The ground was of polished concrete, the surface reflecting the dim lights that hung loosely from the ceiling like a dangerous fixture. But that floor was slick with sweat and a bit of blood, coming from both combatants as they squared each other off on the other sides of the ring.
"You lack discipline." Onyx announced harshly to the blonde boy opposite to her. "You lack training, you lack skill, you lack the ability to control yourself!" She surged forward and did a dazzling display of sleight of hand tricks with her sword.
"I know that! You think that I don't!? I know I don't have what it takes!" He responded with a deep throated yell and went for an obvious overhead smash.
Onyx blocked it by simply sliding her blade to the guard and twisted it around, locking it in place. "When you come here, leave your self pity at the door!" She screamed as she flung Jaune over her shoulder and into a wall, leaving a nice Jaune shaped hole in it.
Jaune was left coughing onto the floor and Onyx kicked him up again. "Now, again." She said, turning back to him and twirling her sword.
"What point is there!?" He shouted at her, feeling like this exercise was beyond pointless.
"Pyrrha may have taught you proper stances and how to use your shield, but she was yet a master of a sword! It clearly shows in your usage of it, that she lacked the expertise to properly train you in that field. That is what I am here for!" Onyx bellowed at him.
"Don't you talk about Pyrrha like that!" Jaune screamed at her as he launched himself again, undisciplined and full of rage.
Onyx spat at the ground and dashed forward, clotheslining him before he could react, leaving Jaune sprawled on the ground. "No discipline." She commented again before going back to her side of the room, readying into a stance again.
"Then start teaching me." Jaune retorted more out of desperation than anger.
"Then start wanting to learn!" She shot back. "Now get up!"
He grimaced before hauling himself up, his chest heaving up and down.
Both Ren and Nora were looking on with worry. Sure enough, Onyx was nothing short but a master when it came to the blade, but her teaching style was little more than tough love and beating the snot out of their student until they learnt.
"No idea why you would melt your girlfriend's personal equipment to make your sword bigger, seems kinda superfluous considering you lose so much defensive potential for only a small amount of extra swinging power, unless there is something special about your broadsword mode?" She queried as she twirled her blade again.
"It seemed like a good idea at the time." Jaune mumbled meekly.
"Well sorry, it's not quite good enough."
"We-." Jaune was about to retort before a blaring alarm began to make itself known.
"Oh now what?" Onyx mumbled as she went to the main computer and flicked through her security cameras, revealing a slate-grey coloured object flying through the cameras, nearly too quick for the human eye to perceive.
"What was that?" Nora asked with worry as the team were gathered around her shoulder.
"Something that warrants you three leaving, immediately. Gather your gear, gather whatever supplies and extra equipment you need and get ready to head out. I suspect he'll be here within five minutes… Now!" She screamed at them when they didn't move and galvanised them into action.
Onyx knew who that was, and fear coursed through her chest as memories came flooding back to her. She grabbed whatever pieces of armour she could don and was soon in her full suit, looking like an angel of death as she let out a frosted breath. She swiped blood off her sword and grabbed a long bladed polearm.
"We've got whatever we could find" Jaune gasped as they came out of a room with packs on.
"Good, you need to get out of here now." Onyx ordered.
"You know you can't beat that thing."
"I know, but you three are what is important right now, if I can sacrifice myself so you can free us of this fucked reality, then get moving!" She bellowed at them and shoved them out the door.
They evacuated quickly, and not too soon as a window shattered open, that same slate grey form on the cameras. An audible sigh could be heard from the mask as the armoured freak stood up. "Onyx… It is good to be back." A slight chuckle emanated from his chest.
"Citron… It's been too soon. I didn't nearly have enough time to forget about our last encounter." Onyx start to bite with poison, not one to extend formalities.
"Indeed, how is your ribcage by the way? I hope I didn't hit it too hard that you can't fight." Citron remarked as he swiped some glass off his armour.
His suit was different to hers in every way. He'd be compared to a cyborg or a robot if it wasn't for the all human component about him, the metal seemed to effortlessly conform to his shape and move with him. He was a living weapon, a force to be reckoned with.
She subconsciously drifted her hand to her ribcage, the memory of that blinding pain still there in her mind. "It is fine… Why are you here?"
"Isn't it obvious? Those three are rather important to my employer, and they paid a hefty price to bring them in alive. Of course, collateral always happens, and they may come less intact than first thought." He said it so simply, it sent shivers down her spine.
"Not if I have anything to do about it." She snarled as she stood up straight.
"Really? We're really going to do this again? You know you can't beat me. My suit, my Semblance and my weapon are nigh undefeatable. The only people who could've hoped to have defeated me was that Pyrrha girl, that drunkard Qrow or even Ozpin, let's not comment on Glynda though, shall we? But since ones KIA and the rest MIA, I have nothing to worry about really."
"That is disgusting…" She commented, genuinely feeling nauseas.
"But it's true… So are you going to give them up or am I going to have to get my hands bloodied?"
Onyx responded by getting into a well practised stance. A small and tired sigh came from her combatant before everything happened all at once.
Citron had closed the gap between them in a lightning display of speed, his trademark lever action poleaxe already whistling towards her neck. Onyx blocked with enough force to unsettle the dust on a nearby desk. But he wasn't finished, he whirled around and unleashed a flurry of high strength blows to her defence, her sword met every single one of them.
They soon disengaged. "Well! I am quite surprised you kept up with that considering your injuries, it is mildly surprising and amusing. Excuse me but I'd rather look you in the face." He commented to ridding himself of his helm, placing it on a nearby surface. His face was conventionally handsome, a chiselled jawline and sharp bright eyes lent a near child-like appearance to him.
"Your face hasn't changed a bit, still child-like, which is kind of horrifying." Onyx commented with snark before standing straight, twirling her polearm.
"Oh I know. But you know my story so no use worrying about the past." He commented before he got into another stance. "Prepare yourself."
She nodded before she shone a brilliant white, her Aura outlining her body like a thick casing of armour. "I will fight you, with everything I have."
"I wouldn't have it any other way. Come at me!"
And that she did. While Citron was very fast, Onyx was nearly lightning fast. A bystander wouldn't be able to comprehend her speed. She was in front of him in a flash, longsword already on a trajectory towards his face. He blocked it with skill and redirected it passed him, her polearm following shortly to bury itself in his gut.
He grabbed the shaft and it became a fight of strength between the two.
"GOD, GIVE ME STRENGTH!" Onyx shouted with conviction, before an aura of power overflowed her as she easily wrested the blade away from him and gave a savage kick to his midsection, burying him in the same wall she buried Jaune.
"That's what I am looking for!" He shouted with excitement as he extricated himself from the wall, standing on his own two feet again. He rolled his shoulders and neck, a grim smile on his face. "Finally a challenge!"
She breathed out a deep breath. While her Semblance increased every parameter of her being to extreme lengths, the toll on her body and mind was immense enough to prevent prolonged use. But at the moment, she cared little for her mental side of things.
He intercepted her again, this time an obvious haymaker to disguise the two pronged attack of his poleaxe jabbing at her chest. She wasn't fooled and grabbed both of them again and gave him headbutt, extricating the poleaxe out of his grasp, throwing it away.
He shook his head to clear it before engaging her again with fisticuffs. His speed was impressive, like a blinding machine gunning of his fists. She had to ditch her weapons to engage him in hand to hand combat. Unfortunately, it was not a skill she was expert in, so she was inevitably thrown against a wall and her ribcage pummelled into submission, dents easily forming on her solid steel armour.
It was like a gong ringing over and over again as she took the intense abuse before grabbing his fists mid swing, pushing up against him. With a well placed punch to his chin she spun away and picked up her longsword again, charging him with all of her strength. Her efforts bore fruit as a piece of armour plating was forced to make way as the point found a purchase in his breast plate, digging deeply but not enough to penetrate.
With Jaune, Ren and Nora
"Will she be ok? I heard some intense gunshots and what sound like bells ringing." Nora asked worriedly as she looked back at the compound.
"Keep moving, we can't afford to not use her opportunity to get as much distance from that thing as possible." Jaune remarked as he forced the group in a straight run.
Back with Onyx and Citron
"That wasn't very nice, not very nice at all. It's not cheap to repair this suit you know." Citron commented as a bleeding and wheezing Onyx was on the floor.
He had beaten the shit out of her when she damaged his suit, to the point that it sounded like her breathing was beginning to get wet. She either needed to get away from him now to recover or it needed to end now.
"It… was… a good choice at that point." She wheezed as she got back up, hiding a hammer behind her back.
"You still want to fight!? I will give it to you, you never seem to give up!" He laughed maniacally as he adjusted his gauntlets. "I have to say, you are a dream come true. An opponent that I can beat the shit out of for extended periods of time!"
Onyx wheezed as she got back up, spitting out a mouthful of blood. "Touché. But I will end this now." She growled at him.
"Oh? I will go ahead and allow you one punch." He smiled cockily as he stood in front of her.
She couldn't believe her eyes and ears, but she knew she had one more left in her. She visualised her muscles, her belief, her Semblance as a network of complex patterns. Each subject of her as a person being a major point in that chain. And, in her mind, she began to draw a blinding gold line between them, linking them all into a single piece of truth: She was Onyx Argent, Priestess of the Church, patron of the God of Life and Light. She defended the weak, defeated the evil. And tonight, that didn't change.
She felt a wave of energy that coursed through her veins like an addictive drug as her Aura flashed again. She peered up to a sneering Citron. That is when a moment of clarity entered her head, blasting any fog of tiredness that plagued her mind. It was either act now or die.
With this surge she let out a roar of defiance as she channelled her Semblance to lengths she never used before. With a movement that was so fast that time seem to skip, her left fist broke the sound barrier on its way towards Citron's chest. With a sound akin to a train wreck, Citron was sent flying backwards almost immediately, crashing through the walls with impunity and out into the tundra of Atlas.
Once the action was done, she felt her arm torn asunder. It was dislocated from the joint and every tendon and muscle was damaged. She felt like her arm was on fire, as she feebly grabbed her longsword and put it back in its sheathe before moving off and grabbing a bag that was already packed.
With one final glance back at the room, before heading out in an attempt to catch up with the group.
Few minutes and a hastened reunion later
"This will be the best place to stay, for now until we get our strength back." Onyx gritted her teeth as she gingerly lifted the pack off her shoulders and chucked it to the ground. "No fire by the way, we don't want to leave a trail of ourselves."
The other three nodded amicably as they all began to roll out their beds. Jaune looked over to see her disfigured arm, worry touching his face. "Are you ok?"
Onyx looked at where he was staring, seeing her arm completely dislocated in every possible place, the flesh nearly torn and mixed with a mottling of purple and red. "That's… vaguely concerning." She commented grimly as the adrenaline covered up her pain. "That'll most likely immobilise me soon… Oi, blondie, give me that rag over there."
She pointed towards a rag that was sticking out of her beg, to which Jaune dutifully grabbed and handed it to her. "There should be a small vial of Ice Dust, grab that."
A small vial soon followed after. "My arm has been destroyed beyond conventional repair at this point in time. Every ligament, every muscle, every bit of sinew that makes up my arm has been wrecked from the strength I had to put in my final attack… It would be accurate to say that I probably won't ever use this arm again… At least, not for a very long time." Her voice was bereft of emotion as she dabbled the Dust on the rag and with a few deft moves of her other hand, she made a makeshift arm sling. "You, boy. Help me." She ordered of Jaune, whom nodded and tied it to the best of his ability, following her instructions to tighten it as she asked.
"This'll have to do. I am hoping that the Dust will reduce the swelling… But I will be limited to one arm in the mean time."
Following her monologue, almost as if she was speaking to herself, she stood up and looked at the three of them. "That thing was a freelancer sent to bring you guys back to whoever their employer was."
Three stunned silences, broken by a tremor from Ren. "W-why?"
"You three are linked to Team RWBY, who have so far made quite a name for themselves at the Fall of Beacon, at the Battle of Haven and now. Any and all people who are linked to these four girls, however inexplicably so, must be one of extreme interest. It is this interest that fuels people's sick tendencies. They want to know whatever you know, whether they will extract it forcefully is but an inevitability."
It was Nora who spoke up first, wide eyed. "W-what do we do now?"
"We lay low and fight dirty. There will inevitably be more people who will send their pawns to get you. Congratulations, you three have become the most interesting people on Remnant, besides RWBY that is. Now I've prattled on enough. He won't be back tonight, or tomorrow… He does not tend to rush in once he has been shown he can be defeated." Onyx stated firmly as she stood up, her arm bounded in sling while her longsword was in her other hand. "I will take watch for the night, you three have had enough excitement for the night and will need to retire to gain your full strength. We leave before first dawn, continuing onwards until we arrive at the first mumblings of the Winter Maiden."
The three nodded, before going to silently roll out their sleeping bags. However, none of them could find sleep easily despite the shadow Onyx casted over them. There were people out there, willing to kill them because they knew of Team RWBY.
It was quite different when it was the Grimm who were hunting them. They were but beasts being commanded by a mistress who loathed all of humanity. But now there was a visceral human tinge to this hunt. People, humans, were hunting them. All for what they knew.