RWBY: Light Extinguished

Chapter 7

I've gotten a few confused messages as to who some of the people are in this chapter, so I should probably mention here, that I did just upload three chapters, the first one introducing the new characters seen in this one. On that note, you should probably take a few minutes to go read those, since not only are new characters introduced, but there's also a pretty sweet action scene in the second one that I must say I'm kind of proud of.

oxoxoxo

Maria Gaia angrily stalked back to her seat just in time to watch as her team's ship left for their battle. She grit her teeth as she knew that this would be the first battle her team fought in that she would have no control over. Even when she was forced to remain at Beacon while the others were aiding Team RWBY in town, she was still with them, even if it was just as a commander through their earpieces. What if Ben proved a better leader than she was? What would her team do if he was?

"Maria?" The centurion turned to see who had called to her to see it was Jaune Arc.

"Jaune?" She replied, moving to sit with the knight and his team. "I saw your last battle, you've definitely improved since you've been here."

Jaune let out a nervous chuckle. "Well, I guess that's why Beacon is known as one of the best places to train hunters."

"That's probably why your partner and I chose this place over Haven back in Mistral." Maria replied, looking past Jaune at her rival and his partner, Pyrrha Nikos.

"Speaking of partners," Pyrrha piped up. "Where is the rest of your team?"

Maria let out an annoyed sigh. "Heading down to the city." She said, pointing out their ship. "I can't exactly fight on this leg, and Goodwitch says I can't lead from up here this time. So, Ben's in charge of EMAD tonight."

"The huge guy in the blue coat?" Jaune asked. Maria nodded. "I don't think I've seen him fight yet, I wonder if he's any good."

"One can only hope." Maria said through gritted teeth.

"Is something on your mind?" Pyrrha asked.

"Nothing important, just wishing I could be out there with my team. I've been stuck on these crutches for too long."

"But don't you get your cast removed tomorrow?" Jaune asked.

Maria nodded. "I still wish I could be out there today, to remind people why I'm the leader of my team."

"No matter what happens out there today, they're still your team, and everyone knows that." Pyrrha reassured, patting her rival on the shoulder.

"Thanks." Maria said. "I think I needed that." The centurion reclined in her seat and stared up at the screen that was now displaying her team as they exited their ship. True to what Jaune had said, she had never seen Ben in combat, or even knew what his weapon did. She could still only hope that whatever it was, or however good he was, that her team would remember that she was their leader. A part of her, however, was still worried. After all, Ben was a trained warrior who had served under one of her idols, Erwin Frundsberg in the Faunus War. Who knew what kind of skills he picked up there.

Would those skills be enough to replace her?

oxoxoxo

Ben led Team EMAD out of the dropship and into the now darkened city, the occasional streetlight and the moon being the only sources of light over the rapidly darkening city. He carried with him a long case, setting it down on the ground, Ben opened it and produced his weapon: his titanic sword, nearly as tall as he was, and considering Ben's impressive height, that was quite a feat. There was a long, tube-like structure running down the core of the blade, a set of grooves along the outside that ran from the top of the blade down to its crossguard and along the handle there were a pair of switches. Ben flicked the first switch and the blade began to glow with a bright white light. "Alright team," he began "Listen up. We have only two minutes to prepare for the battle and we don't even know who our opponent is. Normally I'd suggest we send out scouts to find out about the enemy, but I don't think we have either the speed or the resources to do so. We'll instead stay together and face the enemy as a cohesive unit. Any questions?"

No one said a word. It seemed like a reasonable strategy, the members of Team EMAD worked well together, and Ben could likely find some way to use that cohesion to his advantage. With a collective nod, the four hunters in training advanced into the dilapidated town."Keep an eye out for any movement." Ben said. "If you see something, say something."

This was much easier said than done, as the rapidly setting sun was quickly darkening the city. It was getting to the point that even shadows were becoming hard to see, the streets bathed in near total darkness, the glow coming off Ben's sword the only thing shining any light on the immediate area. "Are you sure you want that thing glowing like that?" Thatch enquired. "You're sort of broadcasting our location."

"That's the plan." Ben said. "The glow draws them out and then we take them down."

The other members of team EMAD exchanged a look, each one knowing just what the others were thinking: this was a good plan, but he could have told them.

Remaining largely silent, Team EMAD made their way further into the town, the only sounds they made being their footfalls.

Little did they know, they were being watched.

Atop the tallest building in the city, Indigo Aesir watched the group through the scope of his sniper rifle, Jormungadr, tracking them by the glow of Ben's blade. "Noctus, this is Indigo." He said into his earpiece. "I have a visual on the other team. I'll guide you to them by your scrolls, by the time you reach them, the battle should be about to start. Let's make this quick, I'm tired."

"You need your beauty sleep?" Diana asked through her communicator.

"Well, it does take work to be good looking, Diana, you should try it some time." Indigo replied. "Head west from where you are now, you're getting closer to them." With that, Indigo returned to his scope, observing every move of the other team.

Meanwhile, as Team EMAD continued down the street, Alison couldn't shake the odd feeling that she was being watched. "Something's not right." She muttered.

"Shut up." Ben replied.

"I'm serious," Alison whispered. "I think someone's watching us."

"People are watching us, Alison." The soldier replied. "This battle is being broadcast to the other students. Now keep your mouth shut and your eyes open." He hissed.

Thatch looked about ready to tell Ben just where he could go and where he could stick his sword, when an all too familiar voice rang out. "The battle will begin once contact is made."

High on his rooftop, Indigo smirked cockily. He was about to make some contact alright. "Noctus, are you in position?"

"We're ready when you are." The wolf whispered back.

Indigo stared down the scope of his rifle, his semblance of phase vision allowed him to look not only through the surrounding buildings, but also past the outer layers of the other team. The blue haired sniper discovered through this that one of the members of the other team was wearing armour. Not only that, but he had a scoped carbine in hand, a weapon that could conceivably take him out from that range. We can't have that, now, can we? Indigo thought, taking aim.

(Author's note: Music begins here. Song: Getting Away With Murder by Papa Roach.)

A shot rang out and Francois hit the ground, a bullet having slammed into his chestplate.

"Sniper!" Ben roared. "Get to cover!"

Alison and Ben sprinted to cover under one of the street's buildings while Thatch ran to Francois and hauled him into their cover. As soon as he made for their cover, however, a massive wall of earth sprang up from the ground, cutting the boys off from the rest of their team. Thatch's eyes sped to one end of the wall where a brunette girl wearing a grey shirt and short black shirt had slammed her hands into the ground, both hands covered in gloves full of dust vials. Thatch opened fire on her, but the girl ducked behind her wall. Thatch was about to run after her when a stream of flames cut across his path. The renegade turned to see his attacker was a boy with short, black hair in black and red camouflage pants and a red leather jacket. He grinned wickedly as he approached Thatch with a pair of swords, one long with a night black blade and the other short, blood red and still smoking from the fire blast it had just shot.

The boy looked like he was about to strike, when two shots from Francois hit him in the torso. The boy responded by pointing his black blade at Francois, the blade opening up to reveal a barrel in the hilt. He was about to fire when Thatch opened fire with Anne and Elizabeth, forcing him to dodge while the renegade charged. Thatch raised his swords for a strike, but before he could hit his target, the boy rolled out of the way, leaving behind a flaming double of him. Thatch was just able to stop his attack and leap to the side before the flaming clone exploded. The boy moved in for the kill, only to be forced on the defensive as Francois struck with a series of thrusts with Mademoiselle.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the wall, Alison and Ben were forced out of cover by two attackers. The first was a black haired wolf faunus in a black tank top and blue jeans, and the second was the girl who created the stone wall that separated the teams. The wolf leapt at Alison and immediately forced her to defend with the shaft of Pianji while the girl, gloves glowing red, sent a stream of fire at Ben who rolled out of the way, allowing the flames to slam into Alison, considerably dropping her aura and leaving her wide open for the axe wielding wolf.

The wolf howled and leapt at the artist, axe raised, but a bullet slammed into him, the round expanding to the size of a basketball as it did, throwing him back. Alison turned to see her saviour was Ben, the blue coated giant having transformed his sword into a light machine gun, the tube having extended to form the barrel, the crossguard becoming a bipod and a trigger emerging from the handle. Alison was about to thank Ben for her rescue when she noticed the girl charging up another attack. With a swing if her staff, the artist nailed the witch in the chest with a lightning bolt, knocking her back into a wall.

"This isn't working." Ben grumbled, changing his weapon back to sword form and making the blade glow again. "We need to make our team whole again. Before Alison could protest, Ben had wound up a swing and in one motion cut the wall in half, his glowing blade melting through the rock.

Unfortunately, this was exactly what Indigo, up on his tower, wanted. The second the wall went down he zeroed in on Francois who was still locked in a duel with his teammate, Obsidian. "Obsidian, get back." He commanded.

Through the scope of his rifle, he watched as the Grimm hating swordsman leapt back form his duel, the sniper taking his chance immediately, a bullet slamming into Francois and draining the remainder of his aura. The voice in their earpieces spoke out as soon as the nobleman hit the ground. "Francois Delatrois has been eliminated."

Obsidian smiled and looked to Thatch. "You afraid yet?" he taunted.

Thatch was about to give him some very choice words on fear, but was forced to shut his mouth and dodge as Indigo kept on firing at him.

"Obsidian," Indigo said in the earpiece of his teammate. "I'll keep him busy, go help the others."

Obsidian nodded and charged right at Ben, opening with three shots from his black blade. Ben side stepped the first two shots and held his sword out to block the third. As soon as the Grimm hater was close enough, the giant swung his blade, throwing Obsidian to the ground even though he was able to block the strike. The giant looked to where Thatch was pinned down by sniper fire. "Alison, follow the sniper trails, bring him down!"

"I can barely see him!" Alison shot back.

"Just do it! Now! That's an order!"

Gritting her teeth, Alison desperately searched for the trail of one of the sniper shots. She had just found one and was in the process of using her semblance to track its source when she was blindsided by a stream of frost that froze her Zhua to the ground by its ball end. She looked in horror to the source of the blast to see that the wolf had transformed his axe into a shotgun form, wisps of frost still coming off the barrel. Before she could make any move to free her staff, the faunus charged her, forcing her to abandon her weapon as she flipped out of the way of the attack.

"Take the shot already Alison!" Ben shouted, too absorbed in his duel with Obsidian to notice the artist's plight.

Alison, however, was a little busy as she was dodging axe swings, as well as blasts of ice and buckshot from the wolf faunus, as was observed by Indigo through his scope. "Noctus," He began. "Lure her into the open and I'll finish her off."

The wolf faunus, Noctus nodded, but before he could make a move, Obsidian flew across his field of view, slamming into a wall and slumping to the ground in a heap. The wolf looked to where he had been thrown from to see a smouldering Ben Apart, the giant having literally picked up and thrown the swordsman into the building after he had been scorched by his flame sword. "Obsidian Thanos has been eliminated."

His opponent defeated, Ben was about to move on to another opponent when a series of sniper shots forced him into cover. "Alison!" He roared. "The sniper's still up there!" Before a response could reach him, he noticed Alison's Zhua frozen to the ground by its own weight. "Do I have to do everything myself?" Ben growled. Waiting for a pause in the sniper fire, Ben converted his weapon to gun form and opened fire on where the shots came from, the sheer volume of fire forcing Indigo into cover, the expanding rounds Ben's gun fired tearing apart the walls of the building he hid in. Noticing his attack was working, Ben pressed his advantage, continuing to fire. Eventually, he'd tear down the walls of the building and draw out the enemy. Too easy.

At least, that's what he thought before a bolt of lightning struck him in the back and knocked him to the floor. He rose, vision blurry, to see that the brunette girl on the other team was advancing on him. He weakly attempted to raise his blade to fight her off, but before he could she raised her gloved left hand and blasted him point blank with a stream of flames, draining the rest of his aura. "Ben Aparte has been eliminated."

"Nice work, Diana." Indigo said in her ear.

The dust witch smirked. "Two down, two to go." She said.

Little did she know, Alison had seen what she had done, and had already formulated a plan.

Diana's attention was drawn to the sound of ice cracking, spinning around, she caught sight of the girl on the other team attempting to free her staff from where Noctus had frozen it. "Need some help?" She taunted, raising her glove. Alison looked up in shock and redoubled her attempts to free her weapon. Diana decided not to give her that chance, firing off a blast of flame at the artist.

That was when Alison smiled. All according to plan. As soon as the flames were fired, she used her zhua like a pole vault, leaping over it as the flames melted the ice holding it down. As the ice melted, Alison swung the staff, weight end first at Diana, the dust witch leaping out of the way.

Alison was about to go on the attack when a howl ripped through the air, drawing her attention to a charging Noctus, axe brandished. The wolf, however, was tackled to the ground, mid charge by Thatch, the renegade grabbing him around the waist and throwing him down. Noctus, however, was not about to go down easily, and grabbed Thatch by the scruff of his shirt, his semblance of enhanced strength allowing him to do so easily. Thatch struggled to break free as Noctus loaded up a swing of his axe. Before he could swing, however, Thatch smirked, raising Anne and unloading the remainder of her clip into Noctus, point blank.

"Noctus Lupin has been eliminated."

Alison and Diana watched Thatch eliminate Noctus with joy and frustration respectively before they returned to their duel. The power of the elements was unleashed as the two of them fought, fire melting through ice, walls of stone blocking lightning bolts, and the buildings around them scarred heavily. The battle came to a close, however, when Alison leapt through a wall of wind Diana had formed, smashing the claw end of her zhua, charged with fire and electricity, right into the dust witch's midsection, draining what remained of her aura. The artist panted in fatigue as the announcement of Diana's elimination was heard.

She was about to search for the sniper again, when something slammed into her, throwing her to the ground as one of Indigo's shots sailed right through where her head was a second ago. Through her fatigue, she felt herself being dragged into cover, her vision clearing enough to see that it was Thatch who had hauled her off. "After that duel," he said "no way I'm letting you get sniped like that."

Alison smiled and blushed slightly at the swordsman's words, hiding it in the darkness.

Up on his tower, Indigo was getting frustrated and running out of ammo. He still had two targets, but after the long battle of keeping his targets pinned down to pick them off, he was beginning to run low, having only one clip left before he's be on his own. There was only one solution. Flicking a small switch above the trigger, his rifle began to give off a blue glow and a high whine. Using his semblance, Indigo took aim at his last two targets behind their wall, squeezing down on the trigger. A blue streak of light flew from the barrel of the rifle, slamming into the wall they hid behind, shattering it to pieces and throwing both of them to the floor. The sniper fired off two more shots, each one hitting dead center chest on one of his stunned targets, dropping them both.

"Alison Zu and Thatch Edwards have been eliminated, Team INGO is victorious."

oxoxoxo

When Team EMAD arrived back at the Beacon Airship, Maria was waiting for them. "What was that?" she demanded. Before any of her teammates could respond she put up a hand. "Not the loss, that's acceptable, everyone has one at some point. I'm talking about your leadership." She said, pointing an accusing finger at Ben. "The only strategy I saw you come up with was to draw out the enemy with your blade's glow. By dust, you didn't even keep track of your teammates! Did you even notice Francois' fall, or the fact that as you were giving Alison her orders she was missing her only weapon?"

Ben looked like he was going to try and respond, but before he could say a word, Maria cut him off. "You've been acting superior to my team ever since you arrived here, and I put up with it, asking my team to do the same, even though you were treating them terribly. I put up with it, and with you because I knew who you were. You fought in the Faunus War under a general I idolized, so I thought you'd be like him. But no, you're not. While you may be a skilled fighter, you are no leader, and when I regain control of my team tomorrow, we'll be better for it." With those words, Maria stalked off, the rest of Team EMAD following behind her.

Ben sighed in resignation as he watched them leave. "Troubles, young man?" The giant of a man spun to face the source of the voice, finding it to be Professor Ozpin. "That was certainly bracing."

"Professor." Ben said. "I'm sorry, I'll just be going. I'm sure the next team to fight doesn't need me here to greet them."

"Relax, Ben," Ozpin replied. "The fights for today are over, we're heading back to Beacon now."

"Oh." Ben said. The room was silent for a few seconds as the former soldier and headmaster stared at each other. "She was right, wasn't she?" Ben said at last. "I'm not fit for duty."

"I wouldn't say that." Ozpin responded. "Yes, your leadership in this fight was... less than stellar, but look at it this way. Were you ever trained to be a leader?"

Ben thought about it for a moment. "No, no I wasn't." He realized.

"Indeed." The headmaster continued. "In fact, one could say that in the military you were trained in quite the opposite. You were taught to always follow orders, not to give them, taught to fight alongside others, not at the head of the group. You may have served under a famous general, but his techniques were not passed down through his presence alone, and while I'm sure he would have taught you everything he knows, had he been able to, but after the events of earlier this year, that's no longer an option."

A dark look came over Ben's face as he recalled the letter he had received saying that Erwin had been killed in action. He received more bad news that same day, as he was told that not only was his mentor dead, but he wasn't to tell a soul on pain of death, since Erwin had been killed on a secret mission.

"Maria was right about one thing, however:" Ozpin said, bringing Ben out of his thoughts. "You are a skilled fighter. I watched you cut through a wall of stone in one swing of your blade and duel another student into submission. It takes strength and skill to do both of those. Perhaps you should consider trying to apologize to Team EMAD at some point. Who knows, perhaps there is something they can still do for you."

"Thank you sir." Ben said, giving a slight bow to the headmaster.

Ozpin smiled slightly. "It's no trouble, young man."

Ben stood up straight and gave a salute to the professor before turning to leave. He stopped himself, however, and turned back to Ozpin for just a moment. "Sir, I wasn't aware you were on this vessal."

Ozpin smirked. "I came out here only an hour ago to watch the battles. Team combat is always entertaining as it is a display of both leadership and skill on the battlefield. As for why no one noticed me, well, I wish I had some explanation for that one, but even I can't tell you why."

Ben chuckled at the headmaster's words before turning to leave again. Thoughts of what he would say to Maria and her team flew through his head, but what truly nagged at the back of his mind was what Ozpin meant by there was something Maria could do for him. What could he have meant by that? The massive soldier let out a sigh. Now was not the time to think about that. It had been a long day, and he needed a rest.

oxoxoxo

Caroline had no time to rest as she fired another shot from Shining Roar, blowing through the heads of three of the... ghouls... assaulting her and her men. They had been making their way back to the base since sunset, the moon now hanging high in the night sky, attacked the entire way back by the creatures. Their only hope now was to get back to base before they were overwhelmed.

As the ranks of the creatures were finally beginning to thin, a cry of pain caught her attention. She snapped her head in the direction of the cry, seeing that one of the creatures had gotten too close and had sunk its fangs into the forearm of one of her men. Seeing that the creature had no intention of letting go, Caroline fired her weapon, the round tunnelling through the creature's head and sending it to the ground. The bitten Carolean was dragged with it, however, the wounded man screaming in pain. One of his nearby comrades unsheathed his sword, pried the jaws of the deceased creature off his arm and used the blade to cut away his sleeve to expose the wound. Even the untrained eye could see the punctures in his skin made by each individual tooth, the ugly red shade of the skin around the wound made it clear that it was quickly becoming infected. "We need to get him back to base, and quickly." Caroline ordered. "Double time it, let's move!"

Ordering her command, each Carolean took pot shots at the creatures before breaking into a full sprint in the direction of the base, Caroline herself holstering her weapon to pick up the injured man. She was able to identify him almost immediately as the man who had found the corpses of the missing patrol. "Stay with me now." She said. "Stay awake."

"Commander!" He gasped. "It burns, commander!"

"When we get back to base we'll patch you up, for now just stay with me." Caroline took a quick look at the wound, the infection seeming to spread since the last time she looked. "Move, men!" She ordered. "This man needs medical attention!"

Before long, the doors of the base were in sight, Caroline and her men stopping just outside the gate. "This is Commander Caroline Leon," the commander said into her communicator. "We have wounded, open the gates, now." As the massive gates began to slide open, the Caroleans and their leader rushed in, not even waiting for the gates to be fully open. "Close it, quickly!" The lioness commanded. As she heard the gates beginning to close, she and her men rushed into the base, taking the injured man to the medical center. When they got there, however, the medics were not waiting for them. sitting in the otherwise empty medical center was Derek, a bastard sword in his hand.

"How was your search?" He casually asked.

"The missing men are dead," Caroline answered. "And this man needs medical attention."

Derek looked over the men in Caroline's arms, his eyes drawn to the exposed bite mark. "What bit him?"

"What?"

"I asked you a question, girl. What bit him?"

Caroline thought to herself about how to describe their attackers. "They looked like ordinary humans and faunus, but they were..."

"Ravenous?" Derek supplied. "Looked like they were dead?"

"How did you know that?" Caroline asked.

"Young lady, I've been on this island for much longer than you, and I know exactly what happened to this man. Put him down for me."Derek said.

Caroline obliged, setting the man down on the ground. "How can we help him?"

"There is only one way at this point." Derek said. Before Carline could demand a proper answer, Derek drew his blade, a barrel opening on the hilt. With a pull of the trigger, a single bullet fired, tunnelling through the operative's chest. Before the eyes of the other Caroleans and their commander, the man began to burn, his skin blackening from the inside out. Before the remaining soldiers' eyes, the man burned to ashes. Derek sheathed his sword and walked out of the room, leaving Caroline and her men standing over the newly cremated body of their former comrade. "Someone sweep him up!" He ordered.

oxoxoxo

Updates! Finally!

Yeah, I know it took me a while to write these ones, but after I wrote one of these chapters, I knew it wouldn't work without the other ones, but in the end I think it was worth it. We meet a new team, and got some team combat out of it.

As usual please leave a review and let me know what you think. The story will only get better through your feedback, people, so please, do talk to me about this.