As a hunter, I've been in many battles in my life. Some of them were fun, sparring with students at Beacon. Others were out of necessity, most of these fights consisting of Grimm extermination.
Then there were the battles of heartbreak.
These battles shaped who I am today. A few of these battles have helped me become strong, while most others plague me with nightmares. Out of all of these kinds of battles, though, the one that hurt my team the most would be the battle for the relic at Haven academy. Not only did I have to fight against my team, I had to do it with the man that Remnant hated the most. The man that I hated the most.
My father.
I didn't have time to process what had just happened as Weiss thrusts her rapier towards my hip. I dodge as the situation went from bad to worse in a second.
Atlas's soldiers start charging towards Haven academy with Penny leading the charge. At the same time, Ruby's group suddenly starts attacking Zxchoal, doing their best to suppress him as I see Yang and who I supposed was Raven appear out of nowhere from the corner of my eye. I didn't have time to think about it as Yang started to join Weiss in her attack against me, alternating their attacks as Yang threw punches at me while Weiss swung her rapier at me.
Thinking about it now, it hadn't even been a full year when the people that I was fighting that night were assigned to be teammates. It was a very drastic change for me. A terrible one too.
As my old teammates keep attacking me, Zxchoal suddenly yanks my coat and pulls me away from the two. After that, he sends out a powerful wave of destructive magic from his palms, hitting most of the people in the room with the exception of Qrow and Raven, who both manage to dodge. When the magic hit Penny, on the other hand, it completely burned out, leaving her unscathed. I yell to Zxchoal, "Penny's been reinforced with polerstar! We can't use magic against her!"
He yells back, "Yeah, I see that!"
Me and Zxchoal press our backs against each other, the number of foes increasing by the second. I knew that if we were to win, then I needed to start fighting. But if I fought against any of my old companions, then I would only make the hole in our relationships even wider. Either way, it was a lose-lose situation.
In wars, there were always two sides: Friends and foes. During that fight, there was still two sides. The betrayers, and the betrayed. I couldn't tell who fell in what category at the time. Even now I still can't.
Zxchoal says to me, "With this number of hunters, the both of us aren't going to get to the relic! I'm going to clear the way for you, and you go destroy-"
"No, Weiss was planning this attack on us tonight! She must have something that'll take us down!" One of the robotic soldiers interrupts me with a shot from it's gun. I roll to my left and blast it with an electric dust crystal. It explodes all too easily, and I continue with my point, "It's too risky for us to separate!"
"Hmmm…. Yeah, you're right. I bet it's probably that robot doll with the bad haircut." As he says that, he sends another wave of magic towards Raven and Qrow, forcing them to dodge as it obliterates the wall behind them.
I knew that I needed to tap into Joker's magic powers to push them back as Zxchoal was doing, but I didn't want to lose control over myself and depict myself as a monster to everyone here. I refused to. So instead, I decide to do a team attack with Zxchoal, though I felt like throwing up at the thought.
I yell to Zxchoal, "Plan 'Mirror!'" He simply nodded to me, signaling that he was ready. I hold both of my gauntlets in front of my chest and use all the energy from the electric dust crystals within the gauntlets to shoot at Zxchoal. He uses his magic to absorb the electricity, amplify it, and then release it. The power of the lightning was so great that it felt like he just created a hurricane. Nobody managed to get out of the attack unscathed this time. Most of the robotic robots were destroyed, and my old teammates were severely hurt. Even Qrow and Raven were struck by the attack.
I was filled with regret ever since that day. The scars that I left on my teammates would never quite fully heal, and their screams of pain would haunt me in my dreams.
Qrow and Raven were the first ones to get back up. They attacked Zxchoal together, their swings so powerful that the shockwaves broke parts of the building.
However, it was a setup to get Zxchoal away from me. A pair of jets suddenly came out of Penny's back, and she zoomed towards me within the blink of an eye. I barely had enough time to brace myself before she rams my body.
When she collides into me, I feel a good chunk of my aura get blown away. It was a bit painful as well. Even so, I force my feet to stay on the ground and push against Penny. Her ram attack quickly becomes a battle of sheer strength and will. Our faces were mere inches from each other, allowing me to see all the details of her face. If I didn't know that she was a robot, I would've thought she was a person.
"I won't let you win Ralph!" Her thrusters suddenly push harder, and my feet scoot back a bit. For a moment, I was unsure of who was going to be the victor of this battle.
If I had made a few different choices back then, maybe things would have gone better. But in the end, it was my fault that my team broke apart. That truth is one of the most painful things I have to bear.
I close my eyes for a few moments, the memories of the past year flooding through my brain. Those days seemed like a miracle to exist, because now….
There was nothing but destruction.
The world…. My world…. Grew bleaker that night. It seemed as if there was no hope in the world. I knew, however, that there was hope in my life, even if there was none then. If I had stopped fighting for even a second, then that light would die forever. I couldn't let that happen, no matter what happened to me.
My eyes snap back open. I was filled with determination to see the war through until the end. I couldn't lose here! "PENNYYYYYYYY!" I take a step forward, my body pushing her back.
She looked shocked, and she tried pushing me back once more. I wasn't going to let that happen again. No matter what, I was going to do what I came here to do.
Even if I had to rip her apart limb from limb.
As the battle waged on throughout the night, I felt something in the air. Change. A change from what, I didn't exactly know. All I knew was that even if the war was finally over and humanity was the side left standing, things would never be the way it used to be….
