Fall of a Paladin
The freeway straightened out once again, and traffic had begun to lessen. With fewer obstacles, Torchwick was on them faster than ever, targeting lasers springing to life across his production-grade Paladin and leaving gleaming red dots across both Bumblebee and the topless rally car Sun was driving. They had a long time until Beacon. That was a long time to get rid of Torchwick before he could do anymore damage!
"I'll pull back, then you hop on the machine!" Yang declared as she dropped Bumblebee back from an explosive round and fired another burst, this one only striking the Paladin's aura. Flashes of orange came from Ruby's sniper fire being deflected off of its joints and vital sensors. "If it's Torchwick's aura, we take that out and it might daze him enough to finish the fight!"
Blake closed her eyes and nodded, focusing as much of her aura around the three as she could. Yang suddenly slammed the brakes and dropped them back, waiting for Blake to jump. She was just about to call to her when the Paladin accelerated, brought back its leg and kicked with enough force and speed to easily destroy their bike, if not it and its riders. Cursing under her breath, Yang tried to desperately turn, only for her and the bike to get suddenly shunted off to one side and to safety.
Yang glanced to her side to catch what threw them like that, and her eyes widened: she saw... herself? Bumblebee silently running beside them, her own eyes focused on the road ahead, Blake's closed in focus. She wondered if this was what a near-death experience looked like. 'Trippy' came to mind.
A gunshot rang out behind her at the same time the foot slammed into the back of her mirror image and turned it into a shadowy, black mist. A black katana lodged itself in the Paladin's leg, a ribbon trailing back to the sheath in Blake's hand. When the Paladin's kick reached its peak, she was yanked off and sent flying into the air, holding on tight until the machine's leg swung back and brought Blake spinning down towards it. Her blade ripped itself free and spun around her in a whirlwind of death until she landed atop it and caught her weapon.
"Hey, get your paws off my suit! I just polished it!" Torchwick shouted and was forced to slow down while he tried to shake Blake off. The faunus girl refused to yield, opening up with her pistol on the Paladin searching for another crack in its aura shield. The Paladin might've been drifting further back, but Yang knew that it was just as threatening, if not more so, from afar than up close. Distance gave it a better chance at using those long-range cannons it had.
Seeing Ruby appraising the battle from afar and loading another clip, Yang dropped back once more just in case Blake needed to get out. Luckily, they had a sniper of their own!
"Sorry about your car!" With a spin and flourish of her scythe, Ruby slammed the blade into the trunk of the car to form a makeshift monopod for her sniper rifle. Staring through her scope, she could see Yang and Blake both firing upon the Paladin, creating flickers of orange aura shielding it on every strike. When Ruby looked closer, however, she noticed that each time it would flicker on impact, only a small disc with very distinct edges would spring up. Her trained eye spotted the culprits: tiny nodes so small and well-hidden that even Yang and Blake couldn't make them out were projecting the aura. Ruby grinned: if she could slip bullets into those...
"Who said it was mine!" Sun's jovial shout knocked Ruby from her thoughts.
She snapped her head back to look at him. "You stole it?!"
"Well, yeah! How else were we supposed to follow you?" He didn't seem to understand that this was wrong or illegal at all, leaving Ruby completely dumbfounded.
"We're supposed to stop the criminals, not be the criminals!"
Sun shrugged. "Hey, being a criminal's the only way we were gonna get out of there, too!"
"Nope! I could've just taken Yang's sidecar, instead of being a thief, Mister..." As another explosion sounded off behind them, Ruby realized she'd forgotten the other teen's name. "St-Stealy McThieferson!"
"You mean that thing right there?"
A flaming mass of orange and yellow metal formerly known as Bumblebee's sidecar tumbled through the air above the two and off the railing. Even this far away and this fast, they could hear the string of curses Yang was belting out at Torchwick.
"How'd that have worked out for you? In fact, shouldn't you be paying attention to other things?" Sun leaned back as they passed more fleeing cars. He looked over his shoulder and his eyes grew to the size of saucers. "Like that car!"
Ruby turned back around just in time to see the Paladin spinning its upper body and throwing a car end-over-end at blistering speeds. Blake was sent flying off of it, saved only by throwing her sword into the pillar of another freeway, swinging herself around it and landing back onto Bumblebee. Rose petals drifted down the street as the next two seconds for Ruby stretched out into eternity: Ruby tore her scythe out, jumped and sliced the incoming car clean in half. Her scythe had barely even completed its slash before she was between the halves. Her eyes darted between them. Only the driver, currently screaming his head off, was inside. Her hand moved faster than the eye could catch, ripping off his seatbelt with her aura-enhanced pull and snatching him free.
In a rush of red, the driver was plucked from the deathtrap that was now his car and was left safe and sound on the very side of the road. Ruby landed daintily back in the passenger's seat before her rose petals even had time to touch the ground around the civilian.
The two halves of the car landed as masses of metal and flame on each side of them.
"Woah! Wasn't there someone in there?!" Sun shouted over the din.
A rapidly-growing distance away, the driver stumbled to his feet just as a fiery motorcycle and a massive, metal monstrosity stronger than any Grimm he'd seen flew by in a blur of color and a gust of wind.
Ruby grinned. "Don't worry, I got him."
"Great! Quick, get behind the wheel. I've got a plan!"
"Wait, what? Wait wait wait, I don't know how to drive!" Her voice grew more high-pitched and panicked as Sun casually ignored her protests and flipped himself over the driver's seat to stand at the back. Ruby scrambled over to the wheel, looked around and just slammed her foot on the gas pedal, desperately trying to keep the car straight and avoid the few vehicles left on the road in jerky turns.
"Aaaah! I knew I should've gone with my sis!" Ruby cried.
The original plan was simple: take an airship to the industrial district, pick up Yang and Ruby, then return. If anyone asked, they could claim that one or both were busy off at Junior's club rather than at the dance. Of course, plans never survive contact with the enemy, and from Ruby's call, they'd had more than just contact.
Which was why, high above the city of Vale, Weiss and Adam stood on the open-air deck of an airbus, watching the countless lights of the massive metropolis beneath them. As Adam scanned the streets beneath them for any signs of where the other half of their team was, Weiss shivered in the cold air beside him and sighed. With how quickly they had to run, they were both still left in their dance attire. Mesh tops and cold heights didn't mix. The heiress glanced to Adam, then to the streets, then back to Adam.
"You know, Adam, a real gentleman would offer his coat to a freezing lady." Expecting some snide or snarky comment, Weiss was actually surprised when Adam obliged, holding out his morning coat even as his eyes were still focused on the roads below. He waved it impatiently when she didn't grab it, apparently far too focused on the incoming bout to come to make one of his usual snipes at her.
When Weiss slipped the black coat on and sighed happily from the warmth, however, Adam glanced over at her.
"It will be interesting to see what your explanation to Yang is later for having appeared in my clothes." Adam let out a short chuckle when his jacket just ended up flung right back into his face.
The distant sound of an explosion cut his laughter short. Weiss leaned over the railing and Adam tore the coat from his face to see a brief burst of orange on one of the freeways so far beneath below.
Then another. Then many. Soon, prismatic splashes of light came to life all across a single road lit up in blue from its holographic railings.
Adam narrowed his eyes, threw on his coat, snatched up his sheathed blade and planted a foot onto the dock's railings. Weiss hopped up beside him and drew her rapier. It was a long way down.
Weiss let out a nervous laugh. "Do you think this is what Headmaster Ozpin was thinking when he wanted us to make our landing strategies?"
They jumped.
Sun reached into his soul, brought his hands together, and focused. Even with the frantic swerving of the surface beneath him, his thoughts could not be broken. With flashes of brilliant sunlight, two clones of gold leaped and spun away from him, jumping from car to car towards the Paladin until they slammed into its arm in unison and detonated in bursts of flame. Torchwick found his machine thrown off towards one side, balance failing it, but not enough to completely throw it aside.
That last nudge came from Yang, who, with a roar of fury, drove Bumblebee from the other side of the road towards the Paladin's leg and slammed her fist into it. Her aura flared from the strain of such a fierce impact, but the Paladin finally came crashing down in a rolling ball of steel. Every slam and bounce against the freeway cracked the road until it went tumbling off the side and onto another road below, nearly shattering it on impact.
When the dust cleared, it laid there, completely still. Yang brought Bumblebee to a halt at the holographic wall, and through some miracle—and plenty of shouting from Sun—Ruby managed to brake before flying off.
"Well! That was a thing!" Her arm was still rattling from the shock.
"W-we should p-p-probably get b-back to B-Beacon be-before the cops show up," Ruby was able to force out through her trembling, latched onto the steering wheel for dear life.
Torchwick slammed his fist against the console. So much for 'defending against the scary things in the world': this hunk of metal couldn't defend against a bunch of schoolkids! A sharp ringing brought his attention to a radar screen: two aura signatures were coming in at high speeds from above them. Seething, Torchwick searched for options.
Fortunately, the Paladin had a multitude of them.
When Adam and Weiss saw what looked like the giant robot—little more than a speck at their height without their aura-enhanced senses—fly off onto one of Vale's highways with flashes of gold, they momentarily believed their dramatic entrance would be for nothing. The first flashes of tracer rounds flying up towards them dissuaded the two of that thought. Just barely seeing their target get up once again, their sight quickly became obscured by a wave of artillery and flak coming from the machine's top guns.
Black glyphs almost invisible in the night formed around the two, pulling the two out of harm's way time and again and slowing their descent for the inevitable impact. Any shell that had the misfortune to get too close was sliced or struck from the skies by Adam's blade, each one bringing a brighter and brighter glow to his hair and soul.
In only a couple seconds, they were close enough to start making out the details of the Paladin and their friends.
They could also see them try to escape as countless missiles flew from the battlesuit too fast to dodge.
To their credit, the four tried and succeeded at shooting a couple of the high-speed missiles, but without need for guidance or tracking, they were barely slower than bullets, and slammed into the bridge hard enough to turn their world into burning light and thunderous crashes. The crumbling of their highway, cries of their allies and honking of horns served as the backdrop to their tumble towards the earth. Flashes of white caught their eyes, a shrill clash of steel against steel rang out that turned all in sight an all-encompassing red, familiar voices shouted out, blackening rose petals swept into view, ice rushed up to meet them, and then all was black.
Yang and Blake were the first to rise. Bleary from their brief loss of consciousness, they stumbled up to their feet to find that they weren't even on the road any longer, but on the stone and gravel beneath it where pillars stretched up to the highways above like they were holding the skies. Ruby and Sun jumped to their feet next, turning to find Bumblebee and the stolen, utterly-totaled car frozen in a massive ramp of ice they must have slid down. Above, wilting rose petals drifted down from the freeway, where it looked like an entire chunk was surgically removed without even a sign of rubble.
"How you dolts managed to get in this much trouble astounds me," Weiss huffed, panting as Adam landed beside her and sheathed his blade. Ahead of them, the Paladin lay inactive once more as a faint, orange pulse twisted and warped around it before fading completely: Torchwick's aura had been broken by the fall, giving them a moment to recuperate and regroup. As it began to twitch and shift, however, it appeared that 'a moment' was all that they were going to get.
Adam turned to face the machine as his team and Blake prepared for combat. "Blake, other boy, return to Beacon," he ordered.
Sun, who was busy staring at the machine that, after all that, was still getting ready for more, just nodded and gave the group a pair of thumbs-ups. "Hey, man, whatever you say!"
Blake, however, was much less happy about the situation. "I can still fight, Adam!"
"No. You will be safer there. Your team must already be worried about you." He did not even turn to face her.
The Paladin began to force itself upright.
"I'm staying—" Adam glared at Blake, and her words died on her tongue. Seeing him without his mask this often was strange enough, and Blake knew why he had once worn it so much: his eyes were very easy to read, especially to those close to him. Blake saw no overprotective nature, no simple desire to see her safe. Adam was afraid for her. It was rare. It was frightening. What did he know that she did not? Silently, she took a few steps back into the shadows, then sprinted off into the night. Sun followed suit.
All that left was RWAY.
Metal groaned in protest as the Paladin stood tall. "Leave it to you four brats to keep getting in the way! Red, Ice Queen, the traitor—I want that hat back, by the way—and..." Torchwick paused when he came to Yang. "I'm sorry, who are you?"
"The one who's gonna kick your ass!"
Torchwick snorted. "Classy. But I've heard worse last words!" Pistons locked down in the Paladin's feet, giving it extra grip on the ground before it unleashed a torrent of high-explosive shells at Team RWAY, forcing them to scatter. Split up to their partners, the four circled the machine and opened up with bullets and Dust alike, each one cutting gauges in the Paladin's heavy armor, but being unable to pierce through. Chuckling to himself, Torchwick turned to face Weiss and Adam, aimed his guns, and suddenly threw the Paladin backwards into Ruby and Yang, bowling them over and sending the two tumbling across the ground.
"Ruby!" Weiss cried out and, with a flick of Myrtenaster's Dust cylinder, sent a jet of flame at the machine's head while Adam ducked under the flames and darted towards the Paladin's leg. In a show of speed not befitting a robot of its size, the Paladin leaped off to one side and returned fire with deadly accuracy, forcing Adam to draw his blade just to block and slash shells from the air until one landed home and blew him backwards.
"We can't let him see us! Freezerburn! Red Bull!" Ruby called before gathering her aura and spun her scythe around her.
Weiss stabbed her rapier into the ground and created a vast sheen of ice beneath them all as Yang jumped off one of the many structural pillars. Torchwick grunted and prepared to fire his anti-air cannons at the blonde above when the Paladin shook and alarms blared. Skating on the ice, Ruby and Adam both shot by the Paladin's legs in blurs of black and red time and time again, slashing thin cuts into its armor that were already building up and growing deeper. Ruby came to a stop twirling just on the edge of the ice. She was right in Torchwick's sights.
But the distraction did its job. Yang slammed back down like a fiery comet, not just shattering the ice but heating it straight to steam that filled the air and obscured Torchwick's vision. All he had now were the Paladin's lasers, once more flickering to life and scanning across the vast space for any sign of the vigilantes.
Suddenly, it was very quiet. His radar only caught the Bullheads and cars of the police warily closing in from afar. He could see brief shadows rushing through the steam, and his lasers could even catch glimpses of their forms, but the mist scattered them too much to target. Torchwick grew impatient and let loose at any shadow he could see. Stone and steel alike shattered in explosions of flame and force. An infuriated grunt sounded out followed by a flicker of gold. Got one!
The Paladin swiveled its guns around to finish her off, only for a rush of red to block his sights. Ruby swung her scythe with all her might at its faceplate and bounced right off, the ringing of steel on steel echoing through her ears and hands both. All she'd earned for her troubles was a small gash in her foe's armor. If they needed to weaken it more...
"Frostbite!" She spun Crescent Rose and fired beneath her just in time to avoid the Paladin's shoulder rush at the sound. Torchwick slammed his foot down and turned his guns towards the sky, only to find countless white glyphs forming around him in the now-receding mist and the Paladin's legs locking up from ice. Missiles locked onto the perpetrator: Weiss, standing their with her rapier raised and a pleased little smirk on her face.
The hilt of a chokuto slammed into one of the four main eyes of the Paladin. Adam followed up at insane speeds, snatching his blade out of the sky and slashing across a second eye before vanishing in a rush of black and red. Kicking off of the glyphs, he appeared at erratic angles, cutting away sensors and cameras as he flew by. The Paladin swung the main guns of its arm around and prepared to fire, only for one to be frozen over by a well-placed bolt of Dust from Weiss. The dark blur swept by once more, blade shattering the ice and damaging the device.
What was once one bolt of ice became several. If it tried to break the ice on its legs, its guns would be frozen and struck again. Focus on Weiss, and Adam would shoot by and strike at a brittle zone. Focus on Adam and it was like the amount of Dust thrown upon it would multiply. Torchwick, without caring for what he struck, launched every missile he had at the two before every tracking system he had could be destroyed. Unable to focus on maintaining her semblance, her ice storm and defend herself simultaneously, the glyphs failed just as Adam landed beside her and the two were forced on the retreat.
Seeing Weiss not just backing up but backflipping away from the explosions and refusing to be shown up in the subject of dramatic fighting, Adam joined alongside her, leaving the two leaping away in acrobatic flips before ending in a midair twist and flourish of their weapons as they landed that—considering their lack of planning—the two found disturbingly well-synchronized.
A cry from behind: "Strawberry Sunrise!"
Torchwick cursed himself. He was far too used to not playing fair to end up outnumbered. He swung the Paladin around to face Yang once more only to find her flipping up into a handstand. Ruby flipped over Torchwick and onto Yang's feet before both of them fired their weapons, launching Ruby high into the air. Following the momentum, Yang landed on her feet and launched for the Paladin. She cared nothing for the waves of fire, ducking, weaving and flipping over every shot until she was ready to slam her fist into her target: the Paladin's legs. Alarms blared inside its cockpit as she shifted her weight from side to side, smashing the joint more and more until one last blow forced its leg back and the rest of its body forward.
The Paladin swung its gun as it fell, striking Yang and sending her skidding along the ground, but all of that focus came at a cost: not noticing Ruby until it was far too late. Flying down at insane speeds with her scythe's blade bent outwards forming it into a true polearm, Ruby let out a battle cry as she jammed her entire blade into the machine's core and forced it down.
The last thing Torchwick expected was Crescent Rose's blade to punch through not just the core but slice across his side. His world went spinning as the Paladin crashed to the ground yet again, sparking. Structural integrity wasn't just low: the entire machine was threatening to crumble away beneath him. Radars showed the police getting brave, sending more airships his way. An Atlesian airship was even breaking off from Beacon's docks to come finish the job, no doubt General Ironwood's work. His eyes turned to the four brats gathering in front of him and narrowed. He had himself an idea...
Team RWAY stepped back in shock as the Paladin was suddenly engulfed in a fiery explosion: it had turned its guns on itself? A lobbed shell landing among the four launched Adam and Weiss backwards, the latter seeing her aura begin to glimmer and shine a bright white, just on the brink of shattering completely. Adam did not fair much better as he rolled with the momentum and flipped back to his feet, his own crimson aura flashing around him. They turned their eyes to the sky to find the Paladin reaching the peak of one massive, gun-assisted leap.
It was a mess: armor plating lay broken and bent, the guns atop its frame were now burnt and twisted into near-molten slag, and a chunk of its faceplate was cracked, but copying their techniques had worked for Torchwick. Its arm cannons spun behind it and fired again, sending it falling even faster towards the group and preparing to stomp down on Yang in particular. Torchwick knew she'd received some of the worst punishment of the fight. What Torchwick, however, did not know was her Semblance.
In a blast of flame, Yang's hair flared up bright as gold and her eyes as red as rubies. Ruby swept Yang up with her scythe, fired for a boost of speed and launched her straight at him without the blonde so much as flinching. She spun Crescent Rose to face behind her and yanked the bolt back. Rose petals fluttered off into the wind. She reached within for her own Semblance.
"If you want your hat back, take it!" Dashing up the length of the scythe, Adam spun and threw the bowler hat in an arcing throw right between Yang and the Paladin. Behind them in the same instant, Weiss held Myrtenaster up, flicked the cylinder to yellow Dust and channeled as much of her remaining aura into it as she could.
And for Weiss, time slowed to a crawl. Ruby stood ahead of her, crouching and preparing to zoom forward and bring her scythe to bare on whatever of Torchwick was left as rose petals halted mid-twirl in the air around her. Adam reached for the hilt of his blade mid-leap with every thread or strand of red across him blooming with an eerie light matched only by the crimson overwhelming his irises. Yang was rising just at the top of the trio, her fist cocked back, hair a blinding gold and eyes shining red. Weiss wondered, briefly, if there was some strange relation between the two none of them knew of, before lowering her rapier.
Their semblances all active at once, the rest of RWAY also served as a stairway right to Torchwick. Having mastered time dilation to the point where managing her breath was nonessential, Weiss sprung forward, daintily leaping from Ruby to Adam in one stride, Adam to Yang the next. Twirling high above them all, she let rays of ice Dust whirling down onto the Paladin's now-unprotected top and dragged a black glyph just below them all. However, when she gracefully landed behind the ensuing carnage and leaped aside, she couldn't help but notice something gleaming from within the bowler hat Adam threw: something Weiss was certain she'd lost when she'd run into Ruby for the first time.
A nice, small, corked bottle of the highest quality powdered red Dust. One with the SDC snowflake on it.
Time resumed.
Ice struck the back of the Paladin, throwing it off-balance and heading towards Yang all the faster. When Yang's fist connected with the jar of Dust and the Paladin's foot both, the resulting explosion sent the Paladin's leg flying off as scrap metal and the Paladin itself flying high into the air yet again, only to be dragged right back down towards the black glyph's extreme gravity. Ruby fired and threw herself fully into her speedy semblance, drawn by the gravity until the glyph vanished just before impact. At such ridiculous speeds that the force of impact had not even traveled up the rest of the Paladin, Ruby swept by with her scythe and tore the Paladin's other leg away with ease.
There was nothing to protect him from the last stroke. Adam, dragged in behind Ruby, slashed out with Wilt in the blink of an eye. The world was plunged in crimson. The shattered Moon shone high above, a disc of white unable to shed even a ray on a world of silhouettes and red light, as what was once a mighty construct of Atlesan technology wasted away into a roaring storm of scattering and wilting petals both. When Adam sheathed his blade and returned the night to its natural darkness, Torchwick was left barely conscious in the machine's place.
His right leg wasted away into darkened rose petals.
A/N: This fight was a lot of fun to write, and took some inspirations(namely the final assault) from Monty's previous works such as Dead Fantasy.
Comment and criticism always welcome.
