I know its been a long time, and I know I keep saying that I am back and ready. So I won't show any disrespect and say it again. I just want to write, and so here we are!

Beta: CrowSkull

Transition

YBWR

Chapter 21

Coloring The City

"Maximum Glyph Output; Time Dilation!" Weiss exclaimed. Instantly, she felt her body and aura begin to drain gradually but quickly as she stabbed Myrtenaster into the ground and activated her semblance. Time dilation was an ability that both her and her sister had to master as an ultimate trump card in the most dire of circumstances. Being surrounded by terrorists and currently being targeted by Neopolitan herself, Weiss deemed this as one of those dire circumstances. With veins already beginning to bulge around her eyes, Weiss grabbed Penny's arm and dragged her along with her. To Penny, the world was moving just as normally, and Weiss was moving insanely quickly. To Weiss, the world was slow and sluggish, methodical and detailed. One second for her was like twenty to Penny. But by the time her second was over, she had turned and fired three small fireballs out of Myrtenaster, making three of the large overhanging lights begin to fall. It may get some people hurt or possibly killed if any of them landed on their heads, but right now Weiss only cared about her and her friends' escape.

By her fifth perceived second, Weiss was out of breath and she felt a migraine grow in the front of her forehead and beginning to make it difficult for her to keep her eyes open. Penny was shouting at her now, but Weiss hearing was too sharp to understand it properly. At the seventh second, Weiss couldn't keep the glyph beneath her activated any longer and she released it, letting the power fade and her vision return from blackening.

"Weiss!" Penny exclaimed, Weiss finally heard her. "What happened!? What are we-"

"No time!" Weiss exclaimed, rubbing her nose where she felt blood begin to bleed from. "We have to go, Neo knows that we're here! Run!"

As if on cue, Neo crashed through the wall of the building just fifty feet away from them. The Spidertank's lights glowed an angry red as its main cannon slowly swiveled to aim at them.

It was Penny's turn to grab her wrist as they began to sprint in the opposite direction. "Okay, I see why you did that! Running!"

The two girls - one of whom was already half stamina and aura - ran for their lives from the spider tank. Huntresses in training were faster than any normal human, and without a semblance to enhance their speed, they could easily reach up to twenty to thirty miles per hour in a sprint. However, most Grimm were still faster than that, and a Spider Tank has eight legs. It still wasn't as fast as a car could go, but it was definitely faster than any person could run on their feet. What Weiss and Penny had to do next was controversial, but needed to be done. Neo was a character that hated unneeded attention, and they both knew that after their one meeting with the woman at the docks. So, they ran and led the piloted machine through one of the busiest parts of the city, Penny using her own semblance to push people and vehicles out of the way. They thought that they would be safe once they got that far, but they found themselves to be very wrong when Neo called out to them through the intercom installed in the legged tank.

"Oh no, you two aren't getting away from me this time!" Neo said. "I'm going to rid myself of a few bugs here in a second!"

"Weiss- The people!"

"I know!" Weiss shouted. She clasped her hands together and whispered a chant. "Half Glyph Output; Deck of Reflection and Wards!" As she said, a deck of dozens of glyphs formed within her hands, and she threw her hands in the direction of any bystander that was within the range of the tank chasing them. The glyph attached to their body and created a makeshift aura around them, protecting them from harm. It wasn't true aura, but it was better than the bare body being exposed to shrapnel. With their combination of semblances working in tandem, they could protect the innocents that were being put in danger, but sacrificed their own aura and stamina to do it. With Weiss already being low, they had to make a decision. Continue running away like this and hope that people would come help them, or lead Neo away from the busy streets to try and take her own where people wouldn't get hurt, and still hope help would arrive. Neither was an easy choice to make, though Penny had another idea. When Weiss turned to share her thoughts with the ginger, she instead saw Penny screaming into her scroll which had Ciel's number and face plastered on it.

"Giant robot thing chasing us, send help!" Penny shouted just as her scroll flew out of her hand after a stray bullet struck her aura. "Ah! Shit, well at least they know something's going on."

"Ruby has a car," Weiss said between pants. "She can find us quickly. We just have to make sure we don't get captured or anyone else killed."

"Looks like the police are already on the case!" Penny exclaimed as she pointed out the sirens of cop cars going off and lightning the night in the distance. Weiss followed her finger, and noticed that the road ahead of them was already becoming more and more empty leading into one of the highways over an empty lot of space reserved for future construction. With a grin, Weiss figured out what they had planned.

Cars were much faster than people, and Neo quickly found herself outnumbered as several armoured police cruisers drove ahead and behind her. However, she was still in a tank, and she had several large weapons that could tear through their vehicles. While Neo was distracted aiming her cannon elsewhere, one of the cruisers slowed down to match Weiss and Penny's speed and allowed them to climb on top of their car. Weiss leapt onto the hood of the cruiser while Penny jumped onto the top of it. Through the windshield, Weiss nodded at the officer, who nodded back at her in turn. She recognized the officer as the one that talked to them at the end of her trip at the docks with Penny. Seth, if she remembered his name correctly, seemed to recognize her as well as he spoke into his car's own intercom.

"Why is it always Ruby or friends of Ruby that I have to question later?" Seth asked rhetorically. "Don't answer that. We can talk about this after the giant tank with legs is dealt with.

Again, Weiss nodded. Honestly, she wouldn't care if she was interrogated for several hours in a dark room as long as she didn't have to run anymore. She clung on tightly to the police cruiser as it picked up speed, with Penny doing the same on top of it. Seth pulled far ahead of the skirmish between Neo and the other policemen and when the latter saw that he was leaving, they all moved away from the tank and stopped exchanging blows. Thankfully, it didn't look like anyone was hurt so far. Only so far, however, the night was still far from over.

"Hell of a show we're putting up now, eh?" Penny said with a nervous smirk as sweat dripped down her face. "We're waking up the entire kingdom."

Weiss looked back at her, unamused. Her eyes widened again when she felt a bump underneath the car which sent her a good foot into the air and onto her feet. She struggled to keep her balance as Seth struggled to reign the car back under control. Over the ledge of the hood of the car, Weiss saw that one of the front tires of the cruiser had been shot out. The reason as to why was answered when she looked up to the sky and squinted under the spotlight of a Blue Revolt controlled Bullhead with a machine gun attached to its hull. Cursing, Weiss was forced to jump from one Cruiser to the next with Penny doing the same, although to a different vehicle. This gave Seth the chance to swerve the car in ways that would have led to them falling off. For the safety of other officers, Weiss and Penny kept jumping from car to car so that they didn't have to drive too safely for too long.

"Ha! My reinforcements can fly unlike yours!" Neo boasted as she ignored the rest of the cops now that the Blue Revolt was there assisting her. "And I still have a big fucking cannon! And you know what they say about that…"

Weiss looked back and saw that the cannon was aimed at Penny, who was wide eyed and had nowhere left to jump without getting someone else in trouble. In a panic, Weiss was about to throw one of her glyphs at her in an effort to absorb the blast, but a red car with four girls crammed into it stopped her from doing so.

"Sorry, car!" Ruby exclaimed as she leapt out of her seat, Crescent Rose shifting in mid air while she aimed the barrel beneath her and fired. "I'm going to have to leave you in Ciel's inexperienced hands!"

Yang followed right after her using Ember Celica, and then Blake after her with Gambol Shroud, leaving Ciel alone to keep control of the speeding car that Ruby left her with. Her face was panicked and her eyes were wide, telling everyone what she thought about this situation. "I told you I didn't know how to drive! Why would you still give me this job!"

"Ciel!" Penny called after her while the three other members of Team YBWR forcefully diverted the cannon to fire into the ground several meters behind her. "Just turn the steering wheel and slam on that gas pedal and come get me!"

"Agh!" Ciel did exactly what she said, turning the wheel slightly to the right and flooring it. The car went from thirty miles per hour to eighty in seconds, and with the convertible successfully converted, the wind was making it difficult for Ciel to keep her eyes open. Still, by pure luck she was able to make it to Penny without crashing in just a few seconds. Weiss felt relieved, it was nice to see things going well for once.

"Awesome, you caught me!" Penny exclaimed as she jumped into the passenger side. "Now brake so we can help the others!"

"Where's the brake!?"

"What do you mean where's the break? It's right there next to the- WHERE'S THE BRAKE!?" Penny quickly realized why Ruby had a shunned history of speeding tickets when she saw that there was no conventional brake usually located next to the gas pedal. Instead, there was only the emergency brake. How Ruby learned to control the speed of this car as if it was any normal vehicle, nobody knew. What Penny did know was that Ciel was only going faster, and there was a sharp turn at a bridge that she knew for a fact would not end well.

Weiss sighed to herself as she watched the one hundred mile per hour accident waiting to happen and summoned yet another glyph.

"Small Glyph Output;" Weiss panted as a glyph formed on one hand, aiming it at Ciel and Penny. "Featherfall!" The small bright yellow glyph shot from her hand and expanded to the size of the car right as Penny and Ciel drove right through the guardrail and off the bridge. Though instead of falling to their potential deaths, Penny and Ciel and the car were falling gently at half a foot per second. In any case, they were certainly out of the fight now, and Weiss felt her aura almost vanish right then and there. She was forced to get back up however when she saw a shadow blot out her vision. She looked up and saw Yang flying at her with a glowing and smoking aura. Weiss stood up and caught her, though it nearly made her fall off the car doing it. Yang thanked her for the help and stood up on her own, her eyes turning red with anger as a growl escaped her lips. She was out of ammo however, so she had to reload first instead of charging back in later.

"How did all of you get here so quickly?" Weiss asked.

"Ruby always keeps nitro in handy," Yang explained quickly. "And she's very good at driving. As for picking us up, we managed to call a favor in from mom and she opened a portal from me and Blake to her and Ciel. From there, she just had to drive us here."

"And this huntress mother of yours isn't helping us now!?" Weiss screamed.

"Eh, she doesn't help us when she knows we can handle it." Yang said with a shrug. "Now, leaving aside the obvious question of how this happened for later, how about we take this thing down?"

"Ugh… yet another conversation for later. Fine," Weiss pointed to the vacant space ahead of them beneath the bridge they were now driving on. Or well, the police officer was driving on now. "We're trying to lead Neo down there so we can isolate and destroy that Spider Tank she's operating. Think we can do something to make that happen?"

"Oh, hell yeah!" Yang exclaimed. "All we need is a little Orange Slush!"

"..." Weiss blinked at her. "An orange what?"

"Ruby!" Yang ignored her. "Let's do Orange Slush!"

Weiss didn't know how but despite being decently far away and up in the air, Ruby managed to hear Yang perfectly. Weiss knew she understood because Ruby spun in the air once, shot her weapon once, flipped once and then activated her semblance once and she landed on the car they were in within seconds. She landed with Crescent Rose behind her back with the blade facing the sky and down on one knee.

"Orange Slush, ready to begin!" Ruby chanted. Weiss watches with wide eyes as Yang climbed onto her back with freshly reloaded gauntlets while carefully avoiding the shaft of Crescent Rose, and then watched again as the two of them launched into the sky at double the height they normal could with the help of both of their weapons put together to create one powerful thrusting force. Blake saw what was happening and landed on one of the nearby buildings to get out of their way, but continued to watch carefully to see what was going to happen. She didn't get a front row seat like Weiss did, however.

Yang and Ruby spun through the air at high speeds, then Ruby activated her semblance while Yang activated hers in turn. The color they made together shone a bright orange, almost like a literal blender making red and yellow make orange. They took the shape of a missile, with the both of them continuing to blast off their shells behind them to make themselves go even faster. Then at the last second, they separated, both of them glowing orange with the speed of Ruby and the power of Yang, and together, Yang slammed her fist into the side of the tank while Ruby cut a deep gash into its side and cut off one of its legs. The tank was forced off of the bridge, with Ruby and Yang quickly falling with it.

At that moment, Blake and Weiss both knew why Yang and Ruby decided to name their team attack 'Orange Slush'. Because if it was a Grimm or god forbid a human got hit but that, they'd turn into red slush.

With that in mind, Blake and Weiss jumped down to the vacant lot below the bridge to assist their teammates while the Blue Revolt and the police battled. If they were able to cut the head off of the snake, then hopefully this conflict would come to a clean end.

"Hah! We stuck the landing!" Ruby exclaimed as she landed like a hero from a comic book on one knee while Yang punched the ground to negate the force of gravity.

"Yeah, we did." Yang said, her eyes still glowing red and her hair still aflame with the remnants of her semblance wheezing out. "My fist is numb after punching that thing. I left a huge dent in it and probably destroyed something, but the fact that its still standing tells me that its going to take a lot more than that to take it down for good."

"Yeah, I figured that out as well," Ruby admitted with a sigh as she watched the Spider tank fix itself so that it stood upright albeit with one less leg. "Looks like I'm going to have to cut it apart instead of letting you smash it to bits. No problem, I just need to reach that speed again…"

"Agh! Why is it always you girls!?" Neo complained as the tank righted itself properly. "At the dust store, at the docks, at the warehouse and now this! What's it going to take for you to just leave me alone?"

"You can always turn yourself in." Yang taunted. "I'm sure you can find someone to take care of you in prison. That way you can curse someone else's name while you bite your pillow at night."

"Your jokes, although clever, are getting pretty old Yellow," Neo said with a sigh. "Whatever, I'll just kill you and dream about it later. I've had enough complaints about you from my boss already, so it's time to nip the problem at its source…"

Blake and Weiss landed gently behind Yang and Ruby right as Neo finished talking. Though Weiss was already on the verge of exhaustion, only Blake could really be of use in the next upcoming fight. She could still offer some advice, however.

"The Spider-Tank is powerful, but it can only move so fast." Weiss explained. Remembering how her sister was able to take one of these things down helped. "We are all certainly faster than her. We just need to garner enough power to destroy it. Can you two use that… team attack from before again?"

"No dice," Yang said, shaking her head. "That last punch took up all the power I've stored up for days and most of my aura. Unless I let her hit me more times than I'm comfortable with right now, I am not going to be able to hit her that hard again for a while."

"Nothing in my kit allows for powerful strikes like that," Blake pointed out. "I might be able to bait her into one of my clone explosions if I use dust but… I still don't think it'd be enough."

"If I have enough speed, I can cut the tank to pieces." Ruby explained, realizing that she was their only hope now. "But I am going to need help. I went that fast with Yang's help, but at this point we're both low on ammo, if we try it again we might mess up and get hurt, especially if we have to try it multiple times…"

Weiss got an idea. "I have something that can fix that," she explained as fast as she could. "I have Time Dilations. TL;DR, I can make time for you much slower while for us its still normal. But I can't cast it without time to prepare what little remaining aura I have left. Give me one minute, and make sure you're by yourself, Ruby."

"Then we have a plan!" Yang exclaimed, slamming her fists together and glowing every so slightly with a base increase in power her semblance did give her. "Blake, let's use Bumblebee right away! Ruby, follow our lead but don't stay too close to us and protect Weiss the best that you could!"

"Right!" Blake and Ruby replied without hesitation. Their few seconds of planning came to an abrupt halt as Neo began firing dual machine guns at them. Weiss stabbed Myrtenaster into the concrete as her teammates carried on the fight without her, focusing every ounce of power she had left.

"Come on… just one more time!" Weiss said through gritted teeth as her nose began to bleed again. "Maximum Glyph Output, Charging…"

Blake threw and attached the other end of her ribbon to Yang's forearm and used her like a super long flail with Yang as the projectile. She stayed on the ground, constantly spinning and twisting so that Yang moved through different angles and vantage points while she clashed her fist into whatever opening she saw. They weren't doing any significant damage, but they were certainly annoying Neo an extreme amount. They were forced to halt their own team attack as Neo recognized what was happening and started firing at Blake, which forced Yang to free herself lest Blake continued to anchor herself in a bad position.

"I don't know what you girls are planning, but it won't happen!" Neo said as the tank turned toward Weiss. "You think I'm going to let her do that again!? Not on my watch!"

"No, Weiss!" Blake shouted.

Weiss stood her ground and simply stared down the tank as Neo loaded and then fired its shell at her. Her faith in Ruby did not go unrewarded as she came out of her semblance and cut the incoming projectile in half and diverted it just enough that it went straight past Weiss in two different directions, harmlessly exploding behind her. Ruby twisted and twirled Crescent Rose, then stabbed it down into the ground to act as a bipod as she took aim at the tank and fired a shot directly down the barrel of the cannon. The bullet was made of lightning and temporarily disabled the cannon, but only for seconds.

"Good one Red! Now try this!" Neo yelled as the tank's two machine guns swiveled her away. Ruby, although extremely fast even compared to professional Huntresses, was not going to be able to deflect all the hundreds of bullets that were about to be fired her way. Thankfully, she didn't have too. As Yang and Blake individually and simultaneously attacked and destroyed both of the machine guns before they could begin to fire before dashing away just as quickly as they came in. The weapons were both crushed and inoperable respectively, which caused Neo a great deal of annoyance.

"Ah, you know how long it took me to learn how to use those things!?" Neo complained as she activated its other weapons. "Too long! Way too long!"

"Weiss," Ruby turned to look at her. "They're not going to be able to hold out for much longer, what's the deal!?"

"Just a few more seconds!" Weiss said through tight features.

Yang and Blake did their best, but with Neo pulling out all the stocks, they weren't able to last long. Yang was sent tumbling toward them after a missile landed on her, blowing away the rest of her aura while Blake was slammed into one of the pillars holding up the bridge after getting shot too many times. Her aura faded out as well, leaving just Ruby and Weiss facing off against Neo and her tank alone.

"Weiss!" Ruby screamed. "It's now or never!"

"Make it now!" Weiss shouted back. "Time Dilation! Go!"

Weiss thrust one hand forward while on one knee and summoned the glyph underneath Ruby. True to Weiss' words, Ruby saw the world move in slow motion. Instantly, she knew that if she wsa already moving faster like this, then she'd move much faster with her semblance activated.

Neo watched as Ruby was there one second, and then gone the next. In the third second, she heard a cyclone of what had to be at least a few dozen attacks happening all at once. Suddenly, all of the legs of her tank were cut off, the cannon was dismantled, and all of the weapons were destroyed, and Neo was left outside of the tank and shoved against the wall as a bright red hooded girl with silver eyes held Crescent Rose's shaft against her neck. All of this happened in just under five seconds.

"W-What just happened!?" Neo cried out as she choked.

Ruby felt the time dilation fade away and she felt the exhaustion of moving that fast so quickly in such a short amount of time. But she still had more than enough strength to continue fighting if she had to, and Neo knew that.

"Surrender!" Ruby demanded, almost tempted to try and kill her like her mother would. She didn't, but she felt the urge. "You are under arrest!"

"Hey now, this ain't fair!" Neo exclaimed, struggling against Ruby's hold. She didn't let her go, not when she knew how Neo moved and fought. Being grappled like this, there wasn't much she could do. "What the hell happened in the last five seconds! I was just about to kill you all! No fair!"

"No fair?" Ruby laughed. "You were in a tank. Now shut up while I try to find a way to bring you up to the bridge so the cops can arrest you…"

"Alright, shutting up," Neo said with a roll of her eyes. "Not like I'll have to worry for long though, my help is already here."

Ruby raised an eyebrow. "The Blue Revolt is being handled by the police."

Neo smirked at her. "I wasn't talking about the Blue Revolt."

Ruby sensed it first and dropped Neo right as she shattered into glass. She ducked beneath a black shadow of a cane and then flipped away from the follow up attack. When her eyes locked onto her new opponent, she saw a tall man - even taller than her - with green eyes and orange hair, he wore a white trench coat that was open down the middle, and like Sun, exposed his abs. He held a weapon in the form of a cane with a sharp end. He had a smug smirk similar to what Neo just had, and he had a nasty thick scar that went almost all the way around his neck. Seeing that, Ruby didn't hesitate to keep attacking, simply viewing this new man as another enemy to take down.

However, she had to stop when she felt her weapon begin to get stolen from her even though the man was so far away. His hand had a greenish glow to it, and Ruby slid back and pulled back on her weapon, desperate to hold onto it and being practically disabled for it.

"Meet my best friend-slash-associate!" Neo exclaimed as she leaned against the man's side. "Roman Torchwick, as you can see, his semblance is pretty handy. I like to call his semblance 'Thief', as he can steal anything he sees anyone else holding in their hands. It's a pretty strong semblance, don't you think? No wonder he's able to kill huntsmen so easily, without their weapons, most of them are pretty useless."

Hearing that, Ruby was definitely sure that she didn't want to lose her weapon. Right now, she was the only one that could still stand and fight. Weiss passed out after giving her the time dilation, Yang was down and out of aura, and Blake was unconscious. It was just her!

"Alright now, you can go finish her off." Neo said, patting Roman on the back as she went to the Bullhead that was landing not too far away from her. "Make it quick though, we still have things to do tonight still."

Ruby was trapped. Without her weapon she knew that she'd be defeated, but she still couldn't just let him take it away! She was desperate, and desperate times called for desperate measures.

"Mom!" Ruby exclaimed. "We need help!"

Roman scoffed, shaking his head. Was this girl really calling for her mother at a time like-

A red and black portal opened up and Roman's eyes widened as a woman much stronger than anyone else there came out with angry red eyes and an even angrier red-colored sword. He was just barely able to cancel his semblance to narrowly dodge the strike, though it took several strands of his hair and left his cheek with a cut. Annoyed, he reached out to use Thief against Raven, but he didn't have the time to concentrate on it. Raven was already on him again, and in a span of just a few seconds, he was on the back foot and on the retreat.

"Okay, time to go!" Neo appeared in front of him, blocking Raven's next strike which most certainly would have damaged him. She parried the next strike and placed a hand on his chest. In the next motion, he opened his eyes inside the bullhead, looking down at the woman who might have actually taken him down if Neo hadn't come just in time to save him. He was only able to look at her for a few seconds before the shuttle doors closed. He smirked as he left, fighting for his life wasn't something he was used to, but it was a nice change compared to what other things he usually did while fighting a huntress.

"Mom!" Ruby shouted as she slammed against Raven's back, hugging her tightly from behind. "You actually came!"

"You and your sister need to train more," Raven said as she opened another portal and dragged Yang through it. "Your entire team does, in fact. You needed to surpass me when I was your age, and right now, you are still far from that."

"But-" Raven's glare at her told her to not speak the second word of that sentence. "Okay, mom…"

"You're lucky I love you two idiots," Raven said as she walked around, collecting the unconscious Blake, Yang, and Weiss as she spoke to Ruby. "Quickly, you're going to stop needing me to come to save your asses. You're also lucky that this was an actual emergency, I was watching through our bond and you probably would have died had I not come."

"Thank you again for that Mom, really," Ruby said. "It all just happened so fast. We were all up and then we were all down just as fast. But hey! I cut apart a tank!"

"Good job," Raven smirked endearingly at the girl. "Now, let's get you all back to Beacon, healed up, and then straight into the headmistress' office."

Ruby lamented having to explain all this to Salem and then having to listen to Yang complaining about Cinder later, but through all that, she couldn't help but feel as though she was forgetting something...

Penny and Ciel hung out together in the almost destroyed car of Ruby as they ate in the parking lot of a Chicken fil ea, enjoying the chicken strips and french fries that came with it. It was a good meal, and it tasted even better after the mess that was the skirmish on the bridge.

"Shouldn't we give the car back to Ruby?" Ciel asked. "Or at least get it fixed?"

"Meh," Penny shrugged. "She'll come back for it later. I'm eating food now."

"What about the tank thing?"

"Oh, they probably handled that without any issue." Penny laughed. "They're one of the best teams in Beacon, after all. Saw it with my own eyes."

Ciel wondered if that was the correct way of thinking, then shrugged. At least they were okay and eating food. Surely, there wouldn't be any consequences later. Right?

And there we go. Finally, I have found free time to continue this story! Seriously, I am sorry that it took almost a month to update this story again, but I won't leave you hanging next time! Promise! Until next time.