When Rogue saw Ruby trapped by the EnTropy, he was at a loss. He tried standing, moving forward, but the injury to his leg caused him to stumble and fall.
Why? Why is this happening again?!Someone is in trouble and I can't do a damn thing about it!
He looked at Ruby, trapped and crying.
DAMN IT! MOVE! MOVE! MOVE! MOVE! MOVE! MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!
He attempted once more to stand, but it was hopeless, he was powerless to do anything. He could only look on as the EnTropy examined Ruby like a curious object. Ruby's eye's went wide in fear, as the EnTropy brought down its massive claws. His emotions ran wild with anger and despair.
NO! DAMN IT! MOVE!
Time slowed down as Rogue felt a warm, familiar sensation in his chest and a voice resound in his head.
Calm yourself!
...Aegis?
Who else?
How? When?
I'll Explain later. Right now we have a bigger problem to deal with!
You're right.
Rogue calmed his mind and spirit, and everything seemed to slow to a crawl.
Soul Sync!
Jaune wasn't the smartest guy around, and he would be the first to admit that, but even he could put two and two together. Rogue was the Hero of Falconreach, that fictional character that wasn't supposed to exist was actually a person. With that in mind he watched as Rogue approached the dark creature alongside the others.
Despite the gravity of the situation, Jaune found himself growing excited.
A Hero, a REAL Hero, just like Ash Dragonblade described. Someone who could inspire hope when needed and had faced monsters that made the Grimm seem like kittens. He watched as Rogue traced his fingers in the air and was stunned as a one-sided blade formed from the line of energy.
As the creature howled and sent all of its tendrils directly towards Rogue as he grabbed the blade and smirked.
Jaune was excited. It was just like the book. A great hero facing a terrifying creature of darkness. Jaune expected a great battle to break out. An Epic battle. One that would be written down in history as one of the greatest battle known to man.
That's what Jaune expected, but that was not what he got.
As the tendrils neared Rogue he let his arm drop as he took a step forward, letting his sword arm swing backwards. And as they were within a hairs breadth of his body, he shot forward.
A bullet. That's the only way he could describe it. Jaune had seen fast before, hell Ruby's speed was unbelievable, but Rogue's was something else.
From halfway across the courtyard he was now behind the beast in less than a second, with the only evidence of his movement being a single, thin line of blue and grey. The beast was confused, and howled in pain as its tendrils fell into hundreds of tiny, thinly cut pieces.
Jaune watched as the beast turned to him in rage, but what had Jaune's attention was where he stood. The beast and Rogue stood on an intricate circle, that reminded Jaune of the glyphs Weiss used.
Rogue had his back turned to the beast as it brought down its claws to strike him, and Jaune was going to cry out to warn him. Then the circle began to glow, and Rogue disappeared.
Everyone was confused, including the beast it seemed. Then the beast cried as it was cut from out of nowhere. Then it was cut again, and again, and again, and again, with such speed and ferocity that it was unable to do anything as it was slowly whittled down and fell to its knees.
Then as the circle faded, Rogue reappeared.
He stood directly in front of the beast, his hands holding what looked like blue orbs of light. The beast looked up, sensing his enemy, and lunged towards him.
Rogue smirked and held out his hands towards the beast and released a bright, powerful stream of blinding light, forcing Jaune and everyone else to cover their eyes.
The light faded, and Jaune opened his eyes.
The beast was gone.
Defeated.
All in forty-five seconds.
It wasn't a battle.
Not an epic tale of a powerful monster being slain by a single knight.
It was the story of an ant being crushed by a boot.
That was odd.
Rogue grunted in response as he stared up into the sky.
During their assault against the EnTropy something felt wrong. It was like It's soul was in turmoil, as if it were struggling against invisible chains. They had tried to find an opening, to better find and deal with the problem, but the man was to unstable, to violent, intensifying his soul's hate and regret. Seeing no other option, they decided to knock him unconscious so they could deal with the problem better.
However, as they released their final attack, something strange happened.
When the beam of light hit the EnTropy, the beasts soul cried. It was a horrifying, wretched sound that was laced with saddness. Rogue's and Aegis resolve grew stronger, they had to save this man. They put as much energy as they could muster into the attack, but as it reached its apex, the crying stopped, and as the beam faded, they knew why.
The beast was gone.
Rogue and Aegis grew grim. Their blast didn't destroy it, they were certain of that. So either the EnTropy had some ability that allowed it to escape, or it had help from an outside source.
What do you think happened?
Who knows? Right now there's nothing we can do about- hm? What's that?
Rogue looked off into the distance, to a silhouette in the sky. It was faint, but quickly becoming clearer with every passing second. It took him a while to realise that it was an airship, and it wasn't alone. There were dozens of them.
I think Ozzy finally caught up.
Who's Ozzy?
I'll tell you later, right now I think it's best we-
Rogue stopped communicating as one of the airships was destroyed by a massive winged creature of shadow.
WHAT'S GOING ON?!
Ozpin cursed the inadequacy of Vale's police department.
It had taken them half-an-hour to discover that he had been placed in the cell of the mysterious Rogue, and another fifteen before they were able to set off their airships. By now Rogue would already be at Beacon and may have already found miss Long, and possibly already encountered GoodWitch, given the fact that Glynda didn't respond to his message.
'How much longer?' He asked the pilot, worried for his students and colleague.
'We're crossing the Emerald Forest now sir. We should be at Beacon in twenty minutes.'
'Can this thing go any faster?'
'No Sir, we're already going at max speed.'
Ozpin sat back down in his seat and resigned himself to having to wait. Thoughts ran through his mind at the events that took place in the cell room. Or his lack of knowledge thereof.
After Rogue had spoken, Ozpin blacked out. Next thing he knew, Rogue was standing on the other side of the bars with a sly grin as he turned on his heel and walked out the cell room.
Ozpin expected to hear frenzied shouting. But he got nothing. When he was finally discovered in the cells, the police were stunned and told Ozpin that whatever Rogue did made him appear in the exact likeness of himself. Whatever he had done, Ozpin knew he had vastly underestimated the man, a mistake he wouldn't make again.
However, this had caused another, more confusing thought to run through his mind. Why would someone like that be working for Roman? What's more, why would a HUMAN like that wan't to work with the White Fang? And Why hadn't he escaped from his cell sooner? He had plenty of chances to, so why now?
Ozpin began to grow frustrated, none of Rogue's actions made sense, it was as if he was missing a missing puzzle piece that could put everything together. A lot of pieces. In fact, Ozpin was quite certain that he only held one or two pieces in this thousand piece puzzle.
He got off his seat and returned to the pilot. 'How much longer?'
'About ten minutes sir. Look you can see Beacon in the distance.'
Ozpin looked out the window. The pilot was right. Beacon was beginning to come into view. Ozpin looked out to see if he could make out anything specific, but nothing-
A brilliant beam of blue light shot into the sky and quickly faded. From what Ozpin could tell, it was pure aura. There was no one in Beacon that was capable of something like that. So Ozpin could only draw one conclusion.
Rogue.
'We need to get there faster. I don't care what you have to do. We need to get people over there. Now.'
The pilot gave Ozpin an odd look and opened his mouth to remind him that they were going at max speed, when an alarm rang through the ship.
'What's going on?' Ozpin asked.
'Grimm alert! A Nevermore is approaching! Wait...a dozen...no...twenty?! Sir What's going on?'
Ozpin went wide eyed. Nevermore's traditionally never worked in packs, and much less came this close to Beacon. Something was very, very wrong. 'Are these ships equipped with weapons?'
Whatever the pilot said was cut off by the sound of an explosion to their right. Ozpin looked out the window. One of the Nevermore's had charged into the airship, destroying it as well as itself, and another was approaching them.
'We need to evacuate. NOW!' Ozpin told the pilot.
The pilot's face was pale. 'Sir there's not enough-'
The screech of the Nevermore interrupted them and forced both men to look outside. The Nevermore had stopped it's charge, in fact, all of them did. It's like they were frozen in place.
'Inform everyone to keep moving.' Ozpin didn't understand what was happening, but he knew it was a chance. The pilot nodded and informed the other airships to continue their advance.
'Sir. What is that?'
Ozpin looked at what the pilot was referring to. A glyph, a massive circular glyph, was hovering just above the trees of the forest.
'It's most likely what's keeping the Nevermore's at bay.' Ozpin reasoned, noting that all the Nevermore's were within the radius of the glyph. 'Whatever the case, we can use this. So just keep moving towards Beacon.'
The pilot nodded and continued to direct the ship. But Ozpin couldn't help but wonder.
What's going on?
Rogue took in a deep breath as he raised his hand into the air, to finish his spell. He had already formed the magic circle over the radius of the forest. He had Aegis to direct the attack, ensuring that the airships wouldn't be harmed.
You know that you're going to collapse after this.
Yup. Have you got the targets down?
Yup
Rogue gave a small grin as he brought his hand down.
'BANISHMENT!'
Yang looked up to the giant glyph that formed in the sky, right above where the airships and Nevermore's lay.
As soon as Rogue let his hand drop, hundred of spears of pure energy shot down like rain. As if guided by unseen hands, the spears worked around the moving ships, avoiding them completely, and struck each and every Nevermore. Once the last spear had hit its target, the glyph faded.
Nothing seemed to happen at first, but as Yang watched, the Nevermore's began to fade away, till not a single trace remained.
Yang was impressed but also worried. Though he had saved Ruby's life, Rogue wasn't exactly a friend, and he was still technically a criminal, and it was their duty as Huntresses (in training) to fight Grimm and bring criminals to justice. Only issue was, that if Rogue didn't wan't to be taken, he wouldn't be.
Yang looked back to the strange and mysterious man, and found herself asking the same question that everyone else was thinking.
Who exactly is this guy?
Then Rogue collapsed.
When Ozpin got off the airship and once again set foot on academy grounds he was dumbfounded. The courtyard was a complete wreck, half of the academy's rooftop was destroyed, and the greenery was all withered and dead.
What happened here?
He then looked over to his students, who had gathered nearby and were currently encircled around something. He recognised them immediately and quickly made his way over.
Weiss, hearing the sound, looked behind and greeted the Headmaster. 'Headmaster Ozpin!' She exclaimed.
At this, everyone from RWBY (+Jaune and Pyyrha) focused on the headmaster, giving Ozpin a view of what they were surrounding. Ozpins expression was a mixture of both suspicion and surprise.
Rogue was lying unconscious on the ground. He wasn't visibly injured, but Ozpin could tell by the various rips in his clothing that he had recently been engaged in a fight. Ozpin raised a brow at his students. He would be impressed that they had managed to take down the criminal if it didn't seem so unlikely, then again, there was always the possibility. After all, Miss Rose did have the tendency to surprise him.
'I take it this was your work?' Ozpin questioned none of them in particular. The students looked at each other, then at the unconscious Rogue, then at Ruby, waiting for her to answer.
'ummm...not exactly' Ruby started. Ozpin listened as Ruby explained the situation from the beginning from when she encountered Rogue as Ozpin, to pointing a gun at her head, to their battle with Rogue. Opzin widened as she mentioned how Rogue transformed Magnhild into some sort of bird and destroyed Ruby's spears of ice, and questioned her on it, but Ruby was unable to tell him anything.
'And the roof?' He questioned, looking in the direction of the destroyed structure and grimacing at the thought of how long it would take to repair.
'Yeah...about that.' Ruby explained how there was an explosion and two people came out of the smoke. Ozpin listened intently as Ruby described Rogue's actions during the event. How he took the injured one and handed him over to Blake, before facing the second figure that appeared out of the smoke. How he fought the mysterious stranger and both were on equal footing.
Ruby shuddered as she explained how the man transformed into some grotesque beast which Ozpin found unbelievable, and he raised his brow as she described how Jaune charged into the fray and protected the man from a potentially deadly blow. He looked at Jaune with a new-found respect but quickly returned to Ruby's story, and how they had decided to assist Rogue in his battle.
At this, Ruby fell silent and seemed to tremble in fear causing Ozpin to wonder what happened. Yang placed a comforting hand on her sister's shoulder and took over. Explaining how it didn't go as planned and Ruby almost lost her life.
'...but Rogue saved her.' She said, causing Ozpin to go wide-eyed and grow even more confused then he was now, though he didn't show it.
'How?'
Yang didn't know how to explain it, how could she? It was far to unbelievable. Then Jaune spoke up. 'He turned blue.'
Everyone looked at Jaune like he was an idiot but Jaune quickly explained. 'Well, he was all blue right. So he saved Ruby by going blue.'
Ozpin cleared his throat and wondered if he really should be looking at Jaune in that new light. 'Would you care to explain?'
Jaune gave a sheepish grin but did as Ozpin asked. Unlike Ruby or Yang, Jaune's explanation was a little more vague and a lot more animated.
From what Ozpin could decipher, Rogue seemed to undergo some sort of transformation that increased all of his abilities a hundred fold, and with the use of said abilities he was able to defeat the monster. Jaune description of a beam of light made Ozpin recognise that the beam he saw did, in fact, originate from Rogue. Ozpin went wide eyed as Jaune revealed that the one responsible for the creation of the glyphs and destruction of the Nevermore's was, in fact, Rogue.
Relaying all the information in his head, Ozpin still couldn't make any sense of Rogue's actions. He looked behind him, the rest of the airships had docked and the police were finally catching up to where he was.
'That certainly is an interesting account.' He said. 'And I will be sure to review the footage of it. However, the fact remains that that man is still, in effect, an escaped convict. So he must be brought back to the station immediately.'
The students seemed reluctant and Ozpin could understand. This man had just saved one of their friends, and potentially, all of their lives. However, they said nothing. The Headmaster was right, and technically there was nothing they could do about it.
As the cops finally arrived they made their way over to the unconscious Rogue, and were about to pick him up to take him away.
A blast of intense heat by a certain dragon stopped their advance.
Draco stood in front of Rogue's body, his mouth preparing another flame. Much hotter, and much, much more deadly.
Everyone looked at the little creature in shock. Greenie was never this violent around people before, so why now?
'I wouldn't suggest that course of action. Draco tend's to get overprotective at times.'
A brilliant flash of light blinded everyone temporarily, and as it faded they all stood there shocked.
Standing above Rogue, hovering over him, were two beings unlike anything they had seen before. Their bodies were like still lightning, pure energy, pure aura.
The cops jumped back in fear and the students were too shocked to move. The only one who wasn't terrified was Ozpin, who looked at them curiously.
The more masculine one moved towards Ozpin. 'I take it you're the man in charge of this facility. My name is Aegis, my friend over here is Pandora.' Aegis said while motioning towards Pandora, who gave a slight bow. 'We apologise for any reckless actions that our friend over here has been involved in, but could you be so kind as to tell me what he has been caught up in?'
Ozpin raised a brow, Rogue certainly was a mysterious man with mysterious friends, and these friends were certainly neither human nor Grimm. For now they seemed rather placid and not hostile, and Ozpin did have a variety of questions to ask of them but he believed that could wait. This may be a chance to understand more of the puzzle he had yet to solve.
Ozpin explained everything about Rogue's activities with the White Fang, then when Aegis asked what the White Fang was, Ozpin elaborated on that too.
When Ozpin finished relaying his tale he waited for Aegis' reaction.
'That IDIOT!'
That wasn't the exact reaction that Ozpin was expecting, but it certainly was more interesting.
Aegis muttered something under his breath. 'I apologise for my friends actions, he is not the best judge of character and is incredibly naive and gullible at times. He is also quite hot-headed when he believes that groups are being persecuted by a majority and will act without thinking.'
He looked back up at Ozpin. 'If at all possible. I would like to make reparations for the stolen dust. From my understanding, it is a product correct? Then it should be no matter to simply pay for the dust.'
Ozpin heard someone scoff and looked in the direction of Weiss Schnee. 'I'm all for second chances, but do you seriously think you can just buy your way out of this. Besides, I doubt you could even afford to pay for all of it anyway.'
Aegis turned to her. 'And who may you be?'
Weiss looked indignant. 'I'm Weiss Schnee. The daughter of the man who owns the corporation your friend stole from.'
Aegis looked thoughtful for a second. 'I see. Well then Miss Schnee, how much does my friend owe your company?'
'300,000,000,000 Lien' She stated, earning dumbfounded looks and whistles from everyone present. That was indeed a lot of money.
'I see...Tell me, as the daughter of a high ranking business man I would assume that you have a good idea on the exchange rates and currencies of this world?'
Weiss nodded in response. Where is he going with this?
'Now then. How valuable is gold?'
Weiss thought for a moment. 'About one kilogram of gold is worth 10,000 Lien.'
'I see.' Aegis looked at Ozpin. 'You wouldn't happen, by chance, to have Rogue's belt would you?'
Ozpin thought for a moment. 'Indeed we do. I brought it with us as...insurance...in case things escalated.'
'May I have it?'
Ozpin hesitated but ultimately asked one of the cops to fetch it and handed it over to Aegis when the cop returned. Aegis fiddled with the belt for a second before coming upon a leather bag, he took it and opened it and held it upside down.
Everyone was astonished as gold coins began to fall out of the pouch like a cascading waterfall, and pretty soon a large mound of gold coins lay at Aegis's feet.
'There are approximately 300,000,000,000 gold coins there. Each coin weighs a kilo. Your father shall receive his moneys worth and then some.'
Weiss jaw dropped and she nodded dumbly in response. Aegis returned to Ozpin. 'Right now my friend needs a place to rest. If possible, can we use your facilities?'
Ozpin stroked his chin and gave a sly grin. 'Actually I have a proposition.
Drakath stood in front of the master his head bowed in reverence.
'Master, it has been accomplished. The thrall has managed to injure that despicable Rogue with the blade you gave me. I was able to pull him out of the battle before he could be released. And we have found that the Nightmarnomicon does indeed give us control over the creatures of this world.'
'Very good Drakath.' the master replied. 'We are one more step to our goal.'
Drakath gave an evil grin. 'Yes master. We are.'
The students of Beacon Academy gathered in the assembly hall at the command of the headmaster. Ozpin stood on the stage with coffee in hand and a stoic expression.
'Student's as you all know. Three weeks ago there was an attack waged outside our front door and many of us were powerless to stop it. As such I have devised a new class that aims to improve both your combat abilities and ability to work as a team. As such, I would like to introduce to you your newest Professor.'
The students went wide-eyed as a certain man appeared on stage and took the mic. A certain man who was both incredibly pissed at Aegis for bringing him into this position and Draco for letting Aegis do it.
'Call me Rogue.'
I hate school...