Chapter 16

Whispers in the trees

Week 4: Day 27

(Velvet's POV)

I was currently sitting in my dorm watching the paint on the ceiling dry. Coco decided that the ceiling needed a change of color so she painted it a deep chocolate brown. No warning, I just walked in on her painting the ceiling with Fox and Yastu in the library reading who knows what. Coco was not far from me thinking of what else to do.

"What time does Goodwitch get back again?" She asked.

"Sometime past two, why?" I answered. I looked at my watch to find it was half past noon, they have been gone for like three hours. I hope Johnathan and his team are doing alright. I know our trip there ended in a huge disaster.

"Just want to have a small chat with 'Freelancer'. I might need a pack mule later." She joked chuckling a bit. I rolled my eyes and let out a deep sigh.

"What do we do? We got almost two hours to kill." I asked. Just as I thought she was going to answer, my scroll rang surprising both of us. I reached to grab it but Coco was faster and answered it already putting it on speaker.

"Hello Johnathan, how is your field trip going?" She asked. Almost immediately I heard the distinct sound of gunfire and explosions. He's having a busy day.

"Fan-fucking-tastic. Just love being ambushed by these god damned ninja foxes, oh did I forget to mention we're surrounded as well Coco." He answered with another explosion and more swearing. "If it isn't too much trouble, please put Velvet on the phone."

"You're on speaker." I replied.

"I'm not going to sugar coat it. I'm ass deep in a rapidly growing shit storm right now. I might not make it out of this one unscathed. I...ouch god damn it, fucking bone knives." More gunshots were fired as he swore more. "Can't get a good hit on them, bastards are too fast and unpredictable."

"Language Johnathan." Coco scolded.

"When you're under attack by I think thirty Kitsuninja and trying to keep Rhode and my raptors alive, then you can call me out on my language use." He warned. My heart stopped. Tell me He's joking.

"Slow down. Did you say...Kitsuninja?!" She asked taking her glasses off.

"Yes, I got a clan of these little shits attacking us. Rosa and Rojo are busy holding their Alpha off but won't last too much longer, Rojo is hurt badly and Rosa can't keep up. I sent RWBY, JNPR to get Goodwitch, think they are lost or under attack right now. CRDL is down with two bleeding very badly, other two are knocked out." He answered as another explosion filled the call.

My heart sank deep. We've face Kitsuninja once, we barely made it out alive. Ten first year teams went into the forest that day for our field trip, only one came out alive and sane. They are very smart, begun picking us off one by one before we figured out we were under attack. Only reason we survived was because a meteor fell from the sky and exploded over us. It diverted their attention long enough for us to get out of their territory and to the safety of Dr. Oobleck.

"If we don't survive this Velvet, I want you to know that I….." He tried to say but all we got was static. I looked Coco dead in the eye. She looked as if she already know what I was thinking.

"I've got to do something." I declared vaulting myself off my bed and out the door. Coco jumped out of her bed and raced to follow me.

"Velvet, what are you thinking?" She asked

"Going to get them back up. I know just who too." I answered.

(Johnathan's POV)

I stood behind the dead Ursa's body shooting the tree tops. I had several bony throwing knives sticking out between the armor pieces I need to take out. They got damn good aim, I'll give them that. Rhode was beside me keeping her rifle leveled on our southern flank, not a single knife in her because I was using myself as her shield. Our meat shield was full of bony throwing knives from these crazy things. Only other sound beside of our guns firing was the yips and barks of the Kitsuninja and shrieks of the raptors.

We're both exhausted and almost out of rounds. It started out smoothly, quickly turned to a shit storm. Had to move CRDL to under the Ursa's paws and fat. Rocket launcher was out of ammo, almost out of ammo. Very stressed right now.

I tried calling Velvet, but my helmet's battery is weak. I had to divert power from the physical enhancement chips and the motion tracker to even keep the HUD running and visible. I wanted to tell her something personal, but short range communications is now down to conserve power.

I shot at a Kitsuninja on our left. Like the past three times, it moved faster than the bullet and I just wasted ammo. The tree on the other hand wasn't spared as the incendiary made a fireball and burned most the bark off the tree. I turn around quickly to find another bony knife sink itself deep in my shoulder right between the armor plates again. I winced in pain as I fired the last round in the mag at my right flank.

"You okay John?" Rhode asked as I pulled the bony knife out of my shoulder and threw it at a tree.

"I've been through worse." I grumbled as I reloaded my pistol. "Last mag." I announced as one of the Kitsuninja rushed by and threw one of the bony knives from their arm. I quickly got in front of Rhode and took the bullet for her, so to speak. It bounced off my armor but the sheer force of it made me wince in pain. I turned and fired. The bullet caught the Grimm right in the side and tore through it. It flew through the air and went out of sight. It yelped as I heard it scamper off.

I can't fucking believe it right now. Two highly trained spec op Freelancers being outsmarted by a bunch of ninja foxes. Either we're losing our touch, or they are are very smart. I swear if this is what finally does me in, I might be a little pissed off. I'll be haunting someone's ass for this, I'll figure that out when I am a ghost.

"What did you want to tell Velvet earlier? Sounded like you were going to say you lo.." She tried to tease as one of the Grimm's bony knives hit the ground next to her. She shot a few rounds that way, all missed or hit bark. Damn these things are annoying.

"Not the best time Rhode. Tease me all you like if we survive this." I ordered throwing one of the knives back. This time it hit one of them in the knee. It fell out of the tree top. Me and Rhode both reacted and opened fire. Five of her rounds tore through it while one of mine blew it's head off. "One down, a fuck-ton to go." I replied. I have no idea how many are left. Pretty sure I recounted a few of them.

The air was soon filled with the pained scream of Rojo. I looked up to see one of the Kitsuninja about to impale his chest with it's knifes. Rosa was knocked out under a tree full of scratch marks and cuts. Rage filled my blood as I jumped from my cover and ran toward his aid. He screeched for help as the Alpha turned toward me and threw an arm full of knives toward me.

I dodged it's first barrage of knives as I tackled him to the ground. I brought my fist up and tried to smash it's face in. it dodged it and kicked me right in the groin. I winced as it got out from under me and readied two knives for a fight. I unsheathed my trench knives and charged it still in pain. Surprisingly it pared and counted all my strikes as I did with his.

(Velvet's POV)

I pushed open the doors to Azula's holding cell in my combat uniform, my box off to the side ready to use. Ozpin had it remodeled from a old training ground. She was currently ripping apart a training dummy while growling loudly before looking right at me. She let go of the dummy and jumped toward me, only to hit a pair of metal bars.

Johnathan needs help, I have no idea where in the forever forest he is at. Can't get a signal on Goodwitch to ask her for help. No clue how long it would take her to find him, from what I heard with his tone of voice he is in really deep trouble. Azula is my only option right now. She's the only one I know who can track him from miles away. Coco wasn't too far behind me, just in case things turn deadly.

"I know you want to kill me right now." I calmly said. She hissed at me and walked away. "I also you want to kill Johnathan." She perked her head up and looked at me. "He's in trouble, and I don't think you want something else to kill him." She purred a bit as her eyes stared at me full of murderous intent. I calmly pulled a lever on the wall. The metal gate between me and her went up. She walked forward and softly hissed at me. I could feel my heart race as she closed the distance between me and her. "You help me find him, you can rip apart whatever is hurting him, but you leave him alone." I bartered. I can't believe I'm trying to make a deal with this thing. I have no idea if she wants to kill me, help me, or go attack the dummy again. She looked down a bit as if she was thinking.

"I really need your help Azula." I informed. She purred as she moved past me and moved down to my waist. Was this a deal or no deal? She barked motioning her head in an 'let's go already' fashion.

"Really?" I asked. She softly barked and looked a bit agitated. Hesitantly I climbed on her back. She lifted me up like it was nothing. She let out a soft growl and raced out of the door over a surprised Coco. I held on to her neck tightly with a light squeal. Hold on Johnathan, the cavalry is coming.

(Azula's POV)

The weird looking human was hanging onto my neck as I raced out of the building's doors on to flat ground. I know what my prey's scent is, memorized it. If anyone was going to kill him, it's going to be me. I won't let anything less even get the satisfaction of even hurting a hair on his head.

He broke my Alpha's heart, he needs to pay for what he did. I want him to pay for the tears he made her shed, all those nights I kept her from hurting herself, but I want him to be able to defend himself. No fun when it is too easy.

I jumped over a few humans and kept running with the rabbit one on my back. Rosa and Rojo are my responsibility, anything happens to them I'll tear someone's throat out. Who's throat I don't care, I will protect my pack members. I won't let nothing hurt them as long as I'm still breathing.

(Goodwitch's POV)

Few minutes later

"Sounds like someone is having a lot fun." I commented as the sounds of gunfire and explosions filled the air. More than likely someone found a Grimm to kill and they are using it as practice. Happens every time we come here. I'll give it another...ten minutes before it ends or I'll need to get involved. We have to leave so. Still have a fair trip back to Beacon.

I was watching my scroll, leaning on the side of a Bullhead that brought us. Kids would be fine, I seen what the team leaders can do. Unless they came across a high ranking Grimm, not much will be able to hurt them. Strangely only CRDL's aura is down. I have no way to track 'Freelancer' so I can only hope they are as good as they say, no doubt Johnathan will protect his team. RWBY and JNPR are still in the green. I'm not too worried, CRDL probably got in a fight with another team and got their butts handed to them. More then likely 'Freelancer'.

I do find Johnathan as a strange student. The way he fights is unbelievable, his fight with Cardin seemed like nothing more then child's play to him. the way he fights with the other students, he holds back a lot more potential then he let's us believe he has. His skill with his swords is interesting to say the least. I've seen his rescue mission for Miss Locke. He tore through the horde of Grimm like high ranking Hunters and Huntresses could. All to save his friend, I would not pity the poor soul who decided to hurt one of his friends or allies. Ever since he showed up things have been getting weird. Well Alice was here first but things got crazy after Johnathan, like with Miss Scarlatina. She seems a bit less timid or shy around him. Then again he did save her life twice, so it is understandable that she grow more comfortable around him and act out of the ordinary.

"GOODWITCH LOOK OUT!" a frightened female voice yelled. I looked up to see one of Johnathan's Raptors jumping over me and bolted down the forest screeching out of sight. I could swear I saw someone on the back on it.

"What the hell was that?" I mused.

(Johnathan's POV)

I paried another strike from the Alpha, I used every ounce of strength I can muster to keep this one away from Rojo's injured body and Rosa's unconscious one. With every strike, every slash, every punch, I felt my muscles practically screaming for me to stop and let them rest. Only thing that didn't hurt was my robot arm, and that is because I can't feel jack shit with it.

I'll admit when a opponent has skill, this thing obliterates the mindless killer stereotype for Grimm. It is pretty highly skilled with it's knives, has damn good aim, and is about as smart a Raptor. Hope CFVY sends some help, I'm going to need it.

My combat suit was beyond torn, armor paint was full of scratches. I was bleeding from multiple places with the bony knives sticking out of me. But I forced myself to keep fighting. Giving up is not an option, giving up means Rhode will die, Rosa will die, Rojo will die. I must keep fighting for them. I punched the Grimm in the face but allowed it to get another slash at me. This time it slashed at my neck, I felt every millimeter of the cut burn and bleed out more. It was moved back a bit but kept it's knives in the ice pick grip.

Just as it moved to attack again, a familiar bark caught all our attention. Racing through the trees was Azula, on her back was a very scared Velvet. Velvet jumped off Azula as the raptor shrieked and collided with the Alpha Kitsuninja. She ran over to Rhode as did I.

"Damn it's good to see you." I greeted Velvet as she lifted the Ursa's paw to block an incoming knife.

"Well I wish it was under better circumstances." She replied dropping the paw holding her hand out. Her box immediately went to work and crafted a hard light duplicate of some type of ball. About the size of a soccer ball yet looked like it was made out of chicken wire. So that's what her box does, good to know.

"You may want to cover your eyes." She warned. I listened as she threw the ball into the air. All I heard was a distinct hum and a bunch of thumps. I open my eyes to see we were under a eight foot hard light bubble shield dome. Like the one North uses only a bit more clear with a not so blinding ball of light between us keeping it up. "That should hold for a while. Enough to formulate a plan. We all heard a loud pained bark, looking over our shield. I wasn't too surprised

Azula locked her jaws around the Kitsuninja's throat and started wildly shaking her head. The Grimm kicked and clawed at Azula to get her off. It finally kicked Azula off but not without getting a chunk of it's fur off. Azula screeched at it as it barked. The yipping and barking from the trees stopped. One by one several Kitsuninja jumped down from their respective trees and surrounded the two leaders, few had the spikes on their arms slowly growing back, guess they threw them all at us. Azula growled slightly as they surrounded her. She looked back at the Alpha Kitsuninja and barked. It responded with a bark of it's own.

"What's going on?" Rhode asked. To be honest I have no idea what is going on. The Alpha held his hands out in a 'bring it' motion with it's knives in an ice pick grip. Azula barked and got in the pouncing position with her claws out and teeth bared. The two charged each other in a tangle of limbs and claws. The surrounding Grimm appeared to be cheering as the two fought.

"Think she challenged the Alpha." I guessed.

Azula sunk her teeth in the Kitsuninja's arm as it tried to stab her. She wildly twisted her head and a loud snap was heard. The Kitsuninja yelped in pain as it dropped it's knife. Azula let go and kicked the wounded Alpha across the circle. She screeched and charged it again. This time she knocked the fox on his back. She took her sickle claw and impaled it in just below the top of the rib cage, and slowly dragged it down. The Kitsuninja howled in pain as the members of it's pack grew dead silent. Azula quickly grew bored of tormenting the beast, she clenched her jaws around his neck and lifted it up. In a desperate attempt, it reached out to it's pack members for help. But it was too late. Azula twisted her head and severed it's spine. It fell to the ground dead as Azula screeched as the other Kitsuninja backed off. A new one came up and growled at Azula. She growled back and narrowed her eyes.

(Azula's POV)

Translator on

"I defeated your alpha, now back off! This is my prey!" I yelled at the beast in front of me. The black fox walked up to me and stood as tall as I did. From his smell it was the Beta, I guess new Alpha, of their pack. I readied myself for another fight.

"You are a worthy warrior, demon. Very few survive a fight against an Alpha, let alone kill one." He greeted in a deep and wise sounding voice. Surprisingly, it put it's paws together and bowed at me. What the hell kind of creature does this to someone who murdered their leader. "As promised, after the ancient art of the duel, we'll allow you and your clan to live. We'll be taking our leave now. May our paths never cross again."

"Feeling's mutual." I replied. He barked to the other fox things like him. They all quickly ran away. He slowly walked toward the nearest tress, but not before giving me one last glance.

"Remember one thing. A stubborn oak will get uprooted by the hurricane of change, but a flexible willow adapts and bends to ride out the storm. Which one will you be when the time comes?" He mused like a wise teacher before jumping into the trees. I blinked a bit thinking about what he told me. I looked behind me to see the humans look at me amazed. Before I could take a step, the false alpha was already running up to me. He pushed me out of the way on one of the bone things hit between his back plates. He fell to the ground and threw his helmet off, wincing in a lot of pain. A loud smack and one of the fox things fell from a tree with a blade in it's throat.

"Johnathan!" The rabbit eared one and tan one yelled trying to pull him up. He had several of the weird bone things sticking out of him. All in bad areas. I picked myself up and looked over to the rest of my pack.

"Ouch my head hurts. What did I miss?" Rosa asked getting up from the tree shaking her head. She looked at the blue one and panicked. "Our Alpha's hurt! Rojo call someone!" She screamed rushing over to his side with Rojo barely walking behind her.

"Be thankful he loves us Azula, you owe him your life. Please don't let your blind hate cloud your judgment of him." He said walking over to Rosa's side. Seeing my prey in this state, I felt a bit angry; angry someone else hurt my prey but me. Yet deep down inside, I felt a tinge of forgiveness for the fool. He willingly took a blade for me, after all I done to him. I shook my head of those thought and kept my guard up. I felt a bit jealous that the man I hated the most was getting more love from my pack then me.

The blonde teacher ran up to my prey with a group behind her. I moved out of the way as the short red one raced by and looked very concerned. I looked at my feel to see his helmet rolled by it. I looked at my own reflection through his visor, and I don't like what I saw in my own eyes. I saw the hollow shell of a girl who spent her hatchling years trying to please an Alpha who was never impressed, a girl who fought with someone who tried to help, a girl who spent weeks trying to cheer up her Alpha and get her to smile again. A girl who was left alone to die in a hellish world by the very Alpha she grew to love and know. I saw the same girl unleash her frustrations out on the world, doing everything she can to look to the light of things. A monster of a being. I kicked the helmet away and looked back to the man who took a knife for me. Maybe he wasn't as bad as I thought. I looked at to the sky to see one of the flying machines lower down something down to lift him up. This still doesn't forgive his past actions to my Alpha. Emily was, and always will be my true Alpha. He still needs to pay by my claws, but maybe not as bad as I thought.

(Emily's POV)

Jurassic world sub-verse #25

"Commander Riley get that portal ready." I yelled into my modified comm-link. Maine was behind me with a Juvenal Indominus Rex in his arms, tranquilized but the park staff really wanted to keep this little runt, it was no bigger than a goat. We were running in the forest away from this runts cage. I raised my arms and used the force to lift two if the park staff, then forced them to fly into the cage with the runt's pissed off sister. It was painful and exhausting to do out of a star wars universes, but I'll just eat another Jedi heart to regain the energy I lost.

"Just a second sir." He replied as a portal erupted in front of us. I jumped inside and rolled across the ground of the Deathstar. Maine followed soon and growled as he handed the kid to the nearest Stormtrooper.

"Phase one complete. Time to move to phase two, get that runt in a holding cell." I ordered as the trooper took the runt out of sight.

"If I may, why did we risk our lives to steal a kid? Hardly seems able to hurt anything?" Sigma asked.

"We need something to cause mass chaos, when it grows up it will raise a whole lot of hell. Think of it as a contingency plan if Plan A fails." I answered looking back at Commander Riley. "Now set a course for Halo-verse #25. Try getting it on Sanghelios if possible. Got a few people there I need to 'convince' to join our cause. Hope the Covenant Remnant will cooperate." I smiled as the commander went to work. His armor was like the rest of the troopers, only it had a little red mixed in. Seems fitting considering the like of work he's going to be used for later. I got some muscle, I got a killing machine. Now all I need is a few more pawns to get a set of coordinates for me from MERC. Not all of them need to live, just one to give the Intel to me. He knows we're coming, he'll be prepared. I want him to think he is ready, but I got a change in plan. I'll go after what he loves most first, his sister and daughter, then I'll get him while he's broken and weak.

That's all I wrote today. The plot thickens, we see some seeds of doubt in Azula's mind, a bit more into Emily's master plan, and got to see a fight between the two packs. The creator of the Kitsuninja has given me some facts about them. I slightly tweaked their intelligence to fit with the plot, other then that they are as he/she says they are.

As for Velvet's box, I completely guessed on what it is used for. Monty says she is a Mage so I'll based the 'magic' she used off of what I know with RPG games (Mostly skyrim) to her 'spells'. I'm taking a shot in the dark here, no one really knows what is inside the box. We can only guess till season three.

Anyway. No one reviewed last chapter so I got no one to reply to. I'm turning the chapter over to my Beta to edit. Hope you all enjoyed, see you all next week. Peace

~Dgreen20

Hopefully Azula's not such a jerk to John anymore after this, not likely but a guy can hope right? and I don't remember the name of the guy who made the kitsuninja's, but you're pretty freakin' cool. that was an epic fight and it wouldn't have been possible without your submission and Dgreen's authorical genius. that's all i have to say for now, so see you all next time!

~Wetworkzninja

Dgreen20 edit~

Made a small adjustment to this chapter. Particularly with Velvet's weapon. we now know what Velvet's box does so i have to go back and edit so i don't get eaten alive by the hardcore fans. Just made a slight adjustment.