AN: Well guys, just one more chapter after this one! Thank you guys so much for your positive feedback on the previous chapter, I was a little torn on that one, and to be honest I'm a little torn on this one too. But you can't deny 'dat ending' to this one :)
*The Lioness stuck her head out to peak into the hallway. The sirens were still going, but she didn't see anyone passing by. Ozpin and his friends had the guards and Jasper and Collus busy.
The Lioness took a second to think about how grateful she was that Ozpin pretended he didn't know her in front of Roman when she agreed to help him.
A plasma blast flew past the Lioness' head and exploded against the wall right by the door. The Lioness' heart blew and she leaped back, landing on all fours like a cat. A deep growl emanated from her throat. She heard laughter.
Roman Torchwick's laughter.
"I know you're in there furball. You can't hide from me," he said.
"Why are you attacking me? I thought you were helping us," the Lioness shouted in reply.
"After what happened today with you helping us with the break-in, my father would kill you if he survives. Come with me though, and I'll sell you to a good owner," Roman said. He finally stepped into the Lioness' view in front of her with a grin that showed off his white teeth. He leaned on his cane as if he was posing.
Roman attempted to strike the Lioness upside the head with his cane, but the Lioness leaped backwards and presented two long daggers from her belt. One of the daggers had its tip broken off.
"I don't 'belong' to anyone," she said.
"Alright. The hard way it is then," Roman said with a regretful shrug. The Lioness lashed out first.**
*Ozpin's red blade stabbed empty air as Jasper moved aside away from the sword's path. Glynda took her turn to take on Jasper, swinging Beacon to take off Jasper's head, but Jasper ducked and rolled away. He stood straight up and took in all the scattered guns lying around him. Motioning his hands up, the guns drifted up, their barrels aimed at Ozpin and Glynda.
Oz looked at Glynda and nodded.
When all the guns went off in unison, Ozpin's double-sword and Beacon turned into overwhelming blurs of red, blue, and silver, deflecting bullets in all directions. One grazed Jasper's shoulder. Jasper grunted, but kept his telekinetic hold on the guns. When they all ran out of ammo, He dropped the guns to the floor and telekinetically called two scarlet swords into his hands. With a feral grin, he launched himself off his feet towards Ozpin with one of the blades aimed to slice Oz's head from the top down. Oz bent over a bit, and felt Glynda land her feet on his back and then leap up to catch Jasper. Beacon clashed with Jasper's second sword several times, and for a few seconds, Jasper and Glynda fought in the air, using their own power to keep themselves hovering.
"You can't win Jasper, but you can change your mind," Glynda pleaded. Jasper twirled his swords so that the blades faced downwards and he slid them into empty sheaths clipped to his belt, and he grabbed Glynda's shoulders and bashed his head against Glynda's.
Glynda cried out in pain and fell down onto her back. Ozpin wasted no time in running after Jasper and attempting to cut his torso with his double-sword. Jasper unsheathed one of his swords and parried Oz's attacks.
"It's not your turn to die yet Ozpin. Your girl goes first," he mocked.
"Not happening. It's over Jasper," Ozpin replied.
"See what was destroyed? We could've been good friends," Jasper pointed out. He bashed his foot against Oz's knee. Ozpin groaned and stumbled. Jasper attempted a swing at Oz's neck. Glynda used Beacon to block the swing from cutting off her friend's head.
"Enough of this," Jasper declared. He threw his hands out and Ozpin and Glynda were tossed like dolls away from him. Ozpin felt his head collide with the wall and he slumped to the floor. Scarlet lights danced around his vision and he felt something wet on the back of his head.
"Come on, get up," Glynda urged, grabbing his arm to help him up. Ozpin gazed up at her.
I'm so sorry Glynda. I'm so so sorry.
"I have an idea, but we need to keep fighting okay?" Glynda pleaded. Ozpin clasped Glynda's waiting hand and allowed her to help him back onto his feet. Then Glynda took the opportunity to steal a short kiss on his lips.
"You'll know what to do when the time is right," she said. Oz barely heard her, given what she just did.
"Oh will you please pay attention? It was just a kiss," Glynda insisted. Oz shook himself out of his daze.
"Right, let's do this."**
*The Lioness stabbed one dagger forward over Roman's cane so that its tip was just several inches away from his neck. She stabbed the other dagger forward, the broken one, in an attempt to get through the other side of his neck. Failing to stab flesh, she pulled back and shut her eyes tight.
"What the—?" Roman stuttered. The Lioness opened her eyes. A copy of her stood on both sides of her, with daggers of their own, except all their daggers were broken at the tip. Their eyes reflected the weight of the pain the Lioness felt every single day.
"Those can't be real," Roman said.
"Oh they are," the Lioness turned to her clones, "get him."
The two Lioness clones ran at Roman with their shattered daggers, attempting to slice skin with the jagged and broken sides. Roman desperately parried their attacks with his cane and managed to knock a dagger from one of the clones.
The clone cried out in agony as if he had maimed her instead and she threw her other dagger. It just barely missed Roman as it spun past his neck and sank itself into the wall behind him by the door. Roman seized the opportunity to smash the bottom of his cane up the clone's chin, shattering her jawbone.
Both the real Lioness and her last clone came at Roman and the three of them transitioned into a dance together.
Parry, swing, parry, swing.
Roman finally had an opening and got the top of his cane around the clone's neck and pulled her forward with one hand. The clone's neck snapped and her body fell limp to the floor.
"You're going to need more backup," Roman pointed out, kicking the dead clone in its side as the body faded away.**
*Oobleck and Peter dragged Collus' body along the floor as they tried to find a way out since all the exits were sealed. They could find the controls to open the doors back up, but a small group of Faunus and humans were chasing after them armed with swords and rifles. That made things a bit more complicated.
Oobleck made sure to fire off a few rounds of his long gun at the group coming after them.
"There has to be something!" Oobleck yelled.
"Maybe if we're lucky, the next door I kick open will have something to get out of here!" Peter replied. He was dragging Collus around by holding onto his legs while Oobleck provided cover fire. Several gunshots soared over Peter's head and scored the wall next to him. He turned to the next door and kicked it open. One of the hinges on the door snapped.
"Excellent strength," Oobleck said.
"It comes from chopping cabbages all day," Peter replied. Oobleck questioned the validity of that claim for several seconds before realizing that the Faunus and men were catching up. Oobleck and Peter looked inside the room and spotted lockers lined up against the wall on the other side of the room. Guns and swords were hung and displayed everywhere else.
"An armory," Oobleck realized aloud.
"And our way out," Peter commented.
"What do you mean?" Oobleck asked.
"These lockers are rocket-propelled. Get in," Peter said motioning to one of them.
"We fly in something that isn't even meant for people to fly in," Oobleck said.
"That's right. Now hurry!" Peter urged. Oobleck groaned and helped Peter shove Collus into one of the lockers, then proceeded to get in themselves. Oobleck was thin, so it wasn't a problem, but Peter was a bigger young man. He reached out and punched in a six-digit code in the controls that would take them to Vale.
"In here!" A Faunus yelled. The locker door sealed itself shut and Oobleck felt his heart drop down his throat as the locker rocketed up and crashed through the roof of the facility.**
*"You know, I hate my father but I hate you more. I guess I get my carelessness for other people from him," Roman said as he and the Lioness circled each other in the control room.
"Why do you hate me Roman? You were different. You helped me out when I asked for it," the Lioness pointed out.
"And that was my problem," Roman said, aiming the bottom of the cane at the Lioness, "I have no obligation to help you animals."
Roman fired off another round of plasma at the Lioness. The Lioness leaped over the blast as it exploded on the spot where she had just been standing. She fell on all fours and ran at Roman, tackling him down. With a pained grunt, Roman hit his head on the floor and his hat fell off. The Lioness raised her hand to tear across Roman's throat.
Roman screamed when long nails cut flesh. Before the Lioness could use her other hand to cut him, Roman reached up and grabbed her wrist and cried out from the fiery pain in his throat as he pulled her off of him and onto the floor right next to him.
Roman scrambled to his feet, clutching the deep cuts, watching the blood seep from between his fingers. The Lioness raised her legs up in the air and leaped up to land on her feet. Roman shot at the Lioness several times, but she managed to dodge all of the blasts as she ran, leaped, and connected her foot with Roman's chest hard enough to send him flying out of the control room. With the daggers back in her hands, she followed him out the door.
Roman was already running away, firing his cane at a window ahead of them. Plasma blasts exploded against the window and shattered the glass. Realizing what Roman was going to do, the Lioness stopped in her tracks, flipped one of the daggers over so that she was clutching the blade and threw it like a boomerang at Roman.
Roman used his cane to bat the dagger away as he ran and threw himself out the window. When the Lioness got to the window and looked out, she saw a truck speeding away from the clearing and into the thick of the forest. The orange hair of the driver gave Roman away.**
*Jasper's leg brushed over Ozpin's head as Oz ducked to avoid a kick. Pressing one of the buttons on the hilt, one of the blades on Ozpin's sword slid back in.
"Bad idea," Jasper teased. He pressed his attacks, turning his scarlet swords into almost a blur that Oz had a hard time following.
Parry, swing, parry, dodge, kick, parry, dodge.
Any more of this and Ozpin felt he was going to sink into a defeated exhaustion. He could hear Glynda grunting and breathing heavily as she too continued to block Jasper's attacks.
This was exactly what Glynda had been training for.
Then he noticed something different about Glynda. She appeared to be trying to concentrate. Hard. Even Jasper hesitated to continue his advances when Glynda purposely dropped her sword and shut her eyes.
Inside Glynda's head, she embraced her Aura, allowing herself to drown in it until she couldn't drown any deeper. The nightmares that kept her awake at night faded away and the grief for her sister's death and the deaths of her parents winked out. There was nothing left but her and her Aura, her precious precious Aura that Ozpin helped her hone. Now it was time to put that power she had inside her into effect…
Ozpin watched a white light start to emanate from Glynda's entire body. She opened her eyes and grinned.
She was summoning the full extent of her Aura. Ozpin shut his eyes himself while Jasper demanded to know what was going on.
There's nothing but me and my Aura, there's nothing but me and my Aura.
Ozpin felt a blade pierce his throat and its tip protruded out from his back. He didn't feel any pain. He opened his eyes and looked down at the scarlet blade held by Jasper. Oz took hold of the blade and pulled it out of him. Jasper staggered backwards with an expression of terror.
"How—?" He stuttered.
"Come at us. We're not going to fight back," Ozpin said, gesturing to himself and Glynda. The two of them stood close together, embraced in the powerful light of their Aura. Driven by the obsession to kill, Jasper came at them with a deep roar and slashed his swords across Ozpin's torso, then Glynda's, but nothing happened. No marks or cuts. The blades didn't even rip through their shirts. Jasper tried several more times to slice them with his swords by cutting across legs, necks, and stomachs. Nothing. No damage at all.
Desperate to hurt them, Jasper dropped his swords and invaded Oz and Glynda with his fists. Oz held himself back as he watched Jasper pummel Glynda's face over and over again, but Glynda barely flinched from the attacks. She kept her footing and allowed Jasper to rain the blows.
"What is this?" Jasper screamed. He stepped back and looked between Glynda and Ozpin.
"Why can't I hurt you?"
"Salutations!" A voice shouted behind Jasper. Jasper whirled around to face a young girl with with short curly orange hair, and she wore a pink bow on the back of her head. She appeared to look like a normal girl except for the fact that she had a glowing green collar around her neck and her eyes glowed scarlet.
"What is this?" Jasper demanded. The girl raised her arm and her wrist opened up to reveal a missile launcher inside. She fired a missile. Jasper's eyes shot up wide in surprise, and he rolled out of the way of the missile.
"My name is Penny, it's a pleasure to meet you," the girl said.
"What is this actually?" Glynda asked.
Oz grinned. "Our backup."
The girl Penny moved so that she stood in front of Jasper and that Collus' machine was right behind Jasper.
Glynda raised her hands and unleashed a blast of purple energy, which absorbed Jasper and carried him onto the circle platform.
"Activate the dome Ozpin," a voice said behind Ozpin. Penny stepped onto the platform with Jasper.
"Wait, what are you doing?" Ozpin asked, approaching the control panel.
"Activate the dome," the voice ordered again. With a weary sigh, Oz pressed the button and the glass dome swallowed up Jasper and Penny.
"Jasper is very powerful Oz, you must trust me on this," James Ironwood said behind him standing on the boardwalk overlooking the room.
"What's going on? What are you doing?" Jasper asked inside the dome. Fear and rage distorted his face.
"Now rework the controls so that—so that Jasper's Aura is transmitted to Penny," James commanded.
Ozpin looked down at the camera screen in the control panel that analyzed Penny and Jasper. Finding the correct options on another screen, he set it so that Jasper's Aura would be transmitted to the other person within the dome. Penny.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Glynda asked beside him. Oz shut his eyes. He couldn't look at Jasper. He just couldn't. He could hear Jasper starting to bang on the glass to break out.
"Do it. Do it now," James urged.
Ozpin looked at Jasper one last time. He was staring at him with pleading eyes, but he knew that it was a tactic to gain remorse, then he would kill Oz and his friends the second he turns his back. Jasper had killed Theodora, and he knew that Jasper would have no problem killing Glynda and anyone else that he cared about. There was no stopping him without killing him.
"You brought this on yourself," Ozpin finally said, and with that, he flipped the switch that would transmit Jasper's Aura over to Penny.
"I'm combat re—," Penny was interrupted when the inside of the dome lit up, and Jasper was brought to his knees. Trails of white spiraled out of his eyes, his ears, his nose, and his mouth. He screamed to the point of sounding like a tortured bird.
Finally, the light went out and Jasper fell onto his side, his eyes rolled back and unblinking.
Ozpin deactivated the dome and Penny stepped out, marveling at her hands as if they were the most beautiful things she had ever seen.**
*James watched Penny walk up the ramp into his ship.
"So where's Darcy?" Ozpin asked.
"Inside Penny. I implanted her memories and personality into the body. That's Project Penny you were seeing," James explained.
"So. She has Jasper's Aura now," Ozpin said. A hint of sadness flitted across his eyes as he remembered the Faunus' death.
"Yes. The first synthetic being capable of generating an Aura, just like I always planned. Collus created exactly what I needed in order to make it possible," he replied with pride in his tone.
"James, thank you for coming when I called," Ozpin said. He had called James right before he, Roman, and the Lioness set out on their plan to save Oz's friends and defeat Collus and Jasper.
"It's no problem, Ozpin. I'm glad to see things are working out for you."
Another thought came to Oz's mind. He had sent Glynda to meet up with Peter and Oobleck.
"Um, aren't you going to say goodbye to Glynda first?" Ozpin asked. James raised an eyebrow and shook his head.
"We already said our goodbyes a little over a month ago. We don't need to say goodbye again. Besides, I saw her kiss you," he replied. Oz's cheeks burned at hearing that confession but decided it was best to not say anything more about it.
Ozpin then wished James luck and watched him take off in his ship away from Vale once more.
Now it was time to tie up some loose ends.**
AN: One more chapter now. -Sniffles-