-Fred-104-
Fred stood behind the gun of their almost warthog as Jade sat in the driver's seat and Nora in the passenger, clutching the steering wheel and a grenade launcher respectively. They had seen the initial group of supposed Salem minions heading in, and they were watching for anything from the concealment of an alley.
Fred heard John make some remark about kneecaps and knew things were getting heated and at the same time, saw two dark shadows attempt to ghost across the lot in front of the academy. Fred quickly flipped to the view of one of the cameras they had installed and checked out the intruders.
They were both wearing white fang uniforms, and that's all Fred needed. He told Jade to punch it.
The combat truck roared to life and lept out of the alley like a big cat grabbing lunch and bowled over the two would be infiltrators, creating a couple impromptu speed bumps.
Nora whooped from the passenger seat as she spotted more white fang in an alley and let loose a salvo of grenades that bounced around the brick walls, causing untold chaos as the explosives detonated when the truck was already past.
There was another figure standing alone in black clothing in the lot that Fred hadn't seen before now, he was wearing a more ornate mask than the other members, and appeared to have his hands on a sheathed sword.
Fred started to warn Jade, but he was cut off as she gunned it towards the figure. He loosed a salvo from the chain gun, but the figure twirled his sword in front of him blocking most of the rounds, and the rest simply dissipated against an incredibly substantial aura with a slight fizzle.
Just as they were about to collide, the man sidestepped the truck like a bullfighter and swiped his sword down the side.
They flew past him, and Nora laughed, "Ha! These are those fancy no-air tires!" She blew a raspberry back at the figure, but she quickly realized her folly when the two right hand wheels peeled off from the truck and the vehicle crashed to the ground.
Fred hopped off of the back and turned to face the man, taking a better look at him. He had short spiked red hair with what looked like bull horns, as well as a sleek black set of clothes clearly designed for combat, and his sword on one hip and a sash on the other.
Fred drew his biggest knife and started approaching the figure, saying, "Hey nice bath towel you got there!"
The man snarled, retorting, "Save your breath for crying for mercy,"
Fred put his hands up in mock surrender, "Oh no, he's edgey!" Then lowered himself into a fighting stance with a knife in one hand and a sidearm in the other
-Linda-058-
Linda and Pharia watched the elevator slowly descend from their sniper perch, then watched as drama unfolded and the three turned on each other, one died, then the two remaining of Salem's minions clashed in what could only be described as an anime fight scene.
This impressive (and according to Linda, somewhat ridiculous) battle shook the entire cavern and massive boulders started to fall from the ceiling. Linda was forced to grab Pharia and swing down on the cable to below the bridge to avoid the debris.
Linda waited patiently beneath the bridge, calming her nerves with breathing, eliminating extra motion. She heard the fighting stop, and talking start, and started to move over to the edge of the underside of the bridge. She heard a singular shot ring out and the sound of someone stumbling, and she struck as soon as she saw opportunity, grabbing an ankle in a death grip and yanking it downwards, casting the woman in a red and orange dress, Cinder, she had heard someone say, down into the abyss. In the same motion she pulled herself up, rifle drawn on the other figure
Linda recognized the figure from Fred's helmet cam footage, she was the bandit leader from the camp, and apparently Yang's mom. The woman was completely unfazed, and simply walked around Linda over to the giant door. Raven talked as she went, saying calmly despite the fact her chest was heaving, "I assume you're one of Ozpin's lackeys? I did see you at the tournament after all."
Linda didn't say anything, just followed Raven with her crosshairs, and the bandit leader continued, "The deal I had was to open the vault, so that's what I'm going to do, I don't care for your petty squabbles with Ozpin and Salem, I'm just keeping my tribe alive, so you do whatever you want with what's inside."
Linda didn't put the gun down, she was pretty sure that Raven was stalling, as she was observing signs of fatigue in the woman, but said, "And I have no intentions of trying to convince you otherwise,"
Raven simply presssed her hand to the door and stepped back, watching as the door folded open, revealing a lamp, suspended in the air in a desert, seemingly defying reality.
The bandit leader paused a moment over the body of her companion, then walked away, donning her mask and drawing her sword, opening a swirling red portal and stepping through it, then vanishing.
Linda paused for a moment, then stepped into the desert to grab the lamp, and stepped out just as the doors began to close and Pharia clambered over the edge, "Ooooh what's that?" The fledging AI said.
Linda simply shrugged and started walking over to the elevator, trying to hail John on TEAMCOM.
-John-117-
John checked his rifle as soon as he landed from where he had been thown into the wall, and it appeared to be working fine. He quickly surveyed the situation, he could see Emerald and Mercury standing behind Hazel, each of them smirking, with the big guy using the time he had from John's entire team being taken down to inject more dust into his forearms.
John surveyed his team and saw that Ruby and Yang were fighting Mercury and Emerald in a dance of blades and explosions, Ren and Jaune were trying to keep Weiss from bleeding out, Oz had just pulled himself from the wall, and Qrow, well, there was a pretty large hole in the wall a bit to John's right. He guessed the man had taken the brunt of the bull rush. Maybe there was some validity to Qrow's claim of a bad luck semblance.
Something needed to change, the odds were not in his favor, so he called Fred, "I need reinforcements,"
Fred sounded out of breath, "Doc, go help inside!"
John was surprised at the lack of some sarcastic or witty comment, things must not be going well. John didn't have time to dwell on it as Hazel lept forward, landing right in front of John with a thump, and the Spartan suspected that if he and his MJOLNIR didn't weigh so much he would have been sent flying.
Hazel sent a downwards blow towards John, who stepped forward and left, past the right handed blow, and slammed the butt of his rifle into the elbow, causing the big man's aura to flare. But in his dust and rage enhanced state, Hazel was quick, redirecting his right arm to backhand the rifle out of John's grip just as the Spartan got off a burst into the barbarian's torso. John quickly danced away from the follow up left handed grab.
Regrouping, John glanced behind Hazel and saw Jade running towards him, pistol and a small knife in hand. He just had to keep Hazel occupied a little longer, it will be just like sparring with Jorge he thought, as he launched himself at Hazel.
The big man clearly wasn't used to having combatants come at him, and paused for just a moment too long while John pinned the man's arms to his sides, and, remembering what Ozpin said about Hazel's ability to completely ignore pain, started smashing his helmeted forehead into the man's face.
On the third headbutt, Hazel's aura broke, and the fourth, his nose, sending a spray of blood that covered half of John's faceplate. Through his left eye, John could see Jade arrive and slash at the back of Hazel's legs. John jumped to the side as the man toppled to the floor, drawing his sidearm, but Jade was already there, her large suppressed pistol coughing loudly three times as she fired into the back of Hazel's skull.
John redirected his attention to the rest of the fight and ordered Jade to go help Jaune and Weiss, then aimed his rifle at the active skirmish of Yang, Ruby, Mercury, and Emerald. He saw no clear shot so he kept his rifle silent, but sprinted towards Emerald, since Ruby seemed to be struggling a bit, almost as if she was fighting the shadows around her.
Ruby darted back, propelled by the recoil of her massive rifle, breathing heavy and eyes darting between things that weren't there. John breezed past her and opened up on the girl in green in short bursts, visibly impacting against an aura that started to look unstable quickly. Good, John thought, Ruby must have got some good hits in.
Ruby's darting eyes suddenly made sense when 6 or 7 flickering copies of Emerald sprung into existence and all flung their blades on chains at him.
John had seen Emerald's weapons during the tournament, and the guns themselves were impressive and the blades were wicked sharp, but they were light and couldn't get much momentum going when fully extended on their chains, so he simply completely ignored the flying blades. Most of the blades made no impact whatsoever and seemed to just pass through him almost, but he felt two ping off his armor harmlessly, one on his helmet and the other a shoulder.
John quickly identified the only Emerald who physically affected him and targeted her, sending a long burst at her, but was surprised when the girl just flickered and dissapeared as the mirages seemed to multiply and encircle him.
He then heard the distinctive CRACK of Crescent Rose and all the images simultaneously vanished, replaced by an unstable Emerald. Ruby's head started spinning quickly between nothings and John knew that Emerald's semblance was targeting the huntress, and he quickly took advantage of Emerald's vulnerability by dumping the rest of the mag into her, which turned out to be about 8 rounds, the first five of which broke her aura, and the final three tearing through flesh.
She stumbled backwards, seemingly not believing what happened and fell to the floor. Mercury, hearing the thud, looked over and cried out, sending a rage filled kick into Yang's abdomen then rushing over to his fallen companion.
Emerald's eyes stayed vividly open as her breathing turned panicked, so she saw clearly the elevator arrive up from the vault with only Linda and an Atlesian Knight on it, her face turning hopeful, then terrified once she registered who was there, then to disbeliving horror. She let out an ear piercing cry of pain and her head slumped over, just as Johns vision randomly started fading to black, with a slight, yet solid glimpse of a pale woman's smirking face with red eyes.
John knew he had not gone unconscious because he was in the exact same position as he was before, though everyone else seemed to be looking around confused, so he guessed their vision had gone black as well, and it took him a second to realize that both Mercury and Emerald were simply gone.
-Fred-104-
Fred very much regretted the disabling of the truck as a large crowd of White Fang gathered around his duel with their leader. He could see Nora nervously standing just inside of the ring formed by the spectators clutching her hammer, not sure if she would have to use it or not, watching to see if any tried to inturrupt Fred's duel.
They seemed content to watch, and without the truck, they would be able to take down the huntress and the spartan through sheer force off numbers, so trying to abide by whatever code of honor was keeping them back seemed the best bet. Not that the duel was much of a better option, as Fred was reminded by various pains; one where Fred had traded a stab wound just above his left hip for a concussive hit that slammed the bull Faunus's head back so violently his nose gushed blood even with aura still intact, another a set of bruised and possibly cracked ribs where Fred had discovered that the man's sheath doubled as a shotgun, and finally a slice on his left shoulder from finding out the sword was sharper than it looked.
Fred's opponent was far from spotless himself, with the aforementioned bloody nose, probable concussion, flickering aura, and a single large stab wound where Fred had been able to slip a blade through the weakened aura. Both were panting heavily and Fred saw the faunus crouch down, launching forward as the world around him started to bleed red and his sword started to come out of its sheath.
Fred remembered Yang's description of losing her arm, and knew if this was the same guy and the same attack the he couldn't let himself be hit by this, and that it couldn't be blocked.
Fred tensed, preparing to spring into motion, counting on the notion everyone seemed to hold subconsciously that something the size and shape of an armored spartan should not be able to move as quickly and dexterously as Spartans do. Sure enough, the White Fang leader was not counting on Fred jumping over his blade parallel to the groud and delivering an airborne spinning kick to the side of the head.
The blow sent the Faunus skidding over the ground to the edge of his watching soldiers. He rose on shaky feet and looked ready to send his soldiers charging forward, until the sound of dozens of weapons being leveled caused him to pause and look around.
A line of Faunus stood holding various weapons was arrayed just outside of the alleys the White Fang had just recently come from, and the sound of police airships were getting closer.
Blake stood at the front of the group, and stared at the leader with a look of disdain and a hint of regret, the leader himself had a scowl of disgust and betrayal cross his masked face before he seemed to realize he was beaten and sprint for the darkness of the city streets. Half his contingent of White Fang following suit as the others readied weapons, then quickly lowered them as they saw more Faunus spilling out of the alleyways and police airships descend from the sky.
Fred suddenly got a new TEAMCOM connection and his head quickly shot up, looking to where Kelly's signal came from and saw her skidding around a corner at a dead sprint. A few of the White Fang in her path yelped in fear and jumped out of the way.
She slid to a halt in front of Fred, quickly seeing he was hurt, not even blinking before pulling out a canister of bio foam and almost spraying it into his open stab wound before he stopped her.
She looked at him quizzically, her helmet tilting as he explained, "We're almost out of bio foam, I know you want to be team mom, but we have to conserve and this isn't that bad."
She huffed at him, "Not even an I missed you?" She threw the medical canister back into her pack and bumped Fred's shoulder affectionately, "Let's go check if John needs help, then we can get you patched up."
Fred was shocked, no retaliation whatsoever, she must really have missed him, either that or she seriously agreed with the fact that she was "team mom" and Fred suddenly wasn't sure if this was the real Kelly or not.
AN: Sorry for the really long wait, I'm hoping to get one more chapter done this week (I have spring break), but we shall see. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed. This was a fairly action packed chapter, so I hope it turned out well, (pacing can be hard for action sequences)
As always, let me know if you have any questions/comments/concerns and I'll see you either in the comments/reviews or next time I post.
Review Responses:
MystiYew: That is just one of those artistic license moments, yes I do know it is the full suit system that kills you if you are not augmented, but I couldn't have blue team fall out of the sky completely naked (I want this story to keep the T rating because when looking at stories from a search or a category anything rated T or below automatically displays, and people have to manually have to select M to be displayed, thus reducing traffic to the story).
RedOctober700: Glad you enjoyed, and the next chapter is finally here. I'm hoping to give Pharia plenty of character development, but we shall see how it goes, after all, I tend to be not very good about actually doing things that I have previously said/written down as an outline that I would do. As for the Infinite demo, I am EXTREMELY pumped for this game, though I am slightly concerned for the multiplayer with how the monetization may work. All in all though, looks amazing.
IWT: I'm thinking yes at this point, but I don't want to spoil anything.