Aaaannnd back! Just as stated in the last AN, I will be focusing on this fic for the next month or two. With any luck, I could possibly get a new chapter out every other week, depending on circumstances.
Whelp, not too much has changed since the last chapter, but I did get to see Dark Phoenix. And it was… well, it was okay. Had some fun parts but in the end, it wasn't anything that had me going 'wow!' or anything. And… yeah, not much else to say on that front really.
Also, still been playing DMC5, primarily Bloody Palace. In all seriousness, I really should be practicing in the Void, but I'm the type of guy that needs the pressure of genuine loss to really learn, ha ha. And at the risk of sounding like I'm tooting my own horn here, I'm actually pretty good now! Oh, I'm nowhere near the level of those guys you see on Youtube, but for a while I've always been a rather bad player when it came to using Dante, primarily because even though I'm a terribly simple and straightforward man, I try to use at least 80% of Dante's weapons and styles.
And after getting my ass kicked even by Goliath of all bosses on floor 20, I got indignant and gave it another go and made it all the way to floor 90 before losing. Then over the past few weeks, I've just been continuing to play and slowly yet surely getting better at clearing each floor faster and with much less damage sustained. Now I was able to almost beat Urizen on floor 100 – only to lose when he only had less than a quarter of his health left! But I'm getting there – before, I barely even broke his shield by the time he killed me on floor 99, ha ha.
But oh man, I can only imagine how hard it'll be to beat Bloody Palace with V of all people…
Heh, but enough of my bragging/lamenting! Time for the chapter!
Chapter 15
"Jaune and the others may have found something," Ruby immediately said after hanging up her scroll.
And Weiss, while having expected something to have happened simply by how serious her partner/leader had looked during the call, now tensed up upon having her suspicion confirmed.
"Will they need us to regroup with them?" she asked.
But to her surprise, Ruby shook her head. "No, for now they'll look into it while we keep doing what we're doing. For all we know, it could just be nothing – no point in heading to them if all we could end up doing is wasting time."
From beside her, Blake grimaced. "But if it does turn out to be the White Fang…"
"They can handle it," Ruby said with confidence. "I mean, Pyrrha's there and Nora's a real powerhouse too. Ren is Nora's partner for a reason and then, of course, there's Jaune."
At the mention of the blond leader of their fellow team, Weiss quirked an eyebrow as Ruby and Blake then shared a certain knowing look. The heiress could practically see the tension and worry leave the Faunus' body. Not completely, but enough to be noticeable to her sharp eyes.
"I… no, that's true," Blake admitted.
Yang was quick to comment. "Got a lot of confidence in Jaune, eh? Something Weiss and I are being left out of the loop here about?"
"…You would've had to be there at the docks to really understand," Blake responded rather enigmatically, but with something of a bemused smile now. "But he can take care of himself easily enough. Now come on – we're burning daylight here."
Using her semblance, Blake made a clone that then launched her up into the air. She then used the bows of Gambol Shroud to latch onto a nearby pole that looked dangerously unstable and promptly launched herself further up so that she was now on the roof of the building ahead of them.
Weiss sighed. She felt like she was out of the loop on something here, but this wasn't exactly a good time to be questioning things. Still, she wasn't going to let this go that easily. "Whatever the two of you are keeping quiet about, I expect to hear one day, Ruby," she said sternly.
"You got it!" Ruby replied.
"Heh, man, Jaune is really popular now to have all of our attention," Yang quipped before jumping up to the roof of another nearby building, using the recoil from Ember Celica to give herself a boost.
"It's not like that!" Ruby yelled after her, only for the blonde brawler to just laugh a little and begin roof hopping.
Weiss huffed in amusement. "Now come on. Didn't you and Blake say we had to get moving?"
She enjoyed her leader's sputtering for a brief second before dashing down the alleyway. But despite her head-start just now, Ruby caught up quickly enough.
"How do you want to do this?" she then asked, focusing on the task at hand now.
Ruby got serious too. "Well, with Blake and Yang patrolling the rooftops for now, we should spread out on the streets and alleyways here. Even with how narrow and tight the turns are, our semblances can handle it, no problem! I'll head left, you go right?"
Weiss nodded, just in time as the two of them reached the end of the current alleyway, which ended quite abruptly as Jaune had pointed out earlier. "Very well. Let's start."
With a minimal level of concentration, Weiss formed a glyph on the wall directly ahead. She then jumped and twirled around in midair so that she landed feet-first on the glyph. It was an acceleration glyph and one aimed directly to the right. As such, she was immediately launched in that direction, moving with grace as she literally ran sideways on the wall.
And behind her, she could hear Ruby activate her own semblance as well, her partner's signature red cloak practically covering her up entirely as she almost literally flew off the ground and made a sharp left with one fluid movement.
Weiss couldn't help but admire this movement for a brief instance – her partner looked like a red cyclone to her eyes, not that she'd ever tell Ruby that since it'd probably lead her to enthusiastically coming up with ridiculous nicknames or something.
It was bad enough being called ice queen or Weiss-cream on occasion.
But she was digressing.
According to all the info their 'mission' was based on – which really wasn't much – any and all signs of occupation within any of these buildings would be horribly obvious. After all, with as much manpower as was needed to keep a 'hidden base' up and running for both Roman Torchwick and the White Fang somehow working with him, there'd be signs of at least some level of cleanliness and remodeling.
There was, of course, no way the likes of Torchwick and the White Fang would risk falling ill because of how unclean all of these buildings were nor would they be that willing to go without at least some basic comforts especially since these buildings looked like they'd cave in on themselves with a strong enough blow. Furthermore, while the White Fang wouldn't have much problem working in the dark, the same couldn't be said for Vale's resident thief, who would need some measure of light to work with. This wasn't even including whatever equipment they no doubt had that required power. This meant there'd be a generator and even if they kept it hidden somewhere, it would undoubtedly be making a fair bit of noise and likely have some measure of security around it.
And as Weiss had learned through her years of trying to live up to her father's ridiculous expectations – expectations that had required her to accompany him and others to observe how things are done out in the field, so to speak – she's come to understand some basics of security.
And the thing about security? It was always obvious. It was, after all, meant first and foremost to intimidate people into not even thinking of trying anything. That'd be impossible to do if it couldn't be seen.
While she wasn't sure how exactly the White Fang did things compared to what she's seen, surely the basics still applied, right? And besides, from what she could tell, it didn't seem like Torchwick had been given the more competent members to work with.
All in all, this meant she and the others were to free to explore the search area at a rather decent pace, so long as they made sure to investigate anything that looked obviously out of the ordinary. But of course, given just how big the search area is, even with their mobility, covering it all in one day may not be doable, especially if they really wanted to be thorough.
Even so…
After using her semblance to once more dash across the walls, Weiss formed several more ahead of her, accelerating drastically with each one she dashed across.
She was moving at truly dangerous speeds for a trainee. If her reflexes dulled for even a millisecond, she'll go crashing right through a building and aura would only keep her so safe from injury.
But she wasn't just like other first year trainees. She'd had years to learn how to use her semblance effectively. Even with how fast she was going, she could still clearly see where she was going and knew for a fact she could respond in time.
Sure enough, as she traversed the alleyways, they started to get even narrower and shorter, living up to the labyrinth-like design she's read about. But even so, she was still able to maintain her overall speed even as she had to keep making sharper and shaper turns.
It wasn't until she reached the end of the alleyways and went leaping out into an open street that she ceased with her mad dash. Instead, as she all but literally flew through the air, she made another glyph to gradually pull her towards the ground, where she landed with all the grace of a ballerina, her (combat) skirt fluttering lightly as she did so.
She frowned as she then stood.
She of all people knew better than to be so impatient, but even so, she'd been expecting to find at least something during her brief run just now. Alas, there'd been nothing save for increasingly rundown buildings, with a bunch of graffiti all over the walls. Seems like this part of the abandoned district was popular with common street thugs.
And… addicts too, she thought in distaste, noticing a bunch of old, dirty and broken needles all over the street now.
She tried not to crinkle in disgust, but it was hard not to. It just boggled her mind to see such a comically blatant mess, only there was nothing comical about it. No, if anything, it was just… sad. The kingdoms weren't perfect, but even so, she'd naively thought things were better than they really were, a sign of her somewhat sheltered upbringing, she noted.
Just how could have things come to this? She spent a second to ponder this.
Was the loss of this district that a big a blow to the people that had tried to make a living here? Or was it something else? Despite her education in the matters of economics and even psychology, it was a whole other thing to see firsthand the fallout of decisions that impacted things on such a large scale.
Why hasn't the council tried pushing for this district to be cleaned up and repurposed? Surely that would be way better than just letting it all fall into continual ruin like this. She could only imagine why, however.
In any case, the kingdom's lack of action on this front may be one of several reasons why this area was the perfect place for the likes of Torchwick and the White Fang to set up in – not many would exactly be willing to approach if it could be helped. And under different circumstances, Weiss knew she definitely wouldn't be anywhere near this area.
But here she was, exposed to all this. She was seeing firsthand just how horrible the ruin and decay really was and she had no choice but to press forward deeper into it all in order to find and hopefully stop the White Fang and Torchwick from continuing their criminal acts.
That said… she wasn't exactly eager to press forward with all these needles, grunge, excrement and tatter clothing lying around that particular area.
Making a sound she's never heard herself make before, she pulled out Myrtenaster and switched around the Dust chamber so that the ice Dust was set.
"I can't believe I'm using Dust for this…" she murmured before stabbing at the street. Putting as much aura as she could afford to waste right now, she activated the Dust and created a frozen path of thick ice for her to walk on, a path that extended at an angle all the way across the street, to where things were just a tad bit cleaner, only marginally acceptable in her eyes but better than nothing.
As she gracefully skied across the ice, she did her best to ignore the sights around her but knew her mind wouldn't obey that easily.
And all the while, she remained unaware of eyes that were watching from afar.
RTD #1 was gasping, completely out of breath from trying to keep up with the Schnee heiress, as he picked up his scroll.
"B-Boss, one of them is getting kinda close to the base!"
"B-Boss, one of them is getting kinda close to the base!"
As soon as Roman received that brief statement, he huffed and proceeded to limp his way out of the room. "And just how close is 'kinda close?'"
The Faunus on the other end of the call took a second to catch his breath. "U-Uh, like maybe… seven or eight city blocks?"
Roman sighed. Seriously, he thought, what were the odds of one of the damned kids already getting that close to the base? He knew it was kind of inevitable, but that didn't mean it should've happened that quickly.
"Well, at least we got some kind of heads-up," he mumbled to himself before then addressing the goon. "Which kid? Little red? Or that blond freak?"
"Nah, it's the bitch of a Schnee heiress!" the guy growled out in response, rage evident in his voice. Most others would likely be intimidated by such intensity.
Roman, however, was completely unimpressed. "Right, right, hold back that hate boner of yours. Sheesh, you animals and your anger towards the Schnee… you think you bunch are the only ones that get screwed over?" He couldn't help but grumble, the result of all the shit he's been having to deal with recently. "Ah, whatever. You and your buddy just keep tracking her for now. If she gets too close, try distracting her somehow."
As soon as he said that, he immediately hung up before RTD #1 could even think of a reply. Roman then increased his pace as best as he could and found the nearest other White Fang grunt he could find.
"Perry get that damned paladin up and running yet?" he demanded.
"Just about done from what I heard," the grunt responded as he adjusted his uniform to better fit his lizard tail. "Only needed to do a… systems check?"
Roman grunted. Good enough.
He limped his way with even greater speed to where they were had the paladin stashed. As he did so, he was immediately greeted by the sight of a massive mecha standing proudly in the center of the large room they kept it in, Perry fiddling around with something within the cockpit.
"Perry, you almost done with that system check or whatever?" he asked.
"Almost," the guy responded. He fiddled around a bit more and the paladin's left arm moved a bit. He and Perry watched this movement in complete silence. "Paladin itself is all ready to go pretty much, but it's just doing some final diagnostic checks before anyone can really go moving it around."
"How long until it's done?"
Perry could only shrug. "Like another twenty minutes? Maybe even a half hour?"
"And if we try to make it do anything before the check is fully done?"
"Well, moving it around shouldn't be hard to do, but you probably won't have full access to its other weaponry until the check is done. Likely to avoid accidentally blowing itself up with a faulty missile or something."
Roman really wanted to whine over this, but managed to hold his tongue, a herculean feat for him. As frustrated as he was, he knew complaining wasn't going to do anything good. Perry did make a point, sadly enough.
"Fine then. Get out of the cockpit then. Let me take a look at that big boy," Roman then said.
"U-Uhm, you sure, boss? I mean, your leg-," Perry started.
"-Isn't fully healed, yeah yeah. But don't really need it to pilot a freakin' mech. Now skedaddle," Roman interrupted. "And got the others ready to fight, just in case. I'm really not liking how things are going here."
Perry acquiesced with some level of reluctance and Roman hopped in as soon as the Faunus left. Getting comfortable within the mecha, Roman started to look things over. When they'd first obtained this piece of junk, he'd given himself a quick crash course in how to pilot it and now he was just relearning all of that. Piloting Atlas tech was by no means an easy thing to do, but he was by no means stupid. Shouldn't take him too long to familiarize himself with it.
Hopefully, he won't actually need to use the paladin unless necessary, but if nothing else, Neo and the RTD guys should be able to distract their unwanted guests until the diagnostics check is fully done.
And besides, worst really comes to worst, targeting that civilian area should prove helpful…
Jaune moved alongside Pyrrha with a certain caution to his movements.
They weren't alone.
This wasn't something he could confirm through his physical senses yet his instincts were all but screaming at him that someone else was in the area, someone who meant him harm. But more importantly than that, this someone meant his teammates harm.
Like hell he'd let such a thing come to pass.
Except preventing this wouldn't be possible unless he and his friends could locate this person first.
The only good thing to come out of this new circumstance was that he now knew with certainty that whatever had grabbed his attention earlier hadn't merely been some random thing but an actual and tangible threat.
Now, some would question how an actual threat would be preferable to some random coincidence, but to him, it was a welcome surprise – it meant they were on the right track.
"Pyrrha?" He called his partner's name quietly.
The redhead shook her head lightly. "Nothing yet."
He nodded in understanding and they continued their trek.
After they'd first split up and gone around that building earlier, when they'd reconvened, Jaune had explained his suspicions to the others and they'd broken off into their respective pairs to scope out the rest of this section. For it was most likely that whoever was stalking them wouldn't be letting them progress any close to where Roman and the White Fang were at.
And how did Jaune know this unknown stalker was affiliated with them? He didn't, actually. But it'd be even odder if they were being followed by some random sadistic attacker or whatnot.
In any case, this person who meant them harm was also very likely armed and so he was relying on Pyrrha using her semblance to try and get a feel for where the person may be by using her semblance to sense the metal all around them.
Unfortunately, this was turning out to be a bit of a bust. Though his partner could sense the presence of metal and other objects that her polarity can affect, she couldn't do so with enough accuracy to tell what the metal actually was or if someone was currently holding it.
Pyrrha did say earlier, however, that if their stalker does get close enough, she should be able to sense them then. A bit of risky maneuver to be sure, since letting the stalker get within striking distance of them would put Pyrrha at risk, but it was their only real tactic for the time being, not unless he wished to start swinging his swords and cut down the buildings, but that'd only be causing currently unnecessary property damage, even if this entire area had long since been abandoned.
The rules of the kingdom were oddly ridiculous like that.
Having yet to draw either of his blades, Jaune kept one hand resting on the hilt of one of them while using his free hand to raise his scroll and call Ren.
"Anything on your end?" he asked.
"Nothing yet. But the long this goes on, the more uneasy I feel. You were right, Jaune – someone is definitely following us, but I can't get a read on where they are. Whoever this is, they're good."
"Agreed. Stay sharp and let us know if anything comes up."
Ren replied in the affirmative and the call ended.
As he tucked his scroll away in his pocket, Pyrrha spoke up. "Should we really continue with the searching?" she asked.
She was referring to the search for Roman and the White Fang.
"For now, no. Not until we smoke out the stalker and deal with them first. If we leave them be, then whoever it is will likely try to interfere later on anyways."
Better to deal a preemptive strike than to wait and let the enemy make the first move. This was a lesson he learned long ago during his travels throughout the frontier. After all, letting those that are 'evil' make the first move always results in the loss of innocent life.
That was definitely not something that could be abided in any form.
Pyrrha seemed to understand the logic behind his response without any difficulty and she nodded in agreement. "Right. Then what about RWBY? What if there's more than just one stalker?"
At that, Jaune's grip on his sword tightened a bit.
The thought had definitely crossed his mind, but he did his very best to not dwell on it too much – to do so would be for his, well, for his hero complex to really start rearing its possessive head. If that happened, he'd find himself being mentally pulled in too many directions, which was the last thing he could afford right now.
This current task required all of his focus.
Thus, he could only pray that whatever the situation may be for his other friends, that they'd be okay.
"They're more than capable of fending for themselves," he stated. "If there is anyone stalking them too, then that stalker is in for only a rude awakening."
He then looked to Pyrrha, his blue eyes as intense as always. "And so is our own stalker."
Pyrrha smiled confidently in response to his bravado.
"Right. Then in that case, if it comes down to it, let's show our follower just how good us first year trainees can be under pressure."
Allowing himself a small smile, he and his partner ventured forth ever deeper into the abandoned district.
Elsewhere within the district, Ren and Nora were scoping things out too, much like how Jaune and Pyrrha were doing.
Well, it was mainly Ren doing the whole 'scoping out' thing. Nora was more preoccupied with trying to not just smash everything up with Magnhild.
She was crazy like that. But that was Nora for you, Ren thought.
Stormflower drawn but held at his sides for now, Ren walked the streets aimlessly, except he really wasn't – he was walking the streets in a very specific order that only he and Nora were privy to, something they used to do during their travels across the kingdom as they made their way to Beacon initially.
To whomever their stalker was, it would only (hopefully) seem like they were just walking randomly, without direction nor purpose, which would in turn hopefully embolden the follower into finally making a move and breaking this building tension.
Alas, nothing has happened yet.
It was wearing Nora's patience down at a fast pace, as was to be expected of the excitable girl. But even Ren himself was feeling the pressure now.
It especially didn't help that every now and then, he'd hear or even see random empty cans and pieces of debris and dirt being kicked up into the air, no doubt in an attempt to startle them like teens out of a cheesy horror flick.
But as much as the tension was getting to him, Ren remained outwardly unaffected. His years acting as Nora's restraining bolt had helped hone his reflexes and sharpen his senses as much as was possible.
It was why Jaune had ultimately broken up the team the way he had. In addition to each respective pair being most familiar with one another, it was also for the sake of balance. Jaune, the heavy hitter and the jack-of-all-trades Pyrrha while there was him, the well-rounded speedster and sharpshooter with the tank known as Nora.
And where Pyrrha could use her semblance to act as a pseudo-sixth sense of sorts, Ren had his own sixth sense, tuned as sharply as could be through his regular meditation senses.
Unfortunately, while he could detect the presence of another, he couldn't actually discern where this presence exactly was nor could he note any other possibly helpful details.
All he could tell was that this person was definitely following him and Nora and held some measure of hostile intent towards them.
"Renny~!" Nora whined childishly… except there was a hint of genuine worry to her voice. "I'm getting really antsy here!"
"Me too," he replied quietly as the two of them kept walking. He then paused for a moment, an idea coming to him. He then sighed, not sure if they should really take the risk, but it wasn't as if they had any other options.
He just hoped the others wouldn't mind him and Nora getting a little loud here for a second.
"…When our stalker moves another can or whatever to try grabbing our attention, shoot a grenade," he told Nora.
If their stalker was hoping to whittle down their mental and emotional states through reactions, then he figured they might as well give them an overreaction.
And as if by some divine intervention, some chunk of worn down debris fell from the third floor of a nearby building, crashing to the street below with a very loud thud.
Oh, the absolutely enormous smile on Nora's face in response to both his words and the debris was the stuff of legends – easily in the top 10 of 'Nora's most terrifying expressions ever.'
As soon as that debris hit the ground, Nora whirled around like a girl possessed, Magnhild in its compact gun form as Nora fired not just one but two grenades.
The first one was aimed at where the debris landed whereas the second shot was aimed at where the debris had fallen from.
The resulting explosions of pink colored Dust were more than enough to make the entire building, already on its last legs, crumble apart and it made just as much noise as Ren had expected it to.
As it did so, Ren subtly tensed up, preparing to go on the offensive at the first sign of retaliation from their stalker. Surely, their stalker would be pissed by that.
And as it turned out a split second later, he was right. Except he couldn't possibly account for just how sudden the counter was.
All he knew was that suddenly, something small but surprisingly strong smashed against his solar plexus, making him crumble in a way similar to how the building did just now. But before he could even fully go down, two more hits came, striking him in the side of his face and in his right collarbone.
"Ren!" Nora cried out, the teen in question just barely registering his name being called through the pain.
Nora switched Magnhild into its hammer form and slammed it hard into the ground before them, forming a massive crater and making the entire street for meters on end to rumble as if an earthquake had struck.
Ren could've sworn he heard someone stumble about somewhere and he opened fire even as he finally fell to the ground, gasping for air.
He wasn't sure if he even hit anything, but he wasted no time forcing himself back onto his feet, Nora helping in this process by grabbing him by the back of his collar and pulling him as she leapt back several feet.
"You okay?!" she asked him in great concern.
He wheezed. "I-I'm okay, just need to catch my breath. Did you see anything?"
Nora shook her head quickly.
Ren groaned. Great. It would seem all they'd succeeded in doing was just really angering their seemingly invisible stalker and without any way to actually hit them.
As he finally started to fully regain his senses, Ren focused intensely, trying to find their attacker before they made their next move – only to now begin raising his arms on pure instinct.
It wasn't enough. Something broke past his guard before it could fully form and he felt something hook around his neck and drag him down. Something then slammed right into his face and he saw stars. Even in the midst of his disorientation, however, he was vaguely aware of Nora stepping in now, yelling like a beast in rage.
Except, before Nora could fully bring her hammer down, something seemingly knocked into her left leg as she started leaping forward and she lost her balance. She then got thrown directly at Ren and the two of them went tumbling to the ground.
Knocked down but not out, Ren struggled to get up, clearing the cobwebs from his head as he did so. As he did so, he blinked as he finally saw something amiss – a wave-like shimmer swiftly approaching him and Nora.
It was rather small, but there was no denying now that it was their attacker.
And said person, their true form well-hidden by this shimmer effect, was clearly intending to attack them again.
Not if Ren had something to say about it.
Not willing to throw Nora off him, he merely raised Stormflower and immediately unleashed a short burst of gunfire at the unknown person, only for them to dodge by going to the right. Ren followed along as best as he could, but whoever their attacker was is damn fast, very light on their feet. And shooting from this awkward position on the ground wasn't helping him.
However, just as it looked like their attacker was about to fully close the distance between them, Nora recovered and switched Magnhild back into its gun form.
"Eat this!" she yelled as she fired several grenades in rapid succession.
The grenades went far and wide, some striking the very spot between them and the attacker while the others went to the sides. Unless the attacker was tough or brave enough to continue through the resulting explosions, they'd have no choice but to fall back.
Thankfully, that's exactly what happened.
The two longtime friends used this opening to get back up and steel themselves, now ready to really fight back.
Except, when the smoke cleared just seconds later, the shimmer effect was nowhere to be seen.
Neo, mute as she is, silently huffed in annoyance.
After that near-miss with her blond target, she'd decided to watch him and his teammates for a while before eventually deciding to stalk after the raven-haired boy and auburn haired girl, having figured they'd be a bit easier to deal with than this Jaune and the redhead, who seemed strong enough.
But rather than just leap into action, she'd instead took to typical scare tactics, the kind seen in those cheap horror movies and games. But as cheap as they are, they're still viable tactics, meant to really put people on edge.
She'd intended to steadily wear the teens down mentally before striking when they were most vulnerable, but to her surprise, they'd started fighting back sooner than expected in the form of that damn girl firing those stupid grenades.
She'd been able to escape their counter unharmed, but her clothes had gotten more than a little dusty what with all the debris and stuff. And with how big a mess this entire district is, Neo didn't dare imagine how much other shit must be lying around in the streets and buildings.
Seriously, just because she and Roman were criminal scum (and proud of it) didn't mean they slinked around in shitty neighborhoods or partook in the stuff gangs did.
They had standards, damn it.
Anyways, that had been what had prompted her to go on the attack now, but after being driven off with that second grenade attack, she had to fall back.
Neo knew she was tough, tougher than most, but she didn't dare risk taking those grenades head on. If she did, she could kiss a solid amount of aura goodbye and she was going to need all she can get to keep using her semblance.
Speaking of which, because of her own focus slipping a bit, her illusion that kept her hidden from sight had started to come a bit undone, her form, though still invisible, having been somewhat present thanks to the all too familiar shimmering effect that accompanied her semblance whenever she had trouble maintaining something.
Thankfully, she'd been able to slip away during that second grenade attack and dropped her illusion for the time being as she took shelter in a nearby parking structure.
And she did so just in the nick of time, for just as the smoke from the grenades disappeared…
"Are you two alright?!" yelled out that redhead, trailing just somewhat behind her blond target. No doubt, they'd started running here as soon as that idiot girl first fired her weapon. Her screams and second attack must have only gotten them to run that much faster here.
Great, so all four of them were together again, Neo thought with another huff. Oh well, it's not as if she hadn't expected something like this to happen – even if she'd taken down those two teens' auras and killed them, the other two would definitely be seeking revenge and no doubt would call in that Blake girl and her team to assist.
Not that Neo feared being outnumbered or anything. After all, she was good enough to even potentially take on full-fledged huntsmen and huntresses. A handful of first years wouldn't be much trouble, merely a real annoyance.
Though she thought that… something about that Jaune guy still gave her the chills, especially now as he looked over his friends in great concern before then looking to the street… and spotting the footprints Neo had left behind in the dust.
Neo noticed this at the same time he did and winced a bit but decided to roll with it. As it stands, she was going to have to keep them occupied for a while anyways. With everything going on, there wasn't a doubt in her mind that Roman was likely planning a way to deal with these teens in one move.
Deciding on her course of action, she stepped out into the open just as all four teens, now up on their feet, started to quickly look around.
And as if in perfect synch, like damned robots or something, all four ended up looking in her general direction at the same time she stepped out, though it helped that she made it a point to click her heels as loudly as she could to get their attention.
She smirked as she got their attention – only for her eyes to go almost comically wide when her target, Jaune, suddenly drew his sword and swung with terrifying force.
A massive sonic boom was unleashed by the sheer strength of his swing and something truly insane happened – a miniature vortex that was powerful enough to suck things towards it… and by extension, to him.
This included her.
The diminutive woman may be light on her feet, but not that light. It took latching onto an old but thankfully sturdy guardrail alongside the parking structure's entrance with the hook of her umbrella to keep from being sucked in.
But as soon as she did this, the blond teen's entire body seemed to glow like a damn sun, nearly blinding her. It only took her mind a microsecond to realize that the light seemingly pouring right out of him was aura, of all things.
And it was concentrating rapidly into his other sword, which he then swung.
A literal wave of aura was unleashed and it was heading directly for her. Thankfully, however, the vortex effect ended just before he unleashed this attack and as soon as Neo's feet were touching the ground again, she made a run for it.
But on a more unfortunate note, the aura wave was moving way too quickly for her to rush out through the parking structure's entrance and to the side. As such, she had no choice but to run deeper into the structure and then bank a sharp right once the wave started catching up with her, cutting through the support pillars like nothing.
Like most other parking structures, even this old one had openings on each level that allowed people to see out into the city. Such openings were naturally quite wide and for someone of Neo's height and petite build, it was child's play to elegantly jump right over the barrier and out into the streets, where she promptly crouched as low as she could.
She did so in just the nick of time, for the aura wave finally struck the main pillars of the entire structure and it promptly exploded, taking the entire thing down like it was nothing.
As low as she was to the ground, Neo was able to avoid being struck by flying rubble, but the sheer force of the explosion was still enough to send her flying.
To say she was shocked would be putting it mildly – she really should've taken Roman's explanations of the kid's freakish strength a bit more seriously.
Alas, she wasn't so shocked as to not open her umbrella. Using the powerful updraft made from the explosion, she was able to carry herself to safety atop another nearby building, where she promptly activated her semblance to hide herself from view and she rushed across the next few rooftops.
Making a large circle back around, she came back to where the teens were at, all of them remaining where they were. They all looked stupefied by what had just happened. Seems like not even they had known what their blond friend was capable of. For some reason, this made Neo feel just a tad bit better; at least she wasn't the only one who'd underestimated this guy.
Still, time for another change of plan – she was going to focus on this guy first, if possible, that is. Letting him live while focusing on the others was just asking for trouble. Of course, if the others give her an opening, she definitely wouldn't ignore it, especially since they could likely be used as hostages.
Using her semblance again just as she leapt to another rooftop, she created another version of herself, which the blond noticed.
"There!" he yelled, snapping his teammates out of their haze.
The fake her smirked in that 'better try harder' way, goading them intentionally while the real her silently dropped down to the lower floor of the building she was on.
The hammer girl opened fire again while the other girl, the redhead, suddenly raised a hand and the nearest steel pipe near her fake just as suddenly bent and nearly whacked her, only for the fake her to deftly leap over it and give a silent jeer in response.
The fake her then leapt to another building before jumping down, looking as if it was going to directly engage them.
The hammer girl, clearly the hotheaded one, charged forth with every visible intent on crushing the fake.
"Nora, wait!" cried out the boy she'd attacked earlier. "I don't think that's her!"
But it was too late.
By the time the girl seemed to heed the boy's warning and tried to abruptly stop, the fake her shattered while the real her leapt at the dumb girl, her physical illusion dropping to reveal herself just as she made contact in the form of her umbrella's tip stabbing right into the girl's throat. It was only because of aura that this blow wasn't a deathblow.
Even so, it clearly hurt the girl a hell of a lot and left her croaking, a sound most pleasurable to Neo as the girl staggered back. Remaining directly in front of the girl, which meant the idiot was directly in between her and the other teens, Neo then hooked the girl by the crotch and flipped her so that she went crashing hard into the street.
But Neo wasn't done just yet.
As soon as the girl hit the ground, Neo did three things simultaneously: she stabbed the tip of her umbrella into the back of the hand that still held that ridiculously huge hammer, drove her right heel into the small of the girl's back, and withdrew the hidden blade of her umbrella with her free hand and placed the sharp blade directly against the side of the hammer girl's neck.
Within the same amount of time it took her to do these three things, the other teens had tried to dash forward to attack her, clearly not wanting to use guns – or those aura swings in the case of that ridiculous Jaune guy – when there was an all too serious risk of hitting this girl in the process. They'd covered a considerable distance, especially in the case of the blond, who was only several yards away as opposed to the other two who were several meters away in comparison.
Really now, seeing how much closer he was to her, it was enough to make Neo really worried. Up close and personal, she likely would be able to beat him – granted, from what Roman had told her, Jaune had pretty much dominated him in their brief fight at the docks, but to be fair, Roman was nowhere near her level of martial skill – but so long as there was even a chance of him using those aura swings of his, Neo didn't like having too much distance between them when there was nothing to distract him with.
Hence her hostage right now. Rather convenient for one to practically present herself to her after her change of plans, but Neo wasn't going to complain.
That said, her hostage was quite a strong girl despite not being that much taller or built than Neo herself. It was only thanks to the girl's less than ideal position that prevented her from fully utilizing her strength to throw Neo off.
Well, that, and the blade right by her neck. Aura or not, no one would exactly be comfortable with such a sharp object so close to them.
But to her surprise, her blond target didn't look too worried. If anything, his gaze intensified as he readied both of his swords. "Pyrrha, move both of them!"
The redhead's expression hardened in concentration and the next thing Neo knew, her blade was suddenly moved with great speed to the side and then behind her. With her grip firmly secured on the blade, Neo ended up getting moved along with her weapon lest her arm get dislocated. At the same time this happened, her hostage was dragged speedily across the ground by her own weapon, the girl's grip on it having remained just as firm too.
Neo recovered quickly enough but going after her now lost hostage wasn't going to be possible as Jaune closed in with two downward slashes of his swords. Neo had no choice but to instead jump back and do a little flip to avoid being struck and then did an additional flip to put some more distance between her and the now rapidly approaching teens.
While being too far away from her blond foe wouldn't be wise given those aura swings, she wanted to see if it was possible to get at least a little further from the redhead, whose semblance had definitely been what had just been used.
Alas, Jaune wasn't going to make that easy. He put on another burst of speed and closed the distance between them, his much taller and muscular form easily overshadowing hers. He swung his left blade at her and then when she ducked under it, he used the momentum to spin himself and try slicing her with his other sword.
Though incredibly fast, Neo was still just a bit faster and her short, petite form allowed her to pull off incredibly acrobatic moves, enabling her to dodge his increasingly powerful swings.
Even so, she was gritting her teeth in worry. No matter how many times he missed, the blond simply used the momentum of his failed attacks to carry himself forward and pressure her back. His moves had looked initially rigid and straightforward but now as he clearly began to adapt to how she moved and fought, he started to move with an increasing lightness to his feet, almost as if he was attempting to mimic how she moved.
Not only that, but with every missed swing of his twin blades, he was getting closer. At first, she'd been ducking, weaving and dodging his slashes with a few inches of breathing room, but now that breathing room was shrinking down to centimeters at best.
All the while, his friends quickly approached as well, obviously intending to support him. It was only because of his proximity to Neo that prevented them from opening fire with their weapons' gun functions.
"…!" Though mute, Neo was still somewhat capable of sound and it now showed through in the form of a surprised gasp when Jaune finally unleashed a massive overhead swing that ended up creating a vortex similar to earlier. Though she dodged the swing itself by twisting to the side, this vortex was able to drag her close to it and in turn towards Jaune.
He then went for a knee as the distance was too short for him to reliably use his blades and Neo in turn had no choice but to use the side of her closed umbrella to deflect the hit while using her blade, still in her other hand, to counter by going for the blond teen's throat.
The sheer strength behind the knee nearly knocked her aside and almost threw off her aim, but her strike remained true… only for Jaune to crane his head down a bit and stop her blade by biting down on it.
This crazy move stopped her attack in its tracks. Had she tried to really put all her strength and weight into it, she might have been able to maybe force the blade in and stab him through the back of his mouth, but as it is, Neo was too shocked by what just happened to even consider this idea.
But she wasn't so shocked that she didn't respond when the other teens finally caught up and tried to attack her.
The redhead was the first to attack by transforming her weapon into a blade and threw it. Her semblance, magnetism or maybe some form of telekinesis in general Neo reasoned, caused the thrown blade to spin horizontally and travel in a curve that would cut right into her side.
However, Neo immediately abandoned her own blade and jumped back to avoid the thrown weapon and it curved around the blond teen before returning to the redhead.
Meanwhile, the other boy flanked her and opened fire with his weapons. Neo spun her umbrella to deflect the bullets just in time for her now former hostage to approach her and try swinging that hammer of hers again.
For an instant, it looked as if the incoming strike was going to hit her and her attacker's expression was one of elation – only for Neo to revel in her ensuing shock as the criminal used her semblance to fake the girl out for the second time.
As the girl's attack crushed her physical illusion, Neo jabbed her in the side with the tip of her umbrella and then she opened it suddenly, strengthening it with aura so that it pushed the girl back.
The girl went staggering but was able to switch her weapon back into its smaller gun form and fired a few grenades. Neo's smirk faded and she now frowned in concentration as she channeled a bit more aura into her still open umbrella, acting as a shield against the grenades.
Her umbrella survived the resulting explosions intact and with herself unharmed, but it sent her flying back, forcing her to flip around in midair to land on her feet-.
-And leave her open to attack to the redhead who now caught up, with the black-haired boy also flanking her.
The redhead, quite tall and with an appropriate arm reach, made use of this by trying to smash the edge of her shield into her, but Neo tilted her head back as she bent her knees and the shield came short by just an inch. Undeterred, the redhead lashed out with her sword at her exposed knees, but Neo simply kicked off the ground and did a backflip, the edge of her right foot connecting slightly with the girl's jaw.
But as she knocked her back slightly, the boy went on the offensive, his two guns having small blades on the handles that he used to try and cut her. He was essentially mimicking what Jaune had done just earlier, trying to use his blades, speed, and taller former to overwhelm her. However, while certainly fast, he wasn't anywhere near as overwhelming as the blond and so Neo had a much easier time weaving back and around his attacks with ease.
Ducking under one such swing, she reached up and smacked his left gun aside just as he was about to try firing it at point-blank range and then she used the side of her umbrella to hit him in the stomach. This didn't do much to him, for he'd clearly been preparing himself for the hit, but she then twirled her umbrella around and thrust it upwards, hitting him in the chin with the handle before flipping it around again to jab the tip of it into his upper chest. When he stumbled back, she hooked him with the curved hilt around the leg and pulled, causing him to go crashing.
But with him down for the moment, the other teens approached. Well, the girls did; Jaune was hanging back, but steadily approaching. This worried Neo, remembering once again those aura swings of his.
On a random note, he still held her hidden blade in his mouth.
As if reading her mind, he looked down to the blade and then spat it out – only to then kick it towards her with surprising accuracy, not to mention with a scary speed.
Her blade flipped through the air vertically and rather than risk catching it, Neo moved to the left to avoid it, not liking her chances of catching it successfully. This put her in the direct path of the hammer girl yet again and she spun around, firing a grenade while her weapon was in its hammer form. The grenade missed by a veritable mile (a few yards, actually, but same thing really), but the powerful recoil of the fired shot made the girl spun around that much faster.
Neo used her semblance to create another physical illusion of herself and used its fragile but still solid consistency to jump onto and then off of it, moving out of the girl's path as she effortlessly smashed through the illusion a split second later.
"Not this time!" the girl screamed in a mixture of anger, wild glee and exertion as she stomped the ground, forcing herself to slow and stop just long enough to then leap after her.
Her great strength propelled her towards Neo, who was still in midair, and prepared to swing. At the exact same time, she'd jumped, the redhead used her semblance to halt the thrown blade from a literal second ago to then redirect its flight path towards the criminal from behind her.
Neo's eyes actually widened now in genuine surprise. She hadn't seen that coming. But like hell she was just going to let herself get hit.
That said, not like she had many options here.
She opened up her umbrella and strengthened it with aura just as the girl swung with her hammer. The hit was ridiculously strong and knocked her to the ground with enough force to form a small crater, but Neo rolled with the hit and shrugged off the pain well enough to roll and get back on her feet.
On the bright side, she avoided getting hit by her own blade. Now that would've been embarrassing.
But now she was getting fed up with all this.
Now deciding to go on the offensive, she charged right at the incoming redhead, moving in a zig-zag pattern to avoid the gunfire the redhead then unleashed. As she neared, the redhead changed her weapon into what appeared to be an exceptionally long javelin and did a few whip-like motions with it, obviously a feint before then thrusting it at Neo.
Neo effortlessly dodged it and got really close, prompting the girl to bring up her shield, but Neo took advantage of this to grab the top edge of the shield, lift herself up a bit and then throw herself down and in between the girl's long legs. As she slid along the rough ground, Neo used the hilt of her umbrella to make a grab for the girl's right ankle, but the girl proved to have good enough instincts and reflexes to swiftly raise her foot before that could happen.
She then pivoted and tried kicking at Neo with the now raised leg, but Neo ducked and then raised her closed umbrella to ward off the follow-up strike from the redhead's weapon, which had been quickly changed back into that small sword form from earlier.
The redhead's strike failed but she used the momentum to carry herself forward and try bringing her shield down on her, but Neo slammed a palm into the bottom of it before the girl could fully move and as a result, the shield went upwards and hit her in the face.
Her current opponent let out quite a startled and pained cry, but rather than take what pleasure she could out of it, Neo instead felt nothing but goosebumps, especially when the girl made an obviously exaggerated stagger.
Neo threw herself into a long roll and just in the nick of time to avoid a sword swing that made that hammer girl's hits look weak in comparison.
Looks like that Jaune guy was finally getting involved again.
Just as she got back up and prepared to fight, the blond suddenly kicked at the ground and ended up literally breaking chunks of concrete right out of the ground and sent flying right at her.
All of the debris fell short of her current position, but it served as an excellent smokescreen, Neo realized. Also, there was a fair distance between her and him.
Taking this into account, she leapt yet again to the side and just in the nick of time as the blond came barreling through the veritable moving wall of rubble and swung vertically down, his sword practically pulsing with aura.
But rather than unleash a wave like he did before, the aura clearly gathered within the sword seemed to detonate when it made contact with the ground and created a powerful explosion that also made the grenades from that hammer girl look like firecrackers in comparison.
Neo was blown back and went crashing along the ground, no doubt losing a fair amount of aura in the process.
Contrary to what some would think upon looking at her, her aura reserves were exceptional, comparable to fully fledged huntsmen and huntresses along with her skill. So she wasn't too worried about how much aura she had left.
But if she took even one or two hits like that head-on…
As the three other teens now gathered near Jaune, all of them glaring at her as their battle came to a brief slowdown, Neo sighed silently.
Roman was going to owe her big time for this.
"Just what the hell is going on over there?" Yang spoke in obvious concern.
Not too far away from her was her partner, Blake looking equally worried. Kind of hard not to, seeing as there was clearly plenty of explosions and the like going off over in the far but still seeable distance. It didn't help either that she'd seen what looked like an old parking structure go down either.
"I… I don't know," Blake responded. "But whatever it is, we should keep going."
Yang looked at her in surprise. "You serious?! Whatever's going on, that's clearly gotta be where JNPR is at!"
"I know, but that obviously means Jaune is there too… so whatever's going on, he'll make sure his team and himself will make it out of there. Besides, they haven't called for help, so I'm sure they have things under control for the most part."
Blake's words, spoken without hesitation and with a quiet assurance, proved enough silence Yang for a few seconds.
"You… since when did you have so much faith in them?" Yang asked now in amazement. "I mean, don't get me wrong, they're all just as badass as we are, but…"
Blake hummed a little. "Like I said before, you would have had to have been at the docks to really understand. Whatever's happening won't be anywhere near enough to bring down Jaune. And of course, the others aren't slouches either. Besides, even if we do go to assist, I'm sure Jaune would just insist on us getting back to our search."
Yang could only remain silent again as the two of them watched from the rooftops for a moment longer.
True, she may not have been there at the docks, something that still ate away at her knowing how much danger her partner and her sister had been exposed to, but she and the others have also seen how banged up Jaune had been when he'd gotten back to Beacon not long after. Sure, he was all healed up now – shockingly fast, now that she thought of it – but it didn't change the fact he'd taken a lot of damage somehow.
So forgive her if she was really worried here.
Even so, seeing how much faith her partner had in the blond teen and his team was enough to keep her from continuing the argument.
Yang out a gruff sigh. "Alright, alright, you make a point there. I mean, now that I think about it, if they really are in a fight with someone and raising that much hell in the process, then it means we got the area right after all, I guess."
Blake smiled a little and nodded. "Right."
Yang sighed again. "Well, alright then. Come on; the sooner we find out where your former buddies and Torchwick are holing up at, the sooner we can kick some ass and then go back up JNPR."
Blake silently agreed with her and then took the lead, using her ribbons to swing towards another building off to the right.
Yang followed along right after by using Ember Celica to once again blast herself across the rooftops.
She did so with more than a little worry still eating at her, however; she just hoped that Blake's faith wasn't being misplaced here.
Even with how thick the walls are, Roman and the others at the base had heard the sounds of battle just moments ago. Though it had sounded far away, it had been more than enough to put them all on edge.
Well, except Roman, who merely sighed.
He'd been expecting as much, somehow. That said… that battle had been sounding pretty intense. Wouldn't surprise him if all the racket got the attention of the cops somehow. In which case, he definitely couldn't just sit around any longer waiting for this stupid diagnostic check to finish.
The battle was definitely too far away and too damned intense for it to be little red and her team fighting off the stupid grunts he'd assigned to watch after them. Therefore, it'd be Neo and that blond freak of nature along with his team.
Looks like Neo was giving them all as good as she got. But if they were packing enough firepower and personal strength for the battle to have been heard even from this distance then it was only a matter of time before things really went pear-shaped.
Combined with the previous thought, Roman knew he had to make a move.
Looks like now as was as good a time as any, he supposed.
"Alright, you lot, get a move on! You'll just get in the way!" he hollered as he gripped the handles within the paladin's cockpit and moved them, making said paladin move as well. All of the White Fang grunts that had gathered within the room to start breaking things down to relocate elsewhere now made a scramble to get out of the way as Roman maneuvered the Atlas robot towards the room's massive door. This room had once been meant to receive incoming loads via trucks and as such, it had a few large doors that they'd managed to get up and running for their own use. It was how they'd gotten the paladin into this room in the first place.
The first few steps he took were quite clumsy, but as he got a feel for things, the next few steps were done with much more grace, well as much grace as a giant robot could possibly have, that is.
"Open the door, then get clear for good," he commanded. "And get ready for a damn fight already!"
One of the grunts hit the button of the side of the wall that controlled the doors and the one Roman was standing directly in front of opened up.
He then lumbered outside and the door closed behind him a few seconds later.
Using the paladin's radar functions, he could tell the coast was clear, but with how shitty their collective luck clearly was, that would likely change soon enough.
Oh well, he thought. From the start, it was always best to just deal with any potential hassles before they kept pestering you. Granted, removing obstacles from the get-go wasn't always the most practical or easiest thing to do… but with how much trouble these damn brats have caused him within such a short time frame, it was time to make a fucking exception.
"Cinder is so going to owe me one for all this…" he mumbled.
With that quip now uttered, Roman piloted the paladin away from the base and into the heart of the abandoned district.
It was time for him to do the hunting.
In immediate hindsight, I hadn't been intending to make this chapter this long, but considering the lack of action and progression, this was actually for the better. So, I guess you can consider that an unintentional win since I'd initially planned to do this over the course of two chapters.
Anyways, hope it doesn't seem as though Neo is underpowered or anything. I'm trying to portray her as being just as dangerous as she is during volume 2, it's just that she's going up against more than one person here. That, and Jaune is obviously much stronger than he is in canon to start with.
On that note, don't think Jaune is going to effortlessly steamroll Neo or anything. Certainly, he has several advantages over her, but she's much more skilled than he is, it's just that he's as unrelenting as he's been in previous chapters and it's not something she's used to. So, expect a good fight now that they all have a feel for how the other side fights.
And of course, Roman himself is now going to enter the fray soon and he has his own ideas on how to do things, obviously, heh. Try and think of this whole situation as replacing the rally/paladin fight in volume 2, by the way, just want to clarify that.
Whelp, other than that, don't think there's anything that has to be addressed right now, but if you guys do have anything, ask away in either a review or a PM!
Until next time, everyone. Take care!