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A Battle Fantasy in Remnant
Chapter Three
"An ice-cream cone. How embarrassing."
-]l[-
"I'm heading into Vale."
That is what greeted team MALN when they awoke to Lance, fully-dressed and standing at the dorm's door one morning. Nary a second later and Matt was standing in front of his teammate, hands on shoulders, and eyes staring into Lance's eyes, tears flying everywhere and an anguished expression plastered to his face.
"But you can't leave! We're supposed to have four teammates! What can we do without a fundamental party member like you? Suffer?"
Lance almost seemed like he was reconsidering, when he went silent for a moment, only to crush Matt's hopes. "Yeah. Suffer. Just have NoLegs take my place as your fourth for a day. I'll be back soon anyways."
"Alright," Matt nodded. "What are you gonna be doing in Vale?"
"...That was a sudden turnaround," Lance muttered, perturbed. "Uh, I'll be trying to get my ion cannon back into orbit. Just because it came with us doesn't mean I can use it anytime, unlike your guys' Limits. Oh, and I had this conversation with one of the other students—Ren—who mentioned this Dust thing to me. Apparently it's highly explosive..." Lance trailed off into a dark chuckle, one which the rest of the team ignored, used to his antics.
"Alright. NoLegs! You're promoted to part of team MALN… MANN?" Matt shrugged, giving up after a single attempt at renaming the team. "Lance, don't get into anything fun without us, okay?"
NoLegs gave an excited meow at this, and for Lance, an eyeroll was his answer, before the door opened and Lance stepped outside, coat swishing behind him.
"I'm sure this is going to go over great with Headmaster Ozpin and Professor Goodwitch," sighed Natalie, grabbing her book bag and offering NoLegs a ride. "Let's head off to class, guys. First up is Combat Studies"
-]l[-
"Matt," Professor Goodwitch spoke, a dangerous tone staining her voice, and her words easily reaching to where Blake sat alongside the rest of team RWBY. "Do you have an explanation for the rumors I'm hearing of your team losing one of its members alread—is that a cat?!"
Blake's ears—the Faunus pair—twitched at that, her concealing bow moving along with them. A cat? Team MA-N brought a cat to combat class? Sure enough, on the ground next to Matt and his team was a small blue-furred… 'cat.' Sure, it had no limbs and appeared to be wearing clothes and a hat, but the distinctive ears and tail did make it clear that this creature was in fact a cat.
Matt was quick to mount a defense for his unusual and feline choice for a teammate replacement—not that Blake wouldn't take a cat over some of her teammates at times—and he quickly responded to Goodwitch.
"Yes, Professor! NoLegs is a proud member of our team and can stand on equal ground with anyone in this class!"
Goodwitch was very clearly suspicious of this statement, and only confirmed it with her next line. "Then I'm sure you won't mind 'NoLegs' fighting first while you explain where your actual fourth teammate went?"
Matt thought about it for a moment, before shrugging. "I'm not sure we'll have time for that, but if it's fine with NoLegs then it's fine with me. He can decide his own battles." At his side, the 'cat' let out a mrrow, before hopping his way up to the fighting stage.
So that 'cat' could either think, or was very well trained. How interesting. At Blake's side, Yang—her blonde teammate with a penchant for punching—poked her in the side and pointed to the cat. "Look!"
"I was already looking," Blake muttered back, slightly irritated at the interruption.
"Good, then you can see how that cat is holding a ice-cream cone as a weapon… without any limbs!"
"Wait-what?!" Blake leaned forward, resting her arms on the chair in front of her and staring at the cat. He was indeed carrying something. On one side of his limbless body was an ice-cream cone (three scoops, she noticed), and on the other was an ice-cream sandwich. Despite the warm temperature in the room, neither was melting.
"Where the hell did those come from?" Yang's question was shared by the rest of the class, if the murmurs were any indication.
Goodwitch began speaking again after a few moments to let the class quiet down. "You can begin your story after the bout begins. NoLegs, your opponent shall be—"
"Hey! Shouldn't NoLegs get to choose his opponent?" Matt interrupted, drawing a scowl from Weiss at the interruption, just barely visible to Blake on the other side of Yang. Goodwitch frowned briefly before eventually nodding. "Very well… NoLegs, who would you like to face?"
The cat sat—stood?—on the stage for a moment before gesturing with his ice-cream cone towards none other than Blake. With a snort from her ever-helpful partner, the black-haired Faunus stood from her seat, collecting her weapon as she did so, and stepped gracefully down to the stage where she stood across from the blue-furred warrior.
A holoscreen lit up, showing Blake and NoLeg's faces with a green bar below Blake's—showing her Aura, Blake assumed. She did find it interesting that Matt trusted his cat enough to fight without an Aura though, and was equally surprised that Goodwitch was letting it happen. She had seemed like a very by-the-books kind of teacher from what Blake had seen so far.
"This bout will go to first hit, to ensure no injuries. That said, normally, matches will go until one combatant's Aura is in the red. Are both combatants ready to fight?"
Blake nodded, and across from her, NoLegs gave a happy meow.
"Very well. Then on my mark, the match begins. Three, two, one, go!"
-]l[-
The cat made the first move. The actual cat. NoLegs rushed toward Blake, hopping at a respectable speed, ice-cream cone bobbing. Across the stage from him, Blake held Gambol Shroud in front of her, crouched slightly, and readied herself to move at any moment. It wouldn't do to underestimate a cat, she mentally chuckled at the thought.
A moment later and NoLegs disappeared, leaving only a dust cloud behind. Then she heard it, the slightest of ruffles, the sound of fur in the wind. Spinning on her feet, Blake brought Gambol Shroud to protect from an overhead strike. Striking against her weapon was the ice-cream cone, the three flavoured scoops slicing across her defense three times before NoLegs landed on the ground once more.
'Fast!'
When NoLegs made no motion to attack again, Blake took it as her chance to test the waters, an opportunity she was very grateful for. First, she took advantage of the brief break to draw her blade from its sheath, splitting Gambol Shroud into a katana and a sheath, both held loosely and prepared to strike. Then Blake moved, not nearly as fast as her opponent, but smoother, staying low to the ground as she crossed the stage.
Then she was within range, merely a few feet away and she struck. Her katana lashed out, but was stalemated by his ice-cream cone. That was fine, she prepared for that. Her back foot slid forward slightly, and then her left arm jerked forward, hand hooked through her sheath, and whipping it toward NoLegs' head, an attack he would be hard-pressed to avoid.
She missed. NoLegs had slipped forward, sidestepping her sheath, and angled his ice-cream cone just right so that her katana slid off. It nicked the wooden floor slightly, leaving her defenseless, a fact that was quickly proven as she was knocked backward by a thrust of NoLeg's weapon that hit her stomach.
Or it would've, had it not been for her Semblance. A shadow clone took her place, disintegrated by the attack. With its creation, Blake was sent flying up above the stage, allowing her a brief moment to think.
NoLegs had already proven that he could take her swordplay, and Blake wasn't confident enough to try to take on a faster opponent—at least not while she still had options that didn't rely on luck. Flipping as she reached the top of her leap, Blake clipped her sheath to her back and flipped a switch on the katana. The blade folded down, and then a ribbon extended from the handle of the weapon, forming a kusarigama. Blake wrapped the ribbon around her main-hand, once, twice, and then she was ready.
She was already halfway back down to the stage, and could see NoLegs waiting for her when she struck. Her fingers relaxed, and Gambol Shroud fell, dropping faster than her, until it was just about to hit the ground, that was her queue. A flick of the wrist had the weapon flying back to her, pulled by its ribbon, slicing directly toward NoLegs.
This wasn't an attack meant to injure, simply distract and allow time for Blake to land safely, so it was no bother when the blue-furred cat simply deflected her weapon back to the ground. It was there that her plan truly began. Blake brought her off-hand up to grasp another portion of the ribbon, and then skillfully controlled Gambol Shroud to bring it back to her, pushing and pulling at times to keep NoLegs from knocking it out of the air.
Weapon safely retrieved, and ribbon wrapped around her arms, Blake was forced to retreat slightly under a barrage of strikes from NoLegs, the cat darting in and out of her range, keeping her under pressure. An especially brutal strike, one that Blake was forced to block with Gambol Shroud's sheath, sent Blake flying back several feet. She skidded on the stage, one hand frantically grasping around in her pockets for something.
A moment later she found it, and after ejecting Gambol Shroud's clip to clatter against the stage, slid a new clip, this one glowing teal, into the weapon. Job done, she glanced up, and her eyes widened as her opponent was mere inches away, his weapon slamming into her face, causing a shattering sound to echo through the room.
For what NoLegs had struck was not Blake, nor an intangible copy made by her Semblance. It was a solid ice sculpture of the black-haired girl, that had been created by her Semblance along with Ice Dust. And when NoLegs struck it, it shattered, hundreds of pieces spiralling through the air around NoLegs, fencing him in for the few brief moments until they landed.
Those few brief moments would have to be enough. Blake threw Gambol Shroud behind NoLegs, before whipping it around by the ribbon, gathering enough of the ribbon in the stage to completely entrap NoLegs should it hit. And then she pulled, closing the trap upon NoLegs, ice blocking his escape, ribbons closing to trap him, and Gambol Shroud heading straight for his chest. He may be fast, but Blake was confident that no student at Beacon would be able to escape this without getting hit by any of the various projectiles.
And it was as she thought this, that NoLegs began moving even faster. For a moment, Blake thought she saw the wind itself pushing NoLegs along. And then NoLegs was gone, leaving only afterimages that slipped through Blake's prepared trap like it hadn't even been there.
Blake felt the freezing cold of the ice-cream cone impact her, and collapsed to her knees, listening numbly as Goodwitch called out the results of the bout. She had just lost to a cat. A cat. If her parents, no, if anyone on Menagerie ever found out about this she would never live it down.
"Ah, don't cry, Blakey! You did your best." Blake glanced up to see her partner Yang approaching her, followed closely by the rest of team RWBY.
"Indeed... there was no way you could've known that the cat was so strong, especially without an Aura. Such a loss is nothing to be ashamed of," chimed in Weiss.
"He was so faaaaaaast! Faster than me, maybe," Ruby muttered, giving Blake a pat on the back which she was too slow to dodge. With a sigh, Blake picked herself off the floor and followed the team back to the stands.
"I'm not gonna burst out crying at a single loss. My only worry is if anyone back home gets word of this…" Blake trailed off, mumbling the last part.
"Your family? Where are you from?" Yang was quick to latch on to her slip.
"Nevermind. I'd rather not talk about it." That garnered her a sceptical look, though at least Yang didn't seem intent on pushing it.
They had just sat back down at their chairs when one of the members of team MALN, Natalie if she remembered right, approached them with an apologetic look on her face.
"Hey…" she began. "I'm sorry for how NoLegs was acting during that fight. He's normally very polite, but I guess something about you must've set him off."
"It's fine," Blake assured Natalie, bowing slightly. "Besides, I've done a lot of things that make people not like me, so it doesn't surprise me."
"People not liking Blake? But she's so nice!" Ruby interjected, drawing a small smile from the black-haired girl in question.
"Still, he's normally better behaved, so just let us know if there's anything we can do to make up for his actions."
Yang was quick to take her up on the offer, requesting the story of where MALN's fourth member had gone to. "After all, Professor Goodwitch was so distracted by the fight she forgot to ask."
"Ah, Lance. He went into Vale to put a satellite into orbit."
-]l[-
His first four stops had been at various Dust stores, all of which had been closed for some reason or another, and it was only at the fifth—a store called From Dust Till Dawn—when he actually got a reason behind all the closed stores. The owner of the store had been in the middle of repairing a window when Lance had arrived, and was more than willing to explain the situation while Lance helped him install the new window.
Apparently, this guy named Roman Torchwick had been going around stealing Dust from nearly every store in Vale. Just a few days ago he had attempted to rob this very store, and was only stopped by the intervention of a girl in red wielding a scythe who engaged the criminal in a fight. Lance was intrigued to find out that one of his fellow first years was already adept in fighting criminals, and made a note to not mention his past to her.
After another few minutes of work, Lance and the shopkeep finished up their work, and Lance took advantage of the pause to ask a question.
"Say… Torchwick didn't succeed in his robbery, did he?"
The owner shook his head.
"Mmm, then I don't suppose I'd be able to buy any of this dust?"
"It would cost ya', bit more than usual, since I need the Lien for repairs, but if you got Lien I can get you Dust."
After Lance didn't respond, the shopkeep paused from his sweeping to glance in the boy's direction, only to see him look back with a confused look.
"Old man, what's Lien?"
"...The currency of Remnant. Are you sure you should be in Beacon?"
"Oi!" Lance shouted at the man, insulted. "Just you wait, I'll be back later with some of this 'Lien.'"
And with that he turned and dashed out of the door, Scroll in hand, and already looking up ways to get Lien.
-]l[-
It had taken way too long—in Lance's opinion—to find the right man for the job.
After the stop at the Dust shop, he had found himself searching for two things, Lien to buy Dust, and some place to launch a rocket, ideally on the outskirts of town. While he could've attempted a launch at Beacon, some instinct told him that the Headmaster wouldn't be too happy with Lance launching a nuke so close to his students. So the town it was.
Eventually, while walking through some back alleys searching for Lien, a thug tried to mug Lance. A moment later, Lance was mugging the thug, having knocked the thug's weapon the the ground, and now holding his own threateningly.
At that point, it didn't take much convincing for the would-be robber to send him off to some club in search of a guy named Junior. The thug said that this Junior would be able to send him where he needed to go.
So Lance found Junior.
And Junior found out just why you shouldn't threaten someone with the firepower to blow up the city.
Suffice it to say, Junior told Lance just who he needed to find, one Roman Torchwick, and had even been kind (read: scared) enough to offer Lance some Lien, free of charge. Then he tried to ambush Lance the moment the boy let him go. Safe to say Junior's Bar would be undergoing repairs a bit longer than previously estimated.
And that was the story of how Lance found himself bartering with an orange-haired thief wearing a bowler and his assistant, a short woman with pink and black hair.
"Alright. So let me get this straight, Kid. You want an abandoned area so you can 'launch a satellite into space,' and our eternal servitude under your rule to protect the planet?"
Lance nodded. "Yep."
"And why exactly should I help you? Someone who my sources assure me to be a student at Beacon Academy?" To his side, the girl gave a grin at Lance, parasol spinning in a vaguely threatening manner.
Lance thought for a moment before replying. "Ehmm… if you help me now than I won't be forced to destroy you?"
Roman chuckled. "And I'm supposed to believe that a single school student could take down both me and Neo?"
"Ah… If you know that I'm a student at Beacon, I'm sure you heard what my teammate did during initiation?" Roman nodded, and Lance continued. "I can do much worse than that, with ease."
Roman still seemed uncertain, until Neo tapped him on the shoulder and showed him a message on the scroll. "You know what, Kid? This seems like a great deal, though we'll have to skip on the eternal servitude part." Lance shrugged, uncaring. "I can get you the launch site, but it'll take a few weeks to get the site cleared. I'll contact you when it's ready, though how the hell you're planning on breaching the Dust Orbit Barrier I don't even want to know… Atlas has been trying since before they existed and the highest they got was four miles up… on a Schnee funded mission no less."
Lance stared at the speaker blankly. He knew the words used, but not what they meant. Not that it mattered, as long as the man could fulfill his request.
"Ah nevermind. I'll let you know when it's ready. If it crashes, it ain't my fault."
"I'm glad we could reach an agreement," Lance said, shaking his business partner's hand before turning and leaving. He still had Dust to buy, after all.
-]l[-
"I'm just saying, if NoLegs can defeat Blake with only an ice-cream cone, there's no reason I can't do something similar with Crocea Mors. It's served my family faithfully for generations, and is likely one of the oldest Huntsman weapons still in use… it doesn't need upgrades!"
"Uh, Jaune…" Ruby chuckled nervously, leading her friend through Beacon's hallways. "NoLegs was able to defeat Blake with an ice-cream cone because he was an absolute monster, and, no offense, you're not an absolute monster."
"Rub it in, why don't you," Jaune muttered morosely. "Alright, Ruby. You can try to convince me, but no pouting when I don't agree."
"Deal!"
Agreement reached, the pair headed off to the forges of Beacon where Ruby would be attempting to convince Jaune of the benefits of upgrading Crocea Mors, citing features such as Dust capabilities, stronger hits, and an improved deployment system.
She continued chattering at him for the next few minutes as they crossed Beacon's campus, headed to a smaller side-building. It was located some ways away from the dorms and classrooms—nearer to the farms than anything else—to prevent any Dust or mechanical issues from causing any harm to those not responsible. Ruby had visited the forges once already to fix a few scratches to Crocea Mors after initiation, and expected it to be just as empty this afternoon as it was the previous day.
That was not the case.
The two team leaders had scarcely made it five steps inside when they heard the sound of an explosion followed by coughing coming from one of the forge rooms. The pair exchanged glances, before dashing over to the room to check on the inhabitant. Inside, they found one of their fellow students, gun wielder, and all around edgy teenager, Lance.
"Are you all right!?" Ruby dashed over to the collapsed student, barely noticing the open cases of dust scattered apart the room in her haste to check on the black-haired boy—dust explosions were serious business, as she learned just a few days ago.
Lance waved off her concern, pulling himself upright. "Nah, I've had worse," he let out a cough. "What are you two doing here?"
Seeing that Ruby had noticed the dust in the room and was a bit too distracted to answer, Jaune took over. "Ruby wanted to convince me to upgrade my sword with Dust."
"You mean your sword doesn't already shoot lasers or something? I'm surprised, honestly. I guess Matt has been rubbing off on me."
"What!? How is that surprisi—"
"What is all this Dust for?" Ruby cut Jaune off, gesturing around the room at the several cases of dust while gazing at Lance with a curious look on her face.
"Ah, I heard from your teammate—" he gestured at Jaune. "—that Dust was highly explosive, as well as elemental, and was hoping I could find a way to increase my elemental arsenal to get a bit closer to my teammates'."
"And you need this much Dust?" Jaune was suspicious. The most flexibility he had ever seen from a Hunter was his father, who regularly fought with two or three different kinds of dust. But the amount Lance had laid out—some eleven colors—was just overkill for any Hunter, even Jaune knew that.
"Yeah, Anna has over ten elements she can use with ease. Even Matt has like eight options, way more than me, and most of his are just his sword magically creating them." Lance paused, shooting the cases of Dust an irritated look. "Thing is, I just can't figure out how to get this Dust working without it blowing up—not that that's a problem, mind, it's just more useful if I have more options."
"You don't know how to activate Dust? Just infuse it with a bit of Aura, easy. Even Jaune could do it."
"Hey!"
"A bit of what now?"
"My god, he's just like you, Jaune…" Ruby and Jaune exchanged a glance at Lance's question. It had taken a bit, but eventually Pyrrha had explained the significance of Jaune barely knowing what Aura was, and to find a second person with even more lacking knowledge...
"You know what? Let's get started, class!" Ruby suddenly hopped on top of one of the many metal tables, arm held to the sky. "Jaune, you stay here to see how Dust works and be convinced of the wonder and majesty of it, and how useful it would be to upgrade Crocea Mors, and Lance… let's learn to use Dust!"
And so, for the next four hours, the trio found themselves working in the forges, learning from Ruby on how exactly Dust worked, the various types, and how to activate it by hand, as well as the more explosive aspects of Dust.
Truth be told, all three were bigger fans of the explosions.
-]l[-
Quick pre-AN-AN. Chapter 2 has been updated slightly to fix some errors. If you notice anything that you suspect to be an error, please PM me or mention it in a review, and I'll change it when I next update.
So, I might not have rewatched Jaunedice before publishing the last chapter, and kinda didn't know there was a two week time skip between Badge and Burden and Jaunedice… but now I know, so the next chapter will probably be Jaunedice. Maybe.
Anyways, a few things about this chapter. First up, NoLegs utterly murdering Blake. I hope that no one is surprised that an endgame, agility tank, can out-ninja the first year Beacon student. This is one of the first displays of how I'll be scaling the EBF team. I'm putting them at top-tier for destructive ability, high-tier for physicals, and EX for hax. In addition, we also got Lance offscreening Junior and his entire club, not that that says much, given how Yang basically solo'd them.
Next up, the Dust Orbit Barrier. Thought of it while writing out this chapter, and the idea behind it is more or less that there's a point where it's either economically impossible, or physically impossible, to get liftoff from only Dust, due to the weakening effects the further it gets from Remnant. I'm thinking that there is a specific point where adding more Dust counters its own fuel, by the weight it adds, and the weakening. The mention of a Schnee funded mission is the idea that the Schnee have the purest and most efficient Dust, and thus would have the best chance of success. The number of four miles was mostly arbitrary, based off of the flying height of an airplane, minus 40ish%. If that seems unrealistic, feel free to mention it and I can change it.
A few more things about this chapter that eagle-eyed readers might have noticed. First: Jaune "barely knew what Aura was" in this fic. This is because I felt like it, no real reason beyond him being a complete idiot seems kinda off. Plus I get to make his dad be a Dust-caster in the background.
And the last thing, the number of elemental spells each character has access to, according to Lance. This is based off of my own save file, where, counting element-neutral and healing as separate elements, and character's extra skills as belonging to them, and notably not counting weapon elements… Matt has 9, Natalie has 10, Lance has 5, NoLegs has 9, and Anna has 12.
Deadlines: I mentioned that I'd do my best to get this chapter out on the 28th. This is because the 28th is my birthday, and I am now 18 years old. *yay*. No guaranteed date for next chapter, as I want to get another chapter out for my other fic first, as well as get some reading done.
Oh, and many thanks to those of you who have been regular readers and reviewers, notably: Delekmaster, Skeletalrepublic, The Lazy Dragon, and Crusader of Tea! You folks are great!
Anyways, I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter, even though it was pretty-much just filler to give a bit more reason for the teams to be friends later on. If you have any predictions, let me know, I did start setting up a few things in this chapter that should theoretically come to fruition later in the story. If you enjoyed the chapter, please leave me a favorite, and/or follow, and if you really enjoyed the chapter, or have any questions for me, please leave a review. Til next time!