Okay, first let me say thank you for staying with me and sending me feedback. Now it's gonna be a moment because some of you were kind enough to keep commenting.
Maus69420 said, "Cool chapter. Seeing Sarge and Qrow duke it out was awesome, and it's kinda surprising that the Director, Sarge, Junior, and Allison were teammates. Also, I found team MLLF's fight against the Chorus lieutenants in Chapter 35 pretty neat. Ah, Caboose and John, having good chemistry here in that chapter (even in canon as well, even though Andersmith was more dramatic and tolerant of Caboose's behavior and personality). I wonder if Malcolm Hargrove appears in this fic. He's an RvB character (a major one in the Chorus Trilogy) that hasn't appeared yet. If you do plan on adding him, will he be an antagonist or an ally? Also, did you see the Team FLSS joke in my previous review? Lol. Anyways, keep up the good work man and I am excited to see more of the lore and expansion of this crossover fic. Take care man!"
Thank you very much man, you have no idea how bad I was missing seeing notifications about reviews. I'll just Malcolm will make an appearance in the future. I also did get your FLSS joke, pretty good one, had me a little laugh.
Hope you all will enjoy the chapter.
[The Arena Floor]
"Emerald and Mercury of Beacon versus Darius and Ivan of Haven." Boomstick announced as the fighting platforms were being decided at random. The floors were: a tall grassy plain, a thick dense forest, a rubbling couple of buildings and a geyser landscape. The randomized factor: hurricane style winds.
Their friends cheered from the side giving them encouraging words and boosting their spirits. Caboose cupped his hands to yell out to them, "You got this you guys."
"I'm so telling Sarge about your boyfriend." Mercury joked while earning a side glare from Emerald.
Forcing her to defend her position, "He's not my boyfriend."
Getting that conversation out of the way they looked at who they were fighting against, the leader and muscle of Team PICK. They knew about Darius and his folding shotgun ax, along with his bowie knife, but they grew nervous at Ivan and his rocket launcher battery ram. Also they were cautious about the size of his muscles that he was packing.
Ivan stared them straight down and simply said, "I must break you."
"Sure thing, try not to get any blood on my boots." Mercury requested.
Darius cocked his gun and smiled, "Can't promise you won't leave here without a scratch."
"He wasn't referring to us." Emerald said, cracking her knuckles.
Ivan gave a small smile, "I like her attitude."
With pleasantries out of the way, the match up could finally begin, with the countdown underway by Boomstick they prepared their own strategy. Boomstick excited for some action could hardly contain himself, "3... 2... 1... aaaand FIGHT!"
Emerald and Mercury slowly backed away until they disappeared within the tall brown grass of the plains. Disappearing from view Ivan was forced to smoke them out with his heavy weapon. Firing his rockets left craters smoking in the field, leaving little to nowhere where they could go. But they hadn't retreated anywhere else they didn't go left to the debris and rubble, nor right to the thick forest. Not that they saw.
The sun was blocked for a moment from Ivan's face, causing him to look up and see why he hadn't seen them move. Mercury must have lept into the air and use the smoke as a cover from their eyesight, meaning he had thrown them off.
He had dropped an overhead ax kick to Ivan, making the larger man use his weapon as a means to block the incoming powerful hit. Now up close Ivan and Pill began to start their attack against the singular man. Pill went for a shotgun blast when Ivan managed to throw Mercury off of him. Able to keep his speed Mercury went in for more and more hits dodging bullets, blows and slashes.
Impressing Sarge he cheered but kept one question in mind for the beginning, "Where's Emerald."
Avoiding another shotgun blast, Mercury did a jumping split kick and separated Pill and Ivan while getting behind Pill and his gun. Using his hands, he forced Mercury's gun in front of Ivan's chest forcing Pill to hold fire and avoid friendly fire. Switching his shotgun to ax form he flipped it a took a swipe at Merc as Ivan swung his weapon at him.
Avoiding all strikes Mercury backed up and fired two of his concussive rounds from his boots, Ivan deflected his shot while Darius cut his in half. The two looked cocky for a moment until they saw that those shots were just distractions as Mercury was preparing his new attack. While doing a spinning windmill Mercury was firing the concussive rounds from his shoes. With a final spin he sent all the rounds towards them, peppering the entire floor in a cloud of knockout rounds. When the smoke cleared and the coughing ceased Mercury kept pushing on the attack, punching both of the back and forth and dividing the two of them with a few kicks.
Ivan was stumbling to keep his balance when suddenly a chain had wrapped around his waist and yanked him off. Like something out of a horror movie he was dragged off into the woods, away from his backup.
Darius concerned for his team, tried to call out. "Ivan?!" Enraged he dodged Mercury's kick and swept the leg with his own. As Mercury hit the ground Darius kicked him in his chest sending backwards, towards the pits of the steam geysers. Mercury recovered just before Darius and his ax would have attacked Mercury's manhood, the force definitely would have hurt as the force left a huge crack in the ground.
Mercury got back to his feet and continued to dodge and evade Darius as best as he could, his quick feet gave him an advantage. Now he was still facing Darius, who already received a tasting of the damage he could do. Mercury groaned to himself, "Hope Emerald is having more fun than me."
At that exact moment Emerald was having all the fun she could, against the strong Ivan and his explosive weapon and temper. After being reeled back like a fish the large man smashed his head back against the tree, well caring for it with his hand he noticed that he started to bleed. He now grew more angry and ready for a fight, "Okay, now I am beginning to hate this woman."
His hate grew as a bullet from said woman flew past his head, a mere inches from grazing his flesh and penetrating his skull. Before more rounds had a chance to hit him, he placed the rocket launcher battering ram in front of him to deflect and block all the bullets. When the hail of gunfire ended he took the chance to aim, firing his rockets at her direction. Laughing the whole time he kept shooting, one by one either setting the trees on fire, burning them or completely obliterating them until he took one final aim and stopped as Emerald was gone from his sight. Disappearing from his view and hiding among what few trees that were with smoke and fire covering her from his vision.
The image of Darius began to approach him, I even spoke to his comrade, warning him of the danger that was Emerald, "Careful," He said as he kept it darting his eyes back and forth trying to see her, "She is hiding among the trees! Wherever she is we will find and secure vic-", just as Darius had appeared he vanished just as fast. Now the soon nervous man began to panic, making his thoughts and actions irrational, "Where are you?!" He screamed as he let three more rockets blow up random spots in front of him.
His questioning scream went answered as she revealed her position, "Right behind you."
"AAAARRRGGGHHHHHH!!!" Ivan howled in pain as he was betrayed, not by a friend but by his own eyesight. The failure stinging as she knocked him out and beaten him so hard he was tossed back to the center of the ring.
Mercury couldn't get a hit in as Darius wouldn't give him an opening or any time to catch his breath for that matter. He was forced to keep back stepping and do his best to avoid buckshots and getting his head separated from his shoulders. The grey silver streak slipped all the attacks by mere inches, so close that he could feel the wind coming off the shots, or the hairs on his head trimmed by the ax. His speed gave out as he tripped over a rock and landed on his back with Darius standing above him.
"Nice moves. Almost got away with that too." Darius complimented as he cocked his gun.
Mercury groaned as he sat up, "Well I did my best, what can you do?"
"Don't wanna waste too much time so look here..." Darius pointed to the barrel of his shotgun, "Smile... wait for the flash."
That saying rang in Mercury's ears as he remembered a time he had heard that exact same saying. Long ago, his Dad brought work home with him when the boy was only 4, those were the exact same words before his dad shot a man with his pistol dagger in front of the boy. The images flashing in his head as he came back to see the same barrel of the shotgun from Darius aimed at him. Time stopped for him as he readied to embrace the pain he would feel. The two blades from Emerald's long revolvers would say otherwise as the appeared embedded into the ground on the two sides behind Mercury.
Darius turned to shoot at her but left his back wide open for Mercury to plant his two feet on the ground and send the gunner forward with a powerful kick. Now stumbled and with his arms out wide Emerald planted both feet on his face while Mercury had his placed on Darius' back. The force left him doing back flips for a while in suspended free fall, the perfect opportunity for a combo blast.
Emerald and Mercury locked hands as she began to spin in a circle, the speed increasing greatly as Mercury became their team projectile. Darius finally came to the ground and dizziness kept him from jumping back up to his feet. He actually managed to finally stand on two feet, but when he saw what was heading to him, he froze, bracing for the pain. A Mercury missile kicked him so hard in the chest that the trees behind Darius all shook from the wind pressure of said hit. The hit sent Darius colliding through one tree and down to the floor, where the top half of the tree came crashing down on him. Perfect finishing combo.
Everyone in the crowd had cheered their name as they dominated their match against Team PICK's chosen 2. Everyone except for their true leader, Cinder shook her head as she realized who she truly should have picked for this assignment. As she got up to leave she was soon followed by a very large figure. The presence made her turn around and brace for a fight, fist balled up and teeth clenched she turned to face her attacker.
Her would be attacker was none other than Caboose as he approached her with furrowed brow and looked at the woman with an almost angered stare. He stepped towards her as the two were under one of the entrance ways, "Hey, you know Church right? I have a question."
"What do you want?" Cinder responded back with same tone Caboose spoke to her in.
Caboose waited for a moment before inhaling for a minute to speak in a clear voice, "Can you tell me some stuff about him, please? I tried asking about some of the things in his past, like what's his favorite food, what kind of music he likes, and stuff like that. But he won't tell me anything... please."
"You're his... friend?" Cinder asked an unbelievable question, to the giant bear faunus in front of her.
Caboose nodded like he was a bobblehead toy, "Well, best friend and team leader... he's always hangs around or outside the group, but he's so cool and I wanna know more about him."
"I'll tell you what I know if you tell me what you know about him now. Sounds fair?" Cinder offered to get her information in exchange for a few facts about Church. After all it was apart of her plan... right?
[Elsewhere in the Kingdom: 45 minutes later]
"Careful Sarge... You know how delicate this process is..." The Director warned the burly man who was sweating down his brow.
Sarge was actually getting concerned at the moment waiting for the precise moment to strike, "I know, I was here for 14 hours... it just need a few more seconds..."
"The temperature is rising again, there's no telling how more it can take..." Junior panicked as he grabbed the sides of his face.
"Almost... there..." Sarge counted down when to extract the target.
"Sarge, now or never..." The Director warned him of the countdown.
Sarge paused for a second longer, then began his final part in his mission, "Now!!!" He reached into his metal contraption and pulled out the best thing known to man. He had released his brisket for the world to enjoy, the world being his friends, the son and daughters of his friends, his own students he raised and him.
The perfect piece of meat seasoned to perfection with: salt, pepper, paprika, cayenne pepper, brown sugar, cinnamon, and a few other spices he had. Constantly kept moist with a few sprays from a liquid mixture of apple cider, bourbon and orange soda. After 12 hours of smoking it over a low heat with cherry wood chips and charcoal, the beauty that he made was now suited for devouring, as intended.
The smell went back to the table where Church and the Malachite twins waited with plates loaded with a nice fat slice of sourdough bread and a large baked potato with mushroom gravy. This feast was enough to make a grown man cry, which would have been Junior since it's been too long.
After inspecting the slices of brisket for their color, juiciness and their smell, the taste was finally tested. Sending everyone into a meaty bliss as the tender and soft food melted in their mouths as they tried their best not to scarf their meals down.
"So... I don't suppose y'all have any stories to tell?" The Director questioned.
Sarge slammed the table, "I got one... it's called, The Time Sarge Was On The Soaring Valeman."
The sound of this story made everyone but the twins groan as they heard this fantastic fantasy before.
"He's telling the one about the zombie ghost ship?" Emerald asked as her and Merc entered the dining area on the roof of Junior's bar.
Sarge immediately pointed his finger at them, defending his belief, "They were real! I saw them with my own eyes!"
"Actually, I wanted to ask you something. About how quiet it's been in Vale." Church asked to Junior and his Dad.
Junior leaned forward to the young Church son, "It's on need to know... it hasn't been just quiet... it's stopped completely. No robbings, no missing persons, not so much as a jaywalking. Whatever is happening within that White Fang group is either already dispersed among the members or is set in motion... I can't tell which is worse."
"By the time we find out about it who knows what'll happen." The Director said as the glare from his glasses covered his eyes, "What worries me is are the several who's in the back of my mind. Who is the one in charge? Who is the really pulling the strings? And who is hiding in the shadows, aiding them?"
"Aiding them? Like how Wyoming and Torchwick were helping them?" Militia asked.
The Director shook his head, "The most they did was hold the reigns for a moment or gave some advice. I'm talking about someone with the money, resources and power to pull something like supplying an army off without setting some alarms."
"You're thinking some third party wants to help them? Why?" Melina quizzed.
"Don't know but it must be for a big gain..." The Director concluded taking a bite of his food, immediately changing expressions again.
Silence befell them as even their chews were somehow drowned out by their collective thought process on the pondering questions. All except one, Sarge being the exception, "So there I was... Out at sea... when all of a sudden we spied a battered frigate with her tattered sail full dressed."
A collective groaned followed as everyone heard this story at least a dozen times.
[Elsewhere At The Fairgrounds Picnic Tables]
Even she would never be caught dead mingling with those who were far below her, Cinder must admit that having a regular conversation like the one she was having right now was nice. No putting up with insubordination, no having to show any signs of force to get what she wanted, it was peaceful to have such a moment. Best part was she was getting all the information she wanted and more... more being a key word as she wasn't expecting him to be so detailed.
"Oh and he cooks these amazing meals: breakfast, lunch and dinner, although he is learning to bake to make desserts. Ooh and he enjoys grooming his furry arms with his tongue like a real cat, strange but he brushes his top hair with a regular brush. Church also had like a bagillion guns in his containment unit that are just so cool. Oh he really like to-" Caboose rambled on for what seemed like hours, but was actually just a few minutes.
Cinder forced a smile but was tired inside, "Caboose... as much as I enjoy learning about the many, many facts you have to share about your best friend, is there anything more... important you wish to share?"
"Important? Hmmm... oh yes there is something you should know." He leaned close to whisper a secret to her, "He is single."
"Why would I want to know that?!" Cinder snapped at his annoying attitude.
Caboose wondered why she was upset, "Huh? Oh sorry, it's just that most people ask that about him. So I thought you'd want to know."
"It's fine, guess you told me all you could?" Cinder double checked.
Caboose nodded with glee, "Your turn now..."
"Oh... my turn, you mean you want me to share what I knew about Church when I knew him a while ago?" Cinder stuttered as she forgot this was a two way deal.
Caboose looked at her with big eager eyes and nodded his head up and down, "Uh-huh, anything. Like his favorite color, his funniest joke, anything."
"Okay well..." Cinder paused to actually think about what she wanted to say to him and what she could remember. It had been so long yet somehow the memory was still there, like an itch you can never get rid of. Cinder began to piece what she could and try not to reveal her secrets mission, "When I first met him, we were really young..."
"Uh-huh..."
"And he... had soft fur?" Cinder remembered the most obvious detail she could've.
"How soft?" Caboose asked.
Cinder took a while but came to a very fond memory before he left to join the Atlas Military, "It was so soft, it felt like you were petting a cloud."
The memory she had came back to was one where she and Church were playing as kids outside. When out of the sky it began to rain on the two, so they made their way to large, old, hollowed out tree that led to an abandoned animal den. Church had made sure it was clear thanks to his senses, being made from one of the true apex creatures of the jungle. They weren't so lucky as Cinder and him both weren't quick enough to escape the cold before it caught them.
Cinder was shivering so much, her chattering teeth and shaking body couldn't hold still for any longer than two seconds. There was no way to start a fire or keep warm with any of the clothing they had on hand, considering they she was in rags and Church wore a shirt and vest. So the only logical thing to do was to share body heat, as he took his shirt off and laid his upper body on her lap and curled into a ball. That's when she realized how soft he actually was as he heated her legs up. The warm feeling was so enticing that she folded her upper body onto him and soaked in whatever cozy embrace she could have to stay warm.
"What else?" Caboose asked, snapping Cinder out of that daze.
Cinder smiled as the memories came flooding back, seeing Caboose's face was similar to seeing Church's young face when he was still innocent and full of hope. So she began to tell all stories she could have, the whole day was spent doing so. Caboose watched as she illustrated such tales of an innocent faunus boy and a tom boyish girl who had all sorts of young adventures. Tales of fending off bullies from the school and her orphanage together, of him crafting all these types of trinkets for each other, even the place where they carved their own duo team name.
When it was dark the two parted ways as they missed the fight between Coco and Yatsuhashi from Beacon versus a team with Carolina and South Dakota in the name, representing the school of Chorus. It was a surprise when team CFVY lost, a surprise to all except one. Caboose and Cinder were about to part ways when the big man couldn't prevent himself from giving Cinder a great big hug. At first her instinct was to vaporize him to ash, but she stopped as she just stood there waiting for it to end.
Eventually the hug ended and she walked back to her room, hiding a genuine smile underneath her hand. As she was leaving to head to her room, elsewhere a pair of eyes spotted her and knew something was up.
[End of Chapter]
Okay so thank you again to maus69420 and the new guest for giving me my comment crack addiction. And to answer their question, about who's taking Salem's place, I feel as though it's obvious but I won't spoil it. Also, hopefully we'll all find out before this February ends so, yeah.
Thank you again and this is Churchisalive signing off for now.
