Lupis
He back flipped across the concrete ground of the courtyard, ducking beneath the dust-infused bullet shot from Roman's cane. Once his feet hit the ground, he sprung upwards into the air, narrowly avoiding the second shot that landed on the ground where his feet were a few seconds before. His eyes darted to look for his foe. He saw Roman lifting his cane, aiming for Lupis in the air. Flicking his wrist, Lupis wrapped his whip around the end of Roman's cane, and pulled.
Unfortunately, the criminal had a tight grip, and instead of disarming Roman, Lupis was pulled towards him. Roman pulled his cane back, winding up a swing for Lupis' head. Leaning backwards, Lupis barely passed under the cane.
Once he was out of immediate danger, Lupis dug the blade in his other hand into the ground. He stopped dead as he slid across the ground, and flipped backwards, kicking against Roman's back.
Once back on his feet, Lupis spun around, and saw Roman staggering to his own. Dashing forwards, Lupis spun the whip in his right hand until it converted back to its sword form. Turning his blades horizontally, he slashed at Roman, but the attack was blocked by the criminal.
Pulling one arm back, Lupis slammed his sword forwards again, the impact against the cane pushing Roman back. Dashing forwards, Lupis swung his blades around in a frenzy, pushing Roman backwards who was desperately blocking the slashes of the student.
Crossing his swords in an X-shape, Lupis cut outwards at head height, which Roman ducked beneath. Lupis was aware of Roman flipping his cane around so that he was holding the barrel end of the cane.
Roman wrapped the hooked end of his cane around Lupis forearm, pulling his arm out of the way. Lupis leant back before the attack even came, putting his free arm on the ground behind him and waited for Roman's fist to pass his face.
Once the black glove entered his field of vision, he removed his feet from the ground and put all his weight on his arm. Raising his legs, he wrapped them around Roman's neck and twisted around, throwing Roman to the ground.
Placing his feet on the ground again, Lupis spun around and kicked out at Roman, hitting him square in the face and knocking him backwards. The criminal landed on his back, aiming his cane directly at Lupis.
Lupis ran forwards as he saw the cane rise, and dived over the bullet as it flew through the air beneath him. Rolling as he landed, he flicked his wrist, turning his blade into a whip and catching Roman's arm. Pulling downwards, the whip forced Roman's arm against the ground. The force of the impact made Roman drop his cane on the ground.
Once it landed, the cane misfired, the shot heading towards his partner.
'Garris!' Lupis called out.
His partner whipped his head around for a second, looking for the danger. Upon seeing it, he pulled Mercury across so he was straight in front of Garris. Activating his semblance, the bullet passed through Garris' chest and hit Mercury's instead. The force sent Mercury flying, giving Garris a small amount of time to turn around and mouth a thank you to Lupis.
'Seriously Roman?! Who taught you how to shoot?' Mercury shouted at the criminal.
'Calm down you little punk!' Roman shouted back as he got to his feet, brushing the dirt off of his white jacket.
'You know, I'm really getting sick of you kids!' Roman shouted at Lupis from across the courtyard. 'All of you are going to these, over-the-top combat schools, and constantly getting in my way. Well, at least I can cross one of those schools off the map tonight!'
'Oh yeah? And how do you plan on doing that?' Lupis called out. 'You can barely take us four down, I doubt you will be able to take out the entire school!'
'Hahaha, who said that we were going to be destroying it?' Roman laughed. 'The White Fang is just a distraction, whereas the real threat will be here any minute now.'
'What are you talking about?' Lupis asked curiously.
'Hahaha, you'll just have to find out!' Roman said, lifting his cane and firing dust rounds towards Lupis.
He dodged out of the way of the multiple rounds, flipping and rolling past them all. The impact of the bullets against the ground caused dust to rise, and Lupis used this to his advantage, hiding inside it.
'Hahaha, ok kid. Wanna play hide and seek? Let's play!' Roman growled.
Garris
After giving Lupis a quick thank you, he turned around to get back to his battle with Mercury. The grey-haired boy was getting back on his feet after being hit with the misfired bullet from Roman.
'Seriously Roman?! Who taught you how to shoot?' Mercury shouted at the criminal as he gracefully made his way back to his feet.
'Calm down you little punk!' Roman shouted back.
'You know, if this is too difficult for you, you could just leave,' Garris said to his opponent.
'I don't go back on deals that I've already made. Nothing will make me leave until it's time to go,' Mercury replied, moving back into his fighting stance. He raised his arms before him, and spaced his feet out for a stronger stance.
Garris made the first move, throwing his fists behind him and letting loose a blast of dust, propelling himself forwards. Mercury responded in kind, crouching lower to the ground and propelling himself towards Garris with his boots.
Garris raised his fist as he travelled through the air, his gauntlets shifting as he charged. The metal on his right gauntlet shifted across the top of his knuckles and the back of his palm shifted into thinner pieces, before jutting outwards above his fist, forming two sharp blades above his outer knuckles. His left gauntlet expanded across the entire length of the back of the gauntlet, becoming more spread out until it resembled a circular shield with serrated edges.
Mercury's eyes narrowed as he noticed the sudden change in Garris' weaponry. Once the two were close enough, he flicked his leg upwards, knocking Garris' arm out of the way. Continuing with the spin, he carried through with a kick with his other leg, which was barely blocked by Garris' shield gauntlet.
Garris thrust his right arm towards Mercury's knee, attempting to stab through his leg. Mercury pulled his leg back and dropped to the ground, sweeping Garris' legs from under him.
Garris fell on his back, but turned it into a backwards roll, ending up on one knee, crouched in front of Mercury. The grey-haired boy leapt up to deliver a kick to Garris' face, which he blocked by raising his shield in front of him just in time. Mercury fired his boots, throwing Garris backwards again. He rolled backwards into a crouched position again, seeing Mercury leaping to deliver another kick.
Activating his semblance, Garris let the kick pass straight through his face, and the rest of Mercury followed. Garris watched Mercury's face change from wearing a look of confidence, to a look of shock. The criminal passed completely through Garris and stumbled as he hit the ground.
Garris turned around, stopping the flow of his aura that was sustaining his semblance and swung his shield around, clipping the side of Mercury's head. Going with the flow, Garris kicked out into Mercury's gut. Following the attack, he bashed his shield onto the top of Mercury's head, leaving the criminal dazed.
Bringing the shield back up, he caught Mercury's chin, lifting him into the air. Grabbing one of his boots, he pulled him closer before slamming his bladed fist into Mercury's chest. The blades didn't get past his aura, but the blast of dust that followed was enough to bury him a couple of inches into the concrete of the courtyard.
Raising his fist for another strike, he couldn't land the hit before Mercury raised his legs and wrapped them around Garris' neck. Garris felt the legs twist and tighten around his throat. He quickly activated his semblance as Mercury let loose two blasts from both of his boots. His legs shot back towards his body with the sudden loss of friction to Garris' neck, and Mercury spun back to his feet. The force that the shots produced would have easily snapped Garris' neck, and he was extremely thankful for his semblance.
Mercury quickly rushed Garris with a bicycle kick, and when all of the kicks were blocked, he dropped down to attempt to sweep Garris' feet from under him. Garris jumped into the air slightly so that he was just high enough to dodge the kick, then raised his shield as Mercury continued his attack with a spin kick, his foot colliding with Garris' shield, a shot from his boots throwing Garris backwards a small distance.
Once he had stopped sliding across the ground, Garris shifted his shield into a bladed gauntlet, just like the one on his right arm, and began to fire blasts of dust towards Mercury. The pure dust energy couldn't be blocked, so the few shots that hit Mercury instead drained on his aura levels instead, pushing him backwards slightly.
Mercury looked up at Garris and after a few moments, began to sprint towards the blue boy. Garris curled his hands into fists and slammed the tops of them together, all of the barrels of his gauntlets pointing directly at Mercury.
The barrels began to glow a bright white as the gauntlets prepared to fire the dust. Mercury leapt into the air and spun, kicking towards Garris' gauntlets and firing them at the same moment Garris fired his gauntlets, creating an explosion that made the lighting of the dormitories pale in comparison.
Tris
After finding her teammates, Tris had focussed on defending the school from the remaining White Fang threat.
Liam and Yasmine were fighting side by side, covering each other with their respective talents. Yasmine would use her long spear to keep most of the White Fang members at bay, none of them able to get close enough to prevent her from jabbing at them, or sweeping their feet from under them. The few that did get past her weapons reach had to deal with the strength and ferocity of Liam's battleaxe, which also happened to change out into a semi-auto shotgun when the axe-head was folded back along the shaft.
Bella was engaging in combat differently from almost every student that was in the crowd. Most of the students were in the thick of the battle, whereas Bella was staying in the high ground, firing off arrows into the crowd with perfect accuracy, not missing a single target.
Although she always carried a set of lethal arrows, she also had a set of non-lethal arrows, such as ones that exploded like a flash bang when it hit its target, arrows coated with sleep-inducing poisons and various arrows with small cuts of a dust crystal in the point, such as electrical and ice.
After the school dormitories had been set on fire, Bella had chosen to leap down from the roof of the hall, instead balancing on light posts or leaping from tree branches, firing arrows all the while.
Unfortunately, the high ground that was available for use began to run even lower as the trees in the courtyard caught fire, leaving Bella with even less options. Eventually, she had to abandon the idea of high ground, jumping down to ground level with everybody else, and engaging the White Fang with her bow, and the detachable knife that was strapped to the top limb of the bow. When the opportunity presented itself, she used an arrow to take out some more of the faunus. Although she did her best to pick up the arrows she had shot, she was running out of them much faster than she could replace them.
It was a fight for survival for every student in the school Tris realised, as she stabbed a leopard faunus through the knee, then batting him in the back of the head with the hilt of her sword, knocking him out cold.
Bringing her left sword out of the faunus' knee, she raised it over her head and blocked an axe from caving her head in. Slicing her right blade across his stomach twice, she kicked out at the wound, knocking him over.
Her faunus hearing helped her to hear any White Fang soldiers that were heading her way, and when she heard the sound of five pairs of footsteps rushing towards her, she spun around, blades at the ready.
Two of the soldiers were cheetah faunus, gleaming knives in each of their hands. The only difference that Tris could make out between the two of them, was that one of them had knifes with serrated edges, and the other had blades that looked as if they were wrapped in barbed wire.
A tiger faunus had knuckledusters in both hand, modified so that they had four long claws protruding outwards from above each knuckle in his hand. The blades were made of a bronze looking metal, with silver streaks lining the blades. The claws were curved downwards, and were serrated along the middle of the blade. The most unsettling part, was that the blades were also tinted with a dark red, the blood of a student, and possible more.
Two wolf faunus' led the group upon Tris, the both of them with evil glares in their eyes. One of the faunus had a hatchet in each hand, the handles shorter than usual so that they were easy to wield with one hand. The other was much larger than the other, both in height and in muscle build. He had a large battle axe in his hands, the blades gleaming with blood.
The two cheetah faunus got to Tris first as they were the fastest of the group. The one closest to her began to slash her daggers towards Tris, who had to dodge all of them as the cheetah faunus was too close for Tris to use her swords to block them.
The second cheetah faunus arrived, and Tris had to dodge two sets of knives. Dodging from side to side and back and forth, Tris managed to duck below a swipe from one of the faunus and sweep the legs out from both of them. Standing back up, Tris kicked one of them into the other, leaving them in a heap on the ground.
A loud growl filled Tris' ears as the tiger faunus approached her, swinging his claws at her arm. Tris brought her left blade up to block the swipe, struggling to keep the claws off of her due to his strength. Seeing the wolves approaching, Tris ducked backwards, letting the large battle axe pass over her face and into the chest of the tiger faunus.
Tris kicked upwards, her foot connecting with the wolf faunus jaw, and sending him staggering a few steps backwards. Following her kick, Tris spun in the air and kicked at the tiger faunus too. He blocked the kick with the back of his arm, and Tris quickly pulled her leg away as he tried to slash it apart with his claws.
Spinning around, Tris dropped to sweep his legs, but the tiger faunus had learnt that lesson and jumped over her leg as it came past. Tris raised her swords as he threw a fist at her, a very dangerous fist with razor sharp claws at the end of it. Using both blades to hold up the one claw, Tris had to divert one blade to the other set of claws as he tried to swing at her exposed side.
Fighting to push him back, Tris' arms slowly moved back as his strength began to overpower her. The wolf faunus with the two hatchets rushed over to them.
'Heads up Tiggy!' he shouted out as he leapt into the air, feets pointing towards Tris.
Instead however, his feet connected with the handle of the battle axe that was embedded in the tiger faunus' chest. The handle continued forwards and hit Tris' ribs, resulting with a cracking sound. Tris screamed out, and stumbled backwards.
The tiger faunus attempted to use this moment of weakness to his advantage, swinging his claws towards her face. Leaning back slightly, Tris let the attack pass her, before wrapping her right arm around his wrist. Shifting her left blade into a short dagger, Tris pulled her arm back before stabbing the small knife into his elbow, twisting it around.
Pulling out the dagger and letting go of his wrist, Tris ducked down under the attack from his good arm, sweeping his right leg as she moved, and thrusting her sword through his left shoulder. Extending the knife back into a sword, Tris held up her blade as two hatchets dropped down on her, the heads of the blades trying to pull her sword downwards.
Pulling her sword out of the tiger faunus, Tris slashed across the wolf's knees, bringing him to the ground. Spinning out of the way of the wolf with the battle axe, Tris dodged a strike that left the axe slightly embedded in the concrete of the courtyard. Jumping up, she pushed one foot down on the handle of the axe, putting some aura into her next jump, pushing the axe even deeper into the ground.
Placing her next foot on the kneeling wolf's shoulder, Tris pushed off of him, spinning back around and kicking the bigger faunus in the neck. Tris also put some aura into this kick due to the size of the soldier, and from the resulting snap, it sounded as if she had broken his neck.
Tris swept her swords across her chest as a knife was thrown towards her, and she deflected it to the side. Seeing one of the cheetah faunus preparing to throw a knife at her, Tris rolled early on purpose so that she was in front of the smaller wolf. When the dagger was thrown, she dodged out of the way, and from the sound of it, the knife found its mark in the wolf faunus.
The other cheetah had made her way up to Tris, and began to slash her daggers at Tris. Dodging the blades, Tris backed up until she was closer to the faunus with the knife sticking out of his neck. Activating the dust in her sword, Tris stabbed the blade into the concrete, the increased impact created by the dust helping it dig into the concrete more easily.
Reaching behind her, Tris pulled out the barbed knife and flipped over the wolf's dead body. As she turned in the air, she activated her semblance. She was now able to see the changes in the wind much more easily, and was able to calculate where she would need to aim and how much power to put in the throw.
In the air, she aimed the dagger and threw it at her blade. The dust that was powering the blade forced the dagger to bounce off, and flinging its way into the back of the cheetah's head. Tris deactivated her semblance, a small trickle of blood making its way out of her nose. Her semblance was useful for many things, tracking, sensing differences in the environment, and being able to make calculations from these differences that could help her in combat. The downside however, was that her aura didn't feed her semblance, her own energy did.
Tris was a rare case. It wasn't often that people were born where they were unable to sustain their semblance with aura. Instead they used their energy, which made it easier for them to keep a healthy aura in combat, but they would also get tired more quickly depending on how often they used their semblance.
Enraged, the other cheetah let out a growl and charged towards Tris. Ripping Tris' blade from the ground, the cheetah slashed downwards with the blade, which Tris blocked with her own. Activating the impact dust in her sword, the clash was less severe on Tris' arms. Pushing the cheetah's blade to the side, Tris forced both of the blades into the ground. Reaching over with one hand, she grabbed the back of the cheetah's head, and slammed her head forwards into the hilt of her sword. Once she let go, the woman fell to the ground limply.
Spinning around, Tris looked around for the rest of Team Liberty. The other three were in a group together, amidst a large crowd of White Fang soldiers. Ripping her swords from the ground, Tris made her way over to the three, slashing at the knees and arms of anybody who was in her way.
Once she was beside her team, she looked to Liam. 'As our leader, do you have any plan as to how we can help any better?'
'I was waiting for you to get over here actually,' Liam replied. 'How does operation fox jump sound right about now?'
Tris sighed. 'You know I don't like heights Liam.'
'Oh come on, we won't launch you too high, right Yasmine?'
Yasmine looked over with a grin. 'Of course not.'
Tris sighed again. 'I am so going to regret this.'
Folding her swords back against the insides of her arms, Tris turned to face Yasmine. Yasmine had stuck her spear in the ground at an angle so that it was sticking out of the ground at a 45° angle. Tris leapt into the air and onto the end of the spear. Liam pulled on the end of the spear, bending it until it was flush with the ground.
'You ready Tris?' Liam whispered in her ear.
'Let's just get this over with!' Tris angrily replied.
'As you wish,' Liam said, letting go of the end of the spear, sending Tris flying up into the air. As she began to rise, Bella shot an arrow after her, a rope trailing behind it. Tris caught the arrow in the air and wrapped the rope around her waist. Once she reached the peak of her flight, she activated the dust in her swords, pointing them towards the ground as she began to plummet back down again.
Dust began to trail from her swords around her as she fell, giving her the image of a falling comet. The rest of the team pulled on the rope, increasing the speed of which Tris fell. Tris fell for a few more seconds before hitting the ground, plunging her blades into the concrete. The resulting impact of the dust mixed with the height of her fall created a large explosion in the midst of the White Fang soldiers, sending dust, debris and bodies flying through the air.
Once the dust cleared, all that could be seen was Tris standing by herself in a crater in the courtyard.
'You owe me a drink Liam!' she called out to her leader.
Ruby
Once they had made their way inside the building, the first thing that had hit the eight of them was the smell. Then, it was the bodies that were scattered across the entry hall. The most disturbing part was that there were large chunks missing from their bodies. Some of the staff had head wounds, but the wounds were described as half of their faces ripped off, some of them could be seen on the floor nearby the body.
Yang covered Ruby's eyes, but it was too late, she had already seen the damage that Rowan had caused. Ruby did her best to shake the image from her mind, and when Yang removed her hand, Ruby looked at the roof instead. Yang guided her through the hall, ensuring that she didn't step on any of the bodies that scattered the room.
'How could somebody do something like this?' Pyrrha questioned, trying to take the attention away from Jaune who was retching in the corner of the room.
'Because they've been twisted into something evil by the leader of the White Fang,' Blake said sadly. 'He's become something so dark, that whatever happens to another life doesn't even phase his conscience.'
'That must take a lot of work to make someone be like that,' Yang said, guiding her sister out of the room.
'Actually, it is quite easy to do something like this when you've lived my life,' Rowan called out from a balcony on the third floor.
The eight of them raised their weapons, some of them with more difficulty than the others and pointed them at Rowan.
'What are you doing?' Weiss called out. 'What does the White Fang have to gain from doing this?'
'The White Fang? Hahahah!' Rowan laughed. 'The White Fang has no real goals. Torchwick on the other hand, he has a much better strategy than that stupid Adam Taurus! Now, as much as I would love to reveal to you all our plans like every other idiotic mastermind would, but I still have one last job to do. Goodbye kids.'
With that, Rowan turned away from them all, walking further into the third floor.
'What are we waiting for?' Yang yelled out. 'Let's go get him!'
'Wait!' Jaune called out as Yang prepared to launch herself up to the third floor.
'What Jaune?' Yang questioned.
'He's been in here way too long to have just been waiting up there for us to get in here.' Jaune reasoned. 'He must have been doing something else on one of these three floors before we got here, otherwise he would already be somewhere else!'
'Jaune's right,' Ruby agreed. 'I don't know what he was doing the whole time, but it must have been something bad. Four of us should go after Rowan, and the other four should look around for whatever he did here.'
'Good plan,' Jaune said. 'We will stay here to look for whatever he did, and you all go catch him.'
'Ok,' Ruby said, nodding to Jaune. 'Good luck.'
'You too,' Jaune said, leading his team into a side corridor with the rest of his team, leaving in search of whatever Rowan had been doing.
Ruby looked at the rest of her team. 'Let's get going guys!'
Leaping up, Ruby propelled herself upwards with a shot from Crescent Rose, ascending to the third floor, Yang following in a similar fashion with Ember Celica. Blake and Weiss ascended more gracefully, Weiss using her air steps and Blake using Gambol Shroud's kusarigama form, pulling herself up to the balcony.
Once they were all together again, they began to rush through the hallways in the formation that Ruby had set for them earlier in the term. Blake was at the front so that she could use her faunus hearing to its full ability, using it so that she could hear if Rowan was waiting nearby for them, trying to ambush them. Yang covered the rear, and Weiss and Ruby stayed in the middle so that they would easily be able to help out either one of Yang or Blake if they were in trouble.
Rushing through the corridors, Blake led them around corners and up sets of stairs. 'I can hear him a couple of floors up,' she said to them.
Eventually they reached the highest floor that the stairs could take them. The only way up now was the elevator. It was still travelling up the tower, and the four of them watched the icon to see where he stopped. The elevator icon continued to travel up the screen, eventually stopping at the top floor.
'Ozpin's office?' Weiss questioned. 'Why would he go up there?'
'I don't know,' Ruby replied. 'So why don't we go ask him?'
It took the four of them a few minutes to reach the top of the tower, and once they stepped out of the elevator, Blake immediately held an arm out in front of the rest of her team, holding a finger to her mouth, telling them to be silent. Indicating inside the room, the four of them looked inside.
In the middle of the office, Rowan was hunched over a small device that was glowing with a black light. He didn't seem to notice that they were there yet as the elevators were extremely quiet in the tower, and there wasn't any dinging noise when the door opened.
Blake crept forwards silently, the other three following her closely. They made their way through the entrance to the door before Rowan spoke to them.
'You do realise that I am a faunus right?' Rowan said as he stood, turning to face the four. 'Just because I am a bear faunus, it doesn't mean that my faunus abilities are less effective than any other faunus.'
In his left hand was the item that he had been hunched over. Now that he was facing them, Ruby could see that it looked like a small transmitter. A small antennae was attached to a spherical wire mesh container, inside the container was a glowing black sphere that seemed to pulsate with power. His right arm was hidden behind his back, hiding whatever he was holding from view.
'What are you doing here?' Weiss asked the bear faunus.
'A better question to ask, is what are you doing here without those other four students?' Rowan asked.
'I don't think you understand what is going to happen here,' Yang threatened. 'You and your friends have invaded OUR home. And now, you are going to pay for it.'
Rowan sighed. 'It's a shame that huntsmen and huntresses these days are all so aggressive. However, if it's a fight that you want, it's a fight that you will get.'
Pulling his right arm into view, the four of them could see a large flail in his hand. A spiked ball at the end of a long chain swung towards them, scraping along the floor and digging up the floor before them, spraying shards of the marble floor into their faces.
Weiss summoned a glyph in front of her and Ruby, protecting them from the shards. Yang raised her gauntlets in front of her face, marble bouncing off of her gauntlets, and Blake dashed backwards, leaving a shadow-image in her wake.
Rowan brought his flail back around for another hit, and Weiss summoned another glyph above them. However, she wasn't expecting how strong Rowan's attack was, and it almost immediately broke through the glyph, the impact leaving cracks through the glyph.
Yang cocked her gauntlets and fired shells at Rowan. Rowan held his hand up and all of the shells stopped mid-air. Pushing his hand towards Yang, the shells flew back towards her, exploding around the four of them.
Yang burst upwards out of danger, and Ruby grabbed Weiss, pulling her out of the way. Blake flipped over the explosion and threw Gambol Shroud at Rowan. Once again, he lifted his hand and Gambol Shroud stopped mid-air. Pushing backwards, he sent Gambol Shroud back towards Blake. The blade caught Blake's shoulder and sent her sprawling backwards.
Yang yelled loudly as she landed next to Rowan and began to throw punches at Rowan. The bear faunus dodged the punches nimbly before grabbing her fist out of the air and pulling her arm down, the rest of her following. Bringing his leg up, he kneed her in the face before kicking her backwards.
Ruby and Weiss dashed forwards together, slashing their respective weapons at Rowan. The bear faunus slammed the spiked ball into the floor and held his arm up, using the chain as a guard against their attacks. Weiss' rapier bounced off of the chain, but Ruby's scythe wrapped around the chain and the blade narrowly missed Rowan.
Rowan raised his hand again as Ruby fired Crescent Rose, intending to bring the blade backwards and cutting him in half. Once again however, the momentum of the scythe stopped and when Rowan pushed his arm backwards, Crescent Rose was ripped from Ruby's hands, thrown to the other side of the office.
Thrusting his hand forwards again, he wrapped his hand around Ruby's neck and lifted her off the floor. Ruby could feel him begin to tighten his grip, choking her out. He let her go quickly however as Yang burst forwards, slamming a fist into Rowans' back before upper cutting him in the jaw.
Ruby fell to the ground and gasped loudly, rubbing her throat as she saw Yang landing hits all over Rowan's body. She attempted to punch him in the knee, but he moved his leg backwards and grabbed hold of her arm, throwing her away from him. Swinging his flail towards her, the spiked ball hit the side of her head, throwing her across the room and into the wall, leaving a small crater where she landed.
Weiss darted forwards on a glyph, rapier pointed towards Rowan's chest. Rowan brought his flail back around and brought the chain around under her legs, lifting her off the ground. Swinging the flail around for another attack, Rowan brought the ball downwards onto Weiss' chest, slamming her into the ground. There was a loud crack as she landed, but Ruby couldn't be sure if it was the sound of the floor breaking, or Weiss' back. What she did know however, was that the flail had broken through Weiss' aura, and her stomach was bleeding badly.
Dashing towards Crescent Rose, Ruby was tripped as Rowan brought the flail around again, tripping her up as the chain caught her feet as she ran. Attempting to crush her like he did with Weiss, Ruby could see the ball coming down towards her, but was pulled backwards when Gambol Shroud wrapped around the chain and pulled it backwards.
Blake leapt forwards, shifting her weapon into its sword form, using both the blade and sheath to attack Rowan. The bear faunus pushed a button on the side of the handle of his weapon, and the chain retracted inside the handle, the ball being drawn to the handle until it was a mace, like Cardin's weapon.
He blocked the fast slashes and swipes that Blake made as Ruby ran to retrieve Crescent Rose. Blake brought the blade and sheath towards Rowan, which he blocked with his semblance as he raised his hand. Pulling his mace back again, he slammed the weapon into Blake's stomach, sending her backwards across the room.
Ruby dashed back towards Rowan, swinging her scythe around rapidly, making it extremely difficult for Rowan to block. Out of the corner of her eye, Ruby could see Yang loading her gauntlets again, preparing to fire at Rowan again. As she drew her arm back to shoot, Rowan ducked under a slash from Crescent Rose and bashed Ruby's legs out from under her. As Ruby fell, he caught her with his hand and threw her towards Yang. Too late, the shells left Ember Celica's barrels and hit Ruby in the air.
Ruby rolled across the ground, and was barely aware of Rowan extending his mace into a flail again, hitting Yang's jaw as he swung, sending her into the roof and knocking her out cold.
Ruby was aware of him looking around at the four of them, shaking his head. 'Such a pitiful fight.'
Turning about, he smashed through the window with his ball, exposing the office to the gale force winds that were outside the tower. He walked towards the shattered window, picking up the transmitter as he did. Once he reached the window, he swung the ball onto the roof, and used it to climb up to the top.
Ruby took a moment to regain herself, before making her way over to each of her teammates. Both Yang and Weiss were out cold, but Blake was still conscious. After spending a minute to break a healing crystal over Weiss' stomach, the two of them made their way up to the roof to confront Rowan again.
Once they reached the top, they saw him crouched at the topmost part of the tower, crouched over the transmitter again. He looked up as he heard them approach and chuckled softly.
'Maybe I underestimated how tough you are,' he said, drawing his flail again.
Ruby wanted to respond, but had to dodge out of the way as Rowan swung the ball towards them again. Ruby dashed at Rowan, drawing his attention to her by yelling loudly and swinging her scythe around quickly. Rowan retracted his weapon into its mace form and blocked Ruby's attacks. Blake waited for a second before silently attacking from behind. Rowan's faunus hearing helped him hear her coming, but with Ruby attacking her so ferociously, he was unable to stop Blake from stabbing Gambol Shroud through his shoulder. Stunned for a moment, Ruby took the opportunity to bash the side of his head with the back of Crescent Rose, rendering him unconscious.
As he collapsed, Ruby and Blake looked at each other.
'That was too easy,' Ruby said to the cat faunus. 'Why was that so easy?'
'I'm not sure,' Blake said as she rushed over to the transmitter. When Blake tried to touch it however, a force-field made of aura prevented her hands from going any closer.
'Maybe this is why,' Blake said, pulling her hands away from the transmitter. 'He used his aura up to prevent us from being able to tamper with this. But why?'
Coughing and laughter filled the air, causing the two to spin around. Rowan was already conscious again, and was staring at them, a look of pained joy on his face.
'Because, little kitty,' Rowan teased. 'I don't want you interfering with what is being transmitted. If you did, it would ruin the whole present that we planned for you all.'
Nathan
Nathan had been in many fights. He had fought against many opponents. Fast, slow, strong, weak, it never really mattered to him. This Emerald girl however, she was much more skilled than some fourth year students at Beacon.
But, Nathan was also extremely skilled, and no matter what she tried, he outmatched her no matter what she did. She had fluidity and speed in her attacks, but Nathan's dual bladed sword was extremely effective at blocking and attacking almost simultaneously. Emerald would stab at him with one blade and he would sweep it aside, following up with a quick slash to any exposed part of her. Sometimes she was lucky and was able to block an attack, but even when she did, his strength was much greater than hers, and she had to give up and back away from him before he could press any harder.
And due to his Phoenix-like semblance, even when she did hit him, his body would immediately heal the wound in a cloud of ash. Nathan had lost an entire limb on a mission once, and his semblance simply grew it back again.
He still had to be careful, as he wasn't sure if there were certain limitations where for all he knew, he could be killed from certain wounds. He wasn't willing to test to find out, so instead he decided to play it safe all the time, even if he automatically healed most injuries.
Sweeping Emerald's feet from under her with one blade, Nathan brought the other one down in her, which she narrowly blocked with her two swords. She averted the weapon to the side, rolling out of harms way and getting back to her feet as quickly as possible.
She had long since given up shooting at Nathan, as his semblance healed any bullet wounds that Emerald gave him. She knew that he was toying with her, testing her to see if he would get a real fight out of her any time soon.
Emerald darted forwards, swinging her blades around, attempting to land another hit on Nathan, but he blocked every hit with one of the blades on his weapon. Taking a step forwards, Nathan forced Emerald to move backward as she was unable to stand up against him easily.
An explosion rang through the courtyard, followed closely by a taunt from Roman.
'Hahaha, ok kid. Wanna play hide and seek? Let's play!'
Emerald turned around and saw the large dust cloud that had risen from the ground. She rush over and Nathan understood what she was doing, and ran after her in pursuit, hoping to stop her before she made it to the cloud.
He wasn't, as fast as her however, and she made it to the cloud first. Nathan cautiously entered the dust cloud, sword raised in front of him as he searched for his enemy.
He started to hear Emerald laughing at him as he fumbled blindly through the dust cloud. Angered, he slashed a blade towards where her laugh had coke from, but hit nothing.
'Aww, so sad. The big scary warrior can't see anything now can he?'
Nathan heard a swishing sound behind him just before a sword cut across the back of his knee, forcing him to the ground. He gritted his teeth and stood as his semblance began to kick in, repairing the damaged tissue instantly.
He began moving through the cloud again, trying to focus on anything that could tell him where Emerald was. It was difficult as there was still so much fighting happening all around him, and the sound of combat would easily drown out the sound of footsteps.
'Where am I?' Emerald called out to him from amidst the dust.
Nathan swung his sword again into the darkness around him, but still hitting nothing. All the while, Emerald continued to taunt him.
'Where am I?'
'Where am I?'
'Where am I warrior?'
'Where could I be?'
Nathan spun in circles, her voice coming from every direction, making it impossible to narrow down where she actually was.
'Where am I?' Emerald whispered into his ear.
Flipping his sword around, Nathan turned quickly and slashed horizontally, hoping he would hit solid flesh. Yet again however, he hit nothing, and was rewarded with a flurry of attacks across his back, and a slash to the back of his knee again, forcing him to the ground.
Emerald chuckled from inside the dust, laughing at his frustration. Nathan sighed, and closed his eyes, trying to focus on only her voice. He drowned out the sounds of combat from around him, and listened for only Emerald's footsteps and voice.
'You look sad, do you need to go cry?' she taunted from behind him.
Nathan didn't react, instead he stood perfectly still, waiting for the opportune moment. Emerald continued to taunt him, but between her insults, he was barely able to hear her footsteps against the shattered ground, broken shards of concrete cracking under her boots as she walked.
Once the footsteps were close enough, he waited a second longer. Emerald began to speak, but couldn't begin her sentence, as Nathan spun around before she could, and took her legs out from under her. As she fell to the ground, Nathan twirled his weapon around and began to strike downwards. He hit her with the flat side if his blade, the impact knocking her out cold.
Nathan bent over and panted.
'Stupid dust, maybe I should invest in some of those military goggles, at least I could see through dust next time.'
Jaune
It hadn't taken the four of them very long to find where Rowan had headed first. All they had to do was follow the trail of dead bodies, and eventually they found themselves at the doorway to a room, the door caved inwards, and barely hanging onto its hinges. A small sign on the door read 'Security Room'.
'Security? Why would he go here?' Jaune asked.
'Who knows? Let's go find out!' Nora said, dashing through the door.
'Nora, wait!' Ren called out, but his partner was already through the door. Sighing, he ran through the door, Jaune and Pyrrha following closely.
Inside the security room wasn't much different from the rest of the building. There were a few bodies strewn across the room, chunks missing from them, just like the other staff members. Blood was sprayed across the floor, walls and monitors.
'What kind of weapon could do this?' Pyrrha questioned.
'I don't know,' Jaune replied. 'But maybe we should hurry up and get back to RWBY, if he could do this, we should get back to them so that they aren't alone with him.'
'But don't we need to figure out what he did here first?' Nora called out. 'It's like a big mystery, and we need to solve it.'
'Yeah, but Ruby and – '
'I don't like mysteries,' Nora said, bringing her face close to Jaune's. 'They confuse me, and they need to be solved.'
Jaune moved back a few steps, trying to avoid the puddle of blood on the floor. 'Ok Nora. We'll see what he did here, and then get to the others, ok?'
'Yay!' Nora yelled, throwing her fist into the air.
'Alright, let's see if there's anything on any of these computers that will show us what he was up to,' Pyrrha said, wiping the blood off of a monitor before sitting down on a chair to start searching through the previous functions that had been used on it.
As there were only three monitors, Jaune and Ren sat at the other two, while Nora stood behind them all and cheered them on.
'Come on guys, I know you can do it!'
'You're all great, so work faster!'
'Come on Jaune, you're the leader, so you better get cracking!'
Sadly, Nora started to get more annoying as the three of them searched through the databases.
'Got anything Ren? Course you do, you've got it right?'
'Nora,' Ren said, turning his chair around to look at his partner.
'Yes Ren?' Nora asked, poking his nose.
'Why don't you go look around the rest of the room and let us do this in peace, ok?'
'Sure thing Ren!' Nora said, saluting her friend. 'I won't let you down!'
Nora dashed off into the back of the room, wandering through the several servers that were stacked on shelves. The room was dark already when they had entered, but now that Ren was looking that way, he saw just how big the room was.
The room extended for at least a hundred meters or so, completely filled with large shelves and racks of servers and other electrical equipment. Hopefully, it would take Nora a long time to look through it all, and give them more time in peace.
'Well, he sure knows how to cover his tracks, I can't find anything here,' Pyrrha said, scrunching up her face as she came across something that she didn't want to find. 'Unfortunately, the rest of the staff aren't so good at that.'
Closing the image, Pyrrha turned away from the screen for a second to watch Jaune and Ren as they looked for something. Ren seemed to know what he was doing, and was searching through the database extremely quickly. Jaune on the other hand, looked as if he barely knew what he was doing. He tapped the keys on the keyboard, and opened some files multiple times in the span of a minute, not even realising that he had.
'Hey guys?' Nora called out from near the back of the room.
'What is it Nora?' Ren asked.
'It kinda, maybe, almost, positively looks like there's a bomb back here.'
The three of them back at the computers froze, and spun around towards the back end of the room. Nora was standing in the aisle so they could see her, pointing behind a server rack.
'Jaune, Pyrrha, go see if you can stop the bomb,' Ren said, continuing to search through the database.
Jaune nodded and he started to jog off with Pyrrha towards the possible bomb.
'Jaune, wait!' Ren called out.
Jaune stopped and looked back. 'What is it?'
'If it is a bomb, Rowan would want to get rid of whatever data he looked at the most. Tell me the number of what the closest server, or memory unit is, and I'll see if I can find out what it is.'
Jaune nodded again, rushing off towards the two girls. Once he arrived, he could confirm that it was definitely a bomb. The large device was left in the open, all of the components exposed. A small screen was set atop the bomb, with two lights sticking out. The lit one was a bright green, the one that was off, a dark red.
'Well,' Pyrrha said. 'It's definitely a bomb.'
Jaune nodded, and tried to look for the nearest memory unit to the bomb. Spotting it, he began to look around it for its serial number. The number was written on the top of it in a black marker, 4266247926.
Jaune called out the number to Ren, who replied with a thanks, likely getting back to searching through the computer.
'We need to disarm it,' Jaune said, looking towards the bomb. 'Please tell me you guys know how to disarm a bomb.'
Looking around at his two teammates, they both shook their heads.
'I wasn't taught how to ever do something like this,' Pyrrha said. 'Bomb disarming wasn't a class that I could take at Sanctum.'
Nora laughed, rubbing the back of her neck. 'I'm more used to actually blowing things up myself.'
Jaune sighed and looked at the bomb. 'Well, it doesn't look like it is active right now, so maybe we're safe for the moment?'
The world seemed determined to screw Jaune over. As soon as the words left his mouth, the green light turned off, and the red one started to flash, a beeping noise emitting from the bomb.
'Uhh, Ren?' Jaune called out.
'Yeah?' he replied.
'I think this thing's about to blow!'
'Then let's get out of here, I found what we needed!'
Jaune looked at both Pyrrha and Nora, the two doing the same as him. Without speaking a word, the three of them took off down the aisle, desperately running to the entrance to the room, hoping not to get caught in the blast. Once they were at the front, they ran out of the doorway, where Ren was waiting around the corner.
'Guys, I found what he was looking for,' Ren said.
'What was it?' Pyrrha questioned.
'Every bit of information about every huntsmen or huntress in all of Remnant, whether they are graduated, or still at school.'
Pyrrha opened her mouth to speak again, but at that moment, the bomb exploded. They hadn't been too sure how powerful it was going to be, but as it exploded, they learnt just how powerful. The wall behind them burst towards them, and they were slammed against the opposite wall, debris slamming against them.
As they all fell to the ground, Jaune looked up, and saw that the ceiling was beginning to cave in on them. Raising his shield in a desperate attempt to block some of the wreckage, the weight of the wreckage pushed his arm down again. As the rubble began to cover him and his team, everything turned from a fiery glow, into a deep, dark, black.
Eric
Eric felt like one of the luckiest people in the world, considering the circumstances that were occurring around them all at that moment. When Lupis had announced that the White Fang were about to attack, he was nervous, as his aura levels were still extremely weak compared to what they used to be. But once he had begun to engage in combat, adrenaline began to kick in, giving both his energy and aura a massive boost.
And he really needed that boost when he started to fight Cinder.
He had fought people that use dust and glyphs to their advantage, and he had always come out on top because of his ability to use multiple forms of glyphs, especially ones that were more effective towards whatever his opponent would use.
So, when the dark haired girl began the battle with a blast of flames towards him, Eric sighed as he dodged to the side, rolling as he landed.
Fire glyphs were one of the more annoying glyphs as water was the one thing that would stop the inferno. And water glyphs only work if one is near water. Sadly for Eric, the fountain was not a reliable source of water, and he decided that he would try to save it for a moment where it would be necessary. Instead, he had to rely on his supply of water crystals in his various pouches.
But that wasn't the end of it.
When Cinder formed two dark blades out of air and began to slash at Eric with them, he began to realise that he may be slightly in over his head. Conjuring glyphs over the palms of his hands, Eric blocked as many swipes, jabs, slashes and cuts that he could. The few slashes that did get through his defence, he quickly healed them, changing one of his defensive glyphs into a healing one, and using its healing properties to quickly close up the wound.
Cinder swiped at him from the left, and Eric flipped backwards on his hands. Shifting both his glyphs into impact glyphs, the colour of them changed from a clear white to a violent orange. When Cinder ran to meet him again, Eric blocked both of the blades, the impact jarring her arms and sending her backwards slightly.
Increasing the power he was putting into the glyphs, he thrust his hands towards her, a large wave of energy knocking her off her feet. She rolled for a couple of meters across the ground before getting back to her feet.
She spun her swords around and connected them at the hilts, the two forming together to create a black bow. Pulling the string back, Cinder let loose a volley of arrows towards Eric.
Changing his glyphs once more, they became a soft purple. Raising his hands into the air, the arrows stopped in their flight, enveloped in a purple glow. Thrusting his arms forwards, Eric sent the arrows back towards Cinder, who barely dodged out of the way before they all exploded on impact, making a crater in the ground where Cinder stood a few seconds before.
A small pile of ice lay nearby, from the previous battle that teams RWBY and Juniper had been involved in. As Cinder walked past the ice, it began to cracked and melt, turning into a puddle of water at the ground. Seeing this gave Eric an idea.
Changing his glyphs once more to a light blue, Eric shot a large column of ice towards Cinder, who melted it instantly with flames. As she did so, he shifted his powers again, a dark blue glow coming from his hands, and he pushed his hands forwards, causing the water to gush towards Cinder, splashing across her and around her feet.
For the finale, Eric shifted the glyphs to a neon yellow, creating bolts of lightning from his hands when he aimed them at the puddle. Hitting the water, the area became electrified, and Cinder, who was standing in the middle of the water, was shocked, literally.
Sparks began to dance across her black dress, small forks of electricity flying between her and the water. Throwing her arms out, she let loose a wave of fire in all directions, evaporating the water until it was nothing but a heap of steam rising into the air.
Anger on her face, she aimed her hands towards Eric, firing flames towards the green-haired boy. Imitating her action, Eric shot bolts of lightning towards her.
The two elements met in the middle of the two, creating a large explosion of flames and lightning. The impact knocked the two fighters over, Cinder quickly rolling to her feet whilst Eric struggled to stand back up. Looking up, Eric saw Cinder summoning large quantities of fire, the flames spinning in the air and merging together. Once he was standing again, the flames had combined, creating a giant Taijitu, flames dancing across its surface. The serpent hissed at Eric and darted forwards to eat him.
Flicking his wrists, Eric switched to flames glyphs and pushed the fiery Taijitu away from him, causing the serpent to disintegrate, forming the original flames once again. Pushing his hands forwards, Eric forced the flames back to Cinder, blinding the woman.
Whilst she struggled to see him, Eric summoned the water from the fountain with one hand, preparing his other with an electrical glyph. Cinder swept the flames to the side, and they died out as there was nothing keeping them alive. Dumping the water on top of Cinder, he forced it to continually stream towards her, engulfing her in water every second. Throwing his left hand forwards, arcs of lightning shot towards her, electrocuting the water and her once more.
Cinder was overwhelmed for a second, but like before, evaporated the water with a wave of flames, turning it into steam. Firing flames towards Eric with one hand, Cinder conjured large glyphs of flames beneath his feet, a high pitched shrieking noise filling his ears as they began to charge their power.
Holding his hands up to protect him from the damage, Eric didn't notice these glyphs until it was too late. Exploding at his feet and creating large columns of fire, Eric was sent into the air, his suit severely burned.
Placing a glyph at his feet, Eric suspended himself in the air. Switching back to his purple physic glyphs, Eric raised all of the shattered concrete from the crater that the explosion had left on the ground and threw it towards Cinder.
Raising her hands again, Cinder created a wall of flames, melting the concrete shards into small grains of dust, adding more dust to the already large dust cloud nearby. Because it was a much smaller cloud, the dust cleared faster, and once it had disappeared, Cinder had vanished.
Eric looked around from his vantage point in the sky, but could not see her anywhere. She was nowhere near the courtyard that they were all fighting in, and she was nowhere else to be seen in the rest of the school.
She had simply vanished.
Ozpin
The holographic street lights glowed with a bright light in the night, the few amount of people creating a small amount of noise in the usually crowded, but now empty streets. Ozpin and Glynda were the two exceptions out of everyone in the street, and walked silently towards the police station.
Arriving at the blue and red building, Ozpin waved Glynda forwards, letting her through the door before him, following closely. The automatic doors closed behind them, and all the sounds from the outside world was cut off.
The attendant at the front desk looked up at the pair of them.
'Can I help you two?' she asked, looking between the two of them, unsure who she needed to be asking.
'Yes,' Ozpin replied, causing the woman to divert her eyes to him. 'An officer called me a quarter of an hour ago, saying that a student of mine has caused an issue. The officer said that they attempted to rob a dust store.'
'Give me a moment,' the attendant said, turning to her computer and beginning to look for the room the student was in.
Ozpin and Glynda waited patiently as the attendant did her job. It didn't take very long for her to respond.
'I'm sorry, but there isn't any information regarding an arrested hunter-in-training in the database,' she informed Ozpin.
Needless to say, Ozpin was extremely confused. 'I'm sorry, I don't understand. I was told that one of my students was arrested.'
'Well, there's no record of that in our database, sorry.'
Ozpin and Glynda turned to look at each other, curiosity on both of their faces. Ozpin turned back to the attendant. 'Thank you for your assistance regardless.'
'Anytime, I'm sorry that you came down here for nothing,' she replied. 'My daughter is training at Beacon, it's the school dance tonight isn't it?'
'Indeed it is,' Ozpin replied, beginning to head to the door.
'Well, I hope you get back before it's finished, it would be a shame for you to not be there.'
Ozpin froze at the sentence, mind whirring. Glynda could tell that he was thinking hard, connecting pieces of a puzzle.
'What is it sir?' she asked him.
'It was all a distraction,' he replied, quickly making his way out of the station.
'What?' Glynda asked, running after Ozpin. 'What was a distraction?'
'The call from the officer was a fake. Used only to get me out of the school while someone invaded it.'
'And how do you know this professor?' Glynda asked, pulling on his shoulder to slow him down. Ozpin stopped and spun around, facing her.
'The call was meant to get me out of the school so that there were no other huntsmen or huntresses in the academy, leaving the students defenceless.'
'But Professor Port and Oobleck are still there are they not?' Glynda questioned.
'No,' Ozpin said sadly. 'I sent them both on some missions earlier this week. They are not at the dance. The only way that whoever has invaded the school would know that, is if they had someone on the inside.'
'One of our students?' Glynda asked. 'Sir, I trust you, but doesn't this seem a little far-fetched?'
'No Glynda, not one of our students, an exchange student, possibly an entire team.'
Glynda stared at him, piecing together pieces of her own. 'Of course, an extra team from Haven arrived slightly later than the others. They were not on the list of exchange students as they were brought in late. Or maybe, they were never students to begin with!'
'Exactly,' Ozpin said, spinning around and making his way back to the airport. 'We need to get back to Beacon.'
Lupis
He watched Roman stumble around blindly in the dust, swinging his cane around in hopes of catching him randomly. Lupis silently flanked Roman, slowly creeping up on the criminal. As he got closer, he raised his weapon in the air. Unfortunately, Roman decided to spin around and lash his cane forwards. Lupis jumped backwards, still visible to the criminal in the close distance between the two.
Roman rapidly fired his cane at Lupis, forcing him to dodge out of the way, trying to avoid the explosive bullets. Flicking his wrist, he wrapped his whip around Roman's leg, pulling the criminal into the air. Once Roman was up, he pulled again, bringing Roman towards Lupis. Thrusting his sword forwards, Lupis attempted to stab his blade through Roman's chest, but Roman luckily deflected the jab, pushing away the blade before landing on the concrete.
Roman attempted to sweep his legs from under him, but Lupis jumped into the air, keeping above the criminal's legs. Roman stood back up, but as he got to his feet, Lupis kicked him in the chest with both feet, sending him flying backwards.
Chasing after the criminal, Lupis caught up to Roman before he had gotten back to his feet. Although they were still close together, the dust made it difficult for Roman to see the attacks that Lupis was going to make. Lupis grinned when he saw the shock on Roman's face when he realised that Lupis could see perfectly, even in the dust.
Bringing one blade diagonally across Roman's chest, Lupis also brought his other sword diagonally upwards from Roman's left hip. Roman was only able to see one sword coming, so he only blocked the upper blade with his cane, the other one slashing across his stomach, forcing Roman backwards
Lupis continued this routine constantly and it was working well, until the dust started to clear. Roman's eventually was able to see Lupis better, and he was able to block and see more attacks before they hit. Roman started to throw out more attacks, and Lupis had to be more defensive instead of relying completely on offense.
Roman swung his cane upwards and Lupis caught it with one blade, spinning around and trying to dig his second one into Roman's leg. The criminal moved out of the way quickly, whipping his cane around to hit Lupis' face.
Lupis dodged the blow, but the trickles of blood coming from his nose definitely was confusing Roman. The criminal brought out his cane again, firing a bullet at Lupis. Flipping backwards, Lupis dodged the blast, and flicked his whip at Roman's legs, pulling them from underneath him and bringing him to the ground. As he fell, he flicked his whip to hit Roman again, but it was deflected by a woman that fell from the sky and deflected the whip with a pink umbrella.
Roman stood up from behind the new woman and laughed at Lupis. 'You know kid, you're pretty good, I'll give you that. And as much as I would love to stick around and get to know you even better, I'm afraid that it's time to go. Enjoy the parting gift.'
Looking to his partner she nodded to him and bowed to Lupis. Unsure of what was happening, he flicked his whip at the pair again, but this time when she deflected his weapon, both her and Roman shattered like a window, causing Lupis to question his sanity.
Upon hearing the sound of a bulkhead flying away, Lupis looked up and saw the two in the rear window, Roman waving goodbye to him with a smile on his face.
Gritting his teeth, Lupis turned around to find the rest of his team. Eric was making his way over to Lupis, whilst Garris and Nathan were tying Mercury and Emerald up to a nearby lamp-post. Once they were satisfied with their work, they began to make their way over to Lupis as well.
'What, you guys couldn't catch your two?' Garris joked as he approached Lupis and Eric.
'We weren't taking care of the kids. Roman and Cinder are both much more skilled than either of them,' Lupis replied.
'Ahhh, don't be such a baby,' Nathan said, walking over to the group. 'Just admit that you guys aren't as superior as me and Garris.'
Garris held up his hand and Nathan gave him a hi-five without even looking.
'Whatever,' Lupis said. 'Listen, Roman said that there's a parting gift waiting for us. Do any of you have a clue as to what that could be?'
A loud bang emanated from inside the tower, fire pouring out from the entrance and any exterior windows. One of the students from before rushed out of the entrance alongside the flames, heading towards the group.
Once Ren was close enough, he immediately tried to pull Lupis towards the building.
'Come on! The rest of my team is still in there, they're stuck under a load of debris! You need to help me!'
'Calm down!' Lupis said, placing a hand on the boy's shoulder. 'We'll get them out of there.'
Looking up at Nathan and Eric, the two of them nodded and headed inside to free the rest of Team Juniper.
'Thank you,' Ren said, sitting down on the ground, resting his back against the edge of the fountain. He looked around and pointed towards the rest of the battle. 'At least the rest of the White Fang is leaving too.'
Lupis turned around and saw that any faunus soldiers that were still standing were rushing to the airport, clipping hooks onto their belts before leaping off the cliff. Students began to cheer loudly as the last few faunus left the school grounds, their weapons raised into the air.
Lupis raised his weapons above his head too and began to yell, but when he did, a loud roar sounded through the courtyard. All of the students put down their weapons and looked around for the source of the sound.
Lupis heard a loud flapping sound and looked upwards, surprised when he saw five black dots making their way towards him. As they got closer, he recognised them as the four members of Team RWBY, as well as Rowan.
They all slowed their descent before they landed, either with bullets or glyphs, landing safely on the ground. If the academy had a brain, it would have been thankful that it wasn't given any more craters.
The leader of the team rolled as she landed, quickly making her way over to Lupis. As she ran, she was pointing back to the top of the tower, screaming at the top of her voice, 'We're not done yet!'
Looking up again, Lupis saw a much larger figure in the sky. As it got closer, his eyes widened in fear.
'What the hell is that thing?' he questioned, looking at the giant grimm that had perched on top of the tower.
The beast had two large wings, each one roughly the size of the courtyard that they were standing in. A long tail with bone white spikes trailed down the side of the building, only matched by and equally long neck. The grimm had the trademark white bone mask, and glowing red eyes. The beast opened its mouth again, letting out a fiery inferno as well as its terrifying roar.
'Is that a Draak?' Garris questioned with wonder as the dragon-like grimm breathed flames into the sky.
'I think so Garris,' Lupis said.
'So that's what the transmitter was calling,' Ruby said.
'What?' Lupis asked.
'Rowan set up a transmitter on the top of the tower, and he made a force-field around it with his aura so that we couldn't deactivate it. The transmitter must have been calling this… thing.'
Lupis looked back at the grimm and could see it looking down at them, eyes glaring at the students before it leapt from the building, pulling its wings alongside its body, bombing the ground. Before it landed, it extended its wings once more, slowing its descent, but still landing with an impressive thud. The beast looked up at the small group of students before it, roaring its challenge to them.
This chapter took me ages to write. But I enjoyed every second of it!
It also happens to be the longest chapter I've written yet, I think I just about doubled the last longest chapter's word count!
So, who's excited to see the Draak in action? I know I am!
But, you'll need to wait until next week, sorry :(
So, until then, have a great week :)