Evening, atop an isolated rooftop of Beacon.
This was a good time to come outside for a thinking session, to clear the mind of any worries, fears or stress in general. The lack of noise besides a shallow wind breeze, the gentle feeling of sunlight gracefully slipping away, like a soft hand cupping her face slowly fading as the perfect orange glow of the sun finally starts to go to its slumber along with the diurnal creatures of the known lands. Then out come the nocturnal creatures, often considered monsters or strange creatures that inspire fascination or fear in the hearts and minds of others.
But it was also time for Ruby to clear her mind, to think about all the many wonders of the world. Deep breaths, in and out, in, out, the sound of Jean Michelle Jarre's Oxygene album playing in her ears. The silence and prosperity of the night was broken however when Ruby noticed something that vaguely resembled gunfire in the distance. So now her curious mind was left with a choice. Option Eins: stay there and continue to think in peace. Or option Zwei: Investigate what is causing all the ruckus.
I'll give you three guesses.
Ruby smirked to herself turning off her calming music and making sure Crescent Rose was safe in her holster before bolting from rooftop to rooftop in a zig zag fashion to the old industrial district close to the slums of Vale. A mixture of dark, ugly browns and grays lined walls and buildings everywhere, along with the horrid smell of rotting God knows what, making Ruby cringe internally, she didn't want to know. Ruby found herself standing above an old warehouse being used by some armed people, likely not meant to be here, so she sat and she watched, waiting for the source of earliers gunfire to come to light.
P.O.V. Switch
Tonight was supposed to be a good night. Bob, as this man was unceremoniously named, was having the equivalent of a field day when he and his band of criminals received a large amount of money and dust in return for some military grade hardware. This was a couple weeks ago. Now he was getting scared at the fact that every single man under his employment outside of the warehouse perimeter had stopped reporting in. What actually frightened him was that any man he sent out the gates wouldn't come back, that and the last man to be sent out did in fact fire a few shots before nothing, not a peep, not even silence.
He ordered a complete lockdown, nobody gets in or out, but his fears were now heightened to new levels however when gunfire started emanating from outside.
P.O.V. Switch
"One..." He ended the countdown before his custom made chemical explosives, yes, Chemical, not Dust, exploded. BOOM, that was the signal for him to drop to the ground from the zip-line he was hanging from, leading to the over-watch towers now behind him to fall over in separate balls of flames, the men inside of them launched passed him at a perfect angle colliding into a pair of men a few meters away from him, every man outside looked in his direction to see what many criminals feared or knew the name of, some murmuring his hard earned title, or silent.
Glowing red dust symbols all over a black trench coat, burning brightly as a beacon of the future for these unfortunate souls. They could could see the Wesker like Kevlar vest over a completely black shirt, or skin, no one could tell. The mask, and eyes were the very things that would lead every man there to hear an demonic whisper originating from seemingly everywhere at once. "You each stare at the body of death...my words are the poison." but nothing visibly moved on the mask as the figure stood to his full height.
At this point they all just started firing their weapons at him, only to find the figure fizzle out like a flame dying. At first they kept staring where he was before they heard the grunts of men fallen behind them, two men lay on the floor with wounds entering their chest and exiting their backs, through the heart before disappearing in a plume of smoke. Now that they were all panicking they started to spread out in three small groups. Big mistake.
The only thing the first group could do to delay their demise was fire at the shadows seemingly lashing out at them, one of them was left without hands before having a tiny knife stick out of his skull, the dull thud as his corpse hit the floor was muffled by the sobs of a man.
"P-p-p-ppleaasee..." one of them whimpered as he dropped his weapon and curled on the floor in a foetal position shedding tears like a sobbing child. Disgusting. He thought to himself before disarming the other two by slicing their guns in half, each dropping their weapons, one grabbing a sword and trying to fight back, only for him to have his sword and head sliced in half horizontally in an futile attempt to block a slice.
The other however tried to enter a fist fight...why do they even bother...the haymaker he was about to throw was caught and his hand was slowly crushed, before his arm was roughly brought forward leading him to stumble forward with a scream of panic and pain, he was brought to one knee with a single kick before having his neck was snapped killing him instantly.
Letting the body fall to the floor limply, he stepped over to and crouched above the whimpering one, placing a single finger on his forehead, the man almost screamed but was silenced by a demonically whispered "Shhhhhhh...it's okay...death has not come for you yet, you may be assessed before your trial." The trembling man only whimpered more as he started the whispering of "Please don't kill me, please don't kill me, please don't kill m-." He was then silenced by another whisper to his ear, fiery breathing clawing at him. "What is inside, I wonder, weapons?" The figure asks. "Y-yy-ye-yes." He shakily replies leading the figure to click his tongue a few times, glancing at the other two groups.
"How many of you are there?" The figure asked once more. "s-s-sseventeen at-t l-leas-t..." His voice cracked shakily, a pitiful man trembling in fear at what to him would be the angel of death itself. "Be silent, be still, your soul screams loud enough when it gets consumed by the blackness of the void." At this the figure elbowed the mans head with enough force to knock him out, nothing more, though his nose was bleeding. He'll live...probably.
He kept to the shadows waiting for the two groups to join together, they were now a rules length each from each other. That'll do. The figure pounced out from the dark cutting down two before they could react, not wasting any time, they each attacked him with blades and guns alike, a single bullet hit him, yet it seemed to disappear from existence, no reaction came from the impact at all, if anything, it helped him move faster as he sliced down three men and firing a single shot from what would seem like katana's, the bullet travelling out of the tip of the blade and into the head of one of the gun wielding men.
There were six left which would soon be cut down to four as two with swords charged only for them to realise he had two blades, when he blocked the strike from both of them, he seemingly stabbed them both in the head in a blur, but he actually shot them both in the head with quick succession, letting them fall to the floor, he looked at the last men standing.
He simply stood and stared at them. Angst Haben. Were the only words he needed to think before they each seemingly looked around and started shriveling up in Fear, he groaned a little and fell to one knee to catch his breathe, as usual the Semblance took its toll on him, but he had a mission. So he left each of them to curl up on the floor and attack each other, thinking that the other person was God only knows what kind of monster their minds made up.
Entering the warehouse to find three people, one, a rather burly and short bloke with a cigar in his mouth, puffing away, wearing attire that reminded him an awful lot of the Penguin from a comic book he couldn't remember. The other two, girls, one of African-american descent and the other of white-British descent, this became obvious as they both hopped down into the light with him and simply smirked at him, the first wearing a white dress with ice blue feathers and the other wearing a black dress with orange-red feathers. They both had their hair done up in a pony tail, the first with brown hair and the second had blonde hair, that, and they had glasses on, box framed reading glasses. Why do people wear things so unsuitable for combat... He thought to himself, scowling at the lack of practicality EVERYONE seems to have. I know I'm not one to talk but still.
"Well well well, looks like the freak decided to pay us a visit, show em' your tricks girls, make him Comfortable." Bob said with an emphasis on 'comfortable' and the stereotypical British evil laugh. The figure simply made a half sigh half growl before disappearing and instantly appearing in front of one of the girls launching her to the other side of the room, luckily enough she had her Aura up, but it would've taken a dent from the force of the hit. He turned in time to block multiple incoming strikes, fast ones, luckily enough the real blow he needed to look out for which would've been the round-house kick heading his direction was promptly caught and used to spin her before knocking her into a wall, making her growl in frustration.
He smirked under his mask, oh how he loved playing with his food. "Come on girls! Show me what I bludy pay you for!" As the woman in front of him was recovering, he could hear the click clack of high heels running on the stone floor. You should wear something different. He thought before dodging an ice spike being launched at him from the one in front of him. He let off a fake pout tone as he spoke. "At least tell me your name before we get intimate."
The one who launched an ice crystal at him proceeds to do so again, however, he dodge by leaning backwards, almost flat, whilst simultaneously dodging a fire ball from another direction, during this time, the two sisters met up. "Glace." "Sera." They say in unison, kinda freaky. He brought himself upright easily, dusting himself off in a mocking fashion before standing opposite both of them, the one of British-White decent was Glace and the one of African-American decent was Sera. Definitely not ironic... He thought to himself sarcastically.
"Well I'd love to play more girls but I don't exactly have time, so we're going to make this quick." He said before he started to march forward with aggressive purpose. The two girls both simply smirked and charged at him, one using their legs primarily and the other, their fists, the result of this was a very large amount of concentration, nearly to the point of precognition. As a right hook was blocked he barely jumped over a leg sweep from the other. time that Glace needed to recover was time to try to take out Sera, which he used well, using the power of her left jab against her, he brought her forward and planted his knee into her gut firmly causing the air in her lungs to leave suddenly.
Before he could do anything else however a foot was about to kick him in the face, his hands were too busy but could be freed in a second, so he moved his head to the side and wrapped an arm around said leg and palm striked the side of her knee causing her to yelp, her Aura protecting her from major damage but it was still painful, after that he simply dropped the leg to start blocking angry and fiery punches from an enraged girl. What no one noticed was that the symbols on his trench coat were glowing brighter, so here's a minor demonstration of what they do.
The last punch Sera would manage to throw was caught and before she knew it she was kicked next to her half-twin...friend?...I don't know. All I know is that the figure was completely covered in fire, now he looked like the angel of death, cinders floating around him, the symbols grew brighter as he stared into the two girls souls making them instead of feeling heat, they felt a cold, clawed hand touch their minds, this brought them out of the stupor however and they got back to trying to fight him. Emphasis on trying.
As they each made contact they found their Aura depleting rapidly from strikes covered by smoke and flames, which really wasn't helping either, Sera had a basic immunity from the fire, Glace however, not so much. Before they knew it they were both heavily on the defensive, they could barely make out every strike he threw, whether or not it was a kick or a punch was also a mystery, but it became apparent that this was going to end soon as Glace's Aura shattered, a small knife impacted her gut causing both the girls eyes to widen until more and more knives started to impact her in all different places of the body, at the last knife she simply fell to the floor, the blood finally starting to leave her wounds.
At this Sera rolled over to her partner whilst dodging what was probably a kick, scooped her into into her own arms and just ran. The flames on his trenchcoat dying out, same as the smoke and cinders revealing a completely unharmed man, he knew each one of those knives hadn't impacted anything vital, the only way she would die is either through blood loss or infection in the wounds.
He looked up at the balcony where Bob was now running into the old office, locking the door behind him. He sighed wondering why they bother trying in the first place, it's a door, not a wall made of steel, like that would stop him either.
P.O.V. Switch
"Shit! shit! shit!" Bob repeated to himself as he tried desperately to arm himself with the primitive double barrel shotgun in the desk, fumbling about with the ammunition, but his punisher didn't come from where he expected, instead he came through the office window behind him and was tossed into the safety glass at the other side of the room leading him to grunt from the pain he wasn't used to. "Alright! alright! Bludy hell! What do you want?! Guns, Money, Ammo, Anything?" He pleaded which only resulted him getting lifted off of his feet and slammed into the safety glass which looked really close to breaking right now.
"How about information." His demonic whisper filled his ears. "Information? Fuck I'd have given you information if you just came and bludy asked!" He heard a growl as he slammed into the safety glass again, his cigar leaving his mouth and dropping to the floor as the glass shattered. "What do you know about recent White Fang activity?" "Look, I don't keep tabs on everyone, you're not exactly a popular bloke in this town! and neither are they!" This time he was thrown into the old desk which was promptly smashed to pieces from the impact, before he was picked up again.
"Alright! Alright! Look! I don't know anything recent! The only thing I know is that they were the ones who were going for the deal tonight, but you've probably scared the buggers off!" At this he heard a snarl before being dropped. "I'd watch your tone." Was the last thing he heard from him before he seemingly disappeared in a plume of black smoke.
He got up and dusted himself off, grunting from the pain and proceeded to grab his zippo to light up another cigar. "I'm too old for this bollocks."
P.O.V. Switch
"Woah." Was all that Ruby could think of right now. Or atleast, that's the only thing she could use to describe the situation. What she'd just watched would've been straight from an action movie, the Arbiter was all like waaaaah cha! *insert more generic kung fu noises here*. Though she wasn't able to see what happened inside, she knew it was awesome and that he won, since she saw two girls, one carrying the other, run out, the one carrying looked very distressed, likely because the one she was carrying got punched so hard they couldn't walk. What left her the most curious were the goons on the ground shriveled up, she knew he was scary, but not that scary, maybe it was his Semblance? Fear...That would be cool. Though she wondered how it would work.
She automatically spun around as she heard a dull metallic thud from behind her. "Care to tell me why you're up so late and why you're watching me work?" At this she beamed and blushed slightly, she'd been caught, though she had a feeling she'd been caught long before he arrived to let himself be known. "I uhhhhh...was uhhhhh..." While she was attempting to make an excuse as he sat next to her, barely able to make out his outline, besides his eyes, red symbols and the red on his mask, the lights around the warehouse helped a little also.
P.O.V. Switch
Okay, let's see what excuses she has to come up with that I might be able to use later in life. He thought to himself as he looked at Ruby, who partially reminded him of himself, brought into Beacon at a younger age because she showed promise. What promise though, he was sure he would see soon.
"I was out thinking and I heard gunfire so I came to take a look." Ruby said honestly, likely because she couldn't think of an excuse, so he believed her, for now, Ruby didn't seem like the type to think on her own but honestly he's seen stranger. Much stranger. Hell, he's lived much stranger.
He sighed. "Very well then, I'm done here and you should be getting to bed." At this Ruby pouted, her cheeks puffing up. He simply smiled tiredly behind his mask and poked her nose before standing up again. "Come on, I'll get you a box of cookies." At the mention of the words 'box of cookies' Ruby was standing with him in a flash of rose petals.
"If you can keep up." Ruby tilted her head before she realized what he meant, he started running and jumping from rooftop to rooftop as sirens were going off in the distance signifying that the police were on their way, not to be outdone, Ruby kept pace behind him which he was honestly impressed about, his free-running and gymnastics skills had taken a few years to perfect.
It didn't take long for him to reach his destination with Ruby hot on his heels, he turned to her and keeled so he could look her straight in the eyes. "You can't tell anyone about what you're going to see, okay? Can I trust you with this secret?" At this Ruby nodded enthusiastically. "Good." He said before opening the door to a café, which she followed him into, he went through the back and upstairs where it was like she just walked into a wonder land.
P.O.V. Switch
Ruby's mouth was almost drooling at the sight of so many weapons, explosives and much, much more, even if the place was untidy, that didn't mean it was unkempt, there was just alot here and to be honest this is what her home would probably look like anyway. She didn't care either way, but what she did notice was his mask starting to fold into the back of his head, she didn't see much besides his hair, which was black with metallic silvery white ends every so often, she wondered why. Highlights? she wondered, but he wandered into what she thought was the kitchen before she could ask.
She sat on the couch which had a coffee table, which would be more accurately described as a weapons bench, there were blueprints for different designs she didn't recognize, in addition to bits of specialized equipment made for all sorts of guns of melee weapons. One of the blueprints caught her eye, it looked like Crescent Rose with seemingly no design changes besides some notes commenting on...her fighting style? and how to improve the weapon based on her style? That's odd.
She looked a little more and found Blueprints for each of the Teams weapons besides one. Which was odd, until she realized that he'd destroyed that very weapon, until she saw what looked like an older version hanging on the wall. "Wha?..." Was Ruby's initial reaction before a box of cookies landed next to her, at this she promptly looked at the man leaning in the doorway, his tired features were evident along with his almost deathly pale skin, besides the black lines coming from his right eye, which was as usual, red, she assumed this was all make up but couldn't be sure because of how real it looked, his facial features reminded her strongly of someone else, it was an odd feeling that she wouldn't soon be forgetting.
He sat next to Ruby and ran his hand through his hair, rubbing his...Faunus cat ears..."You're a Faunus?" Ruby asked surprised, he smiled. "Yeah, they ache when I have my mask on, it annoys the ever living daylights out of me." His voice was no longer demonic, but still a little deep, until a he cleared his throat, then he sounded much younger than he looked. "I'm surprised the cookies aren't gone yet." He said with audible amusement, Ruby unconsciously started opening the box of cookies and munching on them, staring at his kitty ears, which twitched every so often.
"Where's your girlfriend?" She nudged his arm, at this he smiled a little. "Away, she'll be here soon though, although it's more like I'm away, it doesn't matter, she'll arrive within the next few weeks." At this she tilted her head in wonder. "What about your arm?" she asked. "Hm?" "Your arm, you said it was injured..." She trailed off and the punched him straight in the nose. "Ow...that was for knocking me out." At this he laughed, which Ruby eventually joined in on. "My arm is fine thank you, you'll be surprised at what I can handle and I apologise for knocking you unconscious." She knew he was lying about the 'what he can handle' part but decided not to question it, he looked fine, it still took her a while to realise she was staring at his cat ears still.
"Ruby...you can poke them after you've washed your hands." He said with a smile, at this she was brought out of her daydream...nightdream?...her cheeks turning Rosie (Pun intended.) "Sorry." she said shyly, at this he poked her nose and pointed at a door which she assumed was the bathroom, washing her hands and stepping back into the room, what she saw made her eyes widen in both confusion and wonder, with a bit of concern.
He'd removed his trenchcoat and was now in a vest made of kevlar, but it was his right arm that interested her the most, it was almost completely black, as in, pitch black, it stopped at around his wrist like a spreading virus, or vines, he looked concerned but decided not to question it as he put his trenchcoat back on and stood up. "Ruby, let's go." he said with a slightly raised voice, obviously not realising she was out of the bathroom before he looked at her and smiled warmly, the kind of smile that could make anyone's day no matter how bad it'd been.
"I'll grab your cookies and we'll go." She nodded. "Can I poke them?" At this he chuckled before sitting back down, she promptly took the chance and instantly appeared in front of him and began scratching his ear, after a few seconds she could hear a slight vibration coming from his chest, at this she giggled like the school girl she is.
After about a minute of continuous scratching and purring, much to her amusement, he looked at her and said "It's time to go." She sighed sadly before yawning. "That emphasized my point." He said before picking up the box of cookies and leaving with Ruby to Beacon Academy, during the time they were walking to the shuttle terminal, she hadn't noticed the mask had folded over his head and face again.
She said thank you and goodbye as they went the silent and sneaky way, through the window, which for Ruby was fun, she'd never hugged anyone besides Yang so tight before as he rapidly climbed up Beacon, almost too fast for her to process what was happening, thankfully though, the cookies were intact, that's all that mattered to her.
She gave a small wave and whispered "Thank You!" one last time before going to bed, he smiled a little, closing the window silently before leaping off the side of Beacon...for the second time in one week. He knew it would be a long day tomorrow, for them at least, he gave himself a generic evil chuckle before realising he needed to slow down otherwise he would turn into a thick paste on the courtyard of Beacon.
Hey everyone, I know this is a shorter chapter, but atleast it's an update, I've been lucky to use this goddamn laptop thing recently...I sound like Zaeed Massani...
As you can probably tell I'm a very unhappy person right now, this is because I've got business coming through like no tomorrow, stretching my administrative abilities to their limits, one of my friends is purposefully trying to get us into a fight since he found out we go to the same gym to spar, which is annoying me to no end, I sprained my hand because a guy moved his head out of the way before I could punch him, so I punched a concrete wall...also meaning I would've punched him incorrectly..which I am further scolding myself for...my writing and typing skills have taken a blow from having one of my hands partially disabled to...I'm not having a good amount of luck am I?
Luckily enough I've got a month or so away from college so I'll have more time for writing for you guys and I now get to play Stellaris which I will be playing the ever living feck out of, excuse my Irish. I'm sorry it took so long for me to get something so small out but it was the best I could do for the moment.
So, if you like this chapter be sure to follow or favorite for more and don't forget to review, it always brightens up my day, if you don't a facehugger will scare the goddamn living daylights out of you! I'm kidding...But really!
I'll see you guys in the next chapter, have a good one aaaaaaaaand goodnight, goodday, goodmorrow...goodyear...whatever...see ya later!