Wow, it's really been a whole year since the last chapter? Damn. Guess life got a little crazy. I won't go into details.
Anyway, to any of you who are still here: IT LIVES! I honestly don't know where the time went, but I do know that some crazy personal stuff saw me lose my will to write for quite awhile, Lord knows I tried. Despite that, it still took a whole year to get this out, so I suppose I was on quite the hiatus. Regardless, I'm now back to actually starting to write s'more, so chapters will no longer be posted yearly, at the very least. Hope everyone reading had an absolutely fantastic year. Now, on with the fic.

Zed bounded across the train on his way to intercept the vastayan duo that were making their approach to the conductor's car. Harvey had informed him what he knew about Adam from previous raids he had done on Schnee supply transports.

The man wielded a blood-red katana, and the material was surprisingly apt at storing energy, Harvey reasoned, based on the way he absorbed the beam from the mechanized arachnid earlier before. Additionally, Adam could then unleash that energy in what the White Fang boasted was a "Moonslice." It's destructive power appeared to be unrivaled, and would most likely give even a rampaging Cho'Gath pause.

Zed would have to be wary. He was tired and healing, and should not be going head-to-head with a warrior never before bested in single combat.

He frowned in annoyance. This wouldn't even be single combat. He was against both Adam and his female partner, who appeared to be equally dangerous. Finding a way to deal with them both would be extremely difficult, and beginning the fight with a lethal first strike would be of the utmost importance.

Zed continued forward with renewed vigor and determination.

Adam sagged to one knee for a moment in recuperation. The amount of aura he had poured into that semblance-based attack was substantial. Regardless, the destruction of the spider droid marked the last of the onboard defenses, meaning the supplies would be his to take, and whatever crew may survive the crash would die to the roaming Grimm. He allowed himself a smile of satisfaction. The raid was a brilliant success.

"Well, Blake, I think it's-" He turned around, only to find Blake standing quite a ways away on the previous car; her eyes closed sadly in the moonlight.

"Goodbye." Blake said, as her sword broke the coupling between the two train cars. The car decelerated quickly, and the gap was much too far to leap by the time Adam arrived at the edge. He reached out for her in futility, hoping the gesture would somehow bring her back, but no such miracle occurred. Soon, the only trace of her departure was the scraping noise of the emergency brakes echoing throughout the valley, until that too faded away. Adam's sadness soon became nothing but rage, and he let out a violent shout in frustration. Only one thought remained in Adam's mind: He would make Blake pay for her betrayal. No matter the cost.

Zed watched the situation unfold with the utmost of intrigue, and committed what he could to memory. He may encounter the female again, after all, and her connection to this incident could be used as blackmail should the need arise. At the moment, though, Zed had more pressing concerns.

He switched places with the shadow clone inside of the car he was crouching on top of a moment before, which allowed him to maintain vision on Adam, who was currently having a temper-tantrum outside. Zed walked over to the inside of the wall and clicked the intercom system Harvey had instructed him about earlier. There was a short fizzle as the connection was established, before Zed began speaking.

"Harvey, we may have a...problem. Where were the civilians stationed on the train?"

"Well, normally, the passengers would all be ordered to the front of the train," Harvey began, "But Bull-tard and his underage G.F. leapt on at about car 17 or 18 instead of at the back, with car 38. So, the passengers instead were grouped at the rear of the train, where there are two automated turrets. Speaking of which, I'm getting this weird message on the control panel about-"

"The younger of the two disconnected the front few cars from the entire rear portion of the train, yes." Zed confirmed. "If what you have just informed me of is indeed the protocol that the passengers followed, then every single person on this train is now stranded and confined in an engineless metal container, sitting the middle of a forest teeming with the Grimm."

Harvey paused for a moment in grim (no pun intended) realization. "And with all of the alarms blaring, they'll be spewing negativity. The Grimm will come runnin', and it'll be like shootin' fishin a barrel."

"If that expression is to be taken as literally as it sounds, than I believe you are exactly correct. It is likely that the passengers will be dead within the hour," Zed emotionlessly affirmed.

"I'll uh...I'll see if I can get Karl or this Schnee loser to get in contact with the local Atlesian forces waiting for our arrival at the station. Maybe they can get someone from Beacon to come down and rescue everyone in time. Thanks for the heads up. What about Adam? Did he leave with her too?"

"No, but it appears as though the separation of the two terrorists was not on amicable terms. He is currently-" A large crash sounded from nearby, and Zed paused in a 'that looked expensive' flinch, which Harvey knew all too well.

"He's...a little angry." Harvey finished for Zed, as another loud noise echoed from the ninja's end of the receiver.

"Yes, yes he is."

Adam let out another battle cry to let the metal crate know it had been brutally beaten in their battle to the death. It was a close fight; the compounded steel took a couple hefty swings to successfully chop in half, but it didn't last too long, and was ultimately kicked off the side of the train after a few slashes. It got what it deserved for sitting there and stubbing his toe while he was stomping around. Served it right, damn box.

Adam waited a couple seconds to take a few deep breaths and let out some steam before continuing, and went over the plan again. He would simply plant the charges, call for the bullheads that were waiting on his signal, and then take as much refined dust as they possibly could, before leaving the train and detonating the charges. He would have called off the mission for the purpose of capturing Blake for her desertion, but the amount of dust they could get from this raid was simply too large to pass up.

Adam growled at the unfortunate circumstances, and took out the explosives he was going to use. He was about to begin planting the device when a sharp whistling of the air broke his concentration. Out of trained reflex, Adam dropped the explosive, reached for his sword, and began to rotate his body in an attempt to dodge the throwing weapon, but it was completely and utterly futile.

The projectile was moving too fast, and was much larger than Adam had expected; the shuriken that was streaking directly towards his chest was almost two feet in diameter. The sharp end ripped through the little that remained of his aura and left a long gash across his chest and shoulder. If he had been milliseconds slower, the blade would have sheared straight through his chest and killed him almost instantly.

Adam drew his blade and whipped around in the direction of the shuriken attack, only to see a dark blur dash by from the opposite direction, which Adam had just turned his back to, and leave a painful cut across the left side of his abdomen as it went. Adam staggered slightly as a result, and looked up to identify his attacker with a growl.

Simply put, the man in front of him resembled a human Grimm. The figure bore plated metal armor across most of his body, the only exception being some black cloth surrounding his knees and elbows. The helmet was surrounded by cloth that hung out loosely from under the plates on his shoulders. Most notably, however, were the gleaming blood red eyes, and the absolutely massive bladed gauntlets that sat atop his forearms, extending far beyond his hands. The right one was stained red with Adam's blood. The man flicked his blade, and the blood spattered across the floor. Then, he spoke.

"Leave," Zed directed. "And you may yet live." It was a threat, to be sure. Zed hoped that it would be enough. While the man was dangerous, and Zed would much prefer to simply kill him now, the ninja could always search for Adam when he himself was in better shape. Unfortunately, Zed's luck held up just about as well as it had previously.

"Look, you Schnee mercenary. I'm not in a good mood. I'm going to kill you, and blow up this train. If you think any different, feel free to-GAH!" Adam shouted out in a mixture of confusion, surprise, and agony, as a smoking black blade pierced directly through his right shoulder, courtesy of a shadow clone. Zed was aware that he was potentially showing his hand a little too soon, but he needed to put himself on equal footing with Adam, and hold him off until…

Zed's eyes widened in surprise as a shotgun blast exploded from Adam's sheathe. Ignoring how utterly mechanically impossible that seemed, Zed shadow-swapped behind Adam to dodge the firearm. To Adam's credit, he reacted rather quickly, but Zed was able to raise he right arm just in time to deflect the strike off to the side. The ninja then lashed out at Adam with his other blade, but the swordsman spun just out of reach, and used the momentum to perform a horizontal slash, which Zed blocked by crossing his blades in an X-formation in front of him.

The red katana glided across the metal of Zed's blades with a shower of sparks, and Zed forced to painfully tense his core as Adam threw all of his weight behind the attack. Zed then leapt backwards and disengaged the terrorist to put some distance between them.

Zed had to admire the man's pain tolerance. The fact that Adam was still combating Zed with a useless arm and multiple lacerations was certainly respectable, but Zed wasn't fighting to win. The waist injury was restricting his movement too much, and he was probably suffering from internal bleeding as well.

Regardless, a quick glance to the roof of the car behind him told Zed all he needed to know. The Master of Shadows closed the entire distance between him and Adam in one single bound. Adam reacted by bringing his sword to bear again, ready to block the attack, but one moment before the impact, Zed vanished into thin air, and what took his place was loud gunshot. Adam had no time to react, and the rifle round blasted a hole straight through Adam's chest.

"SUCK ON THAT YOU SONOVA BITCH!" The ecstatic shout of vindication came from Harvey, who was now revealed to be standing proudly on the roof of a nearby train car, with a lever-action rifle in his right hand. "THAT WAS FOR MY KNEE TWO YEARS AGO!"

Adam was on his knees, in extreme pain and occasionally coughing blood. His slowly regenerating Aura was pounding in overdrive as he tried to get himself off of the ground, but glanced up as a pair of legs entered his view.

"Y-You bastard…" Adam cracked out, staring defiantly at the red eyes in front of him.

Zed answered him with a solid kick to the chest, that sent Adam over the edge of the speeding train and into the wilderness below.

"Die, you useless vermin. May your soul be tortured in the afterlife."

The remainder of the train ride was rather uneventful. Zed spent it slumped uncomfortably against a wall, as Harvey said it was better than sitting in a chair.

Zed didn't bother arguing.

Karl and been able to get a message to "Beacon Academy" about the passengers, but there was still no word on survivors.

Other than that, the plan to eliminate Adam had worked perfectly. Zed was able to successfully distract the man by inflicting relatively superficial wounds until Harvey, who stealthily made his way to the predesignated vantage point during the fight, placed a bullet straight into Adam's chest cavity. Although that did beg the question…

"So you're a huntsmen, then." Zed more stated, than asked. Harvey let out a small chuckle as he spun around in the revolving chair.

"Picked up on that one did you? The gun give it away?" He took a swig from the beer in his left hand.

"No conductor I've ever met knows how to bandage a wound so properly. Besides, you do not become so accurate with a rifle on accident."

"Well, I'm an ex-huntsman to be more specific. Graduated from Beacon down here in Vale, and I guess the career just wasn't for me. Found the love of my life, y'know. The job took too much time away from raisin' a family, so I settled for doin' this gig. Pays a bit more 'cause I got the combat experience, though I can't exactly hold my own against Adam for very long," Harvey lamented as he tapped his knee; a metallic clanging resounding from the impact. "Doubt I could last against you for very long either, ninja man; That's one fancy semblance you got there. Though I can't imagine all that jumpin' around is doing yah too much good," Harvey reminded Zed, gesturing towards his rather unbecoming position against the wall.

Zed lout out a snort of mild amusement. "I've fought with worse injuries before, but the pain distracts from the use of my...semblance." Zed spoke the word carefully, recalling the term Harvey had used to describe the shadow techniques.

"About that; you're not really a Huntsman, are ya?"

Zed sat up a little straighter and narrowed his eyes slightly. "...No."

"Yeah, I thought not. You don't fight like one. Your weapons are too lethal, and your attacks don't have any restraint. If I had to guess, you were trained-"

"-As an assassin." Zed finished. "Yes."

"And how many have you killed?" Harvey's tone was much more serious than before. It was proven now that his train conductor persona was nothing more than an elaborate facade: Harvey had known Zed wasn't a huntsman all along. Lying was pointless, now.

"Many. I do not keep track." The train's brakes began to screech as the machine neared the station. Multiple flashing lights could be seen outside. Both men stood up to proceed outside. Harvey grabbed his rifle

"Do you regret what you've done?" The door hissed open, letting in the artificial outside lights. A collection of armed officers not unlike those present in Piltover could be seen on the other side.

"No."

And that's it! Hope you enjoyed this longer chapter. Once story really gets rolling, I want them to reach 3k consistently. It's another cliffhanger, I know, but it'll be like this for a bit until I can really get the story moving. Have a good one, and don't forget to write a review to let me know what you think. Going back over those messages is really what inspired me to keep writing again. -The WovenMantis