Well here we are again peeps... I've got another chapter to satisfy all your RWBY and Dungeoning needs...
Now, as some of you might have noticed I'm going to have a hard time juggling two Nora's... and before you ask, my friend did model his character off the hyperactive pancake-eating nut...
I haven't been able to upload in a while mainly because my laptop was kinda taken back for my new school year and I haven't even been able to write until two days ago...
Please review!
Naughtbeast
Chapter 5:
It had been quite some time since they had last heard a response from Holg and the sun had just risen two days after the message, when, by some miracle, the four girls woke up. The adventurers didn't notice for some time, until Frath pointed out the fact that the red one's eyes were wide open that the others noticed. The four of them instantly cried out in terror and tried to run, only to find a dwarf blocking the door.
"You ain't gettin out dis way!"
The one in yellow instantly tried to punch her way out… only to find that the barbarian didn't really seem to care when he was punched the face. One bind spell later, courtesy of Morkai, they were sitting frozen in the living room of the adventurers temporary housing. It took quite some time before Nora managed to calm them down enough so that they wouldn't try and run the second they were let free. Even if they did, they didn't have their weapons so they couldn't do much.
"Why are we here!" the one in yellow shouted, producing a look of distain from Frath as he observed the four. He had, of course, already made a mental profile of each of them from what he had seen, weapons used and their personalities. Morkai was about to speak, until Frath silenced him with a single finger, the master thief preferring to make the alibi stories so that the others didn't mess it up somehow.
"We were going through the forest when we stumbled across you four knocked out on the ground, surrounded by Grimm, we took you back here and waited until you recovered from your injuries" blatantly lied Frath, sounding as convincing as if he was telling the truth, although he forgot to account for one thing.
"WHAT! The last thing I remember is fighting some guy in armour!" Weiss shouted, Frath swearing internally on the inside.
"That was Nora in her armour, she was the first to the scene and your memories can be adversely affected after receiving the injuries that you had" the thief noted, gesturing to the elf and making sure to cover his own tracks.
"I distinctly remember fighting some guy with… a green face? He yelled stuff and me… and… KILLED HIMSELF!" she screamed, the memories suddenly coming back and she began hyperventilating. The one in red went over and tried to console her while the one in yellow just seemed to get even more angry.
"WHAT IS THE TRUTH!" she screamed, her eyes turning red and a small aura of gold surrounded her.
"Goddamn monks!" Adrik mumbled under his breath. Frath just eyed him angrily before turning back.
"It seems your friend has just suffered what we call memory alteration, where the trauma didn't exactly go down well with her and her mind has replaced her memories with those which would give reason to such a condition" Frath spoke, recalling how he had heard Holg explain how war veterans would often exaggerate their stories, often without knowing that what they remembered didn't happen. "There is really nothing here that can hurt you!"
And that is when the entire meeting went to the abyss. Frath only vaguely heard the thundering footsteps of people outside and jumped backwards just in time as the entire wall to the front of the house was smashed in… by a hammer-wielding teenage girl in pink.
"JNPR IS HERE TO SAVE THE DAY!" she shouted, standing triumphantly on the crumbled pile of rubble, three others walking in behind her.
"I think we could have just knocked…" a girl wearing an outfit resembling the elite units of the Old Keshian empire back in the adventurers Material plane. She held a strangely designed shield and an ornate short sword.
"I think that would have been better" a blonde boy answered, holding a simple sword and shield. He didn't at all seem in-place with the other warriors and certainly didn't hold himself like he was going into battle.
"Nora, next time remember to ask before you go smashing things with Maghild" another boy spoke, his outfit accented in green and a single lock of pink hair contrasting its normal black. The four new entrants immediately saw the four girls tied in the living room and scowls found their way onto their faces, the lead girl in pink immediately deciding to let her anger out on the nearest person… which just so happened to be Nora.
The girl swung her hammer and it slammed into the elf, sending her flying into the nearest wall and producing a large cracking sound, as well as making the woman slump to the ground as she cried out in pain… then all hell broke loose. First off, Frath instantly had two massive knives in his hands, being the only one of the adventurers to have their weapons on hand, and had launched a savage attack against the offending girl, not caring about his own safety and slashing at insane speeds, all the while shouting "YOU WHORE!".
Adrik sprinted over and took up his hammer, not at all bothered with putting on what little armour he had… then charged straight at the girl with the shield. She barely had time to raise it in defence, although his hammer still smashed against it and made her fly out onto the street, although Adrik didn't let up and roared a war-cry, activating his rage and running out of the house and after her.
The boy in green tried to assist her pink-clad friend, although he didn't get the chance as Morkai calmly threw a small magic-missile barrage at him, which the boy barely managed to dodge. The wizard floated over the rubble and bowed respectively to the boy before summoning a fireball… although that didn't really help when the boy whipped up two strange devices and fire spewed forth, the wizard pulling up a ward, but not before a few of the strange projectiles pierced his robes and he felt his dark black blood seep from underneath… and then he smiled. It had been a while since he had been hurt.
Zwelious, all the while, had jumped over to help Nora. Since Nora was the team's main healer, with Holg being their back-up, and because she was down, Zwelious was the next-best qualified, being able to at least heal a few wounds with his nature spells… although, now no-one was watching RWBY. They found themselves suddenly free from the spell that bound them and immediately went in search of them, finding them sitting on the table in one of the back rooms, the only problem was that there was a little girl blocking the path.
The lead girl in yellow just ignored her and tried to push past… only to jump back in surprise when she felt a knife graze against her aura. She saw that the girl had a determined look on her face, an ornate knife in her right hand while a large book rested on her left, its pages opened in an indecipherable language.
"Stay back!" she warned, her voice a bit shaky, but overall, she sounded confident. Yang growled and dashed forward, grabbing the knife by the blade and let it flare her aura, throwing it to the other side of the room and walking past the girl and grabbing her weapons. The other three were a bit more hesitant… mainly due to the fact that the little girl now had a sizeable fireball in her palm… and looked ready to kill. The yellow girl, being completely oblivious to this fact, turned around and was surprised to be met with a fireball to the face.
She was dazed for a second but recovered in time to grab her team-mates weapons and jump back to the safety of the doorway, dodging another fireball that was sent her way. She gave her weapons back to her team-mates before slamming the door shut behind her and hearing the loud bangs of the girl on the other side.
"What's her problem?" she asked to no-one, cocking back her weapons and sprinting out to the main battle, the other three following. On the way, she met the disgruntled blonde boy who was trying to get Frath off of the girl in pink, although to no avail.
"Jaune, go take care of the little girl in the back, we'll get this guy"
Jaune hesitantly nodded and let go of the man, walking back to where the girl had pointed, mumbling under his breath.
"Why do I always get stuck on baby-sitting duty…"
Although, his thoughts were quickly struck from his mind when he saw the closest door fly open with a loud 'BANG' and a petite little girl walk out. He readied his sword and shield and was about to say he didn't want to hurt her… only to stop when she put her palms together and pulled them apart slightly to reveal a flaming ball of fire… and then he almost wet himself.
Back in the main fight, Frath was savagely attacking the pink girl with no remorse, not at all noticing that his knives were not drawing blood. He was pulled from his trance when he felt a sharp pain in his back and jumped off, seeing the girl in black holding a strange katana in her grips with small flecks of crimson blood over the blade. He growled in anger and pulled the hood of his cloak down, coating him in a veil of invisibility, although that didn't seem to faze the girl as she flicked forward her katana on a long ribbon, essentially turning it into a Kusarigama, Frath dodging barely.
He dashed forward, sliding to avoid the weapon as it came back around way faster than it should have, then began slashing at the girl with unrivalled speed. She retreated and tried to block the unseen attacks but couldn't quite predict exactly where they would land and with a quick adjustment from Frath, he made it past her petty attempt at a block and struck her. It was then that he noticed that his strikes weren't drawing blood or even cutting the clothes she was wearing.
"Morkai, they have some magic which blocks weapons? Any suggestions?" Frath mind-spoke to Morkai while he attacked, the wizard replying almost instantly.
"Give me a moment my friend, I must analyse this"
Analysing, in Morkai's terms, meant seeing how much punishment this shield could take. He quickly casted Hunger of Hadar, a massive sphere of pure blackness being summoned onto the street behind them… and then he used telekinesis to push the boy into the spell. It was a few seconds before the boy stumbled out looking much worse than he went in, although he only seemed to have physical damage, rather than the mental that Morkai would come to expect from those exposed to horrors of the void.
"They appear to definitely be stronger than any normal human, full force authorised" Morkai telepathed to every adventurer, getting mixed responses from each of them. Adrik cheered in joy and used his Bag of Holding to pull out a Greataxe, holding his massive Warhammer in one hand, with his massive axe in the other, swinging them with deadly efficiency, the red-head struggling to dodge or block the strikes.
Frath brought out a magical stone and scraped it across his daggers, coating them in a dark, black miasma and made them hum with power. He put the stone away and then began slashing again, smiling as he felt revived with each hit, the leech magic working a charm against his opponent as well.
Zwelious had managed to bring Nora back to consciousness and was helping her into her platemail, smiling as he saw the blonde kid fly through the hallway and smash into a wall, Genevive walking slowly and purposely after him with a massive fireball in her palm. The ranger snapped back to the task at hand, just finishing putting Nora's grieves on as she was finishing casting a self-healing spell to recover from the massive hit. It was about another minute before she was fully armoured and in fighting health. She took out her Warhammer and charged it with divine energy, pulling her hair into her helmet and charging back out, Zwelious in tow with arrow drawn.
Frath, an exception to the other adventurers, was having a rather easy fight, considering the fact that his opponent couldn't even fight back and when she tried to, Frath either side-stepped or parried instantly. Given, he was impressed at her fighting, the girl trying to trap him in decoys she left behind while he attacked, although… he had fought demi-gods and demons… compared to them, this was a cakewalk.
Although, thanks to the cockiness equated with such an easy fight, he failed to notice a massive scythe heading his way… until it found its way into his ribcage. He stopped his blade an inch from his target, looking down at the blade that was now firmly lodged into his ribs… although the only response he had was to sigh heavily. He wasn't exactly fazed by the attack thanks to the light Mithril chainmail he wore underneath his leather padding, a gift he received for helping a king.
He jumped to the side quickly, seeing the look of shock on the red reapers features as she saw the blood on her weapon, barely thinking about it for a second before sheathing one of his blades and taking an odd, pale stone from his pockets. He growled and sprinted forward, seeing that the girl with the katana finally had the brilliant idea of looking where his feet were to guess where he was, yelling out to someone to the left of him, Frath turning to see the yellow one streaking towards him with an outline of glowing gold fire, ready to punch him with a blazing fist… although it never landed.
He gently squeezed the stone and disappeared from reality, the girl phasing through where he was before, not quite understanding why her blow didn't connect, then Frath came back into reality and threw a bola at the girl that tried to hit him, catching her legs and bringing her smashing to the ground. He spun around in a second and took more slashes at the black girl, smiling as he saw a slight shimmer when he hit her, his expertise giving him a good interpretation that her magic was down, although he was forced to dodge away to avoid another slash from the scythe… one which unfortunately cut the back of his invisibility cloak… making him visible for all to see.
Well this is going to be interesting…
Back with Morkai, he was having less and less fun each time his target tried to send another barrage of the infernal metal bolts at insane speeds, forcing the wizard to pool more of his precious mana into the summoning of a protective spell to ensure he wasn't hit… although that didn't mean he wasn't inflicting as much damage back. Every time he sensed that the boy was out of whatever ammunition served his weapons, he would pull down his shield and focus all his energy into a high-powered Magic Missile, hitting the boy with most, if not all, of the projectiles and inflicting some serious damage.
Once in a while, he would feel the presence of the one that Holg challenged, the girl trying to get in under his defences, although all her attempts were futile as he simple activated his Dancing Sword which parried and blocked each attack. Even though he had to renew the enchantment every couple of hits it blocked, it was surprisingly effective against the fencer and she couldn't even get close… although he did notice something strange when she realised this for herself.
As Morkai was blocking another barrage, he saw a massive glyph dilating beneath his feet… and quickly nullified it with a Counterspell, much to the chagrin of the caster, although Morkai wasn't exactly focusing when his ward finally failed against the barrage of bullets… and he was left open to attack. The wizard swore and cast Mage Armour before turning to face his opponent and summoning Mordenkainen's Sword to aid him, eyeing the boy with a glint of pleasure in his eyes… this was certainly going to be interesting.
Adrik… well he was currently having the time of his life hacking and slashing at the defences of the red girl with vigour, smiling a sadistic smile, not even caring that his blows never actually hit their target. The girl finally decided to go on the offensive and slashed out, Adrik taking it without even flinching, causing a massive gash to appear across his chest. The girl was taken back and slipped up her defence for a second and Adrik quickly punished her by hitting her in the side with a massive swing from his Greataxe, causing her to go flying across the street and smash into the porch of another building.
Just as everything was about to go to hell, all the fighting instantly stopped… thanks to a massive roar that came forth from Nora's throat… the elf, not the human. Everyone stopped immediately and turned to see the elf standing on the ruins of the door, her Living lightning sparking to the nearest points and a shroud of electricity coated her massive warhammer. She growled loudly and said three simple words.
"Where's… the… girl!" she demanded, seeing Frath shove a finger over in the direction of said hammer-wielding girl in pink, Nora (elf one) floating off the ground and pointing a single finger at her. "YOU COULD HAVE GOD DAMN KNOCKED!" she screamed… before calling the might of Talos down upon her. A massive bolt of pure lightning streaked from the sky, its path set straight for the girl and nothing else… then it struck.
Nothing happened for a few seconds afterwards as the lightning sparked around the girl, seeming to stand stock-still all the while, until it finally seemed something happened. She screamed as loud as it seemed humanly possible, her throat instantly going hoarse in pain, then she collapsed to her knees and a smashing could be heard as a barrier around her was shattered instantly.
The boy in green cried out "NORA!" in shock, as everyone else was too shaken to even talk… although the situation turned even worse for the locals as Frath teleported beside her and picked up the girl, struggling to lift her and then sprinting off through town as fast as he could. The locals quickly recovered and sprinted off after him, Yang having broken through the bola and Jaune… well he just gave up fighting a little girl to 'run and live' as he would have put it.
The adventurers on the other hand, knew exactly what Frath was doing, something that he didn't need them screwing up. Nora put away her hammer and huffed… she knew that she didn't kill the girl as she had made the lightning to stun, although she wasn't exactly sure why she had such a weird reaction. Adrik broke her thoughts as he calmed down from his rage, putting away his hammer and axe, straightened out his beard… then walked back into the house as if nothing had happened.
Morkai floated over to her, the elf quickly noticing the streaks of black blood dripping from his cloak, something she quickly righted with a quick healing spell. She took a deep breath and sagged her shoulders… she just hoped Frath would be able to make it back alright.
[Several minutes later]
Frath was desperately weaving in and out of the trees as he pushed the limits of even the fastest speeds for him. Despite the fact that he had multiple magical items and a Boon of Speed that boosted his already insane agility for being a rogue, the teenagers were literally only a couple of hundred of metres behind him… except for one which seemed to have teleport ready at ALL times.
He constantly had to use his Soul Stone to phase to the Ethereal plane for a split second every time he sensed she tried to use her speed to tackle him. It also didn't help much that he had to avoid their god-forsaken weapons that were basically miniature cannons that he had trouble dodging with his god-like reflexes.
He had been running with the girl over his back the entire time for one simple fact… he didn't exactly want to be responsible for the murder of eight teenagers. She would happily let Holg or Adrik do that, so long as he wasn't near him, he knew exactly how heaven and hell worked… so long as he wasn't pinned for child murder, he was set for a good life in Elysium thanks to the copious amounts of stuff he had stolen from greater evils.
This way, he could lead them a fair distance away from the town and hopefully make it back and leave with the others so that they wouldn't have to put them down. He laughed internally as he realised just about everyone that the group bothered to meet always ended up dying one way or another… be it by their hand… or from the hundreds of demons and devils that were hunting them.
Frath made it to a cliff-side, stopping at the edge and looking down to some ruins that were set across a large chasm to a continuation of the forest. He turned to face the others, taking out his knife and putting it to the pink girl's throat, stopping the one in red a few feet away from him and giving the other six time to catch up.
"GET AWAY FROM HER!" shouted the blonde boy as he pointed his sword at Frath, the thief scoffing.
"Oh please, that's not much of threat when you got your ass kicked by my niece" he retorted, smiling when he saw how angry he got.
"Then let me explain it!" shouted the blonde girl, someone Frath considered to be a much bigger threat than just about everyone here for one reason, he didn't know exactly what she could do "If you don't let her go, then I'll pummel your brains into next year!" she threatened, smashing her fists together and producing a small shockwave. Frath shook his head in disappointment and made small 'tsk'ing sounds.
"This is exactly how it's going to go down… I am going to drop this girl three seconds after finishing this explanation and rely on you to not make an attempt on my life so I don't have to end your little friend here… then you're never going to try and find me or my associates again or I'll personally make sure you'll never sleep well again for the rest of your days under threat of a silent dagger to your throat" Frath explained, letting it seep in before carefully stepping back and laying the girl on the ground, stepping back so his heels were hanging off the back of the cliff.
"Morkai, could I get a teleport here?" Frath mentally sent, feeling magical energy surround him.
"Excuse me if I could interrupt the conversation" came a calm and methodical voice from the left of Frath, the thief pulling out a throwing dagger and readying it in case he needed it, mentally telling Morkai to pull the plug on the teleport. He instantly began analysing the new addition, taking in every detail. The voice was of a man in his mid-forties, wearing a rather plain set of clothes compared to what he had seen of this plane so far, although a white mug was held in his grip as well as a cane.
Frath knew from experience to never trust those that appeared normal, mostly because a thief's greatest weapon was normality, although he didn't at all seem threatening in any way.
"I'm listening" Frath spoke, adjusting his aim with his throwing knife so he would get a better result than his current aim.
"I do believe we are at an impasse here" started the man, taking a drawn-out sip of his mug before continuing "I would very much like that girl to stay alive and I would also like to talk to you, something which doesn't seem very likely on the terms you expressed"
"I don't see any benefits from staying…"
"How about an explanation?" offered the man, smiling as he finished and saw Frath perk up.
"Now if I understand you correctly, then if I go with you, then you'll explain all of this… and I'm to assume you know at least who we are"
"I think I have a much better hold on the situation than most of your friends on the topic of your current predicament, including the reason to why Miss Schnee has a terrible memory"
Frath smiled a bit and sheathed both his knives, fluttering his cape and walking over to the man, offering a hand.
"Nice to make your acquaintance, I am Aesir Kulanov…" Frath spoke, receiving a firm hand shake after the man stabbed his cane into the ground.
"Pleasure to meet you, you can call me Ozpin and I am the headmaster of Beacon Academy… I would be lying if I said I wasn't surprised at how quickly you would accept my offer"
Frath showed a toothy smile and explained his behaviour.
"Well, I know that the seven people behind me know you given their reactions, so you would be familiar with the girl passed out, still making the threat valid so I expect any attempts at my life would be strongly advised against given the small vial of poison I placed on the girl that I can break the second you try and kill me" the thief replied happily, surprised slightly to see the man smile rather than frown.
"So… Mr Kulanov… how would you like to attend my academy"
