LilBoiaSenpai : she's got two maiden powers in the body of a Huntress-in-training, and is using several things she planned in advance to use against Silver-eyed warriors. It's even possible she has a lot of experience fighting them, so no, that's not plot-armor XD
Ruby, Penny and Emerald were running as fast as they could towards Shade, weaving through the stream of people doing the same but to get away from the fighting.
"Penny…" started Ruby as Penny started flying.
"I'll go ahead," said Penny, "I'll try to stall until you arrive."
"Thank you," replied Ruby.
Penny flew ahead, getting a few looks of awe from the people around, while Ruby and Emerald kept running towards the Academy. By the time they reached it, Ruby noticed a group of people that had been helping Rumpole work back in her office. At least they looked like they had managed to get out safely.
Ruby stepped forward and into the school, when Emerald noticed something else.
"I'm sorry Ruby," she said, "There's something I need to do."
Ruby turned back, about to tell Emerald that they needed to hurry and whatever she needed to do could wait, when she saw her darting her eyes left and right full of worry. She tried finding what had Emerald on edge like this, but she couldn't noticed anything else.
"Ok," she eventually said, "If you finish quick enough please come help."
"Sure, ok," absentmindedly answered Emerald just before running off.
Ruby quickly turned again towards the elevator and hit the call button. Moment later, its door opened on a familiar face.
"Neo?" asked Ruby as she walked inside.
The pink and brown girl was holding and intricate blade that seemed to glow blue and gold, just like the other two Relics, so Ruby had no problem guessing that this was the Relic of Destruction, although she did notice that the Relic of Knowledge was nowhere in sight.
"Where is the Summer maiden?" asked Ruby, expecting them to have hidden the Relic of Knowledge since it was out of uses.
Neo pointed down, which made Ruby nod in understanding.
"Oh, I guess it would be safer for them to stay in the Vault," she said.
Neo gave her an awkward smile which confused Ruby for a bit, but she didn't take note of it.
As the elevator was going up, Ruby was keeping her body ready to jump in the action by making small jumps while Neo was leisurely waiting, yet a bit curious as to why Ruby was being so active.
Hmmm, she was probably just excited.
Glynda stomped on the ground and raised her crop, pulling the floor up to block the two streams of magic Nebula and Salem were throwing at them. The floor should have busted apart as soon as the attacks hit it, but Oscar was using Ozpin's magic to protect it, just as he remembered they had both planned on doing would this situation rise.
Oscar released his magic as soon as the enemy streams ended, allowing the floor to burst into pieces that Glynda could now manipulate to go on the offensive. Two groups of sharp pointed rocks rushed towards both Nebula and Salem, threatening to pierce them.
Nebula blasted the attack into dust in her blind rage, or at least tried to as Oscar went back to protecting the stones that smashed into the girl, sending her crashing into the wall and breaking her aura apart. Salem, on the other hand, positioned herself to take the least amount of damage while taking the hit, allowing several stones to pierce through her flesh.
Because of her positioning, Salem was hardly incapacitated by the attack, and she sent a couple of magical beams at Oscar and Glynda while her eyes were darting around, searching for something.
She felt something wrong with her back, and without a single moment of hesitation she used a sharp beam of magic to cut herself in half, leaving her entire backside behind as her front half fell.
Salem turned around and saw that she had indeed made the correct decision. The half of her that had stayed behind was now completely turned into gold as Rumpole stood leaning on it, panting and frowning.
"Tch," said Salem as she clicked her tongue, "What an annoying semblance."
Rumpole smiled and attacked with her spiked chakram, and for once Salem actually created a blade made out of grimm matter to block it while her other hand sent Rumpole flying towards the window with a magical blast.
"Eat her," Salem ordered to her Dragon.
Rumpole felt a cold sweat run down her spine, but just as the Dragon's teeth crept closer to her, it suddenly rocked, as if it was hit by something. Letting out what seemed to be an enraged cry, the Dragon flew away from the tower and faced what seemed to be a human flying in the sky with green flames coming out from under her boots. Penny.
Rumpole stood up, relieved.
"I really need to do everything myself," said Salem.
And with a single cleave, her grimm blade cut through Rumpole, as if there had been no aura there in the first place.
Ruby rushed out the moment the door opened, quickly taking in her surrounding and darting around the room before kicking Salem in the chin and lighting up her silver eyes, bathing the room in bright silver light. The moment after, and there wasn't a single trace of Salem left in the room, not even a single drop of grimm goo.
That was surprisingly easy, at least Ruby felt so. After all the trouble she had against Salem back when they were fighting in the city, she wasn't expecting to take her down so quickly.
But then, something felt wrong. The air felt heavy, electricity was crackling within the room. Turning around, she saw Neo, gripping the Relic of destruction ever so tightly as a literal storm was building up around her.
Neo had watched, unable to do anything, as Salem cut Rumpole cleanly in half. Watched as the two parts of her teacher fell out of the window.
" It hurts, doesn't it" said a voice in her head.
Neo gripped the sword in her hand as tears threatened to fall.
" It's not the first time, right?" said the voice.
The sword started shining ever so brightly as rage and despair started to fill Neo's every thought.
" So many people have hurt you, hurt the ones you care about," said the voice.
As if summoned by the sword, as if following her will, the sandy winds of Vacuo gathered around her.
" It would be so much easier if they were just… gone," said the voice.
Thunder started crackling around her as the elevator and walls were starting to tear apart.
"Neo, no!" shouted Ruby.
" Neo, yes!"
When they had arrived at Shade, Emerald immediately noticed Mercury hiding in a back alley. She knew Ruby needed to stop Salem, so she didn't feel the need to ask for her to help. She still looked left and right, if only to make sure there wouldn't be a nasty surprise waiting for her if she went towards Mercury.
As soon as she warned Ruby, Emerald ran off towards Mercury, using her semblance on him to stop him from noticing her approaching. She slowed down as she got closer, wanting to see what exactly he was up to.
She soon found that he wasn't alone. As she got closer, she saw that Cinder was there too, but she wasn't doing well, by any standard. In fact, she had only seen Cinder like this once before, after what seemed to be a nightmare where she kept mumbling "stop, stop, stop" while asleep.
Emerald had tried helping her then, but she had been violently pushed aside by Cinder at the time. Now, it didn't like Cinder had the strength to even react to her surroundings.
Dropping her semblance, Emerald didn't bother about Mercury's presence and rushed to Cinder side, cupping her face in her hands. Mercury flinched as he saw her appear from nowhere.
"What happened to her?" she asked.
"Are you still with us?" asked back Mercury, "Weren't you planning on leaving?"
"What. Happened. To. Her?" slowly repeated Emerald, glaring dagger at him.
Mercury glared back for a while, until he finally gave up with a sigh.
"I don't know," he explained, "I found her like this outside Salem's throne-room, I don't know anything else."
"Outside her…" started Emerald, "Wait, we saw someone fly straight towards Shade with maiden powers, that wasn't her?"
"Definitely not," said Mercury, "I'm not even sure if she has any maiden powers left anymore."
"Then who…"
"Maybe…" started Mercury.
"You know something?" asked Emerald.
"It's just… When we got back to Salem, Tyrian had a girl with him," explained Mercury, "So, just maybe…"
"You think it was a replacement maiden?" offered Emerald.
"Yup," said Mercury, "Given Cinder's track record, it wouldn't be surprising. Heck, if any of us had acted the same way she did with Salem I'm pretty sure we would have been replaced quickly."
"You…" started Emerald, wanting to scold Mercury, but stopping when she felt Cinder move in her arms, "Cinder!"
The scarred woman didn't open her eye, instead making only the slightest amount of effort to get a bit closer to Emerald.
"She took… everything… away from me," said Cinder in a weak voice, "My life… meaningless… powerless… worthless…"
Emerald grabbed Cinder and hugged her tightly next to her chest.
"No, you're not worthless," she whispered, "I'll show you, that you don't need to be powerful to be meaningful."
Funnily enough, the most annoying thing for me while writing this is that I kept forgetting that the Relics existed.
That being said, I'm pretty happy with the personality I gave the Relic of Destruction here, makes things interesting x).
Also, for reference, Nebula is not a Huntress yet. She only started getting used to her powers, so while she's enraged and has a massive stat boost thanks to her maiden powers, she's still not even level 11 yet.
No chapter next week cause it's election time and I need to organize them in the municipalities I work at. Good news is that I won't be skipping another chapter when it comes to round two of voting because I handle the administrative work and most of it is over by round one.
To be continued on April 17th
Name : Neo Politan
Age : 18
Level : 21 (44%)
Class : Illusionist [You add both your Intelligence and Dexterity modifiers to your AC and to Dexterity or Intelligence based attacks as long as you can still cast illusions]
Path : Me, myself and I [You live for yourself first and foremost, no matter what pain you might cause others]
Destiny : All for one [Everyone can die, if it means you get to survive]
Title : The Gamer
HP : 11/11
AP : 110/110
STR : 12
CON : 11
DEX : 20
INT : 23
WIS : 13
CHA : 17
Semblance : The Gamer
Status effects :
Gamer's body [Your body follows game-like mechanics. You can restore 1/4th of your total HP (rounded down) by resting 15 minutes. You can only die if your HP reach 0 and you fail your last breath]
Child of Remnant [You are from Remnant and follow different rules than other worlds. Your HP is always equal to your constitution and any bonuses that would normally improve it are transferred to your aura]
Words that shouldn't be said [Your last words almost caused you to lose your life. You cannot talk until you overcome your trauma]
Defenses:
AC : 29(34)
For : 22
Ref : 28
Will : 25