"I think…" Eight year old Jared Arc was thinking very hard about this. "Does my weapon really need a gun?"
His father put one knee to the ground and looked at his son solemnly in the eye. "I have never been prouder of you than this moment."
"Does that mean I don't have to go to school anymore since even me graduating from school won't have the same effect?"
"Heck to the freak no." The dad quickly told him before rising up. "In reality though, have a second mode of your main weapon usually makes it more versatile and considering hunters will always find themselves in any types of situations, the secondary functions of our weapons helps us." The father explained to the strangely smart eight year old.
The two were in a workshop of weapons where Jared's father was exposing his son to whatever type of weapon he wanted in the future.
The young boy frowned after hearing his dad's point. "I don't know dad, I'm not sure I like the idea of having a transforming weapon."
"What makes you say that?"
The boy shrugged his shoulders. "I kinda… don't want to follow what everyone does."
"It's what keeps everyone alive, kid."
"…" The young red eyed boy looked to the ground before noticing all the basic long range and short range weapons. "Hey papa?"
"Yes?" The father noticed the strange look of excitement in the boy's eye.
"Is there a weaponized suit of armor here?"
Blake and Sun had infiltrated a recruitment center for White Fang Members. It was dark and many were wearing Grimm Masks being worn by every individual inside the old abandoned warehouse. Blake had explained to Sun the reason why they did that though the blonde Faunus did not exactly like the implications.
A lieutenant of the Terrorist organization calmed everyone down before introducing the speaker of this event.
After he spoke out, three people stepped out of the shadows and into the stage. Blake and Sun tensed as they saw the two familiar figures of Roman Torchwick and his scary Marble Face(d) body guard with some girl that looked to style herself with clashing colors.
Torchwick made a show to introduce himself and to get him and the crowd on the same side as overthrowing the government. However, while he made his speech, the marble faced body guard stared in Blake and Sun's direction the moment he came out of the shadows.
"Blake, I have a bad feeling about this…" No matter how far he was from the body guard, the same dark chill ran up Sun's spine as if the absorber was chocking on his neck again. Sun instinctively kept a hand hovering over his weapon the entire time with increasing anxiety.
Eventually, Roman stopped one of his rants about introducing a 'stolen good' when his blank faced body guard started slowly gliding—his cloak was so long, no one could tell if he was really walking—in front of him while continuing looking towards Blake and Sun.
"Blake!" Sun harshly whispered as all eyes were starting to turn to them. (Thankfully the fact that his face was marble only made people turn to their general direction, not them specifically.)
"Get ready to bolt for the window!" She acted fast, and quickly aimed for a fuse box with her weapon. The lights went out, and while Faunus could see, it was a moment long enough for Blake and Sun to escape through a window.
Or at least that's what should have happened.
The moment the light died down, all eyes quickly turned towards the cloaked body guard. He was glowing like a crimson nightlight. On his marble mask was the symbol of a very vein showing, and X-ed out giant eye.
Just as quickly as Blake grabbed Sun, The Bodyguard flew at them like a horrific demon, which prompted all the newcomers to panic and cower. Ironic since they were planning to strike fear into the humans, but where now scattering like panicking ants in front of such a broken monster.
Blake and Sun ran as fast they both could on top of the roves. However, a strange humming sound came from above them as they titled their head to see Marble Mask flying right under the pale moonlight with giant, crimson bone wings.
If that wasn't enough, two Atlas Paladins busted through the wall and ran after them.
"OK, I think we're waaayyyy over our heads in this one!" Sun did his best effort not to try and panic, but in his defense the Marble Face nearly killed them all on his own one time, so he was kinda worried this time around without the guy who bailed them out.
Blake quickly took out her Scroll before she and Sun slid and ducked from Marble Face swooping at them like hawk. "Guys! We need help—now!"
"Now!? How about three seconds ago!? We're horribly out gunned! And that's an UNDERSTATEMENT!" Sun yelled from her side as they both took a hard turn towards a condemned area in down town.
"Roman Torchwick and his Absorber Bodyguard were there and their chasing us down! A demon from above and two giant killer robots are after us!" Sun's frantic yelled continued as Blake decided she was better off shooting at the flier from swooping in on them again.
"Where are you guys!?" Yang's voice finally came out of the scroll.
Unfortunately, Sun's only response was to yelp as a beam of red energy almost impaled him where his heart would have been. "Hurry!"
He didn't know at that time he screamed 'Hurry', Yang and Neptune were right just on the side when he screamed that and they both noticed the flying man and the two robots.
[Elsewhere.]
"I can't believe we've been traveling around for almost the whole day." Raimundo admitted as he wiped a little sweat off his forehead. "This place is a lot bigger than I thought it would be."
"Yeah, I got lost so many times here before the first day of Beacon…" Jaune admitted before he looked at his Scroll. "It is kind of late though. Maybe we shouldn't have gone and seen a movie."
"We would have made it in time for the Bull Heads if you didn't disappear for two hours." Resh told his friend.
"I told you guys, an old friend was in town and I didn't expect him to show up when he did." The blonde boy defended even though in the back of his mind, thoughts were racing harder than that time he went on the internet theory forms of his favorite comic book. "So what do we do… now?" His voice trailed off as his team and the monks all looked towards a Television Store that had breaking news of rampaging robots heading towards the freeway.
If that wasn't weird enough, the helicopter watching the strange sight zoomed in on two familiar people the robots seemingly were after.
"Hey! It's Blake and Sun! They're on TV!" Nora excitedly spoke out.
The camera showed them continuously, but suddenly it was found shaking. The camera man and reporter looked behind them and they all shrieked.
The camera turned to face a being cloaked in black with a shinning marble vase, his palm lit aflame with black fire before pouncing on the horrified screamers…. Static showed on all of the screens the moment some of them shrieked for life.
"Oh crap not that guy!" Jaune yelled before an explosion caught their attention and they all looked up to the sky to see a Helicopter crashing.
"I got this!" Raimundo suddenly jumped and flew into the air right after the helicopter. No one really wondered what his semblance was, but they were grateful that someone could try to help those falling people.
It was then Resh realized something. "Wait! That means the others aren't too far off if that's the same Helicopter! The Freta 06 Highway is the closest freeway here!" He then looked at the direction where the highway was located.
Omi pointed in the direction Resh was looking. "We must hurry, Post Office!" He spoke out before nimbly jumping as if gravity didn't exist.
"That's 'Post Haste', Omi!" Kimiko cried out before she, Clay, Pyrrha, Nora, and Ren went after him.
Jaune stared up after his friends. His combat was going leaps and bounds, but his mobility…
"Right, combat was one thing but our running only built up your stamina." The black haired boy looked around. "There's gotta be a way for us to catch up…"
"Can't you just time freeze?" Jaune pointed.
"And waste all my Aura getting there when we could be using it to help? Drat, I really didn't want to do this…" Resh looked behind him.
Jaune turned to his friend. "Do wha—where the heck did you go?" The teenage knight seemed surprised that his friend had vanished into thin air, which meant that he had paused time.
HONK!
The knight jumped before looking back to see Resh inside a very fancy looking red sports car.
"What are you waiting for, get in!" Resh cried out before Jaune could process what was going on. IN another instant, Jaune suddenly found himself inside the car with Resh buckling up his seat belt.
"Where the heck did you get this!?" Jaune cried out to his friend to find that he also had his seat belt strapped on without him knowing.
"STOP! THIEF! HE STOLE MY CAR!" A male voice rang from behind the two boys.
"Resh!?" Jaune cried.
"Seat belt now!" That was the only warning the boy had before he moved the stick shift into third gear and stomped on the accelerator.
Jaune felt himself get pushed back into his seat as the vehicle went forward.
"I told you I didn't like this idea! … And it looks like neither are you…" Resh screamed over the roar of the engine, though it did little to protect Jaune's fragile stomach.
"Was it really a good idea to run towards the freeway where there are civilians everywhere!?" Sun cried out as he and Blake jumped on speeding cars to avoid the rampaging mechs.
"I don't see their Absorber anymore." Blake looked around in the night sky, but saw no sign of the flier from a few minutes ago.
"Blake!" Sun spoke out as he pointed towards one of the Paladins tagged with personal spray paint with eastern like art work. It was moving faster than the normal white one and reached for the black haired girl.
That was until it was shot on the side by a bolt of blue plasma and almost lost its balance.
"Sun!"
Blake and Sun looked over to see Yang and Neptune coming their way from behind with Sun already holding a gun that was recently fired.
The Paladin that was hit did an impressive spin in such a way that it never lost its forward momentum. It faced Yang and Neptune then a shoulder cannon folded outward that was gathering energy.
Neptune's eyes widened behind his goggles. "Aww man that's so cool—!" He managed to say as Yang swerved to the left to avoid an actual laser beam.
The laser tore a large whole into the highway, leaving a huge gaping hole that some other cars were not fortunate to avoid.
"Aww crap!" Neptune cried as he saw the cars fall.
To their surprise, the debris falling with the cars suddenly caught all the falling cars and brought the fallen cars back into the highway. The hole on the concrete filled up crudely.
They quickly saw a young man in western cowboy attire, making a boulder fly with just his hands with a eastern themed girl and a small boy (with a freakishly large head) beside him.
"Friends of yours?!" Neptune asked to Yang.
Yang shrugged. It felt like these guys were on their side for saving the civilians.
Only that didn't quite last for long.
Roman was fuming at the new entrance. "Ugh! There are cockroaches crawling from everywhere!" He yelled as he saw the flying boulder with three more teens heading towards them.
A screen popped up beside him and he yelled to the person at the other end. "Your aim is terrible!"
"Hey! I don't see you hitting your targets! You have Gatling guns don't you!?" The voice on the other line screamed out. "Besides, I upgraded these babies to take on even dust powered attacks. They got nothing on us!"
Neptune prepared and aimed his weapon that turned into a large gun. It was now accumulating energy fast around the mouth. "Heads up!"
A much larger Plasma bolt fired towards the white Paladin. However, a shield popped up and reflected the blast off the distance.
"OK, let's try this!" Neptune cried out as his gun transformed into a triangle pointed trident and he jumped towards the bronze colored and styled Paladin.
The blue haired boy was fast, but the pilot was obviously no slouch as he quickly spun his body and slapped him away out of the highway.
"Neptune!" Sun, in order to save his friend, jumped off the car after him.
It was then on the floating rock, one of the smaller people there jumped off with amazing agility and suddenly bringing out water from thin air.
The small boy spotted the two falling hunters and quickly surrounded them both in a sphere of wat—
"GGGRRRRRRMMMMBBBB!?" For some reason, the blue haired hunter was wailing uncontrollably in the water sphere.
The small water user looked on with confusion as the descended but simply shrugged and then quickly turned the water downward faster and formed an ice slide for all three of them to land on the ground safely.
"DO NOT PUT ME NEAR WATER EVER AGAIN!" The blue haired boy screamed manically before noticing the small boy with monk like robes and a cartoonish and oversized head.
"You scream quite loudly." The small boy offered.
Sun got up and shook his head. He was surprised that even though he was submerged under an orb of water, he was completely dry, but he felt like he had just come out of a shower. "Uhh, don't mind my friend Neptune here. He just is err 'special' when it comes to water. Thanks for saving our life, little guy?" He didn't know the strange dude's name.
"I am Omi of the Xiaolin temple." He put his hands together to form a symbol of respect and bowed. He then looked up and spoke out. "I do believe we should get out on the way."
The two members of SSSN blinked. "Wait, get out on the way?" Neptune spoke out before he and Sun tilted their heads up. "OH MY DUST!?"
Sun and Neptune realized that there were two megatons of metal and armed gun powder falling over a hundred miles per hour right above them.
Despite being lower than their waist, Omi grabbed the two's hands and jumped out of the way of the machines crashing on top of them.
A very bulky, large, and muscular young adult wearing a cowboy attire slammed into the ground with his feet and suddenly the concrete beneath the robots erected over the Paladins and constrained them to the ground.
Blake landed on the ground followed by Yang and an eastern themed girl.
"Sun, are you alright?" The black haired Faunus asked.
"A little wet, but fine thanks to Omi over here." Sun motioned to Omi next to him.
Inside the White Paladin, Roman furiously tried his controls, but the restraints around the giant robot were solidified to the point even the robot couldn't break through them. "A geomancer!? They had a geomancer as back up!?"
"Not to worry, Fashion Freak, I got this." The pilot in other paladin pulled down a scope towards his eyes.
Out of the shoulder of the bronze Paladin, another compartment opened up to reveal a cannon aimed right at the Cowboy and fired—
"HA!" Omi cried out as he quickly kicked the cannon out from hitting his friend.
Everyone not accustomed to the small boy's rather amazing strength despite his small body stared in shock.
Clay then realized that the robots were far too dangerous and controlled the earth to encase and trap the robots still like a toy's plastic cover.
"So that's why Dad says to never judge a book by their cover…" Yang admitted as she was quite impressed with that move.
"Yang! Blake! I'm here and I'm ready too… is it over already!?" In a burst of petals, Ruby appeared with her Scythe ready, but then gawked as she saw the robots already restrained to the ground.
Weiss soon came in, but while she was surprised as Ruby, she had a much calmer reaction.
"OH WHAT!? I CAN'T BELIEVE I MISSED A ROBOT FIGHT! NOOOOO!" To everyone's surprise, Nora had appeared and cried out to the skies as she fell to her knees.
Ren inhaled or sighed, either way he took in a breath of air before looking to his screaming friend. "Nora, we can watch Robo Wars on the TV later."
"I wanna see metal fly!" The chipper girl jumped near Ren.
To everyone's surprise, and to Yang's sense of Déjà vu since the initiation, a new person literally fell from the sky and landed softly on his feet, adding more confusion to the group.
"Wow you guys handled that fast without me."
"Hey, Rai." Kimiko waved to the new comer.
"Pyrrha? What are you and JNPR doing here? And who are these people?" Weiss asked as they saw Pyrrha come in soon after Nora and Ren.
The gladiator explained that they were originally showing around some new friends Ozpin asked them to tour around, the members of team ROCK (Who were technically Xiaolin Monks) until they saw that they were nearby and decided to help. She also introduced all of them over again.
"I haven't seen you in a while, Weiss." Kimiko admitted. "You look good."
The heiress puffed up her chest and answered as elegantly as possible. "Same to you Ms. Tohmiko. I just wished we met again under better circumstances—"
"Did you say Tohomiko!? As in Tohomiko Games!? I loved the Goo Zombie Series! Does Fernedan survive the next series!?" Ruby butted in to Weiss as she went closer to Kimiko with stars in her eyes.
Meanwhile back inside, Roman was grunting as he forced another function of the Paladin that wasn't working. "This is a fine mess you got us into, brat!"
"My fault!? Whose creepy bodyguard was it that noticed those two in the first place!? …Where is he anyway?" The other pilot asked simply as he opened up his scanner and noticed a peculiar blip heading fast towards their direction.
"We have to force out the occupants of these war machines," Weiss pointed to the two Paladins. "I have many questions as how they were able to access such technology."
Omi's eyes widened as he pointed to Clay. "Clay, watch in!"
"Omi, I reckon you mean watchKKKKK!?" As the cowboy tried to correct his friend, something popped up from the Cowboy's shadow and put him in a choke hold.
"It's the Absorber!" Blake cried out in horror as everyone got their weapons out again. they all stared in horrified shock as Clay was shocked by red electricity and lit up like a Christmas light before he was pushed down to the ground unconscious.
"Clay!" Omi cried out before blasting at the cloaked figure with a large spike of ice that formed form the water. The Absorber side stepped the attack and then jumped off in the distance.
"Everyone be careful! The moment he touches you, he can use your semblance!" Ruby cried out as everyone one came forward to prevent the masked figure from getting his allies free. "We can take him on if we all surround—"
"Wait, he has Clay's Semblance? The one keeping the Paladins down!?" Kimiko suddenly asked in panic.
"Oh." Ruby spoke out before the ground beneath all of them opened up and trapped their entire body underground with their heads sticking out.
The Absorber, with one of his hands stretched out, then raised both hands to lift the Paladins slowly back up to full height after shattering their stone and earth prison.
"Ahh see!" Roman's voice came out of the white robot's loudspeaker. "I'm actually starting to warm up on you, you freak of nature!"
"Why did we even come? It seems like he had this in control this entire time?" The bronze pilot asked.
"And miss the satisfaction of crushing some annoying bugs?" Roman chuckled as he motioned his cannon towards Ruby. "Well, Red, I would have said it was nice seeing you, but you've got daisies to be pushing. And seeing as you're already half way there…"
Roman raised and charged the Cannon towards the unmoving hunters and monks.
But once more, fate had intervened for the group in the form of a sports car slamming into Roman's mech without a hint of warning, crashing into the giant mech and forcing it to slide on the ground. However, the mech still looked like it was in good condition even though that car almost looked like it was thrown at Roman from nowhere.
"Huh!? Wait! I didn't see that anywhere near the scanner!" The bronze pilot looked towards the scanner were several new pings appeared that weren't located anywhere near the edge from the beginning.
The Absorber turned—before getting decked with a bone-crunching punch by metal fist going roughly one hundred miles an hour then flying away like a pitched baseball.
A familiar purple armor appeared into the battlefield.
Those who knew Resh well enough, assumed that he would make a passing quip about all of them being a head above the ground like, 'keep your head up' or 'So hunters do grow from the ground'.
However, something was different about Resh.
It was great to see him back in his armor, but he was just staring at the Absorber that was slowly getting up.
"Resh!? What are you doing; there's still one more of them!" Jaune's voice cried out as everyone turned to him and how he was helping out Clay.
The bronze Paladin looked over to Resh and aimed one of his cannons at them before firing a plasma bolt.
Seeing his friends still down, the purple knight flew right into the blast and made the attack explode mid air and launch the empowered boy away for the sake of the attack not hitting any of the others.
Clay started to focus and realize that everyone was still trapped and struggling in the ground. He quickly stomped on the earth and made everyone jump back to their feet, albeit covered somewhat in dirt.
The bronze Paladin looked back at the geomancer. "Not this time, Cowboy!" His torso opened up, revealing a large amount of missiles that shot up and fired onto the three teams.
Quickly, everyone scattered before regrouping where Resh was knocked into the ground.
Eventually, Roman came back up, grouping up with the bronze Paladin and the Absorber appearing right on top of Roman's mech.
Jaune started thinking as he unsheathed his shield and sword. "We can't take down those Paladins if the Absorber is going to back them up! Raimundo, Kimiko, Clay, Omi, Pyrrha, Ren, and Nora! I need your help taking him down the rest of you try to take down the giant robots!"
"What!? Hey I can take on the Absrober—" Resh started to say before Jaune pointed his shield at his friend.
"Resh, if the Absorber takes your semblance, we're all screwed!" The blonde boy interrupted without question.
The two didn't get to argue as they all scattered when they both fired a large amount of dust powered bullets from gatling guns at the group of teens.
The Absober vanished into thin air, before appearing right for Resh in a puff of shadows. The knight quickly froze time and reclined his fist.
"… I'm sorry, Jason." He released time as his fist connected to his brother and sent him flying. However, this time he landed on his feet and the shadows around him started to move like mad living beings. He then stomped on his foot and a large boulder shot out of the ground in front of him before he kicked it towards Resh.
"You have my semblance, but I reckon, you aren't as good with it!" Clay spoke up as he slid in front of Resh and then punched the boulder, breaking it in half and making both pieces harmlessly fly off behind them.
Roman and his friend started firing as well, causing the group to scatter into the two teams Jaune spoke of.
The Absorber seemed to be gunning for Resh. However, his path was blocked when a wall of fire separated him from the two Paladins.
"I sooooo don't appreciate being planted into the ground!" Kimko cried out, revealing that she was the one who just raised that wall of fire. Then her foot set ablaze as she performed an arching, axe kick that sent a pillar of fire towards the hooded figure after she slammed it down to the earth.
The figure turned his head towards her, before stomping on the earth, creating square wall before he sent it flying towards his attacker.
The boulder busted through the fire pillar, but froze as Clay placed his hands out to catch the moving boulder.
Nora, Pyrrha, and Ren all fired their bullets and grenade launchers at their opponent, but then the Absorber split into four separate beings to avoid the focus fire.
"Which one's the real one!?" Nora asked.
Jaune looked towards the shadows and grimaced as he saw that all of them seemed to have solid forms. "They're all real; he just split himself!"
"Just how many semblances does this guy have!?" Raimundo asked as he blasted one of the clones, only for them to split into three as they got hit.
Ren fired at some of the downed clones, but one of the clones jumped in and created an energy based forcefield to block the guns. "I think it's safe to assume a lot of dangerous ones." He responded before the Absorber clones came their way.
There were already eight of them by now running towards them.
"Looks like there's one for each of us…" Pyrrha turned her gun back into spear mode.
"I can't wait to crush their legs!" Nora cried out.
"They shall suffer a most, humiliating defeat!" Omi took an eastern martial art stance with his hands placed forward.
Jaune sweat dropped as some of the clones started using distinctive Semblances like growing twenty feet high, turning into a Shadow like Form, Shift Shaping into a elder Beowolf, Bone Manipulation to the point where boney wings and claws shot out of one clone's body, energy constructs that made one of the clones hold a energy based spear and scythe, another clone was sparking with a lot of electricity, and the last clone seemed to not be using any power and ran straight for with an inhuman shriek.
With ream RWBY, Sun, Neptune, and Resh, they were all avoiding being skewered by a hundred bullets per second. However, it came to the point where the group split up again, where Roman's Paladin chased after Team RWBY while the three remaining boys were left with the bronze Paladin.
"Hold still, so I can clobber you!" The Bronze Paladin cried out as it raised its arm and smashed the ground Neptune and Sun were.
Neptune and Sun fired their weapons at the robot, but all their shots were made useless by the forcefield of this robot.
"Probably shouldn't have fought against the bot with a shield." Neptune muttered before another Laser shot out from a different shoulder at the two.
One split second later, they found themselves a safe distance away from the blast and with Resh standing right beside them.
"Can't you get through to him?" Sun asked the purple clad teen while he pointed to their opponent.
"That forcefield of his is always up. I can't get close even with a time freeze. It's weird since Roman's mech doesn't have it, but this one seems to have special features." Resh observed.
It seemed like from the robot, the pilot heard them because he screamed out, "Ha! That's because I, Jack Spicer, upgraded those puny Atlas mechs into something even greater!" The pilot exclaimed.
"Time out, time out, time out." Sun quickly spoke out while making a T shape with his hands and weapons. "Did you just refer to yourself in third person?"
"Well yeah, I mean, I'm going to rule the world one day!" The robot posed, making Sun and Neptune stare with disbelief. Meanwhile, Resh felt the need to do some searching on his scroll. (Strange how his armor could still have pockets.)
"Dude, you sound like a Saturday morning villain." Neptune scoffed.
"What!? I am no simple cartoon character! I strike fear into those who fear my name! I am the greatest evil the world has ever seen! I am—"
"Afraid of being flushed down the toilet?" Sun and Neptune looked towards Resh who seemed to be looking at his scroll. He showed the two boys a dustnet site where there was a blog about someone named Jack Spicer stated that he was afraid of toilets since he was a child.
"W-What!?" Neptune and Sun couldn't believe that and they both grabbed the scroll and started smiling and giggling.
"THAT ARTICLE IS A LIE!" The robot yelled very loudly and pointed to them with his cannon and fired a lot more heavy duty weapons.
Resh and the two others started running faster.
"As fun as that was did we really have to thick off the guy in an upgraded robot?!" Sun yelled as the three of them ran away from a verity of lasers and bullets.
"Actually, I think this works in our favor." Resh made the other two boys look at him. For the black haired boy himself, he was staring at the wall of fire separating them from Team JNPR and ROCK. "I've got an idea. It's based off the plan Jaune used back in the food fight, so wait for the right time!" The armored boy spoke up before he broke off from them and pointed towards the bronze robot.
"So tell me this: why did you put your own custom paint job on that Paladin? I think you're so over doing! You look like a total poser!"
Jack yelled as he focused fire on the purple clad warrior as he started skating up towards the wall of fire.
"I think I get what he's doing! It's another divide and conquer thing!" Neptune said as he put on his goggles while he and Sun followed after the extra from Team JNPR.
Resh time froze and went through the flames. As he did, he looked at where everyone else was being attacked by the clones of Jason.
Then he looked at his hands and the red orb on his chest. The armor—it wasn't draining was his Aura anymore, but for some reason he felt himself weaker, slower. Then there was his semblance.
His heart wasn't aching anymore during the time freezes. It's like this new armor was taking away all those bad setbacks his Semblance had.
CRACK!
Resh turned his head to see a crack mid air during the time freeze.
The same crack Ozpin showed him.
"Oh no…"
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
The same Grimm that Ozpin warned him about were finally showing. This time, the longer time froze, the more these cracks were coming out.
ĴḀṞḜƉ (ЍḹꓘꝹꞨ/ṞṎṤḜ/ṤÇḨŇḜȄ/ꓭꓱꓶꓶꓯꓷỠӢꓯ/ӾǂǺǾꓶǬǸǤ/ꓞꓯꓶḸ) ɅЯ…
That—whatever that was it did not sound like he was meant to hear that voice. He felt it in both his ears and soul.
The creatures that came out of the portal did not look like Grimm in the traditional sense. These looked far more humanoid than their primal, animalistic counter parts. They stood on three tall stubs like a stand for a camera had long thick torsos like trees. Then there were the masks. Unlike Grimm which covered their eyes, these Time Eaters had full white face masks much like Jason's. However, there was a clock symbol on all of their masks and even though it looked like it was written on, the clock hands on their face were moving.
The one closest to Resh, made five, shadowy, but rigid limbs burst out of its torso. On the left side were two left hands, on the right were three limbs with orbs at the end that had a pale glow to them. Soon after, all of the other grimm's followed in their brutal sounding transformation.
The five Time Eaters looked over to the purple clad knight.
Ω!
Resh moved, quickly heading towards one clone about to reach for Jaune when he dropped the time freeze faster than he ever did before.
Jaune admitted he really did appreciate how his friend had a powerful semblance such as time stopping when he literally appeared out of nowhere to save him. But he knew that if this absorber got his hands on it, they really were all dead.
"Jaune, I F-ED UP!" His friend screamed through the filter.
"Wha—OH WHAT!?" There were suddenly five Grimm—they looked exactly like the Grimm he saw before Chronos saved him back in the mountain—that all had their sights on him and Resh!
Ω!
They unleashed a chilling, inhuman noise before moving at them with demonic speeds.
Even the Absorber clones paused at the sound of the new entrance all before they realized that Resh was back and all dropped who they were battling to chase after him.
Resh saw this and then noticed Jack coming after him in his Paladin. He really hoped this plan he was coming up with would work.
"Let's switch dance partners!" With that, Resh skated off faster before with the Grimm and the Absorber clones all after him.
"Wait! Resh!?" Jaune cried out before he and all the others noticed the lone Paladin coming their way.
Then it stopped. "What the? Grimm?!" The surprised Pilot spoke out.
Sun with Neptune were running up from behind the paladin and yelled out, "Guys! Take out the Paladin while it's all alone!"
Omi jumped up and seemingly summoned water from his palm it shot water around the machine and then seeped into the cracks.
Jack started yelping in panic as his systems showed errors all throughout the bot. Most of its software wasn't prepared to be directly drenched in water.
Raimundo followed after his friend, blasting the teetering robot with a heavy gust of wind. Clay motioned his legs making two boulders come up behind the mech's two legs and fully making it trip over back to the ground. Finishing the combo, Kimko jumped, surrounded herself in a ball of fire then launched a fire ball at the robot that started melting away its solid plating.
"OK I'm out!" Inside the robot, Jack hit an emergency eject button that shot out a large pod into the air with amazing speed before it turned into a miniature jet and flied away into the night.
Sun and Neptune eventually caught up, but saw the entire thing from where they ran from.
"I don't think Grimm appearing out of thin air was part of the plan." Sun duly noted.
"What the heck are those things? They don't look like Grimm." Neptune asked as he referred to the strange Grimm that literally appeared out of nowhere.
Jaune looked around before he spotted his friend in the distance back near the wall of fire. "It doesn't matter. We need to help Resh!"
Speaking of said boy, the time wanderer was in a very strange predicament.
Was it a bad sign that the moment he tried to freeze time, The Time Eaters were completely immune and continued to pursue after him?
Was it also a bad sign to see his brother (from another life time?) chasing after him like some kind of brainwashed super weapon along with the eldritch horrors after him?
Resh was starting to believe that he inherited his father's bad karma, except that he doesn't get the trade off where he gets the ladies interest for all the BS that happens to him.
Wonderful.
If there was one plus side, it was the fact he no longer felt his Aura draining rapidly even though he didn't feel as fast or strong as he did before. In this situation, having some protection was better rather than just something that would tire him out quickly.
Resh jinked to the right as he avoided a thrown energy lance that then exploded and made him fly to the ground.
His crash was not graceful in the slightest, and while his armor seemed to absorb the kinetic energy of that movement, it did little to stop his head from ringing.
The armored boy looked up to see one of the Time Eaters standing over him, making his two arm limbs slowly reach for him.
ȚЊЭ ƠɄɆΞЙ ȠȨȨDz ϔЮЏ
Resh, out of everything that night, did not expect Jason to save him by stabbing one of the Time Eaters from the back of his torso.
Though that relief quickly dissipated when the absorber picked him up and strangled him.
Resh panicked; Jason now had his power—wait. Why was electricity coursing through the surface of his armor? And why didn't he feel any pain?
The teen quickly kicked away the Abrsorber into other Time Eaters like a bowling ball into bowling pins. Quickly, the Jason clones and the four Time Eater Grimm started fighting each other after the first hit.
Jared got back up and stared. The other clones were nailing the Grimm with their semblances, but something was wrong. First was the fact that since Ozpin seemed immune, if the Absorber bodyguard did take his semblance, he wasn't using something as helpful as time manipulation. Did his armor mean that as long as he wore it, he couldn't copy his semblance?
But there was something else that was bothering the wanderer. The Time Eaters… their bodies weren't fading…
CRACK!
Resh looked back at the body the first Time Eater that Jason stabbed. One of its orbs shattered… then it slowly rose back up with its wound healed.
"Oh snap—" Resh dodged another swipe by the Time Eater, but spun and round house kicked the beast back towards the Absorber clones.
The purple boy backed off a safe distance before he started to notice the Grimm and the clones attacking each other. Before long, Resh felt everyone coming up from behind him.
"Resh, are you alright?" Jaune asked as he, along with his team, the traveling monks, and even Team RWBY followed up to him before they all saw the fight between the Grimm and the Absorber.
"So uhh who is the bad guy in this situation?" Sun asked as he pointed to the fight between the clones and the Time Eaters.
"They both are, but maybe we can swoop in and defeat the winner of their tussle!" Yang spoke out.
"Roman escaped us and I'm sure that other pilot did. We have to make sure the absorber doesn't!" Weiss readied her weapon.
However, something happened between the absorber and one of the time eaters that caught their attention.
The clones eventually avoided the swipes and killed, crushed, decapitated, incinerated, and sliced the five Time Eaters at the same time.
The clones then turned their attention to the three and a half teams and slowly started stalking towards them—
Five glass shattering sounds echoed in the air simultaneously.
Even the clones looked back at the five areas where the Grimm were killed. It looked as if someone hit rewind as all the bodies got up and seemingly came back to life before they were killed. The incinerated one formed back from the dust in reverse of being burned; the crushed one slowly grow back up, revealing the way it was as it was being crushed in one instant; the decapitated head flew back onto the head the same way it was cut off; the one sliced in half formed back together as if someone was pasting the two parts together; and the last one slowly rose back up to its legs.
"Wait, Grimm can't revive from the dead!" Sun shouted out from everyone's shock.
All of the Grimm had now one less orb on their left limb. Resh quickly noticed the first one was down to its last orb unlike the others which was down to two.
The clocks on their masks hit noon, and they started creating a new inhuman sound that felt like someone using their nails on chalkboard to a very ear piercing level. They then quickly attacked the Absorber clones once more, but this time, they were faster than before and some of them were able to stab five of the clones at the same time.
Something peculiar happened to the five stabbed clones. From where they were stabbed, all five clones froze in place before suddenly they started to shrink in size—
"What's happening to them?" Ruby asked as they all watched what was happening to the clones.
"I think… they're aging." Jaune noticed as he saw the clones starting to lose mass and eventually their cloaks and body looked more skeleton like and eventually turned into dust within a matter of seconds.
"These Grimm are of a different level." Weiss spoke up, "I think we need to regroup as well."
"And just leave these Grimm in the middle of the City?" Ruby asked in shock.
"I said regroup not retreat!" The white themed girl screamed.
Resh stared as he saw the Grimm take out the Duplicates one by one until there was one left. For one second, the boy from the future found himself standing between the absorber and the five Time Eaters and punched away the black beast that had only one orb left with so much force that his fist tore through its torso.
"Resh!? Why did you save him!?" Weiss cried out before everyone else followed after their friend as the Purple clad armor user was now fighting to avoid being touched by the hands of the Time Eaters.
The last four were then quickly killed thanks to everyone's combined efforts. However, due to the confusion, the Absorber vanished into the shadows.
The white haired girl was furious. "Why did you jump in!?" She looked towards the armored boy with obvious frustration. "He got away because of you!"
It looked like the purple clad boy was about to say something, but stayed silent for a while. "Sorry… I wasn't thinking…"
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
"Wait, I thought we killed these things! How are they still coming back up!?" Raimundo pointed as they all saw the bodies of four of the Time Eaters returning.
Jaune pointed to the one that had technically been killed three times. "Hey one of them isn't coming back up! It's the orbs! Somehow they represent how many times they can rewind their deaths!"
"You mean like, game characters?" Sun asked.
"That just means that they're down to their last life—what are they doing with that last body?" Neptune started before they all notice something about the body that was killed three times. Instead of vanishing into thin air, the body turned to dust… and was inhaled by the other four.
It was then that all the clocks on the remaining four Grimm made their hands spin rapidly until they all struck 12.
"Well that don't look good."
Suddenly, the four Grimm moved forward and everyone got ready for their attack.
…
…
"Guys!?" Resh screamed to everyone as he saw them not moving at all while the Grimm were heading right for them. His mind wondered why they were just standing…
He didn't hesitate as he found himself fighting to protect them from being touched by the creatures by using a flying kick in such an angle it would knock all of them in one go.
"Huh? Why did Resh use his semblance?" Jaune noticed from the creatures attacking, their armored ally was already being surrounded by the four Grimm then in another instant he was seen being swatted away and about to be swarmed. There was another skip as they all heard an explosion around them with the creatures now being somehow behind them.
"What is that dolt doing!?"
"I don't think he's doing that on purpose!" Jaune cried out as Resh suddenly appeared in front of them after being thrown around.
The Time Eaters quickly moved towards them, and Resh instantly grabbed Jaune's leg. The blonde boy then noticed everyone about to fire at the four flying monsters. However, only the monsters were moving…
"Wait, they can freeze time as well!?"
"And they can do it much better than me! I keep trying to unfreeze it, but they keep putting it back up!" Resh spoke up as he jumped back up to his feet. "
"Then get the others! Bring them in here like you did me!" Jaune ran up and shield bashed one of the Time Eaters. As he tried to swing his blade at them but they easily avoided the swing. Quickly, one of them was about to touch Jaune, but their branch like arms were blocked by a barrier.
The blonde boy quickly looked back to see Weiss pointing her signature weapon towards him. She quickly tried to fire a bolt of ice. However, it froze mid air a few seconds after launching.
"Yeah, long range doesn't work in Time freeze! Also Oxygen!" Resh cried out as he brought in Ruby and Yang in to the Time freeze then quickly went towards Ren and Pyrrha.
"No bigge, we'll just punch them!" Yang seemingly got what Resh was explaining and quickly backed Jaune up.
Resh was about to head towards Nora and Blake until one of the Grimm slipped passed by Jaune and constricted the armored boy.
ŸƟƯ ƆɅƝƬ ƎŜĈĀҎ ṺṤ, ₩₳₦Ďꓱꓤ!
One of time Eater put its mask in front of the boy as it towered over him.
Shwck!
The head of the creature slowly rolled off after Jaune sliced its neck off.
"You Okay?" Jaune asked.
"Remind me again to thank Pyrrha for your sword training." Resh slowly pushed the vines off him.
Jaune turned his shield into a scabbard, and offered the armored boy a hand. "And you're getting your butt kicked a lot for a guy with a powerful semblance."
"Huh, point taken."
Resh looked over to see the others slowly breaking the last of the Time Eaters. And soon time moved again.
"Take this you freaky marble masked monsters!" Nora shouted after time resumed and fire her grenade launcher right at—
"Nora no!"
From that moment on, Resh figured he would let Nora in the next time freeze first.
Professor Ozpin drank from his coffee until he felt his office stop again for what felt like the ten time.
"And after I did warn Mr. Kolc about such hap hazardous use of bending time to his will." The man thought out loud.
"Well sadly, warnings are only good to the people who hear and react to them."
Ozpin's eyes widned as he turned around.
"… Mr. Chronos Kolc… to what do I owe this pleasure?"
"Just checking up on my bro."
In the middle of a Time Freeze? Ozpin thought in his mind.
Chronos' smile shrunk a bit as he asked, "So how is he?"
That actually caught the white haired Headmaster by surprise. "… He is alright. He seems to be enjoying himself."
"Good good. Thanks. Time might resume in a bit, so I'll be taking my leave."
Ozpin stood up from his seat and fixed his collar. "Mr. Kolc, may I ask what is your endgame?"
"Well, long story short, Mr. Ozpin… I'm a fool trying to play god."
The gears around Ozpin's office started moving again and as soon as time started moving, Chronos was gone.
"That sounded very dangerous. Yet, why did he have such a sad smile?"
Chronos sighed as he stopped the communication. The Frequent time stops allowed him to check up on Ozpin and his brother.
"Is something wrong, Mr. Kolc?"
The other time wanderer turned around before bending down on one knee. "Just preparing my scouts, Lady Salem."
Out of the shadows walked out a pale white woman with deep black eyes. "I must thank you for your assistance on the… problem."
"There is nothing to worry about, Lady Salem, all Grimm shall be under your control once more."
{Author Notes}
Happy New Year's folks! Here's to hoping that 2017 will be a better year than the last.
This chapter is honestly one of my hardest to write and ultimately, I'm not that happy about it. But, I still hope it comes out nicely.
To those wondering, yes, the other characters from different series are only here as place holders, they will not have so much of a strong influence on this story and are mostly there for fun.
Thank you all again for supporting this story. Hopefully, I can make more fun things in the next chapter.