Soul's Reflection

by xT-Zealot

"It's not every day that friends are able to come together like this. Time has a way of testing our bonds, but it's nights like these that can help keep them stronger than ever. Nights like these are ones we'll never forget." -Soulbound Semi-AU/Pseudo-Novelization- -Completed-

11. No Brakes

Author's Note: And I'm back from my week off with Phantom Pain…which was a very strange mix of awesome and disappointing. Gameplay? Great! Story….wow, was that disappointing. Honestly, towards the end, I really, really didn't feel like I was playing a Metal Gear game. I feel very conflicted.

Brain: So let's go back to fic stuff!

Here we are with No Brakes. Did not expect this chapter to be as long as it ended up being but that's par for the course when it comes to me at this point. Had a lot of fun with this chapter.

I know I've mentioned it before but I'll say it again: this is why I like writing – both mine and that of other authors. In novelizations in particular – when the novelization is done right of course -, writing can add and do so much more than what visuals can. Even though No Brakes involves a lot of fighting, there are details and a depth that you can reach through the written word that brings more meaning to even these action-packed scenes.

Even though I like to think I accomplished that, I'll only feel true success in the reviews of the readers who I hope will enjoy how I've written this chapter. So, read on!

---

She knew she would find him out here, practically expecting the silhouette to be there, standing rigidly at the edge of the landing pad with hands clasped in front of him. It was the place for the best view: the water lane, flanked by the hills, that led right to the illuminated city that combated the darkness of the night as its people did with the Grimm. The night sky was relatively clear, the bright stars obstructed by only a few small clouds and the three Atlesian warships that hovered over the sparkling waters.

Glynda strode onto the pad, coming up behind him. "Trouble sleeping?"

James broke out of his unyielding stance in order to address her. In spite of the low light, she could see his short smile while his gloved hand touched his left arm. "Arm was acting up."

Glynda lightly scoffed when he turned away. "Of course. So logically you got out of bed, dressed yourself completely, and decided to gaze menacingly out into the distance." She had drawn closer while speaking, stopping only when she had taken her place next to him.

There was no hostility, not like how it's been during their previous interactions. When it came to planning and how to act, they could be angry at each other.

But out here? She wasn't angry and had no desire to fight. Not here or on the dance floor when he had asked for her hand. They at least knew when to put that aside – or at least knew enough that there would be plenty more opportunities to fight later whether against their enemies or each other.

She admired the view of Vale before her gaze slid back to him, finding that smile still there, trying to hide his troubles, but to no avail. "What's wrong?"

He didn't bother hiding it. "I've trusted him for years. We both have. I just…" He breathed out haltingly. "I can't help but feel like he's keeping us in the dark."

"Don't be ridiculous," she admonished. "You know very well that we are not the ones in the dark."

"That makes it worse!" he replied, embittered. "I refuse to believe that a man I've trusted for so long would act so…passively."

"You're a good person, James." Glynda laid a hand on his arm – the left one – and making sure to put enough pressure that he would feel it. "You've always done what you think is best for the people, even against strong protest. It's admirable. But it's high time you stop talking about trust, and started showing it."

Her gaze met and held his own, those sharp blues subdued against the respect that she wanted him to see that she had for him. After a moment, he shifted back to the sight of the city with Glynda doing the same. "Ozpin has experience that the rest of us lack." Her hand fell away. "And I think that's something that's worth remembering."

He said nothing, but there was a notable slump in his shoulders. There was no point in maintaining the front that he constantly presented to the world. Not with her.

He had sacrificed much – they all had. His prosthetics. His implants. He had worked and suffered in his quest to not only preserve this peace but to be prepared for when it would next be threatened. All his efforts and his haste to put it all to use, she knew, was with the best of intentions. It wasn't just for himself as she knew that he only acted with the welfare of civilization in mind.

He wanted to prove that he was worthy to be entrusted with this burden, and to Ozpin most of all. It was admirable, but Glynda was nonetheless worried, well aware of the dangers that this could lead to. To have sacrificed and to be willing to sacrifice more for the sake of others had always been a trait treated with reverence, but there were limits, even for this. There was such a thing as sacrificing too much and to have done so before could make someone more easily receptive to giving up everything and more – including all that they had originally meant to protect.

She had witnessed such a thing before. Rather, she had witnessed the cost and was always reminded of it every day whenever she walked into Ozpin's office. She would never wish that on anyone, especially not James. To have struggled so much to earn that trust, only to betray it all for the sake of what you thought to be for the greater good, was something that she did not wish to see again.

---

They dropped into the chasm together with Weiss taking the lead. A glyph formed in the middle of her descent, Weiss landing and then hopping down to another that she conjured soon after. Behind her was Oobleck, his weapon in hand and lighting the way for not only Weiss but for those following them – Yang carrying Zwei in her arms and Blake at the rear, Crescent Rose on her back.

Underground village was really doing what they were dropping towards to an injustice. Weiss was able to make out the outlines that jutted out from the darkness and the next few meters she went down to her next glyph added enough detail for her to identify them as towers and other buildings that were spread all throughout this cave.

This had been directly under our feet the whole time? Weiss couldn't help but be amazed. A hollowed out chamber within this plateau that was big enough to contain an entire city.

A staggering accomplishment but, as was the trend of their civilization, this ingenuity was made in the wake of desperation – the citizens of Mountain Glenn driven beneath the earth and into the dark in order to avoid annihilation. Unfortunately, this attempt had fallen short of the objective as this city was just as devastated as its aboveground version.

That put an end to her admiration, as did her own objective for coming down here.

She was aiming straight down, trying to land where Ruby had most likely fallen, and her best guess was the one building that was located right against the side of the chamber, its nature Weiss didn't even bother to guess at. After one last glyph, she landed on the roof and instantly began searching for clues. When Oobleck joined her, the flame of his torch at full blaze, the entire roof was lit up and she saw signs of rubble strewn about that she hoped was from the street that they left behind.

But there was no Ruby.

"Anything?" Yang asked once she arrived. She set down Zwei and he immediately started sniffing around.

"Ruby doesn't appear to be here." Oobleck held his torch over to the rubble that Weiss had been examining. "But, in all likelihood, this was where she had fallen."

"She didn't wait for us?"

"Waiting would've been the appropriate course of action." Oobleck slowly walked around, the light of his weapon lowering towards the ground. "She wouldn't have the proper means to return to the surface. She would wait, attempt to contact us, but any kind of signal from her scroll would be blocked due to the underground interference. She may've felt inclined to explore but without her weapon, such a thing would be dangerous and this position would've been more than sufficient to keep her safe until we arrived. The only reasons that I can think of as to why she would relocate is if there was an immediate threat or…oh, dear."

They all spun to see that their teacher had knelt down, his fingers tracing something within the thick layer of dirt. "Three sets of footprints, one of which is most likely that of your leader. The others, not Ruby." He motioned towards the door of a roof access at the back. "They came to the roof through there, approaching cautiously with Ruby backing away."

His hand trailed towards the edge of the roof. "She stopped here. There was a struggle."

Weiss drew closer and could see the lines that created two trails through the dirt, flanked by the prints of heavy boots.

"Ruby collapsed and was dragged away by what were clearly her assailants," Oobleck finished.

Weiss's breath ceased, her heart sinking deeper as she followed the tracks to the outskirts of the provided illumination, towards the roof access.

"White Fang?" Blake guessed.

"Nothing certain, but they are at the top of our list of very limited suspects."

The White Fang has Ruby.

Zwei was sniffing at the tracks and directed a yip towards the roof access.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Yang ran up to the door, hands clenched into fists and shoulders raised. The way that the brawler was approaching gave off the intention of how she was about to rip the door off its hinges if not for a sudden call.

"Wait!" Blake had her scroll out, bringing up something on the screen. "I don't think Ruby's in the building. I'm trying to track her scroll but it says she's out of range. Even with the interference here, it should be able to find her if she was this close, right?"

"I can't be sure of the exact range," Oobleck replied. "Without transceiver towers to boost signals and given our current environment, range would be very limited. But if she was here?" His foot tapped against the roof, Oobleck thinking hard. "I would assume that this distance would suffice."

Weiss looked out into the distance. "Which means they dragged her deeper into the ruins." Without another word, she stepped off the edge and fell.

"Weiss, wait!"

The heiress didn't, falling a third of the way to the streets below before she summoned a glyph, repeating her method of using them to make the journey down safer. Using her Semblance in this way had become so natural that Weiss only had to use the barest of concentration to cast them and then fall the short distance down to them. It left her vulnerable to the fear that was quickly taking over.

The White Fang has Ruby.

Dozens of names – the ones she could remember – began passing through her mind. Employees, workers, supervisors, board members. Each and every name was that of a human within the SDC that had either been assassinated or kidnapped by the White Fang.

The hushed whispers made by the servants of her household, the disturbing words exchanged between business associates invited to dinner. Each and every one describing how they had died.

Except when Weiss thought of them now, it was with only one name that became paramount.

They'll torture her. It was when she was dropping down the final third that she thought it. Interrogate her. Force everything that she knows out of her. Then they'll kill Ruby.

A human captured by the White Fang may as well be a death sentence. For the chance to extract information to use against the SDC, they'd be kept alive in exchange for hours or days of continuous torture. Sometimes it wasn't for the sake of information as it was to create an example. The mangled lump of meat, maimed and mutilated, that had once been an exalted member of the SDC but transformed into fuel to create the most horrific of nightmares to demoralize the Fang's adversaries. Let them know of the eventual fate of any who wished to challenge them.

Weiss touched down at the street in front of the entrance to the building, desperately searching for any sign of where Ruby and her captors could've gone.

Another human, they would see. Another enemy, they would label.

How much of an example would a Huntress make, they would ask themselves.

"Weiss, wait up!" Yang called, she and Blake joining her, both of them having used Gambol Shroud's ribbon to quietly lower to the street, Zwei once again tucked under the blonde's arm.

"We need to be careful," Blake warned, tugging her sword free from where it was stabbed into the side of the building and resheathing it. "Who knows how many White Fang or Grimm are around here."

Weiss bit back a retort but only just, her previous efforts of trying to look past the faunus's previous loyalties threatening to become undone what with her former compatriots involved.

"We will locate and save your partner with utmost haste!" Oobleck declared, Weiss unsure if he had actually used his speed to travel down the flights of stairs in order to come down to meet them.

She's not just my partner. She's my best friend and I promised that I would be the best teammate she ever had. I promised.

Her first promise to her first friend in forever and she was on the verge of breaking itagain.

Once he was set down, Zwei immediately went to work, moving around the feet of the group while he sniffed at the street, trying to pick up Ruby's scent. Weiss impatiently fidgeted where she stood, fingers loosening and retightening around Myrtenaster, quietly wishing he'd hurry up.

She wasn't the only one. Nearby, Yang was beating herself up. "This is my fault."

Blake was there to support her. "No, it isn't."

"Of course it is! I was the one on watch. I should've spotted her when she left or noticed something wrong sooner."

Blake touched her partner's hand, currently in a shaking fist. "I'm sure she would've told you something if she had been expecting trouble. This isn't like Ruby. She probably took a step out with every intention of coming back in but saw something suspicious like at the CCT."

"You will find that missions can rarely go as planned no matter the precautions you take," Oobleck interrupted. "Your training isn't just about carrying out the mission effectively but learning to adapt and act against any deviations that may occur. Enemies and the very environment can present additional challenges that you must overcome."

Weiss wasn't in such a forgiving mood so it was probably fortunate that Zwei took that moment to bark and take off running.

"Zwei has her scent!" Blake reported.

The heiress was already sprinting before the faunus even spoke, fixated on Zwei's tiny form as he led them deeper into the city.

"So what should we be expecting from this place?" came Yang's question.

"Unknown," Oobleck replied. "This isn't a city in the typical fashion; more like settlements in individual chambers that are linked by the tunnel system with each chamber serving a different function like a district. A 'center' would be hard to pin down. Residents who spend enough time underground would've developed their own sense of direction to navigate them so a 'center' like we would expect by looking at a map could potentially be completely different from their view. I suspect that this would be perfect for the White Fang as their faunus senses and, for some, their experience in the mines would've made them suited to this particular environment."

Weiss tuned them out, the lecture meaningless to her. The only thing she concentrated on was Ruby as she mentally urged Zwei on and each stop he took to reacquire her scent was met with dismay by what the fencer saw as a delay.

I can't be late. Not again. I won't allow it.

She kept flashing back to that moment when she had last been too late. When she had arrived to take Ruby in her arms from Penny, her leader delirious with pain, and Weiss not knowing and too distracted to realize that, beneath her cloak that covered her, there was a hole in her chest that was pumping out blood. Every worthless question that Weiss asked to satisfy her own needs was more blood and more time that Ruby didn't have that passed away, the heiress experiencing true horror as soon as she touched the warm, wet fluid that coated her hand in red.

Ruby…

More memories came to her – the ones that she had been able to attain because of Ruby's survival. Going to the clothing store, Ruby smiling in that red dress of hers.

Almost as red as the puddle that had been forming beneath her.

Ruby.

The warm, comforting grip at her shoulder while she had lain on her bunk, her shame she tried to hide with her back to Ruby. That same grip that had been in her hand when the two danced together.

The cold fingers that had weakly grasped her own, what little strength they had left fading until they went entirely limp.

Ruby!

Ruby's sleeping face tucked near her own, her breath caressing Weiss's cheek.

The deathly still features that Weiss hugged against her as she screamed within that red-black hair, begging Ruby to come back to her.

Ruby!

And then Weiss knew she had to go left.

The direction came suddenly when she and Zwei came upon the next intersection. Two of the four paths – the one to the left and the one going straight ahead – led to two different tunnels that would lead to two different chambers.

But it was the left one that would lead her to Ruby.

Zwei was still sniffing to be sure when Weiss made the turn and she heard Blake as soon as she did. "Weiss!"

"This way!" she called back.

"Are you sure?"

This time it was Zwei who was running after Weiss, yipping at her heels.

"Good enough for me!" Yang shouted.

At the mouth of the tunnel, Weiss could see a makeshift barricade that had been established to block off entrance. Soon, a figure came into view – a guard that had to have been stationed to watch over the entrance. It didn't take long for him to spot Weiss, his head turning so that she could see his fanged mask beneath the hood of his tunic.

"Who's there?" he called out. He was armed too, already leveling a rifle in Weiss's direction.

The fencer only sped up, Myrtenaster extended at her side.

Another guard joined the first and once they understood what was going on, they both fired their weapons to unleash a hail of gunfire, the clattering reports echoing loudly within the hollow caves.

Weiss lifted her hand and a glyph formed in front of her, the bullets hitting and then ricocheting off it. Even when the guards kept firing until their weapons were empty, not once did the glyph falter until Weiss dispelled it. When she did, it was for the guards to see her white form streaking forward with a roar, the blade of her rapier glowing a vicious red with the tip aimed right at them.

---

Roman must've done something good in a previous life once. He couldn't possibly imagine what that was so rather than speculate, he decided to just keep beating what has become the bane of his existence.

A forehand motion with Melodic Cudgel landed with a most satisfying impact and Roman had to hold back from sighing in bliss at Red's pained cry as she stumbled back from the blow. A semi-circle of White Fang spectators had formed to watch the show and the girl's staggering brought her to one faunus who grabbed her by her shoulders to halt her.

Then, with a shove and a laugh, he sent her back to Roman who brought his cane around for a backhand.

She was more prepared for this one but only just, her arms crossing over her face, and if it wasn't for her Aura the maneuver could've probably led to some kind of broken bone with the force alone enough to get her to slide along the ground on her back. Not that it had managed to leave her completely unscathed as, when Red dropped her arms, it was to reveal traces of bruises at her face. Half-healed though as any accelerated recovery from her Aura was interrupted to either protect her from another hit or soothe the aftermath.

The way she glared up at him despite the marks he found to be hilarious and he couldn't help but chuckle while he leaned against his cane. "Wow, you are much more manageable without that oversized gardening tool."

Growling, she launched herself from the ground, fists swinging wildly as she charged at him. Roman easily sidestepped one fist that went wide and he stuck his cane out, tripping up Red and getting her into another painful landing.

"Ohh-ho-ho man!" Roman actually had to wipe a tear from his eye and he addressed one faunus in particular who looked absolutely ridiculous with the pair of spectacles over the slits of his mask. "Ya know, Perry? I really did need this!"

Perry gave him a smile and a thumbs-up.

He hadn't been kidding about the day he had been having. Other than taking accurate inventory of their supplies, making sure the Dust-fueled bombs were of the explosive-quality that he wanted them to be, and that the modifications and loading of the train were going as scheduled, his trip to the surface to give a progress report to the boss had been as unforgiving as ever. Considering it had not been Cinder but Emerald who had been on the line, it had been rather distasteful.

Apparently things had gone swimmingly over at Beacon which, of course, got the street urchin to throw her undeserving authority around with the threats of how he better pull through on his end. Reciting his progress had been met with the typical comments of how he should move faster for her dear Cinder. Other than the bitter taste in his mouth that had gathered at the verbal exchange, he had a craving for a beating that he couldn't administer

Well, that was until Perry decided to answer his prayers with his third most hated youngster on Remnant delivered on a silver platter.

However, while a little bit of pleasure could come before business, it was business that he needed to get to now. As much as he did enjoy a good round of child beating, Red's presence here entailed very disturbing implications, and if there was one thing he learned it was that she never came alone. If she was here, then the rest of those meddling kids had to be somewhere nearby.

"But seriously…" Kneeling down to the recovering girl, Roman brought Melodic Cudgel up so that the tip touched against her throat. "How'd you find this place, Red?"

Fear briefly passed across her features before they screwed up into a mask of defiance. Usually Roman would find it hilariously adorable that she could put up such an act when he questioned how long she could possibly keep it up. Unfortunately, such amusement decayed when those defiant silvers became mocking blood red eyes and Roman really, really needed to hold back from following through with a desire to jab his cane into her throat to turn that expression into a wide-eyed, gasping one.

Just as Roman was beginning to think that he might have some issues, his captive unexpectedly burst into a flurry of rose petals that flew against his face with a gust of wind.

"Woah!" He shot to his feet, slapping away those petals and looking around for her. He found her a good ways behind him, running along the train tracks in an effort to escape to one of the tunnels. It's always fun when they try to run.

Roman redirected Melodic Cudgel at the fleeing girl, taking careful aim as he silently judged the distance…and then flipped the cane around in his hand before a burst of compressed gas fired off the handle. A wire trailed behind it with more than enough length supplied for the handle to fly towards Red. She looked over her shoulder at the last second but by then it was too late, the hood of that cloak getting hooked and she was jerked back to the ground.

Yep, that proved it: he was still awesome.

The wire began automatically winding back into Melodic Cudgel, dragging the girl back towards him. "I see you've got some tricks up your sleeve! Let me make one thing clear…" Once she was at his feet, that defiance having transformed into grimacing pain at being so roughly dragged, a flick of Roman's wrist freed his handle from her hood and clicked back into place. "Not through here yet."

The shaking of the cave coincided with the sound of an explosion, leading Roman to look at one of the tunnels that led back to where Perry had found their caped intruder. "Oh, what the-?" Sighing, Roman said to the faunus present, "Perry, if you and the boys could take care of that? I'm kind of in the middle of something."

Perry bowed, reminding Roman as to why he liked him, but he barely took a step before there came another explosion, this one louder and dirt showered down from the ceiling with how much the chamber shook.

"What is going on here!?" Roman shouted in aggravation, hating the interruption.

The answer was provided with the third and loudest blast and the criminal saw fire rushing out from the tunnel. When the flames dispersed, it was to reveal a group of faunus running away in terror, a couple actually screaming "Run!" while one paused in his retreat to fire a burst of gunfire back to where they came from.

White. Black. Yellow. It was those three colors that Roman had attributed to big trouble that ran out from the tunnel and chased after the fleeing White Fang soldiers along with a man dressed in brown and a small dog. He had no idea what the story was behind the dog but the metal torch that the man in brown was wielding spoke of how trouble was about to turn into a full-on calamity.

A weight fell on his shoulders, Roman shouting when his hat was forced down over his eyes. He reached up, grabbed onto something, threw it off of him, and yanked his hat back up.

Red was running towards her friends, and capture alive was no longer an option for Roman. "Somebody kill her!"

The whistling of Melodic Cudgel's explosive flares was immediately joined by the crack of pistol and rifle fire of the faunus grunts as they shot at her. She proved to be much better at dodging bullets, the killing intent of the shooters triggering her precognition to danger as she started darting side to side, projectiles whizzing by her. Despite the intense volley of fire, she didn't fall and ran further and further away from them.

Snarling through his teeth, Roman gripped his cane between his hands, Melodic Cudgel bending against the force before regaining its form when Roman let go and rounded towards the train. "Attach this car and spread the word," he ordered to the nearest not-Perry. "We're starting the train."

"But we're not finished!"

Lesser beings talking back to him was very likely to become a button Roman did not like having pressed with how much force he slammed the faunus against the train car with his cane, Melodic Cudgel nearly crushing the animal's windpipe and leaving him gurgling helplessly. "Do it, or you're finished," he growled.

---

The gunfire coming to an end had Ruby looking back to see Roman and the faunus rushing to the train car. She breathed out a sigh of relief which transformed into a gasp when she faced forward and saw the line of the soldiers that had been running from her teammates but had stopped and trained their weapons on her.

She began skidding to a stop but she knew it was going to be too late. They were too close and too many. She wasn't going to be able to dodge in time!

There was a familiar bang and the assembled firing line was broken by a detonation in the middle that had bodies and guns flying away.

"Ruby!"

Hearing and seeing Yang with arms outstretched when the fire settled had Ruby leaping into the safety that they promised. They welcomed her with crushing strength, lifting and spinning her around, but Ruby didn't mind in the least, taking relief in them. She did her best to maintain her bravery in spite of her capture but she had still been afraid beneath it all, the harrowing experience and bruises at her face coming in a rush and all she wanted to do right now was stay in her big sister's strong embrace with the fantasy that she would remain protected in them.

Yang set her down and a different touch came to her face, fingers gently turning her head so that Ruby could stare into blue irises full of concern. "Are you okay?"

In contrast to Yang's warmth, Weiss's fingers that traced along a bruise at her cheek were cool but Ruby took the same amount of relief from them with how they soothed the swelling. With this flood of support, it would be so easy to just sink into it and forget everything.

She overcame the temptation. "I'm fine, I'm fine!" She pulled out of Yang's embrace and pushed aside Weiss's hands in order to speak clearly. "But listen, Torchwick's got all sorts of weapons and robots down there!"

Blake removed Crescent Rose from her back and stopped cold when she held it out towards Ruby. "What?"

Ruby gladly retook her scythe, turning it around in her hands to inspect it for damage and to make sure everything was working. "Androids, mechs – they're all loaded up on the train cars!"

"That's ridiculous!" Oobleck refuted. "These tunnels are sealed! The tracks lead to a dead-end!"

Somewhere overhead, the static-ridden noise of a speaker came on, Roman's voice filling the cave. "Get to your places! We are leaving now!"

There was a hiss of steam at the parked train which slowly began to move away from them, a horn blaring.

"Well it sounds like they're going somewhere!" Yang said.

Ruby removed one hand from her inspection of her weapon in order to get out her scroll. "We need backup! Let me call Jaune!" She hit his contact, saw the dial screen come up, and stared with dismay when she saw the low signal window pop up. "I can't get through!"

"So what do we do?" Weiss asked.

"I believe we only have one option," Oobleck stated, resting his weapon against his shoulder.

Ruby slid Crescent Rose's magazine out, confirmed that it was fully loaded, and reinserted it. Her inspection complete, she turned to the moving train and cycled the bolt of her sniper rifle. "We're stopping that train."

---

When the cavern had been blown open, paving the way for the Grimm that resided within to invade Mountain Glenn's last haven, its citizens didn't stand a chance. There was no warning, doom rushing in in a black tide of tooth and claw as predators scoured these new hunting grounds. The caves which had acted as the sanctuary of human and faunus population trapped them, leaving them no room to escape as the Grimm hunted each and every one down, their fear betraying their hiding spots no matter how hidden they were.

It was perhaps the speed of the invasion, the thorough savagery of the invaders, and the lack of preparations that left a train and its cars to be left abandoned instead of being used for a last-minute evacuation.

It had been damaged, the Grimm needing to cause as much as they could to humanity's creations as well as humanity itself. Repairable, as that was what the White Fang had done, and modified with one modification being the plow attached to the front of the locomotive. As it ran along the tracks, it pulled over two dozen cars behind it easily; box cars that were intermittently broken with an occasional flat which served as platforms for the rows of Paladin-290 Battlesuits that were on station.

The tracks that it followed would lead it to only one destination: Vale.

At the end of the train, a faunus was looking out from the caboose and towards the front in anticipation as all that the White Fang had been preparing for was coming to fruition. They would be breaking into the heart of the city, bypassing the barriers and striking at the unsuspecting humans and their government. The horrors of Mountain Glenn would pale in comparison for what was in store for the city.

As eager as they all were, there were imperfections. They weren't going in full strength, the departure of the train originally supposed to occur days later. Not all of their armaments or personnel were loaded as many had been left behind thanks to the human interference.

Thinking of them, the faunus turned back and saw rose petals and the scrap of a cape just before it disappeared behind the caboose. He brought his scroll to his mouth. "I think they're on the-"

Something solid struck him behind the head, knocking him out.

---

All the way at the front within the locomotive, Roman kept track of their progress as the tusked faunus that had become the designated engineer fiddled with the control panel. It had been confirmed earlier on that the train was in working order and it would run, but the haste of their departure made him a tad nervous without the proper checks that he preferred to have done before they started it. Safety wasn't his main concern – it was only enough of one for him to worry about himself of course – as it was to not disappoint his employer. They were running way ahead of schedule than she would probably like as it is.

She'll have to live with it, he thought, something that he would never say out loud. He may yet be able to salvage enough of this to gain forgiveness. Cinder was as intelligent as she was ruthless, able to recognize when circumstances were beyond one's control and would approve and perhaps even reward some revising to the details of her original plans in response to them so long as she still got her results.

That was what he was hoping for at least. In any case, staying would've meant complete failure and he hoped she would concede that much.

The door behind him slid open and a faunus entered to announce another problem. "Boss! They made it on the train!"

It's never easy when it comes to those kids. After sighing, he snapped, "Then grab some cargo and get them off the train!"

His decision to go now, he knew, had left them underequipped with a lot of their weapons having been left behind and he also knew that ordering the use of what they did have to fight off Hunters could empty out the train. That didn't matter though. Their cargo was expendable as was the personnel. In fact, Roman did not expect a single faunus to live by the end of the day.

The only thing that mattered was getting this train to its destination and then make his getaway. He planned on living through this.

Thoroughly chastised, the faunus disappeared, the door sliding back shut.

"Man!" he grumbled to himself. "Animals, every one of them."

The tusked faunus stopped and gave him a look.

"Not you though," he hastily corrected so as not to piss off the driver, smiling awkwardly. "You're, uh…you're great."

Satisfied, the faunus returned his attention to the panel.

Roman presented his back to him and brought a finger to his ear, touching the comm bead embedded there. "This includes you by the way."

A double-click was his answer. No backtalk, no questioning of his order. Just that short and sweet confirmation.

That girl, on the other hand, is such a treat.

---

It just had to be another train.

That was Blake's thought when she, Yang, Weiss, Ruby, Zwei, and Oobleck managed to reach the caboose using their respective weapons and Semblances to reach it with Ruby being the one to carry her dog. Their professor had already gone inside and when they later came up on him, it was to see him with a knocked out sentry at his feet.

"We should get up high," he advised, pointing towards the roof hatch. "If we're lucky, they are unaware of our boarding and we may be able to avoid a confrontation."

Weiss volunteered to go first, jumping up and through the hatch with Blake right behind her. Her hearing was immediately assailed with the clacking of the wheels of the cars on the tracks and the violent wind billowing out her hair – sensations that reminded her too much of the last time she had infiltrated a train.

When Blake looked around, it wasn't to be surrounded by exposed rock and dirt like the caves they left behind. This was a fully-formed and functional subway tunnel with concrete roof and walls, steel beams holding up catwalks that stretched along the sides of the tunnels and occasionally crossed over overhead so that maintenance workers could safely travel, inspect, and maintain the tunnel. There was another pair of tracks along the ones that their train was currently traveling on, hinting to another that had once been in service but Blake hadn't seen it.

Do they plan to ride this all the way to Vale?

"Hurry, children!" Oobleck called once he ascended. "We must get to the front and stop this train!"

Weiss had been holding the hatch open so that the rest of them could go on through. Once they were all on the roof, she had been lowering it to shut it but stopped and lifted it back up, spotting something within the caboose that had her calling, "Professor?"

"Doctor."

Weiss pointed back into the caboose. "What's that?"

Blake gathered around the hatch with the rest of them, looking down to see what caught their teammate's interest. She didn't know how they had missed it, probably too focused on getting in and up above the caboose, but resting near the center of the floor was a big, cylindrical device. A panel of some sort was on top and along the sides were capsules with tubing running between them and the device, filled with powdered Dust.

Oobleck knelt down to better examine it. "That, my dear…appears to be a bomb."

All of RWBY quickly stepped away from the hatch.

"We've got baddies!" Ruby suddenly warned, pointing down the train.

Up ahead, hatches from the other cars had been flung open with numerous White Fang soldiers climbing either up through them or along the sides of the train cars. What their purpose was was obvious, a couple pointing towards the gathered Hunters and waving their fellows on towards them.

"Well," Oobleck started saying, "I didn't expect them to go-"

A loud whirring from within the caboose got him to pause and they all looked back within to see the panel on top of the bomb blink on, a consistent red flash coinciding with an ominous beeping.

"…easy on us." He stood up. "Time to go!" When RWBY turned to do just that, he placed a hand on Blake to stop her. "Blake, detach the caboose! It will kill us all!"

"On it!" While Oobleck and her teammates jumped to the next car, Blake dropped to where the caboose was coupled, Gambol Shroud already out and she held it up in preparation. Yes, this seems so much like last time.

Except last time she didn't remember train cars decoupling by themselves.

Blake stood with her weapon still raised, just standing there and watching dumbly as the caboose began pulling away as it lost speed. Snapping herself out of it, Blake shouted up, "It decoupled itself!"

Oobleck looked down at her over the edge of the car. "What?"

"I guess he really doesn't want us on this train!" Yang commented.

Blake began climbing up to the car, pausing only when she heard a loud detonation and felt a flare of heat. A glance back showed the caboose tumbling along the tracks, the bomb having ripped it open and blasted it off its wheels. The damage extended to the tunnel itself, Blake barely making out the fall of debris coming from the ceiling, the concrete roof sporting a large hole.

"That's not good," Blake heard Oobleck mutter when she reached the edge of the car and boosted herself up.

"Uh, neither is this!"

Blake saw Ruby, Weiss, and Zwei standing around the hatch of their new car, the girls holding it open while the corgi looked down, the stubby tail wagging heedlessly to what Blake could guess was inside. "Another bomb!?"

Oobleck similarly stared at the three, then switched back to the flaming wreckage of the caboose that was just pulling out of view. "No, no, no..." He ran past Ruby and Weiss, jumped to the next car, and opened the hatch of that one to make a startling discovery. "They all have bombs!"

None of them had a chance to comment because their bomb took that moment to activate and Blake felt more than heard their car decouple from Oobleck's. Needless to say, their immediate priority was running and then leaping to their teacher. Only with safety momentarily achieved did they all watch the car they just evacuated begin pulling away.

"This doesn't make any sense!" Yang shouted.

"Get the humans!"

Having been distracted by the bombs, it was only the shout that redirected Team RWBY's attention back to the assembling of the White Fang soldiers. Their hurry to retreat from the rigged train cars had cut the distance between them and the mob from several train cars to one, and Blake could see how far their numbers extended over the roofs.

It was much easier the second time around, she found, when she and her team engaged her former comrades. There was little to no hesitation when she slid her sword out of its sheath, taking both in her hands, and then bounding towards them with blades swinging. With an added boost from her Semblance, she struck left and right, slashing across the chests and stomachs of those she passed and knocking them over the sides of the train.

A Fang member directly in front of her pointed a rifle and fired, Blake leaning back and her feet dancing in a circle as she twisted beneath and around the burst of projectiles. At the end of it her sheath came up first, slicing off the barrel of the gun, and the flat of the blade of her sword came around to smack against the side of his helmet, throwing him off the train.

A lot of them were fighting bare-handed, making Blake wonder if there hadn't been enough weapons supplied to arm them all. That was the case of one faunus who kicked at Yang but was interrupted when the blonde intercepted and knocked it back with her foot, throwing him off balance which was erased completely when Yang swept his other leg out from under him. Ember Celica was brought to bear, catching him before he began falling, and Yang sent him right through the roof and into the car.

Weiss slid right through the middle of the fighting, Myrtenaster pointed straight ahead. Behind her feet, icy stalagmites grew and shot upwards, stabbing at any nearby White Fang soldiers. Whether struck solidly by the tips or taking too many stumbling steps back to avoid them, what had to be a whole score of soldiers met the same fate as their compatriots. They weren't the last as when Weiss came to a stop, she switched from spellwork to swordplay, rapier and fencer twirling together gracefully with the weapon lashing out in long arcs, the short and thin weapon able to cover the small space of the roof and leaving very few faunus room to escape as they were struck.

Against Crescent Rose, there was no room at all when Ruby cleaned Weiss's leftovers. If there were any faunus that had been present during the capture and interrogation of RWBY's leader, they were enlightened to the difference between a Ruby without her weapon and a Ruby with it. When she shot forward, all that they would see was the lengthy handle and the curved scythe blade and realize that there was no point in dodging or blocking in that split second when another bout of recoil brought both around, the reach of the weapon sweeping an entire group off their feet and off the train.

They were falling even faster and easier than the Beowolves they fought previously, but that didn't quell Blake's fears of just what the point in all of this was.

---

It was quite apparent that Oobleck wasn't needed. Leaving the ongoing fight to his students, he focused instead on the latest car that had decoupled and was slowly pulling away. When it blew, it was still close enough for him to instinctively lean back and bring up an arm to guard against the heat and pressure wave of the explosion.

Much like the first, the car was blown off the tracks, the force of the detonation enough to lift it and slam into the roof. Between the impact of the car and the bomb, the concrete fractured and broke apart, chunks falling and partially burying the wreckage.

The debris wasn't the only thing that fell into the tunnel.

Morning sunlight beamed down through the opening and it was with it that Doctor Oobleck saw the black bodies that stirred within the rubble. The first creatures to rise did so with inverted knees that held up their stout bodies. Their stubby heads, covered in bone, shook along with their tails as they recovered from the unexpected fall. It didn't take long, their thick necks already twisting towards the train.

It wasn't just Creeps. A pair of Ursai stood upon the wrecked train car, and a hole at one wall was the entry point for a Beowolf to lope on out, a Deathstalker squeezing on through shortly after.

Another chunk of the subway broke away, and then a long, gigantic body fell, the space provided by the tunnel almost inadequate to fit the pile-up of the scaled coils. Dwarfing the Grimm that were present, the coils shifted, and the slender head of a King Taijitu came into view. Its tongue flicked out, getting a taste of its surroundings, and then the fanged maw opened to unleash a roar that reverberated throughout the tunnel.

It was a late-delivered rallying cry as the Grimm were already running down the tunnel, giving chase to the train as soon as they saw it. The few members that paused in their pursuit did so to feast on what prey was already in sight: the White Fang soldiers that had fallen from the train.

One Creep shook as it was riddled with gunfire by one faunus that managed to come to his senses in time to see the horrors that had just been unleashed into the tunnel. Its bone armor was chipped away, the bullets eventually ripping into its leathery hide, and the Creep uttered a weak roar before it fell over.

It was a very short-lived victory. For the one Creep that fell, five more immediately replaced it. A burst caught another Creep in mid-lunge, stopping but not killing it, and when the faunus turned his rifle to the others, they were already upon him, the clawed feet of one bringing him down with the rest piling on top, their gaping mouths of jagged teeth opening and closing as they fought to claim a prize. He vanished beneath them, the only thing that came out from the mass of Creeps being a scream that was abruptly cut off.

Three faunus hoping to gain safety through elevation were climbing a ladder to reach one of the catwalks. An Ursa stood on its hind legs, grabbed the ladder, and with a powerful wrench and a squeal of metal, tore it down. Two of the Fang members fell with the first immediately being pinned down by the paw of the Ursa, keeping him in place, his struggles all for naught as the Grimm's fangs lowered to begin taking chunks out of him. The second tried to crawl away until a Beowolf seized her by the leg and dragged her back where its own claws awaited to perform another method of execution.

The third faunus managed to get to the catwalk and watched from it as his fellows were grisly dispatched. So shocked by it and too reliant on his attained safety, he was still standing there, gripping the rail of the walkway, when the Taijitu snapped its black head towards him, its mouth opening wide and seizing him from his perch. The leg of its prey still visible and twitching from its mouth, the snake tilted its head back to swallow the rest of him.

The Grimm that were distracted were of the barest fraction of the horde that stampeded down the tunnel, lured by the train.

"Oh dear…" Oobleck uttered.

---

"He's leading Grimm to the city!"

RWBY had finished with the last of their opponents when Oobleck's call came, Ruby spinning around while Weiss cried, "What!?"

"It's the cars!" Oobleck explained. "They detach and explode, creating openings for the Grimm!"

Ruby looked past him and saw all the proof she needed: the white tail of a Deathstalker acting as a standard for the army of Grimm that were behind them.

Blake saw them too. "That's insane!"

The next car in line chose that moment to be set free, proving the validity if not the sanity of what was going on.

Ruby stared ahead, all the clues that had come from their investigation brought together. At the end of this tunnel was Vale, its citizens wakening to a brand new day. Unknown to them, the terror of the Grimm that they had been protected from for so long were approaching, about to come up right beneath them.

This was the kind of evil plot that Ruby had imagined foiling but she felt only one thing: terror. True terror as she experienced for herself just what was at stake. A kingdom that was about to come under direct attack with lives expected to be lost and all of it hanging on them. The full weight of it came down on her, rooting Ruby in place.

People will die.

Her fists clenched and her jaw set with determination.

But only if we do nothing.

"We have to hurry!" Oobleck shouted, running up to them and pointing towards her teammates. "You three, go below and try to stop those bombs!"

"What about us?" Ruby asked.

"We're going to stop this train!"

"…Yeah, I know." Ruby sighed. "I said that earlier."

"Right, well…" Oobleck pointed ahead. "On we go then!"

Blake knelt down and opened another hatch for Weiss and Yang to fall through with her following suit. While her team went down below, Ruby and Oobleck stayed above the train, the two of them sprinting on ahead with Zwei keeping up between them.

The way looked cleared with no other White Fang soldiers coming up to stop them and Ruby was about to think that they might actually have a clear shot towards the front. That was until Oobleck pointed forward. "Up ahead!"

Ruby squinted against the rushing wind, trying to make out what was to be their latest obstacle that was heading towards them. She recognized the familiar shape before the Paladin leapt over the last pair of cars, smashing through a hanging catwalk with no difficulties before slamming down to block their path, unveiling its cannons as it switched from its mobility mode to its combat mode.

She and Oobleck came to an immediate stop but Zwei went on a little longer so that he would stand in front of them. Usually so happy and energetic, the corgi bent down on his four legs, head lowering and lips pulling back to bare his teeth against the giant battlesuit. Initially growling at the Paladin, Zwei paused to deliver a short bark to the Huntsman and Huntress.

"Ah, I see," Oobleck murmured with raised brows. Smiling, the doctor pulled out his thermos, took a deep gulp from it, and then reextended it to its full length.

Ruby stood perplexed, getting her first real good look at his weapon and trying to get over how he had just been drinking out of what had become a nozzle for the large flame that was lit at the end.

What happened next was actually not as baffling. Once the Huntsman appeared ready, Zwei jumped into the air, his small body curling into a ball akin to a Boarbatusk.

And then Oobleck hit him as if he were a baseball.

It was a known fact that Aura was a property that all living things possessed and could harness when properly trained. This included animals. While wild animals such as wolves and deer were limited to what control their instincts allowed and domesticated animals kept as pets lived a life of luxury that had no use for it, those that were properly-trained could unlock and put it to use. Much like dogs trained to see for their blind masters, there were ones that could accompany Hunters, serving roles such as sniffing out and tracking Grimm or humans and faunus that had been reported as missing during a rescue mission.

Considering the situations that could be encountered in those roles, a dog would be trained to use their Aura to fight alongside their masters. Zwei was one such dog – not just one brought to the Rose-Xiao Long household as a pet, but as a protector.

So when Oobleck struck him, the Burn Dust that was in his weapon and conjured up the flame at the end burst forth and surrounded him, turning him into a flaming cannonball that was fired as such. The Paladin had been slowly approaching with cannons firing until Zwei made impact. The several tons of bipedal machinery folded against the flaming canine, driven off its feet and off the train where it tumbled end over end alongside it.

Zwei touched back down onto the train and watched with tail wagging as the wrecked Paladin rolled away only to hop around when a second Paladin slammed down. Issuing a surprised bark, Zwei tilted his head innocently at the barrels of the heavy cannons that were aiming down towards him.

Before the pilot could fire, several tendrils of flame stretched forth and battered against the Paladin, the cannons knocked away from Zwei as the battlesuit stumbled against the attack. Oobleck leapt forward to perform another, swinging his torch around and creating an arc of fire that struck its legs, putting it completely off balance. One foot slipped and an instant later the second Paladin joined the first, falling and rolling uncontrollably alongside the train while Oobleck landed in a crouch, striking a pose with weapon held to the side and fingers holding the brim of his hat.

Ruby watched it all with eyes wide and mouth hanging open. Best. Doctor. Ever!

Oobleck straightened and faced his student, smiling confidently. "Ready to see a 'pro-Huntsman' in action, Ruby?"

"Am I ever!" Armed Crescent Rose in hand, she, Oobleck, and Zwei all charged towards their next opponent.

---

Blake still couldn't get over it. The White Fang are using Grimm?

She wanted to deny it but how could she after seeing the evidence for herself? The White Fang were trying to make use of the monsters that were the enemies to all of civilization. They wanted to set them loose into a city where not only humans but faunus too were living. How could they possibly accept such a thing?

How could they accept working with a human? How could they accept attacking other faunus on his orders?

Every time she came into contact with the group again, it was with one terrible revelation after another. Just when she thought that they couldn't do worse, that there was a shred of decency that she wanted to believe they still held, she would find them having cast it aside in order to carry out their latest atrocity.

But to go this far?

"I guess this is what we've trained for."

Hearing Yang got Blake to remember where they were and what they had been entrusted to do. It was hard but she tried to bring their mission to the forefront. Whether the White Fang were clearly capable of going through with something like that or not, it was up to them to make sure that it didn't happen.

"I don't see any bombs," she reported after a quick visual scan of the car they entered.

"Maybe they ran out?" Yang guessed.

Or had enough, Blake silently added, thinking of the monstrous host that was outside at this very moment. "If there aren't anymore, maybe we should try getting to the front this way while Ruby and Oobleck travel on top."

Yang nodded. "Sounds good to me."

"Blake," Weiss suddenly called, her teammate holding something out to her. "Here, this should help you."

Blake took it and examined it. It was a pistol magazine much like what she used to load her ammo for Gambol Shroud but there was something very different about this ammunition. Full-Dust rounds.

Normally the application of Dust in bullets was kept to using its powdered form as the propellant within the cartridge. When the Dust was ignited, the ignition and the user's Aura would infuse its power into the projectile.

Full-Dust cartridges, however, had the propellant and the projectile made of Dust. Powder made up the former, but instead of using a metal or alloy for the bullet, pieces of crystalized Dust would be carefully cut and shaped into bullets and used instead. With pieces of Dust crystals loaded in a person's weapon, there came the benefit of not only making whatever shot a person took more powerful, but a trained Aura-user could tap into what elemental power that was in the crystals to perform minor spells.

They were a lot more powerful than ordinary rounds and more expensive. Eyeing the different colored cartridges and feeling the power that emanated from each one, Blake unsheathed Gambol Shroud and slid the magazine effortlessly into the pistol hilt. A perfect fit.

Weiss had a small smile but Blake didn't return it just yet, choosing to resheathe her blade first. She really went out of her way for me. The tips of Blake's lips curved up and she nodded in gratitude towards the Schnee heiress.

Once Yang saw they were done, she took it upon herself to start moving, the two of them falling behind her. However, they barely crossed halfway through the car when a figure fell from above and landed right in their path.

The figure righted, revealing herself to be the tri-colored girl that Blake had seen with Roman both at the White Fang meeting and when she had arrived shortly after their team had defeated Roman's Paladin and were about to take the criminal in. Her one hand was at one hip, thumb hooked beneath her belt, while the other held that umbrella at her side, currently closed.

Blake had caught the girl's name from Roman during their last encounter. Neo.

Neo didn't come any closer, settling with standing languidly in place, a smirk splitting her face while brown eyes swept over the trio.

Blake was about to redraw her weapon but Yang held up a hand. "You two go on ahead. This one's mine."

The faunus kept her fingers wrapped around the hilt but didn't pull it out. "Yang, are you sure?"

Neo's gaze had gone to Yang when the brawler spoke up. Upon Blake speaking, those brown orbs went to her. Their eyes locked and Blake experienced a chill while swearing that she saw that smirk lengthen by a marginal fraction. There's something very wrong with this girl…

"There's no reason for all of us to be delayed," Yang pointed out. "We're here to stop the train, not beat everyone that crosses our path. Besides, I have a bone to pick with this one."

Blake had to admit that it was sound reasoning. Although the three-to-one odds would be very favorable, it would still be wasting valuable time if all three of them stopped to fight. Besides, Neo probably knew that it wasn't defeating them that would let her win but holding out as long as possible for the train to reach its destination. They would have the numbers but they didn't know anything about her fighting capabilities or whatever tricks she had up her sleeve, including whatever spell or Semblance that had allowed her and Roman to get away before.

But she still didn't like the idea of leaving Yang alone with her. In that brief meeting of eyes, Blake had detected something wicked beneath the smirk and colorful persona. An eagerness to not so much as fight but to play with the three of them.

Unfortunately, they had no choice. Whatever feelings Blake may have about it, she had to put them to the side. They had to stop this train and every second they wasted here was one that had it and the Grimm coming ever closer to the city.

"Alright." Blake shared a glance with Weiss, they each exchanged a nod, and then ran forward.

That eagerness that Blake had noted before came to the forefront when Neo reacted, taking a step towards the approaching black and white pair with both hands clutching her umbrella, that smirk twisting into an excited grin. Neither Blake or Weiss slowed down and, soon enough, one of Yang's flares shot past them, on a direct course for Neo who nimbly flipped back so that it exploded against the floor. The two used the chance to run right by her and Blake spared one glance over her shoulder to see Yang walking towards Neo before she and Weiss entered the next car, the door cutting her girlfriend off from sight.

Be careful, Yang.

They traveled through the car unhindered and did the same for the next. Somewhere in the middle, Blake turned her head up, her cat ears flexing up beneath her bow as they detected explosions and thunderous stomping that was not only loud but actually got one of the cars they went through to shudder. Something big was running along on top of the train and when the action repeated itself, Blake realized it was more than one. She added Oobleck, Ruby, and even Zwei on her list of people that she was worried about.

She silently pleaded for there to be less foes than there were allies but those pleas were rejected by the rumbling of what sounded like a chainsaw when she and Weiss entered the latest car. As it turned out, that was exactly what it was. A saw with a blade that was longer if not as long as the muscular man who was walking towards them. He was donned in the White Fang uniform and Blake discovered that this was also someone she recognized from the rally: the lieutenant that had been on stage and introduced Torchwick to the recruits. There was the tattoo on his left arm and the full-face mask with crimson tears trailing down the painted eyes.

He half-dragged the saw behind him, its rumbling broken with ear-hurting shrieks when the spinning teeth touched the floor, sending out sparks with each contact.

"You go on ahead!" Weiss ordered before Blake even had the chance to ask.

She didn't bother arguing. "Got it!"

The lieutenant hefted up the saw, chuckling deeply before it was cut off when the rumble of the chainsaw turned into a roar. Weiss lunged forward, Myrtenaster raised, but instead of meeting the overhead strike that the faunus performed, she sprung back and it was Blake who met it with a heavy underhand done with Gambol Shroud.

The saw and its wielder both reeled back and Weiss used it to her advantage when she performed another lunge, this time with Myrtenaster coming all the way with a thrust that drove the point right into the faunus's mask. His head reared backward from the strike and he took a step back, but recuperated fast enough to parry the fencer's follow-up thrust. He remained on the defensive, tilting and shifting the saw to block Weiss's next series of thrusts before one from underneath struck him beneath his chin and sent him off his feet with a crash.

I did owe her, Blake thought, catching the grateful smile that Weiss sent her way before she left another one of her teammates behind.

This time, Blake wasn't given the chance to even entertain the thought that her way to the locomotive was clear. Shortly after entering the next car, she came to a halt in the presence of her opponent.

"Hello, kitty cat." Roman twirled his cane by the handle as he stood in her path, grinning mockingly. "You miss me?"

---

Yang walked with purposeful strides towards the pink pipsqueak, fists clenched tight, shoulders squared, and boots thudding audibly. Despite trying to appear as intimidating as she possibly could, it didn't appear to faze Neo in the least, the girl waiting patiently even when Yang was mere feet away and their difference in height became very obvious with Neo having to tilt her head up to look at Yang. She only came up to the blonde's chest.

Yet that grin grew to stretch all across her face and her umbrella was held with the clear intent of using it. She blinked and when her lids slid back it was for Yang to see that the right eye had changed from brown to pink in that short second.

That expression broadcasted more than a challenge. Yang caught the same thing that Blake did. Small and young she may appear, but Yang perceived something vile hidden beneath Neo's sweet exterior.

Pint-sized girl, but hangs with a sociopathic criminal and a murdering band of terrorists. Yang probably couldn't even begin to imagine as to how many screws were loose beneath that swirly hair. She held nothing back, bringing her fist up and sending it right towards Neo's face.

She didn't see it coming. She saw the added exposure of teeth as Neo's grin grew while her brows lowered and eyes narrowed in preparation but she didn't see blow that sent her spinning back with a grunt. Feet messily shuffled, eventually regaining footing and Yang readdressed her opponent.

Neo had her umbrella pointed at her, the grin having never left her. The canopy opened, showing off the elaborately-decorated lace fabric of her colors before she tilted it back and to the side next to her head. She remained there, waiting.

Yang didn't let her wait long. Growling at the taunting presentation, Yang leapt to reengage, fists punching in a succession of jabs and crosses, broken with a fluid uppercut and a kick.

Neo retreated from her assault but not because she was frightened. Her head tilted to the left, the brawler's first jab flying on by, and then repeating the process when it rolled to the right, avoiding the next. A step back and a partial lean to the side had an uppercut sailing on by, her head ducking beneath a cross, and a hop kept her out of reach of a kick.

She did it all with that untiring grin, umbrella against her shoulder and hand on her hip. Each powerful blow that Yang sent her way, she dodged with such bare movements that kept her way off target.

Hold still you little-! Yang kept advancing on her, her punches and kicks unrelenting, and even alternating by letting the momentum of one crossed punch bring her into a spin and a crouch, coming down more to Neo's height to swing her first around to connect with her side but what Neo avoided with another short hop, leaning forward and pulling her middle just out of reach of Yang's knuckles.

The brawler jumped from her crouch and struck up high with a kick. It was only then that Neo was forced to block, her umbrella closing so that she could effectively use it to do so. The unorthodox weapon moved left and right, blocking another pair of punches and a kick. So immersed in her assault, Yang didn't expect a high-heeled boot to suddenly come up and catch her right across her cheek, interrupting her and hammering her into the floor.

She raised herself on her arms and looked up, her teeth gritting when she saw Neo smiling down at her with amusement. The pink-haired girl flipped up and dropped with a knee to bury into her stomach but Yang rolled away at the last second, stood up, and lunged with another punch.

She thought she reacted fast but Neo was much faster. That umbrella caught Yang's fist, twisting it up with Neo grabbing her arm and pulling her closer, positioning Yang's head right over her shoulder. Perfect for the bridge of her foot to come up and collide with her face. It stunned her, leaving her stomach open for Neo to plant that same boot right into it and bring Yang to the floor a second time.

Punches don't seem to be working. Yang forced herself up, ignoring the pain in her abdomen. Gotta punch harder then. Wait, where-?

Empty space greeted her when she looked to where Neo was just standing. She whirled around, spotted those heterochromatic eyes, and instinctively launched another punch, this time with an explosive flare being fired.

The lacey canopy came between them, Yang's flare exploding against it with fire washing harmlessly over the surface. A second did little better and then the canopy was closing as Neo whipped the umbrella around, swatting aside Yang's fist. Yang immediately brought it back but the tip of the umbrella pushed it up, another flare flying right over Neo's head while the handle hit against Yang's stomach, doubling her over, and again exposing her face to another umbrella strike.

Now it was Yang who was retreating. She leapt back, trying to gain distance and happening to avoid another hit. She fired another pair of flares, each being deflected in a similar manner and then Yang was being bumped back, her view obstructed by the open lace canopy.

Who even uses an umbrella to fight!? Yang roared in frustration, delivering her next flare below the barrier and what she intended to be Neo's feet.

The ice cream girl backflipped away from the explosion, landed, and executed a handspring that brought her to a short crate that worked perfectly as a chair for her to plop down on, her umbrella once again open and resting back while one leg swung up and crossed over her other. She smiled at her own performance and a blink had her left eye pink and the right one brown. Even that miniscule display was full of cheerful taunt.

Yang chose not to rush in so hazardously this time, instead staying in place while her breath came out labored.

She had always liked to boast that there had to be very few who could ever beat her in hand-to-hand. She took immense pride in it. But what this girl was doing went beyond that. That twisting, grappling, and flipping was not any kind of hand-to-hand style but, rather, the perfect counter for it. And don't even get me started on those kicks.

She hadn't landed one blow whereas Neo had administered several and they were ones that also worked against Yang. Painful as they were, there was no real power behind them. Enough to ring Yang's bells but the energy that her Semblance could gain from them were far from making up for what she was wasting in her failed attacks.

How long had she been watching us fight Roman, I wonder. Depending on if Neo had only arrived in the nick of time to save Roman or had done so earlier and remained on the sidelines, she could've seen Yang's capabilities. Perhaps deduced the nature of Yang's Semblance and came up with how to work around it.

That's not all though…

Yang was tiring. Her heavy breaths not only carried the exertions of the fight itself but of an entire day's worth of scouring Mountain Glenn and purging it of Beowolves. Her 'what's another hour' comment was really coming back to bite her. Between her troubled sleeping and talking with Blake and Weiss, followed by taking the shift after Ruby when all this went down, Yang had barely gotten any sleep. It wasn't only affecting her stamina but how she was thinking and fighting. Somehow she could still find humor in the irony: all the fuss of getting Blake to sleep, and here she was now.

She had to end this soon. It wasn't just to catch up with her teammates. If this continued for too long, she may not be capable of fighting.

But she's just so damn short, Yang mentally complained, gaze resting on Neo.

The vertically challenged girl tilted her head curiously, the motion and how she was sitting all relaxed with her umbrella making it seem like she was waiting for Yang to join her for tea.

She just needed to land one hit. One strong blow to wipe that patronizing smirk right off her face. Yang doubted that Neo would fair particularly well against such an attack. She'd really like to see her keep up with that flippy, jumpy nonsense with a fist imprinted in her stomach anyway.

I'll get her. Yang inhaled one last collection of oxygen. I have to.

She approached her the same way again but she knew that Neo wasn't fooled. The tri-colored girl viewed her approach with quiet mirth, another head tilt asking if she was really being serious.

Yang answered with another punch.

All that it restarted was another thrashing. Neo spun on top of the crate, umbrella and foot knocking aside her punch and getting her to step back. The umbrella-wielder took and capitalized on the space, coming at Yang with flips that had her two most effective weapons driving her back, another strong kick getting her sliding across the floor.

Yang fired a flare, Neo predictably blocking it with her umbrella and Yang used the opportunity to close in and strike with another fist which was deflected by the rounded surface of the canopy. Neo spun away, closed her umbrella, and then came forward, gripping it by the middle in order to strike with both ends, one after another. Yang blocked, blocked, blocked, attempted to return fire, and again had her fist swatted up and her flare blasted into the roof of the car.

Neo's grin didn't even twitch, expressing complete confidence of what was to come, and spun to deliver a roundhouse – only for Yang to grab it.

Got ya! Yang pulled Neo closer by the captured leg, close enough to see the smile having been wiped away for the first time, her opponent's eyes wide with surprise. Yang pivoted on her heel, lifting Neo and bringing her with her to hurl her across the car.

As soon as she was released, Neo held out her umbrella, the canopy creating the air resistance to not only halt her flight but allow her to maneuver and land harmlessly on her feet at a quarter of the distance that Yang intended.

Oh.

Neo sprung forward, catching Yang while she was still off balance from the failed throw, grappling an arm and swinging up onto her shoulders and head.

Come.

That arm still in her grip, Neo spun like a top, Yang being forced to follow, building momentum, and then Neo dropped back down, pressed her feet against Yang's spine, and threw her up towards the ceiling.

O-OOOOON!

Yang's back slammed against the ceiling, her head connecting right after. When she fell to the floor, she was already unconscious.

---

For Weiss, she was having the opposite problem with her adversary.

Another heavy blow came down but it was up to her to take care of it. A blue barrier was summoned in front of her, the descending teeth of the chainsaw grinding and churning against it to no avail. The heiress drew back her rapier, waited, and then dropped her barrier in time with her thrust that forced the saw up.

The fencer had immediately identified the weaknesses of someone using such a heavy and lengthy weapon. There was no feinting – no way the wielder to stop in mid-swing and switch up their attack. As for the angles of attacks that were available, they were very limited: swing it down or to the side. Thanks to most of the chainsaw being nothing but a belt of spinning sawteeth, there was no way for anyone to change up their grip and make themselves more versatile.

Against someone like Weiss – a fencer who was about speed and reading the subtle signs of attack – it made the faunus she was fighting extremely easy to predict. When the lieutenant came with another attack – this one another overhead strike – that second of building up the strength and momentum needed to carry it out might as well take a lifetime. By the time the saw blade was descending, Weiss already had Myrtenaster in position and she grimaced when the jagged teeth chewed against the length of the slender blade while it ran down it, Weiss angling the attack away from her.

The durzaanium-crafted blade held and the chainsaw impacted against the floor, exposing an opening that was a mile wide. Myrtenaster swept in, slapping against that mask for the umpteenth time, and Weiss flipped alongside her stumbling opponent to repeat the strike from the other side.

There was no way to follow through one attack with another in quick succession. It was all about making one swing, readdress, and swing again. It was in the middle of those steps that gave Weiss plenty of freedom to strike, strike, strike, and strike again. Every failed swing that the lieutenant made, Weiss responded and connected with triple the amount. With her speed and her Dust, she was virtually untouchable.

She lost count as to how many hits she made but not only was the lieutenant still standing but was still fighting without any sign of tiring.

Is this what it means to fight one of their elite?

Blake had once warned them all about that. When Yang made a comment about the ease of which they had taken care of the foot soldiers at the docks and how they could possibly be considered as a threat, Blake imparted them with a dire warning.

"The members of the White Fang that we've been fighting so far are nothing but low-level soldiers," she explained. "Cannon fodder recruited from the faunus populations of cities or other settlements that have made them inexperienced when it comes to real combat. They're meant to bolster the White Fang's numbers and provide hands to go with their growing amount of weapons, but nothing more. The veterans and the officers - they're the ones you have to worry about. They're the ones that know how to fight. They're the ones that know how to survive."

When Blake had said that, she was mostly referring to faunus such as herself who had lived outside the kingdoms and were bereft of the protection they provided, forcing them to learn how to fight. If they did not, then they died.

For some reason though, Weiss didn't think that matched the likes of this lieutenant. There were details that she had been picking up from him that possibly pointed to a different kind of faunus.

His strength. The way he took her blows but persevered, ready for more. His savage and barbaric style of fighting, void of any true skill.

Then there was his weapon: a saw. A tool that was nonetheless being wielded as a weapon. Ruby's views on other people's weapons had been rubbing off on Weiss, specifically of what a weapon said about its user. For a true Hunter, their weapon was an extension of themselves – a sword or a scythe or a firearm that, when asked what they would use, they would immediately think of that and nothing else. Even for someone who wasn't training to be a Huntsman or Huntress, each person possessed a natural draw to a weapon that suited their personality best.

So what would such a chainsaw that Weiss had degraded say about this man?

The answer and the reason she started thinking about all this was what the lieutenant said to her when Blake had disappeared. Words that had been spoken with the hatred that Weiss felt in every swing he made, every guttural roar and snarl that he uttered like a mad animal after each of her blows.

"Finally," he had growled. "I get to kill a Schnee."

It made Weiss wonder if he had once been a faunus laborer.

She wondered if he had been a laborer to the Schnees.

The saw came back in a horizontal swing. An acrobatic somersault got Weiss beneath it and she once again took advantage of how the heavy weapon strayed so far from the lieutenant for another linked pair of strikes against his helmet. Her third attack was a thrust, one that he managed to block before Weiss pulled back, gripped the hilt in both hands, and swung up with enough speed to avoid the saw and enough power to floor him.

She flipped over him, getting a better angle and manipulating him into rising and twisting around for another sloppy horizontal swing performed one-handedly that Weiss gracefully ducked under. Another downward slash that Weiss sidestepped, the sawteeth screeching against the floor again, but only for the brief instant it took for the saw to pull back, the lieutenant reestablishing his two-handed grip, and transitioning into a horizontal strike.

It was an attack that nearly caught her, forcing her to take the hit full-on with Myrtenaster, the sparks that were produced by the meeting nearly reaching up to her eyes to blind her. She couldn't stand up against the full power behind it, visibly faltering. The lieutenant, registering the chance, raised his foot – almost as big as Weiss's torso – and lashed out with a kick.

It could've easily crushed her ribs if Weiss hadn't been fast enough. She jumped up, the faunus instead kicking over the bulky crate behind her, and the fencer's boots touched the ceiling before she spiraled down, stabbing towards him. He retreated away only for Weiss to roll after him, thrust when she rose again, flip over a low slice, and thrust again, knocking him to the floor.

He was only going to stand again. Knowing this, Weiss held Myrtenaster in front of her and closed her eyes. She concentrated on the Electric Dust stored within the revolving cylinder of her rapier which responded to the spiking of her Aura.

The speed of lightning.

Her haste glyph manifested beneath her: a clock with spinning hands and gears that increased in acceleration. Weiss felt Nature's Wrath infusing into her Aura, surrounding her, the magic of the spell separating her from the normal flow of time and accelerating its passage in the small space that consisted of her own body.

She struck not with the power of a lightning bolt but with its speed. Time continued on as normal but in her accelerated state it meant everything had become slow, including the White Fang lieutenant. Weiss shot forth and thrust her hand out.

Numerous glyphs surrounded the faunus and the turning of his head to see them was performed in such slow motion that he was still looking at them when Weiss sped past him, slicing across his stomach. Weiss touched the first glyph, stopped, turned, saw him still in a state of half-reacting to her blow, and she struck again. This occurred eight times in quick succession, Weiss rebounding off each glyph and flying past him with each pass involving a stroke of her rapier, juggling him up into the air before her eighth strike slammed him back down.

Another glyph appeared and when Weiss came in contact with it, it was with her haste spell wearing off, her perception of time returning to normal in a rush. She paid it no mind, sure that that had done job of weakening him enough that one more attack should finish him.

This ends now! Weiss launched towards his downed form, Myrtenaster once again stabbing down.

He rolled away at the last second, the rapier piercing into the floor instead.

He can still move like that? Undeterred, Weiss leapt up, pulling her rapier back for the finishing blow.

"Come here, princess!"

A large hand nearly engulfed her head, Weiss's cry of shock muffled against his palm. Like a ragdoll he easily hoisted her up and smashed her headfirst into the floor.

If all sense of the world hadn't just been brutally undone, Weiss may've felt the metal sag beneath her, creating an imprint closely resembling her body. As it was, she was aware of nothing – not even pain. Darkness encroached her vision but whether it was her drifting consciousness or the hand over her face, she had no idea.

She was pulled free, Weiss catching a vague sense of being lifted up and then coming back down. From what sounded like so far away, a buzzing sound was approaching, coming nearer and nearer, almost like it was coming right for her-

Danger!

It was instinct that maintained Weiss's grip on her rapier and it was instinct that drove her to put it between her and the incoming buzzing. A force hit it, the buzzing turning into a screech that stabbed deep into her brain. Weiss was aware of spinning, falling, and landing facedown against a hard surface.

She would've been more than satisfied with laying where she was, let the rest of her consciousness drift into oblivion, but that sharp sense of danger demanded that she get up. Her hands and legs slid against the floor, awkwardly trying to get beneath her but instead moving all over the place.

Weiss screamed as something grabbed her ponytail and yanked, lifting her head up. That splitting headache returned and the pain multiplied with each follicle that tugged against her scalp. Yet she still managed to make out a deep, menacing voice.

"We are far from done."

---

With hands clasped over the folded umbrella held behind her back, Neo skipped over to the fallen girl with the golden hair. She bent over to get a closer look, her head cocking curiously, but smile unwavering.

How she had wanted to do this ever since she first laid eyes on her. Such a tall, strong girl with hair as fiery as her spirit. Standing so high amongst the wreckage of a great, mechanical foe, thinking herself unbeatable. Neo remembered the power and rage in her eyes – so quick to charge into the next fight. Acquire another victory.

So much for that.

There was a snick and metal sliding against metal as Neo twisted and tugged the handle of her umbrella. Out from the shaft came a thin, edgeless blade – completely rounded save for the needle-like point revealed at the end when it cleared the makeshift sheath. The handle now acting as the hilt, Neo flipped it around in her hand to hold it in reverse.

She hoped that she wouldn't die too fast. She wanted to see that look in her eyes before she did: the wide-eyed realization that despite all the strength she possessed, it was all useless. Death would come, dragging her kicking and screaming, but Neo would see for herself when the life was stolen from those pair of lilacs after that brief struggle.

Neo raised the weapon, the tip aiming just offset from the center of the girl's chest. Just as she would see that life vanish right in front of her, she also wanted to feel it expire after that heart made those last few beats that would be transmitted through her blade from its place within it – the closest she would get to that organ being held right in the palm of her hand.

That smile twisted into a manic grin at the prospect. Wouldn't that be delicious?

As the muscles in her arm tensed, a different kind of pulse occurred within the train car. It extended throughout the available space, Neo keenly sensing how the air rippled like water from a thrown stone.

It was coming from behind her and she soon located the stone: a fluctuating gathering of red-and-black energy. Something was deposited from it and into the car, and it rushed right at her.

Neo barely caught the sight of a raven's head before she became more concerned with a red blade that sliced at her, the small girl barely having a mind to move away from it. It retreated, then returned, she using the time in between attacks to guard with her short blade. In spite of the block she was thrown off her feet and flung away from her prey.

She resettled clumsily, both halves of her umbrella coming up for a fight. When she got a good look at the intruder though, any notion of fighting fled from her in fright.

Most of what she saw was human. Black, thigh-length boots with red in a pattern akin to splattered blood were worn over slender legs, pale thighs visible between them and the short black skirt. What appeared to be woven feathers hung from the right portion of the skirt. A black shallow-cut dress clothed her, wrapped in a red girdle-belt with matching segmented gauntlets covering her forearms over long black gloves.

It was at her head that she became inhuman. Long feathered hair extended from her skull, falling to her waist, and the plumage was stained with that same red, blood-splattered appearance on the otherwise grayish-black feathers. As for the skull itself, it was that of a Nevermore or some other creature of Grimm. It had an angular appearance reminiscent of a bird, possessing the barest shape of a pointed beak.

There were four slits, housing two pairs of red eyes. The bottom pair looked vaguely human; crimson irises with black pupils at the center. The top pair, on the other hand, were of a darker red with pupils completely absent, the curved irises empty of intelligence but full of fury.

Neo was their sole focus. The human-Grimm hybrid had a sheath at her side, fingers of one hand curled around the lengthy hilt of the sword within. The other gripped at the handle at the back of the sheath and a clicking attracted Neo to the spinning multi-colored blades stored inside, viewable from a small window. The spinning ceased, and when the hybrid slid her sword out, it was with an impossibly long red blade – longer than the one she attacked Neo with and too long to have possibly been able to manage fitting in the sheath.

The end pointed directly at Neo who was too stricken to move, not only by what she was seeing but what she was sensing. The air had settled but did so with a viscous nature – sluggish and thick like liquid. She struggled to breathe and her body grew heavier. Where this creature stood, reality had become distorted and it pressed down on her. Suffocating her. Nearly driving her to her knees.

She couldn't fight this.

Neo's eyes were no longer brown or pink but the white of pure terror. Such intense fear actually became her strength to break free of this domination and come up with the only strategy that was feasible to her: run.

She leaped up, there was a flash of white, and she disappeared.

---

Yang slowly returned to consciousness, grimacing at the painful throbbing at her head. Even with it, her first instinct was to get back up on her feet, rolling onto her side and awkwardly pushing herself off the floor.

She was remotely aware of an odd feeling. There was a sound like air whistling within the car although she felt no wind. Instead, it was an odd rippling effect that may've been responsible for rousing her in the first place. She opened her eyes and then immediately had to blink in an attempt to clear her blurry vision.

She caught something and she tried to focus on it. A fluctuating portal of red and at the center was what looked like a black eye although she didn't trust her impaired senses on that.

Someone was walking towards it. A figure in red-and-black, with long hair that took the appearance of feathers.

Yang blinked, tried to focus, and the figure and the portal vanished.

Wha…? The brawler stared dully ahead, a hand unconsciously coming to rub at a lingering pain located at a cheek where she had been kicked. She shook her head, returned to staring, but neither the mysterious person or the portal made any kind of reappearance. She was completely alone in the train car.

I should… She took a hesitant step back, torn about what to do. I should go.

She turned on her heel, paused long enough to throw one last look over her shoulder, and then she made her way out.

---

"You know we've really gotta stop meeting like this," Roman further taunted. "People are gonna talk."

Blake glared at the criminal, her lips pulling back into a quiet snarl full of teeth in utter loathing when she saw the man who she believed was responsible for all this. Putting the White Fang under his control, bringing them here, and doing so with the members having spun further down into the depths of madness through his orders. Whether he was the mastermind in all of this or not, that pompous smirk of his was all that Blake needed to see to know that he took pleasure in all that had happened.

Hatred ran hotly through her, his visage the center of her vision that was growing increasingly red. She didn't let it consume her, managing to keep the barest of wits about her.

She wouldn't let this be a repeat of the last time they fought against each other at the docks. During then, she had launched herself recklessly at him and she remembered how every fiber of her being demanded that she reduce him to a bleeding, whimpering mess. Only then would she have removed his revolting existence from the face of Remnant.

She had gotten lucky. With how long it's been since then, Blake was able to recognize that she had been the fortunate one to walk away from the docks alive that night. She had underestimated him, her violent attacks having nearly been her undoing. If Sun hadn't been with her to provide her with backup that night, Blake could only imagine what would've happened to her if she had been alone against Roman and the White Fang.

It was not the just the possibility of being killed that shook her when she thought back on it. If things had taken a different turn, if Blake had managed to go through with killing Roman when she had been driven so much by her rage, she would've been lost but in a completely different way. To commit the kind of murder in the manner that had sorely tempted her, she would've fallen and risen back up as a monster that was no different from Adam.

She hated him. Never had she harbored such a thing for an individual but there was no denying it. She had wanted to meet him again like this. She had been looking forward to another chance to fight him. They've only crossed paths so few times but it was enough for Blake to develop this hatred on a man who not only embodied the worst that humanity had done to her race but of how he had managed to infect those who she once called friends.

But she wouldn't let it control her. She wouldn't throw away her second chance at doing good in this life for him. Not when she had another home to go back to with people who cared about her.

Drawing Gambol Shroud, Blake charged.

She wasn't alone in this fight either. As soon as her Aura encompassed her blade, she could feel the Dust that Weiss had given her react to it. Nature's Wrath ready to be used to carry out her own as long as she used the powers gifted to her wisely.

Roman had rushed forward to meet her in the middle, cane raised to strike as soon as she was close enough. Blake didn't lift her weapon to meet his. A head-on approach wasn't going to work against Roman, that much she learned from their last fight. She had to surprise him. Get him reeling and take him down hard before he could orientate and react.

Her Aura pulsed and she drew out the fiery power of the loaded Burn Dust. Blake rolled past Roman, leaving a clone in her wake.

It wasn't her usual clone. Instead of a shadow made into her likeness, what was left behind was her form made entirely out of flame. Roman was already in mid-swing and was too late to halt the attack, his cane touching the clone which exploded as soon as he made contact.

With a surprised yell he was thrown up into the air and Blake leaped up to intercept him, gripping her hilt in a heavy two-handed grip to batter at him with Gambol Shroud, beating her blade into him three times with the third smashing him back to the floor. She touched back down a second later, unsheathing her sword to wield it and the sheath in her dual-blade fashion.

When Roman rose back up, Blake felt satisfaction at seeing the angry look that he possessed. He pointed his cane at her and fired one of his sparkling red flares.

The same old tricks. Blake flipped back, drawing on the more stable, solid power of another Dust crystal that created another clone – this one constructed of stone. The fiery projectile impacted and blew the entire torso off of the statue, the arms and legs shattering and littering the floor with dozens of pieces. They had yet to settle when Blake jumped high over the remains, on another direct course for Roman with blade coming down.

It was a feint. As soon as Roman swung at her, Blake used her shadow clone to pull away from it, the cane swinging uselessly at empty air while she crouched and pounced up from the floor, attacking with both her blades. The criminal was able to bring his cane back around, blocking the flurry of blows one after the other.

She wouldn't let it draw out and give him the advantage. As soon as he made his counterattack, Blake leapt back again with another activation of her Semblance and Roman's arm suddenly jerked to a halt when Melodic Cudgel became trapped inside of an ice sculpture of the cat faunus.

He was right where she wanted him. Jamming her sword back into its sheath, Blake raised her whole weapon above her head, the energy of her Aura extending out from her body, through her hands, and gathering into Gambol Shroud which she swung at Roman to create her strongest Aura Slash yet. The violet energies carved a line across the car on a direct course for the trapped criminal who was still trying to tug his cane free. It cut through the ice clone, shattering it, and bashed into Roman.

The momentum was enough that the automatic door was too late to open for Roman when he flew right into it, hitting and rebounding off it with him losing his grip on his weapon. While he toppled over onto his back, his cane bounced away, out of reach.

Unarmed and in such a compromising position. When Roman only got halfway to pushing himself up, Blake's foot stomped down onto his chest, getting him to wheeze when she put pressure down on her heel. She lowered her sword, the tip hovering right in between his eyes.

Roman was too busy coughing and gasping to reclaim his breath to take note of his position right away. When he did, he first looked cross-eyed at the swordtip and then switched to Blake herself, slowly holding out his arms in surrender. The faunus had to fight the urge to smirk triumphantly down at him, instead keeping her expression neutral.

Then he did something that she wasn't expecting. As soon as he caught his breath, Roman cleared his throat and asked, "Why are we fighting? I saw you at the rally. We're on the same side and you know it."

"The same side?" Blake growled, adding a bit more weight to her foot. "You've got to be joking."

Somehow Roman managed to grin, the gesture clearly strained with the increasing pressure against his chest but he pulled it off. "On the contrary, Blake Belladonna."

Blake stiffened.

Roman noticed it and his grin stretched a bit wider. "That's right; I know all about you, Blake. See, when someone manages to get in my way not once but twice, I tend to get a little curious, especially when they happen to mention having an acquaintance with this merry band of faunus that I'm leading. And, boy, did a few of them have a lot to say about you."

Blake's fingers tightened around Gambol Shroud. "You have nothing to say that's worth hearing."

"Oh, come on. You're not the least bit curious about your old pals? Your chums? I mean from what I can gather, you left in a bit of a rush. Decided to leave right before they were to let you in on this scheme that we've got going on. Why, if you had simply waited, it may've been you that'd be helping me run things here. Would've saved me quite a few headaches to actually have someone as competent as you around, not to mention avoiding this current situation altogether."

Unconcerned about the blade that remained scant inches from his face, Roman tilted his head to better look past it and continue grinning up at Blake. "Not too late now, though. I believe spots have opened up thanks to you and your friends. Gonna need some replacements after this. Maybe your leaders might even look past your little mutiny considering the sudden demand. You can put me down as a reference – I promise I'll put in a good word in for you. The best employees to recruit are the ones that already know about the business, am I right?"

"You think I want any part of what you've been doing?"

Roman lifted a brow. "Don't you?" His arms – still held out in surrender – made some slight motions to draw Blake's attention to where they were. "Look around and see what I've done. I armed the White Fang and set them up for a perfect strike within the middle of the city. I mean, you've been there – you've seen the sad state that they were in; just lashing out randomly, committing what acts of murder they can. I can certainly understand why you left but what about now? Not regretting it just a little bit?"

"My only regret for leaving is that I wasn't there to stop you," she rebuked.

"You think that this is all just me?" He chuckled darkly, a sound that got Blake grinding her teeth. "I'm flattered, but this is much bigger than me. Even I don't know how far it goes and not from lack of trying to find out, mind you. Timing is everything and it just so happened to favor me so that I could be here. You think getting rid of me and even stopping this train will make any difference in the long run? This war – your 'revolution' – will be starting soon. Are you sure that you're on the right side?"

"My side isn't the one trying to use the Grimm to slaughter innocent people!"

"Ah." A hand bent to point a finger at her. "Can you really call it your side? If so, how long can you really hold up this little image that you've made for yourself? Tell me, how many people really know about the real Blake, huh?" When he got no immediate answer he asked, "What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?"

Blake's tongue was currently behind clenched teeth, pressing down so hard that there was a real threat of cracking one of them.

"How long can you really fight with them until they start seeing you and the White Fang as the same? How long before they throw you back out to the streets with no one to take you in? Hated by everyone. A real stray."

"You're going to stop talking." Blake lowered her blade, edging it towards his throat. "Right. Now."

The back of Roman's head bumped into the floor when he leaned away from Gambol Shroud but he was still grinning. "Still feisty. So…what are we gonna do now?"

Kill him, came the quiet, malicious command.

"Do you really think a little bow on top is going to make people forget what you were?"

Gambol Shroud shook, Blake not only biting down on her teeth but biting back again this building pressure within her that increased the more she stared down at him. That mocking smirk that she wanted to tear off his face.

"What you've done?"

And how she just wanted him to shut. Up.

A hissing broke Blake out of it and she dared to look over to see the door of the train car opening. Weiss came flying through limply, crashing and rolling a couple meters before coming to a stop. The White Fang lieutenant from before stalked in, chainsaw rumbling as he locked onto the defenseless heiress.

"So, what's it gonna be, Blake?"

She swung back to Roman's grinning face, sheathed her blade, and kicked him right across the face with enough force to get his head whamming into the floor. The unconsciousness that was the result only alleviated the pressure in her a little, there still being enough to suggest that she should make sure that he would never wake up again.

But Weiss's safety became paramount, Blake racing back and kneeling down next to her teammate, lifting and cradling her head to get a look. She was out cold.

The revving of the chainsaw made her aware of the lieutenant coming closer. She couldn't fight him, not with Weiss here and unable to defend herself. She had to try and outrun him and get to the front of the train. She quickly picked up Weiss, making sure to snatch Myrtenaster as well, and sprung away from the lieutenant and towards the other side of the car.

She had been hoping that he would give up on any kind of chase but she hadn't expected it to be so soon. Before Blake even reached the exit, she heard the revving of the chainsaw lessen…and then grow silent. Though knowing the risk of doing so, Blake couldn't help but slow down while she looked back…and then came to a stop.

The lieutenant stood, unmoving, his saw having lowered to the point that it was touching the floor. The only movement was his visible respiration that caused a lifting and recession of his massive form. He was making no effort to come after them.

"So," came a deep rumble, "it is true."

Blake remained where she was, Weiss in her arms and unable to think of what to say in reply. That was until he said something that chilled her to the bone.

"Adam's shadow."

It was a nickname, one that had been whispered amongst the ranks of the White Fang and something that couldn't escape from Blake's exceptional hearing. There were always whispers. Always words of admiration spoken when it came to Adam Taurus…and notes of bewilderment when it came to the cat faunus that was always at his side.

It was hearing it that compelled Blake to ask, "Who are you?"

She didn't recognize him, not that there were any recognizable features for her to pick up on. Still, had this been a faunus that she knew once?

"I have no reason to reveal my name to a traitor," he grumbled. "Especially not one who goes so far as to defend a Schnee."

"And what of you?" Blake immediately asked. If she was speaking with a White Fang member at all, then there were answers that she wanted, particularly for one thing. "You're leading Grimm into the city! How can you possibly justify that kind of madness?"

He took a menacing step towards her, one that echoed loudly within the enclosed car and the chainsaw rose off from the ground. "Do not speak to me of going mad!"

Blake had instantly tensed, ready to run, but the lieutenant did not break into a full-on pursuit. She could feel a great desire to do so, a killing intent that easily eclipsed her own that she had directed at Roman. Yet despite the extent of it, the faunus pulled back as if a mad dog that had just enough sense to relent to a leash that was tugged to keep him in place.

"How many faunus have been left to the Grimm?" he instead questioned. "Left to fend for themselves after being denied sanctuary within those human-run safe havens? This is all but a taste of what we go through every day – something which you should know just as well."

She did, Blake remembering how that life was like, both inside and out. Outside, there was the Grimm and every weapon and defense that they could create out of the wilderness that was the home of those monsters. Many a time, it proved to never be enough with so many mistakes made and so many lives lost and scars collected before someone could learn and adapt on how best to survive. However, survival was never a certainty even after that.

Then there was inside, where a faunus that managed to gain a share of the safety of the kingdoms or another well-delivered settlement. The dangers never stopped and the enemies never went away, instead replaced by the humans who wanted faunus out and, if they could not be persuaded, members would choose to intimidate and force them out.

"That doesn't justify anything!" Blake nonetheless argued. "Many of them are innocent – human and faunus! Our own kind will be devoured along with the humans!"

"Innocent?" The lieutenant shook his head. "There is no such thing. What humans that do not murder us outright slowly do so with their ignorance. As for the faunus…they have no right to be called as such. Those who deserve to be called faunus are the ones who have chosen to fight and throw off the human yoke. For those who haven't and remain in the city…they do so with complacency that has been our undoing countless times throughout our history. We have chosen the side of our own, and as for them…they have chosen the side of the humans, even if they believe they haven't.

He motioned his saw towards Blake. "And then there is you, who deserves far worse. But I will not kill you, not even for the Schnee." There was a morbid tone of delight in his next words. "I am sure that Taurus would prefer to have you for himself. I want to see what happens when he gets to you. If you survive here."

The name, spoken so many times in such short order, loomed over Blake to the point that she had to fight the urge to look over her shoulder with the expectation that Adam was right behind her. "Where is he?"

"Closer than you think, and he has not forgotten about your betrayal."

This time Blake did look back, the urge becoming so powerful that she wasn't sure if the sensation of the familiar presence standing directly behind her was of her imagination or actually real. To her immense relief, there was nothing but the door to the next train car right behind her.

When she laid eyes back on the lieutenant, it was to see him stepping away. "You may leave. I have distracted you long enough. The train will reach its destination soon and you cannot stop it. There are no brakes, we have made sure of that, and it has been programmed to maintain its full speed once it's reached no matter what. It cannot be stopped – not this train and not our revolution. I would suggest that you-"

He was interrupted when the door opened up behind them and there came a shout. "GANGWAY!"

He whipped around and was greeted by a clothesline that delivered him to the floor, Yang not even breaking her stride as she ran past him.

"Got a train to stop!" Yang's eyes briefly met Blake's before she was also passing the faunus and running through the door. "Come on, Blake!"

"I- Yang!" Blake quickly spun and ran after the sprinting blonde, needing to tell her about what she just learned.

While struggling to catch up, there came movement in her arms as Weiss slowly came to, looking up at Blake with half-lidded eyes. "Blake?" She weakly searched around, spotting Myrtenaster clutched in her teammate's hand. "I guess I owe you one."

"Trust me, Weiss," Blake replied. "You don't owe me anything."

---

It had taken the entirety of Team RWBY to defeat one Paladin after a lengthy battle. There were key differences between now and then though. For one, the terrain was different. Rather than the urban streets and the open space beneath the highway, it was the top of a speeding train that was the current battleground. The restricted space and the battlesuit's bipedal design became a great weakness, it only taking an attack at the legs or a particularly strong blow to get it to lose its balance and there was no amount of skill that the pilots possessed to regain control before they would be falling off the side. Each and every one of the dozen or so Paladins that had been activated were defeated swiftly in that manner.

Then there was the other significant difference found here: Doctor Bartholomew Oobleck.

He, as Ruby found out, was more than enough to replace the three missing members of her team. With his torch and the Burn Dust that powered it, Oobleck had enough skill and control that had developed throughout his years of experience to harness and unleash the full might of Nature's Wrath in the form of destructive fire-based spells. The only other time that Ruby had seen such a master in action was Glynda Goodwitch and Oobleck had to at least be on par with her level.

Tsunamis of fire swept over the battlesuits, washing them off the train. Those same tendrils from before, still possessing the same strength and intensity as the first set, pummeled and bashed against them.

Then there was his speed, it being one of the rare times that Ruby could encounter someone who was as fast as her. Together, the two of them could quickly get into the blind spots of the Paladins and strike without fear of reprisal.

That was the case for the latest one who stood before the doctor with arms raised and metal fists clenched. It brought them slamming down but Oobleck had disappeared long before they descended. When the Paladin retracted its fists, its intended target had appeared on its back where the cooling vents were located.

Oobleck jammed the nozzle of his weapon into the vents and a blaze was instantly lit. The overheated Paladin – and most likely the pilot along with it – became inert. Jumping clear of the machine and returning to the train, Oobleck aimed his torch low, towards the legs.

Ruby already had Crescent Rose embedded and aimed at the same spot. When student and teacher fired, the sniper round and the fireball that were launched from opposing sides struck a leg, the dual impacts spinning and lifting the Paladin off its feet before it fell away, joining the many others that had been disposed of as it took a plunge off the train.

Unfortunately, it wasn't the last, and Ruby couldn't believe just how many there were when she looked back towards the rear of the train and saw at least two more coming up in an attempt to stop them.

Before she could engage these ones, a hand touched her and pulled her back. "Ruby, you go on ahead!"

"But…!" Ruby began, looking at Oobleck and then the approaching Paladins.

"Don't worry, Ruby!" Smiling assuredly, he quipped, "It's time I teach them a lesson!"

He's even replacing Yang! Ruby couldn't help but remark, watching his retreating back as he went headlong towards the approaching battlesuits. As much as she wanted to keep fighting at his side, she saw for herself that he would be able to handle it alone. Besides, we really need to stop this train.

"Let's go, Zwei," Ruby said, waving her dog to follow her.

For as many times that he would obey her with happy barks, it wasn't so this time. Rather than follow her, the corgi remained where he was with a bowed head. When Ruby gave him a perplexed look, Zwei lifted his head enough to deliver a whimper along with a pleading stare.

It took a moment for Ruby to figure out what he wanted. She smiled softly. "Go."

Zwei's furry expression actually lit up and Ruby could make out the thanks in his excited yip before he went to follow Oobleck into battle.

The pet of Hunters alright.

As much as the Paladins had tried to prevent them, Ruby and Oobleck had managed to make enough progress that the locomotive only had a few cars that separated it and Ruby. She immediately began crossing the remaining distance, hoping that when she got inside and to the controls, there would be a big red button with a very convenient stop label on top, complete with capital letters and it being all in red.

Ruby leapt across from one car and onto another. Only two more jumps for two more cars and she would be right on top of the locomotive.

She didn't make the next jump before she halted, staring with shock at what was ahead. Oh no!

"Ruby!" The call came from Yang with her, Blake, and Weiss climbing out from the car that she just leapt from. Upon sighting Ruby, she immediately started informing her with, "We're not going to be able to stop it with the controls! We're going to need to find another way!"

Ruby would've been happier to see her team alive and well if not for what she pointed at. "We're too late!"

In visual range and coming closer at top-speed were a pair of huge doors that were sealed shut directly ahead of them. Ruby knew the end of the line when she saw it and so too did her team when they regrouped around her and saw it.

"What do we do?" Blake asked.

Ruby glanced over to Weiss and found her partner having done the same to her. This close, the young leader could see that Weiss was sporting a few bruises of her own but a knowing grin managed to break through them all the same. She nodded and Ruby returned it.

Weiss raised and then stabbed Myrtenaster into the roof of the train. Ice immediately blossomed around Team RWBY, creating a barrier that surrounded the four members.

It finished just as impact was made.

---

Ruby awoke to the sound of sirens and found herself staring at a pink morning sky. It was only the pain that throbbed throughout her entire body that told her that she was alive though and not having died and gone to some otherworldly plane for the dead.

What became her immediate concern was to see if the same could be said about the rest of her team. Nearby coughing attracted her attention and she saw Yang hunched over amid the settling dust, Blake slowly raising herself from the ground and holding her head next to her.

Weiss? Swiveling to the other side, Ruby saw her partner sitting back against a jutting piece of debris. What fears came to mind were put to rest when Weiss moved. Their gazes met again and Weiss threw in a shaky thumbs-up to go with her weak smile to show that she was alive.

Her team accounted for, Ruby tried to take stock of their situation and she hissed at the pain that was incited when she moved. Fighting through it, Ruby scanned around. She saw parts of the train – the locomotive that they had tried so hard to reach, turned over on its side, along with the cars still attached. The rest of it was still underground, through the hole that had broken through.

As to what it had broken through to, Ruby found the answer soon enough. Her vision was partially obscured by a pair of trees but she saw the buildings that were beyond the range of the small park and the stage that was at the center. Her initial thought was that they had somehow returned to the surface of Mountain Glenn until she realized that these buildings were intact and well-maintained.

There were also people. Those out on the streets who were now crowding around the scene and Ruby could make out their surprise and confusion at the train that had just appeared. Right in the middle of-

The central plaza of Vale.

The amount of horror was more than enough to get Ruby fully awake and ignore all of her body's complaints when she sat up straight. She opened her mouth, about to scream her warning until the earth shook.

Something exploded out from the giant hole, pushing aside debris and train cars as it shot up towards the sky. It stretched beyond the heights of the nearest buildings before it ceased and bent, better casting its shadow over Team RWBY and the surrounding pedestrians.

Red orbs shifted beneath the bone mask. A forked tongue flicked out, sampling and detecting the abundance of prey that was all around it. The discovery had the King Taijitu lifting its head and broadcasting its findings with a loud roar.

It inspired the rest to break through, issuing their own calls once they passed through the breach. The shadow of the serpent – as black as the night – grew and expanded, stretching across the plaza. A blight that had been set upon the city and was wasting no time in spreading.

And where it went, screams followed.

---

Author's Note: So, a couple notes for this chapter, starting off with my portrayal of our villains not only for Roman and Neo but the others that we've been introduced to so far. Say what you want about them but I think RoosterTeeth made one thing abundantly clear about them: they're psychotic. You have Emerald who will take it upon herself to murder someone to please Cinder and Mercury who will just casually go along with it with the two of them just kicking back and reading comic books once the deed is done and later making jokes about it. Roman I think we've seen enough for there to be no question about his murdering, sociopathic tendencies. Then you have Cinder who, whether she really masterminded this plan or not, has absolutely no compunctions about setting the Grimm upon Vale.

To put it simply, these are not sane people. Sane people do not act or think like they do. And though we haven't heard a word from Neo, getting that excited at the idea of stabbing Yang through…well…

Brain: BITCH BE CRAZY!

Yeah, pretty much going with how the rest of the fandom thinks of her. Now, there may be some tragic backstories behind a couple of these characters, some reasons or events that have made them turn out this way…but they're still insane. Most of the time backstories just say HOW they became insane.

Anyway, the bit with the White Fang lieutenant was what I was mentioning in terms of an original scene. I liked the idea of Blake encountering and speaking with a member of the White Fang and I find the lieutenant to have the potential to be an interesting character based on the observations that I put here concerning what could be potential origins of this character. Might be proven right in the future, or I won't whether because I'm wrong or because the lieutenant is dead now, lol. I have a pretty good feeling that we'll be seeing him again though. As for people's complaints as to how he defeated Weiss so easily…I actually wasn't too put off by that. We learned early on during the food fight that when it came to really strong blows, Weiss isn't particularly good at taking them. In the commentary, Monty in particular had not-so-subtlety compared the White Fang lieutenant to Gregor Clegane, aka "The Mountain" in Game of Thrones. I don't watch the series myself but I'm assuming that the fight between Weiss and the lieutenant is meant to be reminiscent to Oberyn Martell vs Clegane.

For Raven's appearance, I wanted to add more of an unholy/demonic feel to her. The writers had mentioned that Neo instinctively knew that Raven was not a person she wanted to fight, hence her retreat. Considering Raven's appearance and how she's demonstrated things that can be considered as 'reality warping' – her portals and, if we want to stretch it, appearing in a dream/vision to Yang at the end -, I hope what I added was fitting.

As to my opinion of No Brakes…it was a great episode. Lot of fighting, had a ton of revelations and world building such as Oobleck fighting, Blake using Dust with her Semblance, and then you got Neo and Raven. The only real complaint I have with No Brakes was that exchange between Roman and Blake about being on the same side. It was a very weak exchange and it felt like it just came out of nowhere to me. So that was one of the first things on my list to expand on when I decided to do this.

Although I do hold high enough of an opinion of the writers that I seriously doubt they'll do this, I'll say it right now in case that was actually a hint of what may come to pass: any plot idea with Blake returning to the White Fang will be stupid. Other than seeing that cliché way too many times, I think it's pretty clear that Blake knows what the White Fang has become. She specifically cited Adam as a monster and with the White Fang willingly following a human like Roman to the point of leading Grimm into Vale, I think it's safe to say that there's not even a remote chance that she would seriously entertain rejoining the White Fang. It's just way too unrealistic and would severely go against Blake's character.

Now that that's all said and done…holy crap, two more chapters with the next one being Breach. It will be a completely original chapter, much like Dance Dance Infiltration, where I will be expanding and twisting events in that episode A LOT. Give it a much more final battle feel that fans complained wasn't there, switch to POVs that I've yet to use, and there will be characters and events appearing and occurring that I hope to surprise people. Honestly, with what I'm planning, I wonder if I can fit it all in one chapter considering Dance Dance Infiltration nearly ended up going 30k words. Splitting Breach into two chapters is a possibility.

In any case, it will be a lengthy chapter which means it's gonna take some time and effort to write up. Don't expect it to be up anytime soon. Hope to see you all there!