AN: So... I took another month to get this one out. I'd like to apologize for that; I got hit by end of semester exams hard, then a combination of other priorities and my own forgetfulness/laziness stopped me from getting this out when I would have liked to. Regardless, it's out now.
To the guest Reviewer from chapter 3, I think I've fixed that issue you mentioned with the thoughts on new lines with this chapter, but I could have missed some of them. Also thank you for leaving constructive criticism.
Anyway, have a fight scene.
"Sniper!" Ozpin yelled, right before the shot was fired.
The gunshot was deafening, drowning out its own echo. Even with his training Ozpin couldn't track the bullet, merely observing the trail of smoke it left behind. Tracing it, he found it led to where Oobleck had been standing moments before. The green-haired huntsman had been blasted several feet away by the shot's explosion, and was now lying on the ground, clutching his shoulder. There was no sign of blood, suggesting the round had not breached his Aura, a fact Ozpin was incredibly thankful for, nonetheless Oobleck seemed to be out of the fight for the moment; unfortunate, considering their opponents were now moving to engage.
Ozpin raised his sword to parry the brunette's massive blade. He stepped forward, closing the distance so that his enemy was within the range of his own weapon, a simple straight edged sword. As he launched his counter-attack Ozpin tried to piece together some form of plan from the chaos around him. Glynda had pulled back to attack the sniper, and was now out of his line of sight; Taiyang was trading punches with the girl in the windbreaker, despite the height and weight difference orange-girl was weathering all of his blows without much issue; Summer was fighting against the boy with the escrima sticks, and from the aggravated look on her face, she didn't seem to be having an easy time of it.
Ozpin's analysis was interrupted when his own opponent managed to open his guard due to his distraction. Her hand darted back to the straight sword at her waist and slashed in front of her, forcing Ozpin to jump back. With the extra space granted by her attack, the brunette returned both blades to their respective sheathes, before unsheathing the matching curved swords on either hip, the whole time she never broke eye contact with Ozpin; her focus was disconcerting, in fact, Ozpin decided, disconcerting is a pretty good description for this whole fight. Steeling himself, Ozpin raised his own sword and settled into a defensive stance. He couldn't worry about his teammates right now, this girl demanded his full attention; he'd just have to hope they could all handle their individual fights.
Peter Port was a straightforward man; he was never one for ambushes, cowardly, he would call it; 'A cunning trick for lesser men than he to trap their prey'. Indeed he was not one for tactics, preferring to jump straight into the fray and let tenacity, vigour and raw passion decide the course of his battles. Needless to say his current enemy's preferred method of attack was starting to annoy him. Peter had chosen to do battle with the tall white haired fellow with the daggers; he seemed a worthy challenge at the time. As yet another swipe from the daggers slashed across his Aura, Peter began to regret that choice. He'd been confident in his ability to lay this new opponent low, right up until his foe had vanished into thin air and invisible daggers started cutting into his defences.
Peter knew he wasn't made for a fight like this; all the tactics and skulduggery required for such a battle were things he neither believed in nor excelled at. Fights such as this were best left to people like Glynda, Ozpin or Oobleck; however with two of them preoccupied and the third incapacitated, it was up to him.
"Very Well" He declared, as he swung his battleaxe with renewed vigour, "Have at Thee!"
'Guard, left hook, sidestep, Dust she's pretty, No-don't focus on that, Shit-Block! Uppercut. That did nothing? Oh great now she's smiling at me, is she mocking me? She has a nice smile. What did I just say? Don't focus on that or you'll – Ow, that one kinda hurt; she's got a good right hook, wonder where she learned? Focus!'
Taiyang Xiao Long's mind was not the most concentrated at the best of times, being forced to fight a pretty redhead; who somehow seemed to be flirting at him with punches, or perhaps that right hook had just given him a concussion; was doing nothing to aide his metal processes. The moment the fight had started she'd rushed him with a wild haymaker; he'd been surprised at the amount of force behind the blow initially, but had adjusted to her strength as the battle wore on.
'Should I use my Semblance? No, no time to charge it; besides, I think the police wanted these guys brought in without anything broken. If we hurt them and they sue for police brutality, do we have to pay a fine or do the police? Wait, they started the fight, they can't sue us. Wait can they? Crap, Duck!'
Taiyang ducked under the wide swing, falling to one knee, before exploding up and forward, delivering a mighty body blow. The redhead was knocked off her feet and sent tumbling back. Taiyang grinned; He'd taken Port down a similar way in one of their sparing sessions. His grin faded when the girl forced herself back to her feet, panting heavily before settling into a fighting stance once more.
She broke into a grin of her own, "You're fun." She declared, before rushing him once more.
'Oh yeah,' Taiyang thought, as he raised his arms to defend, 'This girl is definitely flirting with me.'
Glynda Goodwitch hated many things; Patronization, cowards, tardiness, laziness, and ostriches; due to a rather traumatic trip to the zoo when she was eight; were all among her chief hatreds. Presently though, the thing she hated more than any other was that sniper's stupid gun. The bullets it fired moved too fast for even a huntress-in-training to see, much less react to, not to mention they exploded with considerable force on impact. She'd been forced to maintain a constant dome of telekinesis around herself to stop the rounds from reaching her; taking considerable energy and focus away from what she wanted to do, which was flay the bastard with a vortex of glass. She hadn't yet managed to close to a distance where she could properly see the shooter in the warehouse's dim lighting, merely sending glass shards flying towards were he or she had last fired from.
Glynda suddenly became very thankful that she'd completely surrounded herself in her makeshift force field when she felt something collide with the field to her rear. Not losing track of the sniper or her focus, she floated the offending projectile into her field of vision.
'A crossbow bolt?'
She twisted to see where the shot had come from. Another catwalk ran along the building lengthways, on it Glynda could see a second shooter, this one with pink hair, probably a girl given the length. The girl raised her weapon and shot another bolt at Glynda. The Dust mage didn't even flinch as the bolt broke across her shield, there was no way a crossbow was getting through her powers, given enough time that sniper might manage it but a mere crossbow couldn't–
'The sniper stopped firing,' Glynda realized as a sudden dread washed over her, 'The crossbow was a diversion, which means the real attack-'
She turned to the direction the shots had been coming from, and was faced with a figure covered by a torn, dirty black cloak standing right in front of her. The large rifle in his left hand was pointed directly at her head. He was inside her force field, she didn't have time to wonder how he managed that without her notice, so one wrong move and she'd likely be taken out of the fight altogether. She locked eyes with him, determined to glare the sniper down. She was a little surprised to find her gaze met with crimson eyes; it was a rare, and tonight she'd learned intimidating, colour; that were filled with amusement, clearly cowing her opponent through a stare down wasn't going to be an option.
Before Glynda could come up with a workable plan her assailant sucked in a breath and grimaced,
"You should probably tense"
"Wha-"was all she managed to say before a gunshot sounded and her world exploded in pain.
Ozpin had fallen into a comfortable rhythm with his opponent, each probing the other's defences, waiting for an opening. Without an easy way to keep track of his team during the fighting, Ozpin had resorted to holding his scroll in his off-hand, observing everyone's aura levels when he could. Everyone was a bit scratched up, but none of them, save Oobleck, had been reduced below three quarters of their Aura. Then he heard Glynda cry out in pain.
Locking swords with his opponent, Ozpin's eyes darted to his scroll. Glynda's Aura had taken a giant dive, down to just below 50%. How? How could she have lost over a quarter of her Aura in seconds? Whatever did it would have had to breach her magical defences to attack her directly. Taking a risk, Ozpin shoved his opponent back, and then lunged forward to slice at her side; as he'd hoped she twisted out of the way and faced him again. He was now facing the other way, and could see where Glynda had been fighting.
Glynda was on the ground, smoke rising from her unconscious form and two figures were stalking over to the rest of the group. One was wreathed in a black cloak with equally dark hair, a huge, and once again black, rifle supported on one shoulder. The other was a girl with long pink hair, dressed in a white shirt and blue jeans carrying a small crossbow in each hand. Ozpin cursed under his breath, they were now outnumbered six to four, and each of them seemed to be having enough trouble with their individual opponents.
"Regroup!" Ozpin shouted.
His three remaining teammates extricated themselves from their fights, gathering with Oz in the warehouse's centre.
Their six adversaries likewise gathered across from them, Ozpin couldn't help but note the reversal of their situation. He needed to stall for time until he could come up with another plan.
"You don't want to fight us" he warned
The cloaked sniper's expression changed to one of mock confusion, "I do." He looked back at his comrades, "do you guys not wanna fight these guys?"
"I wanna punch the big guy some more," orange-girl stated, pointing at Taiyang.
"See, Sienna's got my back," he said, gesturing at her, "what about the rest of you?"
The swordswomen rubbed her brow, "Please stop being an idiot."
The sniper shrugged, "it just comes naturally to me." Turning back to Ozpin he spoke again, "Sorry, I'm afraid there's been some mistake, we just talked and…" he looked from side to side along the row of his companions, "we all seem to want to fight you."
Ozpin's eyes narrowed, he'd have to step up his bluff if he wanted to stall them any longer; time to take a page from Summer's book and boast excessively.
Ozpin stepped forward, raising his weapon, "I'm warning you, I am Octavius Ozpin, the personal student of the Headmaster of Beacon; I am descended from a line of hunters, each stronger than the last, I have trained with the best there are, killed more Grimm then you've ever seen. None of you can match me, I dare you to try and prove me wrong."
A moment of silence pervaded the warehouse after his threat.
"Dibs"
Orange-girl; Sienna, the sniper had called her; turned to the hooded speaker "You can't call dibs!"
"Can and did" the sniper replied with glee, "I dibs fighting the arrogant one with the sword, you guys have to decide who gets the other three."
Sienna grumbled, "Fine. I'll fight the big guy. Again." She spat out.
The sniper beamed at her, "See, problem solved, was that so hard?" Sienna's only response was indecipherable, angry muttering.
Ignoring his teammate's snarling, the hooded teen stepped forward; advancing on Ozpin, "So, Ozpin was it? Weird name."
"So I've been told, and yours?"
The sniper's grin broadened, "Well I guess it's only fair, after all you gave us that whole biography just now." He thumbed a button on his rifle and tossed it, spinning, into the air. Ozpin watched as the weapon shifted and grew, a long staff sliding from the stock, the underside flipping out; until the massive, stygian scythe landed back in its owner's waiting palm. The sniper's eyes shone with eagerness as he raised the giant weapon.
"The name's Qrow."
AN: So, that was chapter four. Something I'd like to address:
The fights. I tried to set up fights in such a way that the Beaconers were at a disadvantage from the start, simply due to who they were matched up against so that the Branwen's team didn't come across as overpowered. I hope that was portrayed well enough. and I'd especially appreciate advice on how I could have handled this part better.
Thank you for reading.