, very tightly.
"Blood…is meaningless," Ruby said, her eyes piercing right into Penny. "What matter is the feelings you have, the connections you've made. Nothing about them is 'fake' or 'artificial', not if you feel it in your soul; and you have a soul Penny, I know it."
The hyper-intelligent robot girl could only stare back at her friend, her database finding numerous technical flaws with her arguments but at the same time, it just felt…right. The sheer strength of Ruby's conviction struck her to the core and, for lack of a better term, set her heart racing.
"You…you mean that?" she asked, hopeful.
"Of course," Ruby answered, a gentle smile on her face. "You're real and our friendship is real. I know my sisters feel the same way and I'm sure the same is true of JNPR. You have nothing to worry about with us."
Emotions, of such force and power, overwhelmed Penny and she hugged Ruby tightly.
"Thank you! Thank you, Friend-Ruby! This means so much to me!"
"N-no problem," Ruby let out as she struggled to breathe, suddenly having flashbacks to her sisters' bear hugs.
After a long minute, Penny let go and Ruby quickly sucked in precious air.
"So," she said between breaths, "why were those Atlas soldiers chasing after you?"
"Oh, there were trying to protect me."
"They don't think you can protect yourself?" Ruby had seen Penny in action and didn't see how she would need much protection.
"Oh, it's a little more complicated than that. I am, technically, a secret state asset after all. They're worried about what might happen if I'm not careful. Understandable, but I came here specifically for my final trial runs. I'm here to enter the Vytal Festival and test myself in the tournament. It's the only way to prove that I'll be ready to protect the Kingdoms from the great threats beyond our walls."
Ruby nodded before something Penny said made her frown.
"Great threats? What are you talking about? There is the Grimm for sure but otherwise, we're in a time of peace."
Penny now looked at Ruby, confused. "That's not what General Ironwood said."
Before she could elaborate further, Penny suddenly turned her head to the side, seemingly listening to something.
"Observation; those soldiers from earlier are approaching and will arrive at this location shortly. Explaining your relationship and proximity to me will be laborious and time-consuming, so it would be best if they don't find us together."
"Wait, Penny!" Ruby said, pulling out her Scroll. "Before you go, can you give me your number? I don't want to worry about what going to happen to you and have no means to contact you."
"Oh, you are correct. A secure means of communication would be most beneficial. One moment Friend."
Penny's eyes suddenly started glowing a bright green and a moment later, the screen of Ruby's Scroll flashed the same colour. The red Xiao Long could only stare, Scroll held out as Penny did…whatever she was doing. A few seconds later, Penny blinked, eyes returning to normal.
"There. I've remotely installed a personal communication app on your Scroll. We can use it to talk whenever it is convenient."
Ruby looked down at her Scroll, an unsettled look on her face. "You…didn't install any viruses or malware, did you?" The last thing she needed was another lecture from her sisters about being careful about downloading random things onto her Scroll.
In her defence, downloading extra RAM just seemed like such a good deal that she just had to try it out.
"Shock and Alarm; Dear Friend, I assure you that I would never do such a thing. My software is of the highest quality, with superbly crafted safeguards to ensure seamless and secure connections, with no chance of any outside intrusions. Alongside a suite of anti-virus protection, I also have up-to-date information on the weather, local news, economic forecasts and…"
Penny's baked-in self-promotion was cut off as she suddenly turned her head, listening to something.
"The soldiers are closer now and have this location surrounded. It will be impossible for you to escape without notice or difficulty."
"I'm sure I can manage," Ruby replied, putting her Scroll away and looking at her friend with a smug smile. "I can leave them in the dust, easy. My Semblance is Speed, after all."
"Actually, I believe your Semblance involves travelling at an extreme velocity from one point to another by breaking yourself down to your molecular components, negating your mass and then reassembling them at the destination."
A moment of silence lapsed as Ruby processed what Penny just said.
"Wait…WHAT?!"
"Regardless, it is unlikely you could escape without the soldiers getting a partial look at you, leaving a small chance they would be able to identify you later. A small chance is too much to risk for one of my dear Friends!"
"That's great and all but what did you say about my Semblance?"
Penny continued to ignore Ruby's questions, fully intent on finding a solution to this predicament that didn't have any negative consequences for her Friend.
"Hiding you from sight would seem to be the best course of action," Penny said, scanning the space around them before her eyes landed on the nearby dumpster.
Ruby followed Penny's gaze.
"No…you are not asking me to hide in a dirty, stinking garbage dumpster, are you?"
Penny turned, a bright smile on her face.
"Truthful Statement; Dear-Friend, of course, I would never ask you to go into such an unsanitary place."
Ruby breathed a sigh of relief and began to relax…until Penny suddenly grabbed her by the side and lifted her high into the air. Before she could even think about struggling. Penny dashed towards the dumpster and, gently, place Ruby inside.
"Clarification; I will, however, make you hide in space like this if it is the best course of action," Penny still had a smile as she said this. In her mind 'negative consequences' didn't include getting dirty garbage all over oneself. "Just be still and quiet, I'll make sure the soldiers leave before they can find you."
Penny closed the lid of the dumpster, before opening it make up a moment later.
"Reiteration; It was absolutely wonderful to see you again, and I hope we can meet again soon under more amicable circumstances."
With that, the lid was shut firmly, leaving Ruby in complete darkness. Any thoughts of getting out stopped when she heard heavy footsteps approaching the alley, followed by voices calling out to Penny. The pursuing Atlas soldiers had arrived and Ruby could make out Penny apologizing to them. After a minute of talking, the voices faded away as Penny and the soldiers left.
Ruby slowly lifted the lid of the dumpster and scanned the alley, confirming that she was alone. Instead of jumping out, she took a moment to think, pondering about how exactly she felt about her new, strange friend.
"I…like her," she said to herself, a small smile forming on her face. Penny was odd, quirky, and quite unpredictable, but also fun, energetic, kind and absolutely genuine in everything she did. Definitely not some simple robot but a real person. She enjoyed the time she spent with her and was looking forward to meeting up again.
Ruby's train of thought was interrupted by something furry brushing against her leg that let out a squeaking sound. Her eye twitch slightly for one second, and the next she was out of the dumpster, pressed up against the far wall opposite, a trail of rose petals falling between her and the dumpster.
She was breathing frantically and was mentally recalculating her feeling toward Penny.
"I…still like her," she admitted, her breathing coming under control. "But if she ever tries to put me in a stinky, dirty, rat-infested dumpster again, I'll take her apart piece by piece with a screwdriver and shove her into a recycling bin!"
Ruby took one last, deep breath, letting her anger slip away. It wasn't Penny's fault, and she had ended up in similar places while following her sisters, so it wasn't that big of a deal. She wasn't going to do anything violent to Penny, no matter what. She could imagine what her sisters would say if she tried something like that. Yang would no doubt be interested in seeing how Penny's mechanical parts worked and her remote connection abilities would interest Weiss, as it could probably help with hacking computers and…
Wait…Weiss…hacking computers…
"OH CRAP!" Ruby shouted, finally remembering why she was out in the city in the first place. She had gotten so sidetracked with Penny that she completely forgot about the important mission her team was on, following her plan no less.
The panicking Xiao Long dashed out of the alleyway, making sure to exit in the opposite direction she thought the Atlas soldiers had gone and frantically tried to get her bearing and find her way back to the CCT Tower.
So worked up was she that she didn't think to check her Scroll, either to call her teammates or to check her location. She wouldn't even think about it until some time later when she received a very desperate call.
Blake prided herself on being able to keep her cool, whether it be on stage or facing off against Grimm, but right now it took everything to not panic and run away. Here she was, in the middle of a crowd of White Fang recruits, with the leader of said group standing before them, with a dangerous criminal and assassin by his side and a heavily armed mech-suit behind him. She was so far out of her depth that it was almost comical.
"This…this isn't good," Sun whispered, and Blake almost burst out laughing at the sheer obviousness of it all. They were just far enough into the crowd that they couldn't easily sneak out without being noticed. Unless they could come up with a distraction, they would have a swarm of people after them, on top of the three dangerous figures on the stage.
"My brothers and sisters, you have all come here seeking the same thing," Adam Taurus spoke, his voice projecting across the large room. "You all want a better life, a real life, one where you're not looked down on for what you are. The humans and their government use all their powers to keep the Faunus down. Why? Because they fear us! They fear our power, fear that we will tear down their corrupt system and make them pay for the centuries of mistreatment of our kind."
The crowd began to cheer and get worked up, agreeing with the words no matter their specific circumstances. Blake and Sun looked around nervously, being the only ones not joining in.
"The White Fang was meant to bring us freedom and respect, by the Belledonnas just sit in Menagerie and only pay lip service to Faunus Rights. We must be the architects of our fate; we must make our own future…and we will do so under a new sign and a new name!"
Adam paused, drawing his sword partially before jumping into the air and slashing the White Fang banner hanging above him. It was cut in two and started falling to the ground, revealing a second banner behind it. While it had the same wolf-head in the center, it was a blood-red colour on a white field, an inversion of the old flag.
Adam landed, sheathed his blade, and swept his hand across the crowd.
"The White Fang is over! We are the Red Fang! Red for the blood of our murdered forefathers and red for the human blood we will spill! For anyone here who is willing to fight for your rights and future, step up! You will be sent to our base in the southeast, where we are building up for an attack that I assure you will knock the Kingdom's Council down."
Blake's ears perked up; they had a base to the southeast. This was likely the most concrete information they could get out of this situation. She certainly didn't expect to get that info from Adam himself, but she had to begrudgingly admit he was a charismatic speaker. Everything, from the way he projected his voice to how he moved on stage, it all helped to convey his message with passion and authority. She knew all about how to convince a crowd of people from her years acting on stage and…
Blake tilted her head as a thought passed through her mind and she quickly re-evaluated everything she had just seen. It was theatre…it was all theatre. It was all a staged performance, not just a set rally for supporters like a politician would pull out for voters but an actual theatre performance. It was all to convince the audience that what is said was true, with those on stage being effectively talented liars.
It wasn't easy to spot, but Blake could just tell that Adam was acting, putting on a show but wasn't truly buying what he was saying. That…that couldn't be right. This wasn't community theatre; this was a violent terrorist group plotting to overthrow the government and murder lots of people along the way. He couldn't be simply waltzing his way through all this, not truly being a radical militant.
She had to be missing something here.
"We need to get out of here, now!" Sun whispered as the crowd began to move forward. One of the newly dubbed Red Fang members was waving people forward, handing out uniforms and getting them organized. There was no way they would keep up their disguise through the whole recruitment process, so they needed to leave now.
Blake scanned the room, looking for a way out. There was Red Fang guarding the doorway that they came in from and it might take too long to force their way through before the crowd jumped them. There were windows behind the stage that face the street and other buildings nearby. There were fairly high up, but she was sure they could jump up and through them with ease. Once they were outside, they could lose the Red Fang with ease but would need to pass by the stage where Adam, Torchwick and the hooded assassin were standing. They would be attacked before they could escape unless they could create a distraction.
The black Xiao Long spotted a power box along the wall. A well-placed bullet into that would plunge the whole room into darkness, and even though many Faunus had great night vision, the suddenness would still surprise and confuse everyone.
Blake was just able to whisper her plan to Sun and grab her pistol when Adam began speaking again.
"Remember, it will be under this sign that we will change the world!"
Pain shot into Blake's mind, and she fell to her knees, gripping her head. She barely heard Sun's words of concern or anything else in the room as everything went black.
She was…small. She was crawling along the hallway with wooden floors that were strange…yet familiar. There was an open doorway at the end, and she hurried to get there, knowing that something she wanted was just beyond.
The room was large, with several bookshelves lining the walls and couches off to one side. Everything had a hazy, indistinct look to it, but she just knew she had been here before.
"Blake? What are you doing here?" a deep voice called out, "Are you here to help Papa with his work?"
She found herself being lifted and carried to a large desk. Turning her head, she saw that it was a large man, with black hair and a beard but…nothing else. She couldn't make out any more details about this person.
But she knew…this was her Papa…
The man sat down at the desk, holding Blake up so she could see what was on top of it.
"I was just looking at some old mementos, from when I first created the White Fang. It helps remind me about what we're fighting for."
Blake looked out at the various items on the desk, several pieces of paper, photographs, and metal ornaments. The thing that drew the toddler's attention the most was the small blue flag with a white wolf's head in the centre. She reached out and grabbed the corners in her hands, dragging them closer.
Her Papa gently patted the top of her head and tapped the centre of the flag with one finger.
"I swear to you my little Kitten, and to all the young Faunus out there, that under this sign, we will change the world."
Blake just stared at the symbol, knowing that it was important. She closed her eyes, suddenly feeling tired and…
She was back in the Red Fang warehouse. Looking around, she saw that Sun and several other people were looking down at her with varying degrees of worry and confusion. She was making a scene and it was sure to get the attention of Adam and the others on stage, putting herself and Sun in danger.
Everything seemed to slow down to a crawl, while her senses heightened to an incredible degree, letting her see, hear, and feel everything around her. She saw through the crowd the power box on the wall and, in one fluid motion, jumped to her feet and pulled out her gun. She fired, hitting the box perfectly, making it malfunction and plunging the whole room into darkness before anyone knew what was happening.
"Get to the windows, now!" Blake hissed to Sun, and she quickly made her way through the now panicking crowd. She effortlessly weaved through the crowd, getting to open space next to the stage and underneath the windows. She fired her pistol again, shattering the windows before leaping through them.
She landed on the street outside and she took off running, throwing her Grimm mask away as she did. A moment later, Sun leapt through the broken window as well, having done a remarkable job of following Blake's lead in such a confusing situation. The pair sprinted down the road, putting as much distance between themselves and the warehouse as possible.
Despite the frantic pace, Blake began to relax a little. Her mind still in a focused state, she reasoned that the Red Fang would be more focused on quickly vacating the area, once the confusion died down, instead of chasing them. They would likely suspect that this was part of a police sting, and more cops or Huntsmen would be on the way. Getting out fast and covering their tracks would be the priority, not chasing after the two infiltrators.
That was the most reasonable and logical course of action to take.
A loud crashing sound came from behind and looking back, Blake saw a huge hole in the side of the warehouse and the Atlas Paladin stepped through.
"Here, Kitty-Kitty," Roman Torchwicks voice was loudly projected from the machine before it began to quickly chase after the two fleeing Faunus.
Blake's reasoning had been sound, but she had made one fatal error; she underestimated just how infuriated Torchwick was with Team RWBY's interference with his plans. He had only caught a glimpse of Blake before she shot the power box but instantly knew that this black cat Faunus was the same one that ruined his heist at the docks. He didn't care how reckless or how much-unwanted attention it would bring down on them, he was going to crush these brats.
Blake's calm focus gave way to hurried panic at the sight of the approaching war machine.
"Shit!" she exclaimed, quickly looking around for an escape route. "Get to the rooftops, quick!"
Blake threw Gambol Shroud, using it as a grappling hook to help pull herself to the roof of a nearby warehouse. Sun jumped up and grabbed onto an overhanging lamppost, swinging on it and using the momentum to throw himself up onto the rooftop.
The pair didn't pause, continuing to run along the flat roofs of the warehouses, jumping the short gaps between them as they moved forward. They had bought themselves some time, as the Paladin didn't have a clear shot on them from street level, but it wasn't last for long. This warehouse district was only so big, and they would run out of rooftops eventually. The whole area was filled with the same low building and wide roads, leaving no room to easily hide or give the Paladin the slip. Circling back would only lead them back to the Red Fang and trap them.
They needed to do something, but with no plan or destination, they would be sitting ducks if they just ran into the city proper.
"We need backup," Blake said, pulling out her Scroll and group-dialling both her team and JNPR.
"Right, I'll call Scarlett and Sage. They said they would be out in the city today," Sun replied, pulling out his Scroll.
Blake nodded, holding her Scroll as she counited to run and jump. It seemed to take forever for an answer, though it was only a few seconds.
"Hey Blake, what's up?" Yang's voice came out over the Scroll. A moment later, the rest of the groups' names flashed, indicating that everyone was on the call.
"Ummm…Remember how I said I'd call if the White Fang had a giant death robot?"
For a long moment, only silence passed through the group call.
"…Yeah?" Ruby said, cautiously.
"They have a giant death robot!" Blake almost screamed, her emotions beginning to boil over.
"Shi-Crap!" Weiss let out; her worse fears were realized. 'Where are you?"
"We're still in the Warehouse district, but we're coming up to the main city fast. Torchwick's in some sort of Atlas mech and hot on our heels," Blake answered.
'Ruby, can you get a clear fix on Blake's position?" Jaune asked, extending his Scroll, and bringing up a map of Vale from his seat in Bumblebee's sidecar.
"On it," Ruby said, doing the same on her Scroll and using Team tracking to see exactly where Blake was.
"Okay, they're near the northern edge of the Industrial District, close to one of the on-ramps to the intercity highway."
"We could get onto the highway," Sun piped up, loud enough for everyone to hear him. "We could jump onto some passing cars and lose him that way."
"Are you crazy?!" Both Blake and everyone else on the other end of her Scroll shouted, startled by the monkey Faunus.
"If we lead him onto the highway, that mech will toss all those cars aside like toys and I doubt Torchwick will care out the rules of the road. The body count would be enormous."
Sun turned his face away at Blake's admonishment. 'S-Sorry, I didn't think that all the way through."
"That seems very typical of you," Weiss remarked snidely.
"But he may be on to something," Ruby said.
"Wait, really?" Both Weiss and Sun said in surprise.
"Not on the highway but under it. If you head underneath the on-ramp and follow along the underside of the freeway, you'll end up at the construction site we were at before. We can all meet up there, and together we can beat Torchwick without having civilians getting caught in the crossfire."
It was the best plan they could come up with given the circumstances, so everyone agreed before hanging up.
Jaune barely had time to put his Scroll away before Yang went full throttle on Bumblebee, the motorbike tearing down the road. Nora would have fallen off if she hadn't been holding onto Yang and even Neptune was thrown back into his seat in the sidecar. The yellow Xiao Long may have kept up an appearance of calm collectiveness during the call, but inside was intense desperation to reach her sister, to protect her.
This feeling was shared with the other Xiao Longs, with Ruby immediately using her Semblance to dash through the streets, barely avoiding colliding with people and vehicles all the while.
Weiss had just exited the clothing store, having made her purchase, and arranged to have it delivered to her dorm when she got the call from Blake. She immediately took off running, focused on reaching the rendezvous point as fast as possible when she almost run right into Pyrrha and Ren.
The two had finally extracted themselves from the huge crowd in the CCT. It had been slow going, the pair having to shuffle step by step to reach the door, the surrounding crowd almost unwilling to let them go. Ren had gotten the signal that Weiss was done and duly acted as if he had received an important call that 'Miss Nikos' had an important meeting she needed to attend and had to leave immediately.
The problem was that no one seemed to hear him, completely enamoured with Pyrrha, and unwilling to simply let her go. Ren had managed to get them close to the doors, but the people weren't parting to let them through, and he was beginning to worry they would have to start physically pushing people away when Pyrrha raised her hands.
Immediately, the crowd stopped moving and the loud symphony of voices that had filled the lobby for the last several minutes died out instantly. Each person looked at Pyrrha with rapt attention, as if she was a prophet about to speak gospel.
"Thank you all for being here. I'm so happy I got to meet all of you," Pyrrha said, projecting her voice effortlessly across the large space. "I have a very important meeting to attend, so I must depart. I'm sure there will be an opportunity to meet again in the future, so until then, please return to your work and regular schedule."
Everyone processed those words; the same ones Ren had been repeating over and over for several minutes to no effect. The crowd smiled and nodded, before quickly breaking up and going about their business.
Ren was flabbergasted. A moment ago, Pyrrha had been the centre of attention, but with only a few words, they were practically being ignored.
"Come on, let's get going," Pyrrha whispered to Ren before quickly heading through the door. The pair vacated the CCT and headed to a discreet public washroom nearby, changing out of their costumes and back into their regular clothes.
Back outside, Ren could only look at Pyrrha with wonderment.
"How…how did you do that?" he asked.
"Do what?" she replied, genuinely confused.
"That! Working the crowd back there. Getting everyone to pay attention and then back off at once…it was incredible!"
"Oh…that was nothing. All I need was to give the people what they wanted, spoke, and acted in the way they expect of me. Be a bit gentle here and a little forceful there and you get people to do what you want, as long as it is simple. It's not hard at all."
Ren could only shake his head at her explanation. Maybe it was simple for her, but to anyone else, it was unreal. There was being charismatic and playing up a crowd, but what Pyrrha did…
That was almost like magic.
Before any more could be said, both of their Scrolls began to ring, and they discovered that Blake was in danger. While the plan the group agreed to had serious flaws, Ren thinking this was a valid time to call the authorities, the pair still went along to help their friends, dashing down the street to the rendezvous point.
Only a brief time later, they almost ran straight into Weiss.
"Ren? Pyrrha? What are you guys doing? We need to help Blake!" the White Xiao Long said, hopping from one foot to the other, eager to keep moving.
"We are," Ren answered. "The construction site is that way," he pointed past Weiss, down the path they had been moving along.
"What? No, it's that way," Weiss retorted, pointing past Ren.
"No, it is this way," Pyrrha said, holding up her Scroll. A map of the city was displayed, alongside the location they were to meet the others. It clearly showed that she and Ren were heading the right way…and that Weiss had been running in the exact opposite direction.
The white-haired genius's face turned red, and she started to stammer out something about 'Looking for an alternative route for a tactical advantage'.
"Maybe…you should just follow us," Ren suggested.
The directionally challenged Xiao Long sheepishly nodded.
"Yeah…that might be better…"
Weiss then slapped her cheeks lightly, firing herself up again.
"All right! Let's get going!" She said, moving behind Ren and Pyrrha and shooing them forward. The trio quickly picked up speed, racing through the city to reach Blake in time.
Inside the Paladin, Roman Torchwick was getting frustrated. He was perhaps the most powerful and deadly individual in the entire Kingdom at this moment, but he couldn't even catch two fleeing teenagers. He hadn't been able to get a clear shot while they were running and jumping along the warehouse roofs. Even when they were forced to descend to street level as they exited the Industrial District, the two stayed out of his crosshair by dashing and zigzagging across the street, taking sharp turns, and doing everything to stay one step ahead of him.
They couldn't keep it up forever.
When it looked like they were heading for the freeway, Roman grinned wickedly. If they thought he would restrain himself just because there were civilians nearby, then they were sadly mistaken.
He would gleefully toss and crush a hundred cars filled with innocent bystanders if it meant getting his hands on those brats. Such an open display of wanton violence and destruction wasn't his usual MO, for practical rather than moral reasons, but he had enough of these little do-gooders.
Although reports of a giant mech were certain to get the police scrambling, Torchwick was confident he could squash these little bugs before the cops showed up.
As for the subsequent police investigation, one of the perks of working for Cinder was the massive resources at his disposal. While the Council would certainly push hard for answers, the cops in this part of town were corrupt to the bone, so he could keep their search away from their operation until it was all too late.
He was at first surprised when, instead of heading up the on-ramp, the two took a side path that led underneath it. He reckoned they thought they would lose him under the Inter-Kingdom Highway. It was getting dark, the sun had almost set, and there would be few if any street lights down there. In the darkness, they probably felt they would lose him easily.
The joke was on them, as the Paladin contained a suite of laser, thermal and night vision sensors. He would find and crush them easily.
He maneuvered the bulky, yet surprisingly nimble, war machine around and under the on-ramp, continuing down until the highway became a dark ceiling above and support pillars were commonplace in a pure concrete landscape. His prey had continued onwards, with his sensors keeping track of them as the light grew dimmer.
The pursuit continued for a short time until the pair suddenly stopped running in the middle of what looked like a construction yard. There was an open section of the highway above, letting some light of the early moon shine down. The two turned to face the Paladin, drawing their weapons, and getting ready to fight.
Roman burst out laughing in the cockpit. Those two had spent all this time and energy running and now they wanted to fight. He stopped the Paladin a short distance from the two, aimed the arm cannons at them and prepared to fire.
He would give them a fight…a real short and messy one.
Before he could pull the trigger, the Paladin was rocked by several explosive impacts. Turning, Roman saw that a yellow motorcycle with an attached sidecar was heading straight for him, weapon fire coming from the passengers.
Roman grimaced at the arrival of even more of these annoying brats, while Blake's heart soared at the appearance of her sister.
Jaune Arc, on the other hand, was happy they had gotten here in one piece. While Yang had previously shown a tendency to bend traffic laws, in the pursuit of saving her little sister, she had decided to break all of them. Weaving in and out of traffic, taking hairpin turns, and running every red light, they must have broken most if not all the rules in the book. Jaune was honestly surprised they didn't end up with an entire squad of police cars chasing after them.
Yang took them onto the highway, speeding around the other cars and thankfully avoiding causing an accident. Jaune, having become the de facto navigator, double-checked the map on his Scroll and told Yang they were going to pass by the rendezvous point. The new section that was under construction didn't have access to the highway itself yet. They would need to take an off-ramp much further ahead and circle back underneath the highway, which would take time they might not have.
That didn't sit well with Yang, who decided to take her own path off the highway…by driving straight off it. She banked Bumblebee hard to the right and jumped the guardrail, causing them all to fall straight down over 100 feet to the ground below.
The three passengers were at first sure that Yang was insane before the fear of an impending death overtook their minds. But the blonde brawler hadn't leapt without thinking and calmly press a button on the left handlebar. Both Jaune and Nora had noticed the remarkable number of buttons and switches along the inside of Bumblebee, which Yang had gone to great lengths to make sure they didn't touch when she was teaching JNPR how to drive last week.
Now, they found just what they did, as a series of retro-thrusters ignited from the underside of Bumblebee and the sidecar, slowing their descent down considerably and resulting in them landing safely.
Yang took a moment to check on the others. Both Jaune and Neptune were completely pale, while Nora started whooping with joy, asking if they could do that again. The yellow Xiao Long flash them a grin before revving the engine and setting off for the construction site.
A short time later, they reached the site and saw Blake and the Atlasian Paladin. Standing up in their seats, Nora and Neptune fired their weapons as they got in range, with fiery shots similar to Yang's Ember Cilica erupting from the front of Bumblebee.
The Paladin was being barraged but it didn't seem to be damaging it much at all. It turned to face them, energy building up in its arm cannons.
"Yang!" Jaune cried out.
"I see it," she replied, pressing another button on the motorcycle. With a loud pop, the sidecar detached from Bumblebee. The now separate vehicles moved in different directions, with the shot from the Paladin missing them entirely.
That wasn't the only surprise Jaune received. The second was when a steering wheel suddenly popped out in front of him, followed shortly by the side accelerating quickly as a small jet engine emerged from the rear of the machine and ignited.
Just as Bumblebee was more than a simple motorcycle, Yang had built something more than a basic sidecar.
Jaune scrambled to take control of what was now a small rocket car.
"Keep it steady!" Neptune called out, doing his best to maintain his fire and his balance as the sidecar swerved around wildly.
"I'm trying!" Jaune shouted back. Suddenly going from passenger to controlling a rocket-powered Go-kart had taken him more than a little off-guard and keeping it under control was taking a lot of effort.
The now two vehicles proceeded to circle the Paladin, their respective passengers continuing to pepper the war machine with weapon fire. It wasn't doing much damage but there were keeping it off balance, the Paladin unable to turn quick enough to accurately fire at them.
Blake wasn't going to let her friends do all the work. Sword in one hand, bladed sheath in the other, she rushed towards the Paladin as it turned its back to her. She jumped up to its back, blades slashing all the while and attempted to stab into the cockpit from the top.
The armour was too thick, and her blades bounced off harmlessly. As the Paladin began to shake her off, Blake jumped forward, twisting in mid-air, and shifting her weapon. She fired a fully automatic burst into the cockpit canopy, which again had little effect.
Sun made his attack, taking the low road and dashing underneath the Paladin. He unleashed his gun-chucks, shooting point-blank at the leg joints and hoping that he could cripple its movements.
This didn't work, as the legs were just as well protected as the rest of the machine. The Paladin took a step back and raised one metal foot, intending to stomp Sun flat. The monkey-boy backflipped away, and while in mid-air, the Paladin aimed its arm cannon at him. Sun clapped his hands together and two yellow light clones of himself appeared, heading straight at the Paladin, and impacting right against the cockpit.
While Sun's Semblance didn't do any damage, it did through off Roman's aim, causing the Paladin to instead shoot the ground some distance away. It didn't hit anyone, but it left a sizable crater…right in the path of the sidecar.
"Oh crap!" Jaune shouted, turning hard on the steering wheel. The small car swerved hard, almost tipping over but still stopping just before it hit the crater. The blonde knight sighed in relief at not crashing, before realizing that they weren't moving at all. The rocket engine in the back sputtered and smoked before going out. Jaune looked around the inside of the sidecar for an ignition switch or something to get it started again but couldn't find anything.
His search was interrupted by Neptune tapping him hard on the shoulder. Looking up, he saw that the Paladin had taken notice of their situation and was aiming its arm cannon at them. The two scrambled out of the sidecar, but it was clear they wouldn't get clear in time.
Yang saw the situation and steered her bike right toward the Paladin. It had been inevitable that the sidecar would stall, as its booster engine was only designed for emergency use, but she hadn't counted on it cutting out at such a bad time. She wasn't going to leave those two hanging.
"Nora!" Yang called out as they got closer to the war machine.
"Ready!" the Valkyrie replied, changing Magnhild into hammer form.
Just before they would have collided with the Paladin, Yang braked hard and turned the bike into a sudden, tight spin. Nora used the momentum to leap into the air and slam her hammer down on the mech suit with an explosive smash.
Torchwick's aim was yet again spoiled, the shot aimed at Jaune and Neptune went wide and the mech stumbled backwards.
Yang wasn't done yet and still turning, popped Bumblebee forward onto its front wheel, leaving the back wheel hanging in the air towards the approaching back of the Paladin. A button press caused two metal rods to shoot out either side and impaled into the ground, locking the bike into place. The war mech made contact with the rear wheel of Bumblebee, the whole bike acting as a brace and stopping it from moving back further. It wasn't taking all of its weight, but it was still quite remarkable and showed how sturdy the bike's construction was.
Another button pressed and the rear wheel erupted into flames and a pull on the throttle caused it to start spinning, grinding, and burning against the back of the Paladin.
"How do you like my…Hot Wheels?!" Yang shouted, pumping her fist into the air, and eliciting groans from her comrades that were in earshot.
It was a good thing Roman couldn't hear her, otherwise, he would have probably redoubled his efforts to kill her specifically.
As it were, Nora's attack had shaken Roman up inside the cockpit and it took him several moments to realize what had happened and take notice of the blaring alarms. If he didn't move, then the high-intensity flames of that bike might melt the mech's armour.
The Paladin took a step forward, breaking contact with Bumblebee and swung one of its arms backwards in a wide arc, intending to swat Yang and her bike away.
The yellow Xiao Long saw this coming and quickly extinguished the fire and disengaged the spikes, letting the rear wheel fall back to the ground. She hit the throttle and the bike sped forwards, narrowly missing the Paladin`s swing.
Seeing that he missed, Roman turned the entire Paladin and aimed the retreating motorcycle, ready to blast the blonde spitfire into dust.
But Yang wasn`t on Bumblebee anymore, having backflipped off it and onto the top of the Paladin. Before Roman could realize the motorcycle he was aiming at was riderless, Yang unleashed a flurry of point-blank shotgun blasts against the top of the pilot canopy, shaking Roman around in his seat again.
She jumped off as the Paladin began to move again, landing in a low crouch. The mech turned to face her, its full firepower about to be brought to bear, but the blonde brawler only smiled. She still had a few tricks up her sleeve…literally.
A small twist at the base of her left gauntlet caused a small electronic keypad to pop out, and she rapidly started typing on it with her right hand. Bumblebee, which had been locked into moving away in a straight line, suddenly turned and braked, swinging around to face the Paladin. Two racks extended from either side of the bike and a barrage of micro-missiles were unleashed, impacting the back of the Paladin, and throwing it off balance again.
Everyone present, barring Blake, was starting to wonder just how many 'extra' features Yang had stuffed into her bike.
For herself, Yang just smiled at the successful field test of Bumblebee's Remote-Control function. She made a mental note to thank Weiss when she got the chance for helping out with this particular feature. While Yang was a whiz when it came to mechanical engineering and had a good grasp of computer hardware, she was hopeless when it came to creating software. Luckily, she had a genius little sister who would happily help out, seeing the task of creating a program to allow Yang to control all of Bumblebee`s functions remotely as a challenge to relish.
The fruits of her labour were clear to see, as Yang began to circle the Paladin, peppering it with shots from Ember Cilicia, while also having Bumblebee dart around the other side, firing its own shots before moving away. The others all moved back in, firing their weapons, or dashing in to slash at the mech`s legs. For a minute, the experimental war machine was helpless against this multi-directional attack, unable to aim or get to grips with anyone and being constantly showered with attacks.
But Roman Torchwick wasn`t some amateur fighter, and while he was new to using the Atlesian Paladin, he had survived as long as he had by being able to think quickly on his feet. Remembering how the sidecar had been taken out of the fight, he started to shoot the ground with the mech`s energy cannons, leaving craters all over the area.
Yang was a superb driver and could have easily avoided all of the craters if she had been riding Bumblebee. However, the remote control had a delay and the keypad couldn`t get the same level of precise control as being on it, so Bumblebee hit the edge of one of the craters and lost balance. The yellow bike toppled over and skidded along the ground for some distance, powering down and out of the fight.
The yellow Xiao Long`s eyes turned red at this. She was already planning to send Torchwick to the deepest level of Hell for trying to hurt her sisters for the third time, but for the added crime of damaging her bike, she was going to make sure all his bones were broken before that.
On the other side of the battlefield, Blake's ears suddenly perked up. After concentrating for a moment, she dashed forward towards the Paladin, sword in her right hand while her left was outstretched.
Yang took a step forward, about to call out to stop her when she turned her head as if listening to something. A smile came to her face, and she waved off Jaune and Sun, who had also started to chase the seemingly crazy cat girl.
Just as Blake reach the Paladin, ducking under swinging arms and getting underneath its body, a red streak came speeding in from the opposite direction. Ruby deactivated her Semblance just as she reached Blake, grabbing onto her outstretched hand with her own. Using her momentum, she began to spin the two of them around. With Blake's sword and Ruby's scythe held outwards, the two became a spinning human tornado of blades and death.
The legs of the Paladin took a rapid beating from the spinning Xiao Longs, but like before with Sun's attack, the joint plating was too strong, and no visible damage was done. The two stopped their spinning, and smiled at one another for a moment, before pushing off each other and getting some distance from the Paladin.
"Ladybug!" Ruby yelled. She pointed her scythe away from the mech, fired the rifle and used the momentum to dash back towards the Paladin. Blake did the same, the two passing by each other as they attacked. If they had been off by even a hair, they would have rammed into each other, but as with all things regarding the Xiao Long sisters, they were in perfect harmony. They dashed back and forth, hitting the Paladin's legs from opposite sides multiple times.
In the cockpit, a warning message let Roman know the danger of letting these two continue their attack, not that he was just going to roll over. Regaining control, he aimed the arm cannons at the ground and fired, first at the spot in front of the Paladin before quickly turning and shooting the space behind.
With the sudden explosions and craters in their paths, both Blake and Ruby were forced to halt their attack and quickly change course. Blake skidded to stop and backflipped away, while Ruby used her Semblance to dash backwards away from the Paladin.
Roman focused his attention on the red cape-wearing girl, seeing her as being where all his recent misfortunes had started.
Ruby stood her ground as the Paladin turned to face her. She leaned casually against her scythe, tilting her head, and giving a lop-sided smile, serving to infuriate the already out-of-patience Torchwich, who prepared to fire.
What Torchwick forgot to take into account was that Ruby had three very protective siblings, and the fourth Xiao Long sister made her appearance as a black glyph appeared on the Paladin's hull. This was followed by a large lance flying through the air and hitting the centre of the glyph.
While the initial impact had little effect, the subsequent explosion of Wind Dust certainly did, knocking the Paladin back and almost tipping it over.
Ruby maintained her relaxed stance as Weiss walked up beside her, hand outstretched to retrieve Myrtenaster. She did turn and give her big sister a kiss on the cheek, who returned it with one of her own before the two hefted their weapons and faced the Paladin.
They were joined by Blake and Yang, Team RWBY stood side-by-side, ready to take their foe down together.
In the Paladin, Roman was breathing heavily, not due to physical exhaustion but from his boiling temper.
"I'm going to kill them, I'm going to kill them," he repeated to himself like a mantra. "I'm going to kill these damn brats if it's the last thing I do!"
He made the Paladin turn towards the Xiao Long Sisters, aiming and charging both arm cannons to annihilate all of them at once.
As he looked over at the soon-to-be-vaporized teenagers, he noticed that the white-haired girl was raising one hand and pointing up. Despite his instincts telling him not to look away from his foes, Roman found himself looking up, at the unfinished highway above.
Dropping from the edge of the incomplete contrition, Ren fell like a graceful green meteorite, hitting the Paladin with a powerful Aura-palm strike.
The force of the strike sent a shockwave through the air and the Paladin stumbled backwards, almost tipping over. Ren was also blasted backwards into the air, but he twisted around elegantly and landed in a low crouch.
It took a few movements for Roman to regain control of the mech, the whole thing stumbling and spinning before it got back onto firm footing. Only when he steadied it out, did he notice that another red-headed teenager was standing in front of the war machine, this one with long hair and wearing bronze armour.
"PYRRHA!"
The champion of Mistral's chest swelled as her friends and teammates shouted her name. She had stood in the centre of massive stadiums and had tens of thousands of people chanting 'Nikos! Nikos!', but that was just a dull murmur compared to the roaring emotions she now felt.
By her parents' design, she was always acclaimed by her family name, as that was what she was supposed to be, and an extension of her family. But here, she wasn't the 'Champion Nikos' but just Pyrrha, Huntress-in-Training.
It was obvious what she had to do, almost ridiculously so. They were fighting a walking chunk of metal, so of course, they wanted the girl who controls magnets to enter the fray.
But that was why this situation was so special. There wasn't any vague notion of 'Saving the World', just a simple and clear task. This walking metal monstrosity was the question…and Pyrrha was the answer.
This was her moment.
This was her destiny.
Black energy swirled around her arms, and with a mighty yell, she swung her hands towards the Paladin. A wave of black energy flew through the air and enveloped the Atlesian mech, completely immobilizing it. Alarms blared inside the cockpit as Torchwick frantically pushed buttons and pulled levers, desperately trying to make the Paladin move, or fire a weapon, or anything besides being a sitting duck,
Pyrrha fell to her knees, the black energy of her Semblance mixing with the red of her Aura, which was flaring brightly. It wasn't just that it was heavy, she had lifted objects with a higher gross weight before, it was that it was such a complicated target.
She had to keep the exhaust vents of the arm cannons closed to prevent them from firing, along with the flaps over the missile pods she had noticed along its back. The machine was also made with a strange new alloy that she didn't fully understand, making it hard to get a firm grasp with her Semblance. It was like trying to lift a boulder that was covered in grease.
Top it off with the fact that, unlike the shipping containers she had been made to lift during her training, this metal object was struggling against her. It took everything she had just to hold it in place. There was no chance of her lifting it, tearing a limb off, or even affecting its internal systems.
This was all she could do, but she had faith her friend would make the best of the opportunity she was providing.
The members of RWBY, JNPR and SSSN regrouped a short distance away, on the other side of the Paladin.
"P-Money's got a hold of Tin-Man, but I doubt she can hold him forever, so what's the pan?" Yang asked, reloading her gauntlets. She considered switching to 'Barrage Mode' but given how much punishment she and the others had already meted out with no visible effect; she wasn't sure it would work.
Both Ruby and Jaune looked over at the immobilized, racking their brains for an idea to take this thing down.
Inspiration hit the blonde knight first, with all the pieces of information coming together at once. These flashes of insight had been coming to him since he arrived at Beacon, allowing him to put the pieces of his heavy personal workload together and keep up with everyone. It didn't make him a genius by any means, and he was just barely passing his classes, but it did help when he needed it.
So focused on the Paladin, no one noticed the brief flash of white light in Jaune's right eye, taking the form of a lamp before vanishing.
"We have to hit it hard in one spot," Jaune said. "The front and back seem like the most protected but it looked like he was desperate to protect the legs from that earlier attack. If we all focus there, we should be able to disable it."
He turned to face the others.
"Anyone got Lighting Dust on them?" he asked.
"I do," Weiss answered, ejecting a small vial of yellow Dust from the revolver chamber of her weapon.
"Good. Give that to Nora so she can charge up her Semblance. A full-powered swing from her hammer should do some damage."
"So…you want me to break his legs?" Nora asked with a grin.
"Exactly. But it wouldn't just be you," Jaune turned to Ruby and Yang. "You said before that you have a team attack that boosts Yang's Semblance?"
"Yeah, 'Enabler'. It's risky, but it might be our best shot…Yang?"
The yellow Xiao Long sighed and rolled her shoulders.
"…Fine. If you think it will work…better than letting 'Robo Jock' smash me through a concrete pillar, I guess…" It was hard to sound enthusiastic about letting Ruby hit her repeatably to build up her Semblance quickly, but it was safer than goading her opponent to do the same.
"Once you're stored up enough energy, we can use 'Burning Rose' to close the distance quickly and hit one of the legs as hard as possible," Ruby added.
"Good," Jaune said. "With Nora going for the other one, we should be able to knock him down for good. The rest of us can follow up and do what we can with our weapons. With luck, we can get under its armour and attack its internal systems. If we can fully disable it, that should take the strain off Pyrrha, letting her rip the cockpit out or…PYRRHA! Watch Out!"
Jaune's sudden warning took everyone by surprise, and they looked over toward the kneeling redhead. Pyrrha looked towards Jaune at the calling of her name before her well-honed battle instincts kicked in and made her roll quickly to the side, barely dodging the red katana that had been falling towards her.
While a miss, the surprise attack still achieved its desired effect. As Pyrrha rolled away, her concentration was broken and the black energy restraining the Atlesian Paladin dissipated. The machine jolted back into motion; all the actions Roman had frantically tried to do now happened all at once. The mech stumbled and twisted around, its arm cannons fired several shots off wildly while a barrage of missiles was unleashed over the whole area, several heading straight for the group of Beacon students.
The group scattered, either jumping, dashing, or backflipping out of danger. Everyone got out safely, but Weiss had been forced to drop the vial of Lightning Dust; the small container was destroyed in the explosion.
When the smoke cleared, the scattered teens saw who had attacked Pyrrha. That red katana hadn't simply fallen from the sky on its own; it had been wielded by the leader of the newly minted Red Fang and Adam Taurus made a show of re-sheathing his sword before stepping up next to the Paladin.
"Problem, Roman?"
"I…had it under control…" Roman answered, the external speakers not completely hiding how out of breath he was from that moment of helplessness.
Roman only smirked before turning to face the general direction of the Beacon students.
Hovering above was a pitch-black Bullhead, running so silently that even Blake hadn't been able to hear it approaching. These stealth-equipped aircraft had been among the most useful pieces of equipment provided by Cinder's group, allowing Adam and his Red Fang easy access to and from the city. Adam had used this Bullhead to travel to the recruitment meeting tonight and again to chase after Torchwick. Along with making sure that Roman didn't mess everything up by going on a rampage in a giant robot, Adam also wanted another crack at this group of interfering teens. Part of him simply wanted revenge for the debacle at the docks but another part was just…intrigued.
Another figure jumped down from the Bullhead before the aircraft moved away, a thin person in all black with a long sword in one hand.
"So, Ilia wants to join in as well?" Adam thought to himself. He hadn't instructed her to follow him, though he hadn't told her to stay put either. He honestly forgot she had been there with him and reasoned that she was just fulfilling her duty to protect him.
Not that he knew what was ever going through her mind…not that he would want to know…
Still, it was three-on-ten, which while not the best odds, didn't make Adam worried. These kids were skilled, true, but still just kids. As long as they didn't slip up, they should be able to handle this.
Adam noticed that the red-haired girl that he had attacked while jumping from the Bullhead rolled away to a spot nearby and was still crouching. That had been an impressive dodge, though even if she hadn't, his blade would have only gone through her shoulder. He still couldn't make his blade go for a lethal strike, but he still wasn't going to lose this fight.
He started to walk towards the prone girl, the one he was the most interested in. He still didn't know why this Pyrrha Nikos, this Champion girl from Mistral, invoked such odd feelings but he was going to get to the bottom of it.
"You might be thinking that you're acting in the name of Justice," Adam said, striding forward confidently. "But you can't stand against our righteous Revolution and-"
His little speech was cut short as Pyrrha suddenly stood, whirled around, and threw her shield at him. Adam quickly deflected the attack with his sheathed sword and stumbled back a few steps. The bronze shield flipped high into the hand before flying back into Pyrrha's hand, a black outline surrounding it.
Adam was surprised, both by the unexpected attack and by the look on the red-haired girl's face. Her teeth were gritted, and her green eyes were blazing with anger, where tears were beginning to form at the edges. This girl…was very upset.
An understatement, as a whirling hurricane of emotions, was swirling within Pyrrha. This had been her moment, her destiny fulfilled, and this man had ruined it. He had ruined everything…he had stolen her destiny.
She didn't care how ridiculous that sounded, all she cared about was hurting this person as much as possible.
Adam was overcome with the desire to apologize and wipe those tears away. Why…why did he feel this way toward this girl? He drew his sword and squared off against her, determined to not let these feelings stop him from completing his mission.
Nearby, the Paladin unleashed another volley of missiles, followed by a barrage from its arm cannons. The rest of the group scattered to avoid the weapon fire, with Blake dashing through the explosions, making a beeline towards the masked assassin.
She jumped into the air, blade held in both hands and brought it down on Tukson's attacker. The black figure didn't move to dodge, simply raising their rapier and bracing themselves. The blades connected and the assassin was forced back a few steps, but otherwise blocked the attack easily.
Blake's eyes blazed with anger as the two locked swords, anger that increased as a small, crooked smile appeared on her opponent's face.
"You bastard! I won't forgive you! I'll make you pay, I'll-"
Blake was cut off as the masked assassin suddenly leaned forward, stuck out their tongue and licked her cheek. The black Xiao Long was quiet for a moment before she leapt back and frantically started wiping her cheek.
'Eew, Eew, Eeeeewwwww!" She screamed, disgust mixing with anger towards the assassin. "What is wrong with you? You Sicko!"
The assassin moved forward and opened their mouth to say something when they were tackled from the side by a bright red streak that was trailing rose petals.
"R-Ruby?!" Blake cried as the two flew towards the far side of the construction site. She started to give chase but had to backflip away from a shot from the Paladin and was forced to dodge around to avoid being blasted, unable to back up Ruby.
The red Xiao Long's Semblance cut at some distance away from the fighting and the two tumbled to the ground. The reaper and assassin struggled, rolling in the dirt before Ruby got Ilia on her back, trapped her sword arm under her scythe and grabbed her neck in a vice grip with her other hand.
"Blake is mine! You will not touch her," Ruby said in a stern, even tone. She had been surveying the battlefield right after the missile barrage, seeing if there was a spot to set up her sniper rifle when she saw this person lick her Blake.
Cold rage filled the young girl at his sight, at the sheer insolence. Without really thinking, she had dashed across the battlefield and tackled the black assassin, wanting and needing to get her hands on them.
Now she looked down with cold eyes at the person she was choking the life out of. She was vaguely aware of how the parts of their face that were not covered by the mask shifted among a myriad of different colours. All she cared about was that life was being drained from them.
Ilia used her free hand to grab onto Ruby's, not able to break but loosen her grip on her neck.
"She's…your sister? She…belongs to you?" Ilia croaked out.
"Yes, she's mine," Ruby answered.
"So…all I have to do is take her from you and make her mine instead."
Ruby could only tilt her head and frown at this. What this person was saying was impossible. Blake was her sister…all three of them were her sisters. Her sisters were…her sisters. That was just a fundamental fact of the universe in her mind. This person might as well have said she wanted to put the sun in her pocket, it was absolutely ridiculous.
Ilia's words had the intended effect of distracting Ruby momentarily, giving her enough leeway to pull Ruby closer into a headbutt, her mask impacting the leader of RWBY's unprotected forehead. She then pushed the stunned Ruby off her and knocked the scythe out of her hand before kicking her in the stomach, sending her backwards. Ilia jumped back onto her feet and brandished her sword-whip, ready to take this little brat down.
She was stopped by the strange sight before her; Ruby had recovered almost immediately and was back on her feet, but instead of attempting to run or defend herself, she was pacing back and forth and muttering to herself.
"Blake is my sister, mine. No one can take her from me," the red reaper spoke to herself as if she was anywhere else besides a life-or-death battle. "But…But if someone did take her away, then she wouldn't be my sister anymore."
Ruby stopped in her tracks, her eyes darting back and forth, not blinking.
"If she's not my sister then…she's not my sister…and I'm not her little sister. If Blake's not my big sister, then…who is she? If I'm not her little sister, then…then who am I? I…I…"
Ruby closed her eyes and held her head in her hands, as if in pain before she started to dissolve.
Ilia couldn't believe her eyes and thought she was just having another episode for a moment. It was as if the molecules of her body were coming undone, leaving only a vague impression of her features and clothing. It was surreal and Ilia didn't know what to make of it.
Suddenly, Ruby snapped back together, regaining her full form, and looking none the worse. The girl looked around, eyes wide, before turning towards Ilia.
"I'm going to kill you now," Ruby said in such a matter-of-fact tone that it took Ilia a moment to understand. A second later, Ruby threw herself towards the chameleon Faunus, rose petals swirling around her.
While Ruby wasn't quite as 'garbage' at hand-to-hand combat as she claimed to be, it was a fact that she wasn't suited to straightforward brawling like Yang was. But when it came to finding and attacking an enemy's weak points with the intent to cause critical damage, then Ruby had an innate talent, as shown when Ruby thrust her left thumb toward Ilia's face, meaning to slip through the narrow opening in the mask and gouge her eye out.
Ilia reacted just in time, tilting her head slightly and making the thumb glace off her mask instead. But Ruby wasn't done and while her left blow was stopped, her right hand flew out, hitting Ilia's exposed neck and pinching her artery.
With her air and blood flow suddenly impaired, Ilia tried to back away and get some distance, but Ruby stopped her by stomping on her foot. The assassin knocked the reaper's hand away, letting her breathe again but Ruby followed by hitting Ilia hard in the kidneys with her left hand. This made Ilia wince and naturally move to protect her injured right side, leaving her left exposed. Ruby's right hand formed into a fist with the middle knuckle raised slightly and hit Ilia square in the ribs.
The hardened killer barely suppressed a cry as the bone fractured, her Aura unable to block such a fast and focused attack. She saw Ruby pull her fist back for another blow, intending to fully break her ribs and cause internal damage.
Ilia quickly grabbed onto Ruby with her left hand, pulling her close while starting to turn, planning to throw the girl off her.
Ruby countered by grabbing Ilia's arm, twisting out of her grip, and sliding around behind her. She pulled Ilia's arm back and wrenched it hard, readying to dislocate her opponent's shoulder.
In desperation, Ilia extended her whip and swung it so it would wrap around the two of them. She would then activate the Lightning Dust within, shocking both of them and hopefully getting this girl off her. It was a huge risk and not something the usually careful and calculating assassin would consider, but this fight was pushing her in ways she wasn't used to.
Ruby saw the attack incoming and let go of Ilia and dashed backwards to avoid getting trapped. She stopped a short distance away, crouching low before throwing herself back at Ilia.
Ilia stopped her desperation attack as Ruby let her arm go and she turned quickly to face her. With her whip extended and limp, she couldn't bring her weapon up fast enough to block, forcing her to dodge to the side.
When all she got was empty air, Ruby deactivated her Semblance, stopped in her tracks, and turned around before launching back at Ilia, rose petals falling in her wake.
For the next minute, Ilia found herself playing a matador against a small, fast but still very deadly bull named Ruby Rose. She dodged and sidestepped just in time, managing to avoid getting grabbed again but not able to counterattack.
Finally, after retracting her whip back into a sword, Ilia started to get a pattern down. She dodged another tackle, managing to hit Ruby as she passed. It was only a nick, but the electricity flowing through her weapon still shocked Ruby, enough that she fell to her knees several feet away.
"If all you can do is move in a straight line, then you have no hope of winning," Ilia said, a cruel smile forming on her face. Taunting her foes wasn't something she did, it was pointless for an assassin, but this girl had gotten to her in more ways than one.
Killing her would be a treat.
Ruby got back to her feet, breathing hard and trying to think of something. The all-consuming need to get her hands on the one who defiled her sister was fading a bit, letting her think more clearly. There wasn't much she could do, as this bitch was right in that her Semblance only let her move fast in one direction…
"I believe your Semblance involves travelling at an extreme velocity from one point to another by breaking yourself down to your molecular components, negating your mass and then reassembling them at the destination."
Silver eyes widened as the memory flooded her mind. Her thoughts were still too hazy to remember who said that or when, but if they were right, then Ruby would owe them a plate of cookies and a big kiss.
If this was right, and she wasn't simply moving fast but instead disassembling and reassembling her molecules at different points, then she wasn't limited to straight lines or locked to a two-dimensional plane. There wasn't any limit on what she could do with her Semblance if this was the case.
Ruby turned to face Ilia, still in a crouch and focused her mind. Rose petals began to swirl around her once again as her Semblance activated, but this time she spread it out more along her entire body, rather than just her legs, and tried to make the unique energy reach deeper into her body than ever before.
Experimenting with one's Semblance during a life-or-death battle wasn't the wisest move, but desperate times called for desperate measures. She focused intensely on where she was, where she wanted to go, and how she would get there. She leapt forwards, barreling towards Ilia once again, her cape moving on its own to wrap around her.
Ilia braced herself. She was confident she could fully counter the attack this time. The flowing cape obscured Ruby's body but she could still judge where she was. She lifted her rapier, ready to stab this brat right through the heart.
Ruby got into range and Ilia thrust her rapier when something strange happened. The red mass that Ruby had turned into suddenly shifted, avoiding Ilia's attack, and moving around her. The chameleon was surprised and tried to turn but was too slow. The red swirl got behind her and unravelled to fully reveal Ruby, who immediately landed a powerful kick to her back that sent her sprawling to the ground several feet away.
Ruby couldn't help but smile at her success. Her Semblance gave her true freedom of movement; the sky was the limit. She would have to thank Weiss for pointing out how her Semblance worked.
Wait…no…it hadn't been Weiss who told her about her Semblance. Had it been Blake? No…and it wasn't Yang, so who? She knew it was someone important, but other than her sisters, who else was important to her?
No matter, she had more pressing issues to deal with right now, like getting her hands back around her foe's neck.
She took a step forward…and immediately dropped to her knees as pain shot through her entire body. It felt like she had pulled or torn every muscle in her body and even breathing was almost too much for her, let alone getting back up.
"Geez Penny…when you analyzed my Semblance, couldn't you have made a note about the strain it could put on my body? I know this is my fault and all, but a little heads up would have been nice."
Penny…it had been Penny who told her about the nature of her Semblance. How had she forgotten about that? It had happened just earlier today.
Ruby didn't have time to worry about her short-term memory. The haze was fully expelled from her mind, and she now could comprehend how bad her situation was.
She was too far from her team and allies to quickly call for backup. She was all alone, immobilized and, for some inexplicable reason, she hadn't tried to retrieve her scythe, which still lay on the ground where it had landed when Ilia kicked it out of her hand. It was far out of reach and, unable to move, Ruby was completely helpless.
It was this huddled, shaking, helpless girl that Ilia faced as she got back up. It was so strange how things changed so rapidly with this brat, but she wasn't going to complain about this latest development.
She was going to relish it. She slowly advanced towards the prone girl, a wide smile on her face and her whip held high. She was going to take her time, slowly bleed her out until there was nothing of Blake's little sister left.
Then she could start making Blake all hers.
Ruby's hands scrambled around her belt, searching for anything she could use to defend herself. The pain from even this motion was almost too much for her, part of her mind begging her to stop and just curl into a ball despite the situation.
Her hands finally found something, something she didn't normally carry, and her eyes widened with realization and hope.
"Weiss…I love you."
Ilia finally got close enough and raised her whip when Ruby suddenly threw something at her, before pulling her hood on and looking away. Ilia only had enough time to comprehend that the object was a small sphere before it exploded.
The firecrackers Weiss had made were simple and harmless in most instances, but she hadn't been able to resist the urge to tweak with the Dust compound. She had packed as much power into the small sphere as possible. When it went off, it let out a very loud bang and a very bright flash…and it went off right in Ilia's face.
The assassin stumbled backwards, one hand trying to cover her eyes through the mask while crying out in pain.
"You bitch, you bitch, you fucking bitch!" she screamed, barely able to hear herself as her ears were ringing so loudly. She switched her weapon into its pistol mode and began firing blindly around.
The shots all went wide but Ruby wasn't safe if she just stayed put, as Ilia would recover soon enough. She gathered her resolve and dashed forward with her Semblance, reaching the spot where Crescent Rose lay.
That short dash almost made Ruby pass out, her body protesting against any movement, let alone ones using her Semblance. But she needed to get some distance from her enraged opponent. Using the last of her energy and willpower, she dashed towards the main battlefield.
The searing pain began to turn to chill numbness and Ruby knew she was about to pass out. The sounds of fighting grew louder but just jumping into the middle of a chaotic battle wasn't the best idea.
Her vision began to grow dim and consciousness started slipping but she pressed on. She needed to get somewhere safe, somewhere she would be protected. She needed her sisters…her sisters…her sisters…
"RUBY!"
The red Xiao Long just barely heard her name being called and adjusted her trajectory as much as she could toward it. Her Semblance finally cut out as the last of her energy was drained, but just before she hit the ground, a pair of arms grabbed and embraced her.
Ruby let out a sigh of relief as unconsciousness took her, knowing that she was safe.
She was home.
"Ruby? Ruby!" Weiss frantically called her little sister's name as she cradled Ruby in her arms. She was out cold, though it didn't appear that she was seriously wounded or anything.
Weiss had seen Ruby's sudden tackle of the assassin and like Blake, had tried to go after her but had been blocked by the relentless and wild gunfire of the Paladin. She had slowly edged around the battlefield in the direction Ruby had gone, and so was well place to see and grab her when she suddenly came flying back.
Managing to keep her panic in check, Weiss was about to call for help and carry Ruby to somewhere safe, when a blood-curdling scream cut through the air and made the white Xiao Long look up. Barreling towards her and Ruby was the black assassin.
Although…they weren't wholly black anymore. Before, it had been almost impossible to distinguish their skin from this clothing, but it was crystal clear now. Their arms, legs and lower face had turned a bright red colour, and a couple of strands of yellow hair had fallen from under their hood. There was no way this was natural, that their skin and hair could suddenly change…like a chameleon.
Weiss didn't have any more time to contemplate as she realized the screaming Faunus was coming straight for her, or rather Ruby. Whatever her baby sister had done, this person was royally pissed off.
While still some distance away, Ilia hefted her whip and lashed it out toward the pair. She was at the maximum range for her weapon and wasn't at all precise, but she didn't care, wanting only to start killing the bitch who opposed her.
Weiss didn't have time to dodge, not while holding Ruby. She wrapped her arms around her sister and raised Myrneister, but it was a feeble guard. She was going to get hit but if it meant protecting her sister, then she would accept any wound.
Luckily, she didn't have to find out how much that whip would hurt, as the attack was blocked at the last moment by a third party.
To Weiss's surprise, the whip hadn't been blocked by a sword, a shield, or gauntlet or even a hammer, as she might have expected. It was a trident, and the blue-haired male wielding it had just saved Weiss and Ruby.
Neptune deflected the whip away before shifting his weapon into rifle mode and firing a series of shots toward Ilia. The red Faunus had to duck and dodge, forcing her away from the two vulnerable Xiao Longs.
"Get your sister into cover now!" Neptune shouted, keeping up a suppressive fire.
"But…I…wha…" the normally eloquent girl was at a loss for words, not from what Neptune said but what he didn't.
No 'heroic' self-promotion, no cheesy pick-up line, just a regular guy protecting someone in need. It was…the most genuine thing she had seen out of Neptune.
"Get moving, now!" the blue-haired youth shouted again. The red-skinned assassin had darted out of cover and was making a beeline for Ruby and Weiss. Neptune switched his weapon back into a trident and rushed forward to block her.
Weiss bit her lip for a moment before picking up Ruby and running in the opposite direction. There were a host of thoughts and emotions swirling in her head right now, but the overriding concern was getting her little sister to safety.
The battle continued unabated, with Pyrrha holding her own against Adam, Blake helping Neptune against Ilia, with everyone else against the Paladin. Yang and Nora pounded away with their strongest blows while Ren, Jaune and Sun took opportunistic swipes when they presented themselves, but like before, they weren't making much progress.
Ren circles around the mech, firing his machine pistols continuously. Any regular target would have been turned to mincemeat by all the firepower he had poured into it, but the armour of the Paladin was too thick for the calibre Stormflower used to have any impact. This wasn't the best matchup for him, and Ren was thinking about moving over to support Pyrrha instead when the Paladin shot another blast of energy at him.
Ren successfully jumped to the side and avoided a direct hit, but the explosion from the shot impacting the ground nearby still unbalanced him. Adding in flying debris hitting him in the temple and Ren was left laying on the ground, dazed.
Roman couldn't follow up on this as Nora immediately launched a barrage of her own, making sure the mech didn't fire on her partner.
Ren slowly got back up, picking up his fallen pistols as he got to his knees. His grip was tight, reflecting the growing frustration within him. He just wasn't being of any use in this fight. Another coughing fit took hold for a couple of seconds and when he could focus again, Ren saw someone standing in front of him.
It was his father, looming over him, blood pouring down part of his face and cold eyes piercing into him.
Boys are easier to deal with than girls
His mouth didn't move, but the words rang loudly in Ren's mind. He gritted his teeth as anger boiled up inside of him. He was…useless…pathetic…of no value whatsoever…
"Ren!" Jaune called out, looking over at his unmoving teammate. "Are you okay? Are you hurt or…"
He trailed off as, getting a bit closer, he thought he saw something standing in front of Ren. It almost looked like a vague outline of…a person? He couldn't make out anything else but a shadowy image but just knew that it was…wrong.
Jaune was also too far away to see the brief flash of light within Ren's right eye, which took the form of a staff before fading.
Ren suddenly let out a scream of pure rage, leapt to his feet and charged forward, running through the shadowy image and dispersing it.
'Ren, wait!" Jaune called out, to no avail.
All Ren saw was red, and he fired Stormflower at the Paladin until it was empty. He kept running and jumped onto the Paladin's back, stabbing his pistol's blades against the metal plating over and over.
"I'm not weak! I'm not useless!" Ren repeated to himself. "I'm strong. I'll save everyone. I'm not more difficult to deal with then-"
Ren's thoughts and attack were cut short when the Paladin jumped backwards. He had no time to move before he was slammed into one of the freeway's support pillars, the weight of the mech crushing against him.
The Paladin took a step, leaving a barely conscious Ren stuck to the pillar. He had enough presence of mind left to see the right arm change into a fist. The Paladin spun around and punched Ren right through the pillar, shattering the reinforced concrete into pieces. The green ninja flew through the air, Aura flickering and fading, before landing on the ground and lying still.
"REN!" Jaune cried out, running towards his fallen friend as fast as he could.
It was too slow and Jaune was helpless as the Paladin approached Ren and raised a foot to crush him.
Something else did move fast enough to intervene, as a pink streak flashed across the battlefield and reached Ren just as the large metal foot came down.
Roman was confused when the Paladin's foot stopped before it reached the ground and turned one of these annoying brats into a red paste and was more confused when the foot began to raise back up against his wishes.
Standing in front of Ren, weapon held horizontally against the bottom of the mechanical foot, was Nora. The pink diamonds on her bracelets and choker were glowing, and sparks of electricity were shooting from her arms. Her eyes were blazing with anger and determination.
"Don't…Touch…My…REN!"
With a mighty heave, Nora pushed the large machine back. The Paladin was literally put on the back foot, and it was almost comical how it was forced to balance and hop on one leg for a few seconds before regaining its footing.
Nora followed this up with a hammer strike to the centre of the Paladin. While Nora had been hitting the Paladin hard the whole fight, this swing had a lot more to it. The heavy mech was pushed back again, digging deep grove into the ground as it slid back several metres before stopping.
Torchwick had no time to counterattack, as he was bombarded by fiery blasts from Yang, who had activated Ember Celica's Barrage Mode. It wasn't doing much damage, but it was keeping the war machine occupied and in place.
This gave time for Jaune to reach the fallen Ren, joined shortly by Nora. Faint, shallow breathing showed that Ren was still alive, to their relief, as his Aura had taken the brunt of the attack. Still, if he didn't get medical attention soon, then things would get much worse.
"We need to end this…now," Jaune stated, looking out across the battlefield.
"Easier said than done," Nora remarked, still focused on Ren. "We've been hitting that damn mech as hard as we can, but we're barely putting a dent in it".
"We can't focus on the mech with those two other fighters interfering, nor can we try and concentrate on them with the mech firing all over the place".
"Should we cut our losses and run?" Nora suggested. "I can fire off some smoke grenades and we can make a break for Beacon".
"With how relentlessly Torchwick chased Blake and Sun here, I doubt he will give up now, and if we scattered, we'll be easier to pick off," Jaune countered.
"Do we call the police or Beacon for help then?"
"It would take time for any help to arrive and longer still for the heavy firepower we need to show up."
"We need to do something!" Nora's voice rose in frustration. "If we don't…then Ren will…"
Jaune placed a hand on her shoulder, and the riled-up Valkyrie let out a deep breath.
"Sorry…just feeling a bit useless here," Nora apologized, giving a small smile to Jaune. "I just wish these White Fang weirdoes would have waited a few more minutes before crashing the party. We could have gone through with your plan and taken that mech and Torchwick out of commission by now. Would have made things easier…"
Inspiration flashed in both Jaune's mind and right eye.
"That's it! We have to complete the plan!"
Nora looked over at Jaune, confused.
"We lost the vial of Lightning Dust Weiss had, but I remember seeing a portable generator for the construction site over that way," Jaune gestured in the direction of where the group had driven Yang's motorcycle last time they were here. "That thing must be filled with Dust. If you absorb it, you should have more than enough power to at least knock that mech down. Then we can either focus on the other White Fangs or we can retreat."
"I…well…that could work…but…" Nora stuttered, hesitant for some reason.
"I know it not much on the details, but this might be our only chance. I'll get Ren to safety and watch over him. You get yourself charged up and take these guys out."
Nora looked at Jaune for a moment, debating if this was the best plan, before looking down at Ren once more and nodding. She got up and started towards the other end of the construction site, where Jaune had seen the generators being kept.
"I'm counting on you, Nora!" Jaune called out to her as she started on her way.
Nora stumbled slightly as a rush of emotions ran through her at Jaune's words. She recovered and hurried onward.
Jaune watched her go, a small smile on his face. He trusted Nora would be back soon, ready and able to save them all from this mess. She was his friend, his teammate, his comrade.
His Queen.
Jaune looked down at Ren, before looking across the battlefield where Pyrrha was fighting.
While Nora may be his Queen, she wasn't the only one who had a strong grasp on his heart and emotions.
Shaking his head, Jaune picked up Ren, surprised by how light he was, and head away from the fighting. He would protect Ren, no matter what.
The battle raged on, and it wasn't going well for the Beacon students. Their numerical superiority of ten to three had been cut in half, while their foes had not been significantly reduced. The Paladin had taken some damage and Ilia's eyes hadn't completely recovered, but both were still fighting at near-full capacity.
Suddenly, a strange sound echoed through the area, causing all fighters to step back for a moment and look around. It sounded like a terrified rooster getting strangled and everyone soon realized it was coming from above.
Looking up, a red and white streak was seen falling from the unfinished highway above. Something green and white was hanging off of it and it was descending rapidly, the strangled cry continuing all the while.
It was…a bird? No… a plane…not, it was…
"It's Scarlet!" Sun cried out. "And Sage! The rest of my team is here."
The remaining pair of Team SSSN had come as fast as they could, but not being native to the city, had taken a few wrong turns. The last one resulted in them following the highway directly instead of going underneath it.
The two thus ended up high above the battlefield. Neither had the confidence to take a dive from up here to launch an attack, like Ren had done, especially with multiple moving targets in what was now a very chaotic scene. Going back and then around would take too long, so Sage made the next logical move.
He picked up Scarlet and, holding him over his head, jumped off the highway. This seemingly insane plan did have merit, as Scarlet's Semblance made him into a human glider. The problem is that his ability to glide was hampered if he was carrying a heavy weight, such as a second person. While not a straight drop, they still fell very quickly, hence Scarlet screaming like a strangled rooster.
Sage knew all this and still went ahead with it; as Scarlet had pointed out more than once, he wasn't leadership material.
Still, Scarlet managed to gain some control and get them over the Paladin. Sage let go, dropping down while drawing his sword and slamming into the Paladin, knocking it back a few steps. He landed on his feet, readying his blade for a follow-up attack.
With the extra weight gone, Scarlet had much better control of his gliding. He drew his sword and gun and curved downwards. He fired his gun at Ilia, driving her back before diving towards Adam. The two crossed blades, with Scarlet's momentum giving him the force to knock the Red Fang Leader back. Scarlet then flipped back and landed on the ground, weapons at the ready.
"OH YEAH!" Sun shouted, pumping his fists into the air. "That was awesome you guys!"
Sage gave his team leader a smug smile while Scarlet…was shaking his left foot for some reason.
"What's wrong?" Sun asked.
"I think I got some gravel in my shoe," the redhead replied.
"DUDE! BE COOL!" Sun shouted, exasperated. Sometimes his teammate was just too fussy over the smallest thing.
Adam rushed forwards, intending to punish this new interloper for being so fussy and letting his attention slip. The Faunus swordsman dashed forwards and locked blades with Scarlet, meaning to take him out quickly before returning his focus to Pyrrha.
Much to Adam's surprise, Scarlet proved a very competent swordsman, blocking the sudden attack. The two traded blows and while Adam was confident that he was the better swordsman and would eventually overpower Scarlet, it wouldn't be as quick as he first thought. Not quick enough to prevent Scarlet from bringing his pistol to bear and firing point-blank.
The advantage of having separate weapons was that Scarlet could switch between them much faster than a combined weapon or he could use them simultaneously. Adam jumped back to avoid the bullets but didn't have enough time to shift his weapon into gun mode and return fire before he was forced to duck under a flying bronze shield.
Pyrrha re-engaged, having used the opportunity created by Scarlet to catch her breath. Scarlet moved to support his fellow redhead and Adam found himself completely on the defensive, holding his own but unable to mount an attack.
Away from the fighting, Jaune carried Ren to safety. He spotted a large concrete barricade to one side and decided to head there. On the other side, he found to his surprise, Weiss cradling an unconscious Ruby.
"What happened?" Jaune and Weiss shouted at the same time. They stared at one another for a moment before Jaune collected himself.
"Ren took a bad hit from that mech. Nora's gone to find an electric generator to power up and hopefully end this fight. What happened to Ruby?"
"I'm not sure. She was fighting that whip-wielding pervert somewhere before rushing back and collapsing in my arms. I carried her here to keep her safe."
"Why didn't you contact the rest of us and let us know?" Jaune asked.
"Well, excuse me, Mister Fearless Leader," Weiss said with a scowl. "I was a little busy and it's not like I could just pull out a phone and call…"
Weiss paused her rant, put Ruby down on the ground gently and pulled out her Scroll; her fully functional Scroll.
"ARRGHHH! What is wrong with me?" Weiss cried out in frustration, pulling on her ponytail with her other hand.
Jaune put Ren down on the ground and looked over the top of the barricade. He had a clear view of the battle, of the confused and swirling melee of different colours and combatants.
"It's not your fault," Jaune said, looking ahead. "None of us are communicating, we're not talking to each other. Simply using our Scroll wouldn't be helpful in the middle of a fight; we need earpieces or something."
At the very start of this fight, they had all been in sync when attacking the Paladin. It had been magnificent, but as soon as a new element entered the picture, it had all devolved into chaos. They were fighting well in these small groups, but they weren't coordinating their actions on a larger scale.
If they were going to be real Huntsmen and Huntresses, then they needed to be better.
He needed to be better.
Jaune looked over at his unconscious friends once more before turning to Weiss.
"Things should be fine once Nora gets back, but the others still need help until then. I'll look after Ren and Ruby; you go and rejoin the fight."
'What? No, I have to look after Ruby and-"
"Weiss! Please…" Jaune said, cutting the white Xiao Long off. "Right now, our friends need backup…your sisters need backup. They need someone strong, and you are far stronger than I am. I swear, I'll keep Ruby safe."
Weiss was conflicted. The logical side of her saw the wisdom here, that this was the best, most efficient route possible,
The emotional side was screaming that she couldn't possibly think of abandoning her baby sister, not when she was hurt and needed protection. The most important duty in her life was to protect her sister, even if that meant…abandoning her sisters…
The guilt stabbed at Weiss, as even though she knew Yang and Blake were strong, it was wrong to abandon them to save Ruby. They were her sisters too, her teammates, and she needed to support them when they needed her.
Looking down at Ruby, Weiss was brought back to that night after their first day at Beacon, when she was confronted by her inability to fully respect Ruby as her team leader. Once again, she saw Ruby as both her little sister, who needed to be protected above all else and the capable Huntress-in-training who worked hard and deserved to be respected.
Weiss knew what Ruby, the leader of RWBY, would say; that Weiss needed to return to the fight and help the others. That was simply the best thing she could do right now.
Looking at Jaune, Weiss found herself trusting him, trusting that he would keep Ruby safe. That was a far cry from how she felt about him when she first met him. He had certainly changed over this semester…just as she and everyone else had.
Weiss nodded and tapped Jaune's shoulder, convoying her trust in him. With one last look at Ruby, the white Xiao Long, grasp her rapier and dash out from behind the barricade, heading towards the ongoing battle.
Jaune watched her go, a tight feeling forming in his chest. He shuffled back, kneeling in the space between his unconscious friends. He took Ren's hand in his left and Ruby's in his right. He shut his eyes tightly and tried to keep his breathing even.
"This is for the best…this is for the best," he repeated like a mantra. "This is the best course of action…because…because…"
"I'm completely fucking useless!"
Despair filled Jaune as this seemingly undisputable fact assailed him. He had thought he had been making good progress with his training, that he had been improving. But it had boiled down to him not being the first one to be knocked out, and that could simply be by luck. He hadn't been able to seriously contribute to this battle; watching over Ren and Ruby was all he could do.
Those two, along with the rest of his team and friends, were so amazing and strong. It was hitting him again how out of place he was, how far beneath them he was despite being the Team leader. He thought he had banished these insecurities, but this battle brought them back in force.
He was holding the others back. His team and the Xiao Long Sisters were amazing people, and they had given their time and energy to help train him, to build him up, and he was failing to help them in turn. For all they had given him, he wanted to give something back, needed to give back. He needed to give back at least a fraction of what they had given to him, but he didn't know how he could…
Jaune opened his eyes as he felt a warm sensation in both of his hands. Looking down, he saw that they were glowing white. The energy was moving from his hands to his friends, turning pink in Ren's hand and red in Ruby's.
It was as if…he was transferring some of his Aura to Ruby and Ren. The effect was immediate, with Ren starting to breathe easier and Ruby's eyes starting to flutter open, consciousness slowly returning to her.
Jaune's jaw dropped. What the hell was going on?
Blake was having a hard time contending with Ilia. She still had no idea who they were, but they were proving a formidable opponent. They were as fast and slippery as before at the docks, but there was a wild, crazed intensity to their attacks.
Even with Neptune's help, Blake was hard-pressed. This strange assassin was crafty enough to stay far enough away that Blake's sword wasn't effective but close enough that she couldn't shoot or use her gun-ribbon combo.
Ilia kicked a thrust from Neptune's trident away, spun around, and kicked him in the head with her other foot. The blue-haired boy went down, and Ilia could have rushed in and taken him out of the fight, permanently.
But Ilia didn't care about Neptune, he was just an annoying pest as far as she was concerned. Her mind was focused on only one thing: her Blake.
Ilia pivoted and leapt towards Blake, who had started to move to cover Neptune. The black Xiao Long was taken by surprise by the sudden maneuver and could only reactively swing her sword in defence.
The chameleon easily ducked under the swing, grabbing Blake's sword arm and pulling it back. Blake attempted to draw her bladed sheath with her other hand, but Ilia grabbed that arm as well, restraining her. This was followed by a knee to Blake's gut, driving the wind out of her and leaving her helpless.
With Blake bent over, Ilia switched her grip so both of Blake's arms were restrained with one hand, leaving the other free to do whatever Ilia wished. If she had been thinking straight, Ilia could have easily used this opportunity to take Blake out, to remove her as a threat to the Red Fang's plan.
But Ilia wasn't thinking straight, she hadn't been for some time, and she looked over the helpless Blake like a starving man looking over a feast. The main course was that wonderful, defenceless ass of hers, and Ilia figured that a firm groping would be fair recompense for the injuries she suffered this night. She reached out with her free hand, eager to finally grasp that delicious cake.
Much to Ilia's surprise, her hand stopped just short of her goal. A strange symbol had appeared on the back of her hand, that of a black snowflake, and it seemed to be holding her back.
Turning her head, Ilia saw the white Xiao Long sister, the prissy Schnee-looking one, running towards her, one hand raised with a black glyph floating in front of her palm.
Weiss had to focus a lot to keep the Target attached to Ilia's hand and connected to the Anchor. It was much harder to attach her glyphs to a person with an active Aura, compared to Grimm or inanimate objects. She could stop their hand in its tracks, but she couldn't pull her off Blake completely, and if Ilia started moving, then the connection was likely to break.
Luckily Weiss was prepared. Just as Ilia started to resist the hold on her hand and reach for her weapon, Weiss cancelled her Semblance.
Like a taut rope being cut, the sudden removal of the restraining force on her hand unbalanced her. This loosened her hold on Blake, who recovered enough to push Ilia off of her and roll away.
The moments it took Ilia to regain her bearings were enough for Weiss to close the distance, jump into the air, and dropkick Ilia. Both of Weiss's platform heels collided with the chameleon girl's now well-abused face, and Ilia was sent flying back.
Weiss landed lightly and quickly began helping Blake to her feet. Her mind and emotions were still a mess, and she used all her mental energy to focus on the task at hand. She needed to focus on fighting this sick pervert and help Blake…and not agonized over leaving Ruby while she was hurt and-
"Ruby's hurt?" Blake cried, leaping to her feet and looking at Weiss with both shock and worry.
Weiss returned it with a look of confusion. She was sure she hadn't said anything, only thought about it. Blake hadn't seen her carry Ruby away, her vision blocked by the Paladin for some time before and had only re-engaged after Neptune had covered her retreat. How did she know?
Blake's face turned to confusion as well, realizing that Weiss hadn't spoken. Still, she just knew that Ruby had been injured. It was as if she had read Weiss's mind or something.
The twins looked at one another, not sure what was happening.
Any further thought about this odd phenomenon was cut short as a cry of pain and rage brought the twins back to their present circumstances.
Ilia was back on her feet, weapon in hand and now sported a long crack along the front of her charred mask. She was screaming incoherently, not unreasonable given the number of things impacting or exploding in her face this night. The cunning and devious assassin was giving way to a wrathful berserker, who charged toward the Xiao Long twins.
The two Sisters, joined by a recovered Neptune, hefted their weapon and rejoined a battle that seemingly had no end.
At the far end of the construction yard, far from the ongoing battle, a series of sheds had been placed to house the important equipment and gear. These were locked, of course, but that was only a small hindrance to someone as strong as Nora.
Ripping the padlock off, she entered the shed and quickly located a Dust-fueled portable generator. Taking a moment to compose herself, she approached the machine and pressed the start button, ready to absorb the electricity it created.
Nothing happened. She pressed the button several more times, to no effect. Thinking she must be doing something wrong, Nora opened the Dust compartment, intending to take the Dust directly.
It was empty and Nora realized Jaune had made a mistake.
Vale City By-law 213-B: Construction crews are to safely store equipment after use and if work stoppage is over 72 hours, all Dust is to be removed from machinery and stored off-site.
The city regulations and laws she had read recently on a whim came flooding back. There was no Lightening Dust here, not in any of the equipment or machines. Jaune didn't know that and was expecting Nora to return soon.
Nora cursed herself for not remembering this tidbit sooner, and the fact she didn't carry Lightening Dust, despite the obvious benefits. Even a smidge of Dust could give her a major strength boost, but she was constantly afraid of losing control.
While she had never lost control when absorbing regular electricity, which is why she agreed to this plan in the first place, she was always scared that even one little spark could set off a devastating maelstrom within her. Outwardly, Nora was always eager to charge up and start smashing but in reality, she was extremely cautious.
Caution wouldn't help here, as she needed to power up her Semblance if there would be any chance of winning this fight. The off-site location of the Dust might be close, but it would take too much time to find. She could try and find a power line and absorb electricity from that, but this whole area was unpowered. She would have to leave and go back to the city proper, taking the time she and her friends didn't have.
With great reluctance, Nora looked down at her right arm, the pink crystal of her Limiter shining even in the darkness. She couldn't help but let out a joyless chuckle, as everything always seemed to come back around to her damned power.
She didn't trust it, didn't trust herself but there wasn't any time to consider alternatives.
With a mix of dread and anticipation, Nora pressed the hidden buttons of her right Limiter with her left hand. Her breath hitched for a moment as the pink diamond popped out of the socket. Steadying herself, she twisted the diamond around and pushed it back down, deactivating the Limiter.
Once again, Nora was overcome by the rush of power and almost fell to her knees. She felt more complete, more whole, as energy flowed into her body. Not some foreign energy from Dust or a machine, but her power, her rightful power. This whole fight could have been over in an instant if she had just taken off her Limiters at the start. She could crush that metal mech into scrap, smash those two Faunus to dust, and even collapse the entire highway section if she wanted. Nothing at all could stop her if she just let go and…
"I'm counting on you, Nora!"
Jaune's words of trust rang through Nora, dispelling the unwanted power fantasy. She had people relying on her; Jaune, Ren, Pyrrha, and Team RWBY, people she cared deeply about and who were more important than anything else.
She stood up straight and looked down at her right arm. Glowing lines of pink energy were flowing from her wrist, just under her Limiter, and ran up her arm to her shoulder.
The power was there, bubbling under the surface, but it wasn't overwhelming her. She had a clear goal to focus on, helping her friends and teammates.
Nora exited the shed and turned in the direction of the distant battle. Taking a moment o heft her hammer and focus herself, she dashed away, leaving a small crater in the ground and a sonic boom in her wake.
Yang had done what she did best, punch hard and fast, but I just wasn't working against the Paladin. The ever-confident blonde was beginning to falter, her strength starting to wane, and her ammunition was running low. Sun's attacks were having as little effect as her own, boiling down to pot-shots to keep Torchwick distracted but otherwise was making no progress. Sage brought his own impressive strength to the table, but that too was doing little more then holding the Paladin off.
All she could do was keep moving around, avoid getting blasted to pieces and take what shots she could. She was getting desperate enough to consider the unthinkable, to pull back and think of a new plan.
Any plan to either call for backup or try to get Bumblebee back into the fight was interrupted by the Paladin firing a series of shots in front of Yang.
The explosion and resulting cloud of dust and debris made Yang skid to a stop and throw her arms up to protect her face. More energy blasts impacted around her, and Yang was temporarily blinded.
When the dust settled enough of for Yang to see again, she saw that the Paladin had closed the distance, its right arm having switched into a fist again.
There was no time to dodge, so Yang just braced herself, hoping to take the hit and power up her Semblance, if she wasn't knocked out cold right off the bat.
She didn't have to worry about that possibility, as salvation arrived in the form of a certain pink Valkyrie.
One moment it was just Yang and the incoming metal fist. The next, Nora was there, hammer at the ready and electricity shooting off her body. She swung Magnhild, impacting the Paladin's fist before it could hit Yang.
Where before Nora's attack had only knocked the Paladin back, this blow was several magnitudes greater. The Paladin's arm was completely shattered, and the main body was sent flying back in the air and landed on its back. The shockwave from the blow was great enough that Yang was tossed back a few feet, though she was otherwise unhurt.
The blonde was more shocked than anything else. In one instant, Nora had done more damage to the stolen mech than all of their attacks combined. She didn't know where the pink bomber had gotten this burst of strength, but she wasn't going to complain.
Using hydraulic pistons on its back, the Paladin got back to its feet in short order. Nora dashed forwards, ready to knock it back down before it could start firing its weapons.
Roman Torchwick was nothing if not a survivor and a quick thinker, as even tossed around inside the cockpit, he wasn't out. As standing around or falling back would just leave him open to another unstoppable attack from this little hammer brat, he decided to rush forward.
This took Nora by surprise, and she tried to stop. This gave Torchwick the chance to get close and kick with the Paladin's foot, sending the pink Valkyrie flying back.
"Pomegrenade!"
Jaune's voice blasted over all of the Beacon students' Scrolls. The members of RWBY and SSSN were confused by the outburst, not sure what to make of it. That didn't matter, as the airborne Nora and, most importantly, Pyrrha heard the name of their team attack.
Nora flipped herself around in mid-air, while Pyrrha backflipped and jumped away from the fight with Adam, who was blocked from pursuing by Scarlet. Moving quickly, Pyrrha got into position, standing right in Nora's path with her shield raised.
Nora hit the shield feet first and Pyrrha skid back a short distance from the impact. The Valkyrie then pushed off Akoúo̱ and shot forward in the air, back towards the Paladin.
Another shockwave was created by this act, and Pyrrha was thrown back, barely keeping her balance. Her shield arm was numb and for a moment she thought Nora had broken her arm again before the feeling started to return.
Their team attack, 'Pomgrenade', was supposed to involve Pyrrha pushing Nora with her shield in tandem with Nora firing a grenade from her hammer to give her enough force to launch forward.
That had been unnecessary, as Nora had done it all with her own strength, with Pyrrha merely providing a platform for her. She wasn't upset, only surprised like Yang had been, at this sudden display of overwhelming strength.
The only one more surprised than Pyrrha was Roman Torchwick. He had just sent this girl flying off, only for her to come rushing back like a bullet out of a gun. He had no time to move or attack, so Nora was able to smash her hammer against the main body of the Paladin just before she collided with it.
The Paladin, an extremely heavy and sophisticated piece of military technology, was tossed back like a broken toy, pieces felling off as it tumbled backwards. A black capsule shot out of the machine and into the air just before it stopped. A few moments later, the now wreaked hunk of metal exploded.
The black capsule deployed a parachute and quickly fell to the ground. The side of it opened and a slightly battered Torchwick emerged.
"Well…at least the escape system works," he muttered to himself as he casually brushed the dust off his suit.
"Roman!" Adam shouted. "Fallback! We need to regroup and-"
He was cut off as a bullet whizzed by his face, barely missing him. More followed and while he deflected them away with his word, he was forced to dodge back, away from his opponents and closer to Roman.
The same thing happened to Ilia, who ducked and dodged a sudden hail of bullets. She too was forced back until she was standing beside Roman and Adam.
The Beacon Students looked to the other side of the construction yard, in the direction the gunfire had come from and saw a figure in red behind a concrete barricade.
Even with all her muscles screaming at her and needing Jaune's help to stand up, Ruby wasn't going to leave her team, her family, hanging. All she could do was fire her sniper rifle from behind the barricade, and her aim was off, but it was still enough to corral their foes together.
The hearts of the other three Xiao Long Sisters swelled at the sight, relieved that Ruby was okay and uplifted that she was still supporting them. They gave a quick thumbs up in Ruby's direction before turning back to their foes.
With the groups recombined, the advantage the Beacon students had was more obvious. Divide and conquer had been Roman's group best tactic, and it had almost worked, but that wasn't possible anymore, without the heavy firepower of the Paladin to sow chaos and with Ruby's sniper fire keeping them in place. This would turn into a more straightforward brawl, and skill aside, the greater number of the students would be the deciding factor.
Roman turned his head as if listening to something before he turned back to the opposing group.
"Well, this has certainly been an invigorating evening, but it must be past your bedtime. So, I and my compatriots will just be taking our leave."
The casual tone of Roman took everyone, including Adam and Ilia, off-guard.
Nora wasn't going to let him off the hook so easily, not after what he did to Ren. She shifted her weapon and fired a grenade at Torchwick, meaning to blow that smug grin right off his face.
There was an explosion, but the result wasn't what Nora expected. As the dust cleared, it was revealed that not only was Roman unhurt, but the grenade had been blocked by, of all things, a parasol.
The parasol was lifted, revealing a petite woman with pink and brown hair, a white jacket lined in pink, brown pants and heterochromatic eyes of shifting colours.
"Ah, Neo. As timely as ever," Roman said with a nod to the newcomer before turning back to the students. "And with that, I'd say that we're done for this evening. I'm sure we'll meet again, my dear Beacon Brats, but until then…"
Roman tipped his hat towards the students while Neo bowed, a smug smile on both of their faces.
This only infuriated Nora more and she wasn't going to let them get away that easily. She shifted Magnhild back into hammer form, dashed forward and took a big swing at Neo.
Instead of sending the ice cream girl flying into the stratosphere, the whole area around Neo shattered like glass. It was as if Nora had hit a large stained-glass window, one that had been showing Roman, Neo, Adam and Ilia standing right there. As the pieces of glass fell to the ground and disappeared, it was revealed that the four criminals had vanished.
The shocked group looked around for their enemies before finally looking up and seeing the stealth Bullhead flying away. Ladders were extended from both sides and the four criminals were holdings on, Roman even waving back to the Beacon students. The ladders began to pull them in, and the near-silent aircraft flew away, quickly vanishing into the night sky.
"Damn it! We were so close to getting them," Yang yelled in frustration, a feeling shared by the others.
"We'll get them next time. Let's just take what victory we can," Blake said, no doubt in her mind that there would be a next time.
Any further thoughts or discussions were cut off as Jaune's panicked voice came on over their Scrolls.
"Guys, get over here quick! Something is wrong with Ren."
Attempts to ask for more information was ended by a shockwave of air caused by Nora dashing forward again, followed very closely by Pyrrha. The rest of the group followed as fast as they could.
Reaching the barricade, they found Ren laying on the ground, still unconscious, and struggling to breathe. Jaune was by his side and Ruby was sitting close by, back against the barricade and breathing heavily. She didn't look too good herself but was clearly in better shape than Ren.
Nora and Pyrrha rushed to Ren's side. The three Xiao Long Sisters looked at one another, silently debating with each other before Wiess moved to Ruby's side while Yang and Blake helped JNPR.
"What happened?" Nora almost roared, worry overwhelming her. Her hands were clenched tight, and she had to resist the urge to punch something.
"I…I don't know," Jaune replied, his breathing quick and hurried. "I did something with my Aura, which seemed to help for a bit. Ruby was able to get up and…and Ren was looking better, I swear, but then he suddenly got worse and I…I…"
"Shhhhh. It's okay, you did nothing wrong," Yang said, gently putting her hand on his shoulder to calm him down. Blake mirrored the action on his other side, the two having long experience of soothing their siblings.
Pyrrha started to raise a hand, as if to comfort Jaune as well, before putting it down and focusing back on Ren.
"It's like he's choking or something," Neptune observed, looking down at Ren from where he was standing. "Maybe his clothes got twisted too tight or something?"
It was a reasonable assumption, and besides, they would need to remove some of his clothes to better assess his condition, so they quickly worked to gently undress Ren, leaving him bare-chested.
Almost bare-chested. To everyone but Nora's surprise, several bandages were wrapped tight around Ren's upper chest. There was no blood or anything to indicate they were covering a wound. The skin around the edges of the bindings was red, meaning that they were not only very tight but had been on for quite some time.
With everyone else confused and unsure, Nora took charge, reaching around Ren's waist and pulling out a black knife.
The others had all noticed the knife Ren carried around but never used either in combat or in daily routines. It must have had some significance for the stoic boy to always carry it with him but neither his teammates nor RWBY had gotten around to asking him about it.
Nora certainly had no compunctions around using it, cutting the bandages ripping them off Ren before putting the knife back.
The effect was immediate, as after a short coughing fit, Ren started to breath easier and began to settle down.
The others didn't celebrate this improvement, as they were too busy staring at Ren with their eyes wide and jaws dropped.
Again, it was Nora who was unfazed and took charge, picking Ren up in her arms and standing up before turning to the rest of the group.
"We need to get Ren back to Beacon and get them medical attention; we can come up with an excuse or something later. Yang, get your bike ready while the others get the sidecar. That will be the fastest way back to Beacon. The others will have to make their way back on foot, okay?"
No one answered, instead just staring at Ren and trying to comprehend what they were seeing.
The Valkyrie slammed her foot down, making the concrete crack and the ground shake.
"MOVE!" she roared.
That made everyone spring to life. Yang ran for Bumblebee while Jaune and Team SSSN moved to recover the sidecar. Luckily, neither were seriously damaged, so it was just a matter of physically getting them back onto their wheels and reattaching them.
As the work was completed and Yang got the engine working, Nora started to move towards the sidecar.
"What about Ruby?" Weiss asked. Both she and Blake had helped their leader to her feet and were supporting her from either side. It was clear that she was in pain from even this small movement.
Nora bit her lip. There was only enough room for two in the sidecar. Both Ruby and Ren could have shared it while Nora rode with Yang, but it would be impossible for her to tend to either of them during the ride if they needed it. This was coupled with her extreme reluctance to let go of Ren at this moment, leaving her unsure of what to say.
Ruby didn't hesitate at all.
"Ren's the priority," she said through laboured breathes, looking Nora square in the eye. "I'll be fine, I just need help walking. You go with Ren in the sidecar and keep on eye on them. We'll be right behind you."
Nora stared at Ruby for a moment before nodding in thanks. She moved to the waiting Bumblebee, gently placing Ren in the sidecar.
Just before she hopped in herself, Nora pressed several buttons on her right bracelet, an action that everyone noticed. The pink energy lines that had been running up her arms and the static-charged air that seemed to surround her vanished in an instant, leaving everyone with even more questions.
With one final look towards her sisters, Yang revved the engines and took off towards Beacon. Everyone else followed behind, moving as quickly as they could with Ruby in tow. Jaune and Pyrrha made sure to collect Ren's effects before leaving, as they could faintly hear police sirens in the distance.
As the group made their way back to the school along the dark streets of Vale, many questions were swirling in their minds. What was going on with the Red Fang and the advance weapons they had? What was with Nora's power, which was clearly beyond what her stated Semblance could do?
Most of all, one single question was burning bright.
Ren's…a girl?
That's all for this very long chapter, sorry it took so long. The next few chapter should, hopefully, be a bit shorter as we deal with the fallout of this fight and get set-up for the next major story piece, the dance and the mission to after that.
Finally getting around to some big reveals in this story. I've been leaving hints about Ren for some time in this story, though I'm not sure how well I handled it. Let me know what you think.
Small retcon here with Nora's Limiters; changing them so they stay on when she deactivates them instead of having to remove them. I feel this works better and makes the act of taking them off be more significant. I'll be rewriting the scene from Chapter 4 to include this. The other times where they were knocked off by Pyrrha in Chapter 14 or overloaded in Chapter 12 will remain the same.
Decided to have Adam's group be called the 'Red Fang' mainly so it would be easy to write, instead of always calling them 'Adam's group' or 'The radical White Fang'. Another time-saving decision was to stop calling Ilia 'the masked assassin' and just call her Ilia in the narrative during the fight despite the main characters not learning her name yet. I apologize for the lazy writing, but for this story I will need so sometimes take these little shortcuts to keep going and not get bogged down.
For Yang and Ruby's Team Attack, I imagine 'Enabler' to involve Ruby dashing around Yang, hitting her with the blunt ends of her weapon, in such a way to boost her Semblance while doing the least amount of damage as possible. 'Burning Rose' has Ruby grab Yang and pull her forward with her Semblance, letting go just before they hit their target. It's a shame that Ruby and Yang haven't had any real combo attack in the show, and I hope to fully use these attacks in the future. If anyone has suggestion for other team attacks, let me know.
I used the writing program Grammarly with this chapter, to go over my spelling and grammar. Tell me if it makes a marked improvement in my writing and if so, I'll go over the previous chapters with Grammarly and reupload them.
That's all for now. Please leave a review or a PM and tell me what you think.
