Treacherous Haven
Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer - Sun Tzu
Optional song - From Shadows [Extended]
"My grandma hits harder than that-"
WHAM!
"I'll shove my antlers up your-"
BLAM!
"You're a good advertisement for faunus birth control-"
BAM!
Despite his constant tirade of insults, Malcolm started to feel a little lightheaded. Being beat over and over again by a bull faunus can hurt like a bitch, and his bravado aside, the fat cow hits pretty damned hard. His face is covered in bruises, his left antler sports a snapped limb and his clothing is in tatters.
The prison guard struck him again. His head bent at an odd angle, but he resolved to not show it. Instead, the next time he came to hit him again he whipped his head forward, striking his tormentor in the face with his antlers.
"Wyvern must love sucking on your cow tits, you bovine piece of-"
"You're gonna pay for that." the prison guard swore.
By now the bull faunus had had enough and he discarded the blunt baton he used to beat Malcolm up for the better part of the morning. Picking up a serrated machete, he grinned maniacally at his captive.
'Let's see you talk tough after I carve you a new smile."
Bracing himself for the pain, Malcolm closed his eyes.
"That's enough, Ramrod."
The bull faunus stopped in his tracks.
The door opened abruptly, revealing a grim Wyvern. He was a well built man, graced with the sharp eyes of an eagle and thick feathers covering his arms. He wore a thick vest and army leggings.
"Get him up."
The prison guard did so begrudgingly, slipping a swift jab at Malcolm's ribs for good measure.
Wyvern looked at him with calculating eyes.
"Let's take a walk, shall we?"
Whoa.
It took a couple of fingers and a few threats to the babymaker, but she managed to coax all the necessary information from the unfortunate guard she left tied to the top of a pine tree in the middle of the forest, gagged with a rag. Taking a page out of Nora's book, she broke his legs to ensure that he gave her the correct information lest he'll be left alone to starve to death. Her methods had proved to be.. coercive. The younger Ruby would never condone such brutal interrogation methods, but she was short on time and desperation engenders desperate measures.
A maintenance access route, a few gagged guards and a close call to a patrolling squad later, here she was, sneaking around the small city. It took her the better part of the evening to enter the business district in the middle of the city, but her efforts has paid off well.
There must be tens of thousands of faunus here. There dozens of small gateways around the circular edge of the city. Former mining shafts, turned to entry points. A gargantuan central stalagmite rose in the middle, connecting the bottom of the cavern to the top. The ceiling was covered with stalactites, jutting downwards. Most of them are blunt, courtesy of faunus engineering. The few that remains are small enough and secured to the ceiling that they are not a threat to the houses below. As there is no rain underground, all the buildings within the Sanctuary are flat roofed. Most had chimneys with smoke billowing upwards. Ventilation shafts collect the smoke to stop it from smothering the city and gave life sustaining air from the surface above. It is upon one of these roofs that Ruby lay in hiding perched under the shadow of the central spire.
Her biggest obstacle would be the constant cycle of heavily armed patrols rotating around the city like a marching band. One useful piece of information she extracted from the lazy guard was that a coup take place four days ago. Led by the captain of the patrol, an eagle faunus called Wyvern, they ambushed the current Overseer in one of the entry tunnels. They managed to kill most of his entourage, but Roy managed to escape along with a few loyal bodyguards.
It seemed that Wyvern's coup was brought together by a common hatred for humans. Overseer Roy was considered far too lenient in allowing humans to enter and thrive within the previously faunus-exclusive sanctuary, and Wyvern took opportunity of the growing unrest to make his move. After his failed assassination attempt, the first thing he did was to banish all humans under the threat of death. The few hundred humans who lived in the safety of the Sanctuary was forced to leave the city, along with their belongings. The thought of hundreds of lives left to die in the cold wilderness of Atlas enraged Ruby even more than the coup itself.
She was far from the impulsive youth that she was, however, and have laid low to monitor and establish the patrol schedule. Unless she could move around the patrol cycle, there was little she could to to help. It took her the entire evening, but she was now well-acquainted with the rotating groups that she is confident enough that she could move through the city undetected.
Ruby moved around the rooftops, moving stealthily towards the massive stalagmite protruding in the middle of the city. She had turned her cape inside out, replacing crimson red with midnight black. Standing still, she might have been part of the granite stone the underground city was carved from.
As she travelled, she understood more and more about how the city had survived the near apocalyptic nightmare of the Tidal events. Nearly every inhabitant was armed, if not with a firearm then with various blades. The city were built into ringed levels, with multiple walls and barricades protect
It was then that she heard a commotion on the streets beneath her.
Against her better judgment, and tempted by curiosity, she poked her head to see what was going on.
Five members of the patrol group stood in a menacing semi circle around a hooded person, their weapons bared and at the ready. Judging from the figure, it seemed that it was a girl. They were yelling at her, telling her to present her identification cards. She ignored them, turning around and walking away. Infuriated, one of the younger members of the guard walked up to her from behind and ripped her hood off.
Ruby gasped. Her voice was lost in a collective sound of astonishment.
The girl was a human.
She had jet black hair, tied in an elegant ponytail. She wore a black coat that covered most her body, with purple attire underneath. Black leggings covered her long, lithe legs, and her hands were adorned with metal gauntlets. Turning around menacingly, she stared at the guard as if daring him to make a move. If the guards intimidated her, she showed no signs of it. Bright pink eyes, not unlike Ren's, were narrowed and sharp.
He scowled and grabbed her arm.
Big mistake.
She twisted his hand around until Ruby could hear the bones crack two stories above. The human girl kneed the guard in the groin and struck him in the jaw with a furious uppercut, her fist laced with purple aura. The man flew backwards, skidding on the cobblestones. The rest of his patrol group merely gaped in surprise, along with the dozens of onlookers who had gathered to see the arrest.
The leader of the group, a bear faunus, raised his rifle. He fired short bursts from his Reaper rifles, bullets designed to rip apart Grimm, flesh and bone. The girl's aura flared and she moved her arms with seemingly inhuman speed and punched them out of the air. When the leader charged at her with a bare mace, she raised her leg and kicked him in the chest. Ribs broke and the faunus flew away, blood spurting from his mouth. The aroma of lavender permeated the air.
It reminded Ruby of her first encounter with Cinder, how the woman brushed aside the most powerful rounds Crescent Rose can offer like puny flies. It chilled her to the bone. But nothing compared to the shock she felt when the girl drew her weapon to meet the rest of the patrol.
She thought it was lost when its owner died in the Siege of Atlas, but it seemed to be in pristine condition.
It goes by many names.
The Elemental Blade.
The Frozen Saber.
But Ruby knew it best as the Schnee Family Heirloom - the rapier known as Myrtenaster.
The rapier glowed red as the girl summoned a circle of flames to disperse the crowd. The guards' charge faltered upon facing the wall of infernal heat, but dissipated soon enough. Their opponent, it seemed, merely wanted to get the crowd out of the way.
One of the guards, a monkey faunus, seemed to be at least slightly competent with his lightning rods. Carrying one in each hand, he stabbed at the girl swiftly, electricity crackling along the length of the baton as he did so. The girl gave ground, and while it seemed that she was losing the fight, Ruby could tell she was merely measuring her foe.
A few swings later, she made her move. She unclasped her coat and threw it at the faunus. If he had an edged weapon, he could have easily torn it apart, but his blunt weapons prevented him from doing so. Temporarily caught up in a tangle of black, the girl stabbed through the cloth cleanly. The man was dead before he hit the ground.
His comrades roared in rage and attacked together. One was a tall, thin wolf faunus who wielded a long halberd and the other a rabbit faunus equipped with a pair of Eastern-style nunchakus. Their combined assault seemed to trouble the purple eyed girl, the nunchaku wielder keeping her occupied and on the defense while his companion takes advantage of his longer reach to keep her from landing blows.
To make things worse for the human girl, a siren blared, signifying incoming reinforcements.
"Give it up, girl!" the rabbit faunus sneered.
"Over your dead body." the girl hissed.
The wolf faunus swung a devastating cut with his halberd, forcing her to deflect it with Myrtenaster. The rabbit faunus roared in triumph as he struck with both his weapons.
That was it. She had no other choice. She had to do it.
Time seemed to slow as she flicked open an entire chamber of her rapier.
A massive glyph appeared on the ground, and a blinding explosion of red blew up an entire side of the street.
Out of the ruins she emerged, radiating purple The aura had protected them from the explosion, but her faunus opponents were less fortunate. Their shattered bones and entrails were splattered all over the area. Her aura glowed once more and faded; she collapsed to the ground, exhausted.
Myrtenaster was glowing red, an entire vial spent in the defense of its wielder. The girl tried to raise the weapon to fight once more, but ended up dropping it on the ground. It was glowing red hot, overheated from overuse. The girl looked around wildly, her hair a mess and her calm demeanor gone. Other patrol groups are coming in numbers, and without her weapon, she had no fighting chance.
A dozen members of the elite guards, the Sentinels, appeared at the end of the street.
"There she is!" one of them shouted.
She tried to move, but ended up on her knees again - one of her legs were wounded with shrapnel. She cursed under her breath - her aura had not been enough to fully protect her from the explosion.
Was it the end?
The Sentinels opened fire.
She closed her eyes, but the bullets never came. Instead, she heard the ringing echoes of steel meeting steel. She opened her eyes to see a woman cloaked in red standing over her, deflecting the Sentinels' bullets with a giant crimson scythe. Red tendrils of aura extended across both of them, shielding them from what the scythe could not. Some of the Sentinels stood there, dumbfounded, but as they added to the barrage she could see the strain on the woman's face.
"Don't just sit there! Move it! the woman shouted, pointing at a nearby alley.
She didn't waste a second. Limping to the alleyway, she glanced back to see the woman's scythe retracting to a more compact form. She saw a grenade land under her mysterious savior.
"Watch out!" she shouted.
And the scythe wielder was no longer there.
She appeared right beside her, seeming to have teleported on the spot. A trail of.. roses? lay around the charred street. The red cloaked warrior grabbed her arm and slung it over her shoulder, and with a burst of aura she carried them to roof of an adjacent building with a powerful leap. They landed in a heap on the roof of the building, breathing hard. The stranger recovered first, getting up to her feet and extending a hand towards her. She took it and found herself lifted to her feet.
They're not out of trouble yet. She could see the more agile faunus of the Sentinels leaping to the rooftops around them, surrounding them with menacing looks.
"Stay here and don't die." the stranger said abruptly.
The scythe deployed again, and its wielder slammed it on the ground like a makeshift tripod. She fired pinpoint shots at the closest Sentinels, sending them over the roofs with gaping holes in their armor. The rest ducked and weaved between chimneys and returned fire with interest. The crimson cloaked fighter dodged them easily, going so far as to shooting them out of the air. The smaller calibre of the Reaper rifles were obliterated by the sniper scythe's heavier rounds.
It didn't last though. With three Sentinels remaining, the weapons clicked blankly, empty.
"Damn, out of bullets. Shoulda brought more." the woman muttered lackadaisically, sighing as she ripped the scythe out of the granite. She met the rest of the faunus in combat, aura flaring as she used her semblance to prevent being cornered. She caught one of the Sentinel's mace with her scythe. Forcing her weapon to flip, she disarmed the man, her opponent's weapon sent flying in the air. Diverting one of his companion's blow with the handle of her scythe, she gave him an aura-propelled kick. His armor crumpled and he fell to the ground. The other two stood back to back against the lightning fast heroine. She charged at one of them and he held out his weapon to block her. She ignored it entirely and took to the air, decapitating his partner with a powerful blow. She landed on the balls of her feet and ducked under the Sentinel's outraged strike before slicing the man in half with an underswing. The faunus's severed halves fell to the granite with wet splotches.
The scythe wielder shook her hands like dog, ridding it of the blood. It spattered on the rooftop, joining its owner in a growing pool of blood.
"Gross." she complained.
"Who are you?" the purple cloaked girl asked in wonder.
The woman smiled and tossed her red bangs aside. and she realized the crimson cloaked fighter must be only a few years older than her.
"A friend."
The closest patrols taken care of, they disappeared into the shadowy corners of the city.
A/N: Hey guys! My idea of the Sanctuary is a smaller version of Tronjheim from the Inheritance Cycle, albeit with a ceiling and far more modern when it comes to technology. I hope that helps you visualize the city better.
Fourze - it's good to know you're enjoying the fic!
Reviewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! It keeps the story rollin'!
-Deathwhisperer