The Name of the Game
a RWBY/The Gamer crossover, SI.
Arc 7: Fall of Fall
Chapter 27: Free Fall
Light and sound returned in one brief moment where the world seemed to rush in to crush me. Drawing a breath, I gasped at the cold, thin air, and in the sudden rushing wind I realized I was still falling. As I accelerated, I began to tumble and caught sight of the ground below. Trees to the north leading towards Vale and the east climbing up a mountain range, plains stretching out to the horizon west and southward. Before I'd fallen too far, I cast "Wings!"
Large, invisible projections of force spread out from a point between my shoulder blades as the spell anchored to my body. My uncontrolled tumble righted and I was slammed with sudden, teeth-rattling deceleration and a flash of momentary searing pain from the point where the wings connected at my upper back—the wings acting like parachutes, but I had still been entirely unprepared for the suddenness of it, or having all of that force concentrated into two points that effectively bypassed my Aura. I would have to revise the technique, now that I knew that was a weakness.
A thumping sound filled the air around me as they beat softly and a glance at my HP bar caused me to wince. 'Right, note to self: reflexively trying to stop falling is bad. Next time, redirect the fall into a swoop or glide or something and bleed off momentum more slowly.'
I cast a quick couple of Heals on myself, bringing my HP back up to full and focused on meditation long enough to start regenerating the spent Mana. Pulling up gravity and wind elemental Mana, I dumped it into the spell and stilled the wings, allowing them to spread out and hold me aloft silently as I looked around and attempted to orient myself. 'Where the fuck am I? Is that what portal travel is like? That was not fun.'
This was… probably bad. My unknown watcher—or at least one of them, considering I knew of at least two now—had the ability to transport me places at will. However, given the content of the two notes I'd gotten, Raven—or whoever it was—potentially seemed intent on helping, though for what ends I couldn't say. Then again, for all I knew he or she could have sent me halfway across the continent to keep me out of the fight. Well, there was an easy way to check that and lay my fears to rest there. Opening my map, I began searching for familiar icons. I was pleasantly surprised when I spotted the phoenix-like icon that represented Cinder not too far away. That answered the question about whether my watcher wanted me out of the fight or not, but still left many other questions still up in the air. Questions like how, exactly, they had known the content of my mental conversation with the girls. 'I'm wasting time. Stop woolgathering. I've got enough to go on to, if not trust whoever sent me here, then to give them the benefit of the doubt for not fucking me. Speculate later, mission now.'
That thought in mind, I refocused on the map and took in their positions. 'Okay, there's Cinder. Emerald is beside this road and Mercury is directly across from her, while Cinder herself is back a good ways in a decent vantage point. Could be for observation, could be for ranged support.'
The facing indicator showed Emerald was facing back up the path into the mountains, so she was waiting for something considering she wasn't moving from that spot. If the terrain reading was right, she should have a clear view of anything coming down the road for a good ways, while any traveler would have a hard time making them out, given the cover available—brush, the occasional rock formation or boulder, and natural furrows in the terrain were all excellent hiding places. There was a farm house and a barn behind them about a quarter of a mile away—likely where they had been camped for the night, at a guess. An icon I didn't recognize—an amber circle bordered in gold with a trio of leaves, gold, red and green sticking from the right side of it—was moving slowly down the road from the mountain pass. Motion caught my eye as a final icon came into view, moving quickly and in a straight line from Vale.
'That looks like Qrow. Damn, he's moving pretty fast. Straight line travel at constant speed implies air travel, low overall speed implies it's not an aircraft. How did he know to be here? Raven? Either way, he's not going to get here in time to help. So, what are you planning?' I mused, taking in the positions of those involved and coming quickly to a conclusion. 'Looks like an ambush, though not the way I'd set it up. The Maiden comes down the road to about here,' I fingered a point on the map where the fence line for the farmhouse property began, 'Then if it were me and I wanted her alive, I'd jump her. Otherwise, if I wanted her dead, I'd just snipe her. But those three aren't set up for sniping. They're... set up for a two-pronged assault with the third as overwatch or potential backup. That says 'capture,' not 'kill' to me. Was my Semblance wrong? Arg, fuck, I don't have time to sit here and play guessing games all day. Worry about my Semblance's accuracy later.'
With a rough idea of their plan, I began making my own to counter it. 'I need to find somewhere to bring in the Bullhead, so I can get Penny here and ready.'Looking around below me, I spotted a clearing out of sight of both Cinder's group and the approaching Qrow and dropped like a stone. 'Penny, how long until Foxtrot-1 is in the air?'
'Five minutes, Jaune. It is being refueled now. It was just brought in from a mission,' the gynoid sent back.
Looking at my map and judging distances, I frowned. That would take too long. 'Is one of the pilots there with you?'
'Angel is, yes,' Penny confirmed.
'Ask her if it's bingo on fuel, and if not, if it's got enough for a hundred mile flight.'
There was a delay while Penny relayed my questions, before she sent, 'Angel says, 'Negative on bingo. You might make it to Vale.' What should I do?'
Doing some quick mental math, I nodded—if it wasn't empty, I could use passive and active skills to cut down on fuel use and get it back to Vale, even if it was running on fumes by the time we got back. 'Tell them to stop refueling it and get back from it. I'm going to unsummon it. Let me know when they're done, then…' I paused, wondering how to pull this off. Penny just teleporting in front of our people would give away too much. 'You know Invisibility yet?' I figured I'd ask, because for all I knew she could have been training on her own time. Penny didn't exactly need sleep.
'I bought an upgrade that allows me to cloak like Invisibility,' Penny answered.
'Okay. Do that, then get somewhere out of sight of the cameras before you summon yourself to me, just in case,' I instructed. By the time my feet hit the ground of the clearing, Penny had sent her confirmation that the armed Bullhead had been cleared. I immediately unsummoned the vehicle, then held out my hand and called it up in the clearing. Penny appeared at my side in motes of green light an instant later, already decked out in her Fox outfit. "Penny, I want you standing by in case shit gets bad. Keep the engines spooled up and ready."
"Do you want me in the air—'on station,' I believe it's called?" Penny asked, and I considered it for a moment.
Slipping into the Bullhead, I checked the fuel gauge—it was low, but a few minutes worth of circling or hovering shouldn't be bad enough that my skills wouldn't make up the difference. I moved back outside and gave Penny a nod. "Actually, yeah, fuck it. Take off and start circling a mile out from this point." Pulling up my map, I tapped the spot of the potential ambush, marking it on both our maps. "Wait until I'm there then go," I warned her, and the gynoid nodded as she climbed into the Bullhead.
Pulling my wings back up, I dumped gravity and wind elemental Mana into them and yanked myself skyward, wind whipping around me as I 'fell' upwards as Remnant's gravity gave up on trying to argue with magic. Climbing quickly, I oriented myself on the ambush site and tore off across the sky, my hood yanked back by the wind and my cloak snapping and popping about my heels. I was suddenly glad that I'd had the foresight to make sure the eye holes for the mask were actually clear glass, which kept the wind out of my eyes—though that reminded me that I needed to replace the mask with something with more tech in it at some point soon.
'How do I want to do this?' I wondered, taking in their positions on my map as I approached. 'Take out Emerald first—she's the weakest link and the most likely to give me away if she tries to hit me with her Semblance right off the bat, so that's going to need to be a sneak attack. Mercury is the next closest, he'll likely jump in the moment I start kicking around Emerald. That leaves Cinder and the Maiden unoccupied. If this Maiden chick is smart, she'll run, and once she's clear I can go myself. If she's some sort of hero-complex type or a fight junkie, she'll jump in. Or she could be more of a pragmatist when it comes to dealing with enemies than I am and would rather leave corpses than live enemies that could come back to haunt her later. Either way, I've got no fucking clue what's going to happen if she does step in.'
Unfortunately, I couldn't just kill Emerald or Mercury—I might actually need them later, for something. That, and there was the potential that if I could turn Cinder, they would turn as well. There was also the fact that if I did kill Emerald and Mercury, Cinder could replace them with potentially more competent unknowns. No, I wouldn't eliminate them until they became a problem. It was the same reason I had decided to set Roman up to be arrested instead of outright killing him—except, in the case of Roman, 'Shiro' had made for a viable replacement. It was with that in mind that I focused on Conjuration, creating something I could use to hit Emerald with that wouldn't be immediately fatal, but would deal enough damage to put her out of the fight.
The light of the spell flashed in my right hand and, a moment later, it was filled with the hilt of a sword—four feet long, black, with a wide 'blade' and a swept back hand guard. It looked more like something pulled from a fantasy game than a functional blade. The 'edges' were actually rounded—meaning it was little more than a very pretty bludgeon, but it would do the job I wanted it for.
As I neared, I caught sight of Emerald moving to stand in the middle of the road with her kusari pistols drawn. Across from her, a woman pulled a large, white horse to a stop—the horse and its tack looking very plain, in the way the woman's cloak and general demeanor seemed to be trying to say 'just a traveler, nothing special here.' It told me that whatever this Maiden was, she didn't want to advertise.
The woman slid down off the side of the horse and approached the greenette, pulling her hood back and giving me a good look at her as she did. She was on the darker tanned side of Caucasian, with brown hair in a short bob. She looked to be in her mid-20s and wore fairly simple fare for clothing: green hooded traveling cloak, brown thigh-high leggings or leather armor of some sort over what looked like brown pants, a white blouse under a short corset, and some sort of mantle or something similar that fastened at her neck and went down her back under the cloak—I couldn't quite make out the finer details at this range. Her armor was golden and in a similar style as that which Pyrrha had worn in canon. I stood by my initial assessment—for a Huntress, she seemed to be trying very hard not to stand out.
I quickly dumped altitude, stooping into a dive and accelerating towards Emerald as the woman approached her, looking around warily as she did. It was that attentiveness to her surroundings that allowed her to spot my approach. Jumping back towards her horse and slapping it on the side to send it running away, she threw off her cloak and whipped the staff off her back before taking a defensive stance—and in so doing told me she was not going to be doing the smart thing and leaving the area. The staff itself extended from the center, telling me there was at least some level of tech involved in its creation despite its otherwise humble appearance, and at either end of it the wood that made up the staff twisted to cradle a pair of Dust crystals—one mostly clear with a white tint, the other red. I couldn't readily identify the grade of either of the Dust crystals, nor were they in a common cut—in fact, they looked as though they had been harvested straight off a crystal formation instead of being refined and shaped by machines.
For a moment Emerald looked shocked, then her head turned to track what the Maiden was looking at. Red eyes widened as she caught sight of me and her body flared with green Aura as she began trying to leap away, but I was too close and moving far too fast by that point. Four feet of black steel slammed into the side of her head at over two hundred and fifty miles per hour. Physics told Aura to fuck off for the moment and the smaller girl ragdolled, tumbling head over heels in a tangle of limbs as she slammed into the dirt road and rolled several feet. Flaring wind and gravity, I dumped speed. Having learned from the first time, I made sure not to try to stop on a dime and instead glided in, using the wings as air brakes, and sending dust and gravel swirling around me as I landed—though I didn't quite stick the landing, and was forced to roll to bleed off leftover momentum, leaving me several yards away from the cloaked woman. I turned my head to regard the Maiden as my Semblance did its thing.
Amber
Fall Maiden
Level: ?
I was not the only one getting an eyeful as her eyes swept over me and took in my form—hood still blown back, spiky red hair a mess from the flight, mask covering my face. Her eyes shifted to the downed form of Emerald and she frowned before looking around in confusion. "There was a little girl..."
"No girl." Striding across the road, I picked up the unconscious Emerald by the hair, giving her a hard shake. "Just a rat."
I turned towards where I knew Mercury lay in wait. Holding her aloft by the hair, I smirked under my mask as an explosion sounded and he rushed out of cover. "Flash Freeze," I subvocalized, under powering the spell and watching Emerald's HP run down as she went stiff and frost formed over her body. I tossed her off to the side as Mercury drew near. He leapt at me from several feet away, shifting in midair and curling his feet around for a double kick aimed at my chest. Calling up earth elemental Mana, I made a sweeping gesture upwards with my free hand and raised a wall between us—ignoring the Skill Creation alert letting me know I'd created the skill Wall—and called up my wings again.
He kicked off the wall and, as I rose up above its level, I was able to make out some sort of Dust round going off from the area of his feet. 'Right, artificial limbs and Dust weapons. He's all foot-based techniques, from what I recall of the last time I Observed him,' I mused. 'Need to figure out what his Semblance is so I can counter it and warn the others about it later, in case they run across him.'
Wind swirled around me as I launched myself towards him, dropping the wings and striking out, my blow turned aside by a crescent kick, which quickly reversed itself into a side kick. Drawing a line in my mind along the path of his leg, I tilted mostly out of the path of that line an instant before the weapon fired and a white ball of Dust and Aura grazed my chest plate, spinning me around as I took in the damage it'd done. 'Negligible damage. Non-lethal round?'
"Tch," the other teen sucked his teeth, flowing into a combo of kicks that I alternately dodged or parried, occasionally bringing my sword up to block one and get a good idea of his strength. His booted foot impacted solidly and I rolled with the blow, allowing it to send me tumbling back before I came back to my feet with some distance between us. "You're not as fast as I was lead to believe."
Motion caught my eye as Amber moved to strike the gray haired boy's back—drawing a pleasantly surprised grin from my lips that she wasn't above double teaming an opponent or striking one in the back. It was not to be, however, as before she could take Mercury out from behind a flash of silver caught my eye as an arrow streaked in from the side. There was an unearthly scream in the air, along with a quick buildup of red light. The explosion announced Cinder's arrival and Amber was driven back under a flurry of blows from the red-clad beauty, armed with a pair of curved swords that glittered faintly in the afternoon light. "Keep him busy!" she yelled, over the staccato sound of her swords against Amber's staff. Something about that sound seemed off to my enhanced hearing, but I didn't have time to place it as Mercury began pressing his attack harder.
"No problem," the boy called back, a fierce grin adorning his features. "It's too bad, really. I thought you'd be a better fight than this! It's fucking disappointing." He stopped attacking, took a small leap back, and smirked as his eyes shifted off of me to a point behind me. "Die."
Casting a quick glance over my shoulder, it was at that point that I noticed that the white orbs—which seemed like some sort of wind-based attack—that he'd been shooting at me had not simply flown into the distance behind me, but had circled back around and were streaking towards my back. Dropping to one knee, I called up my wings again and thrust down, at the same time I Leapt upwards. My feet left gouges in the dirt road and a storm of dust was kicked up around me as I launched myself out of the path of the attack.
Looking down, I frowned as, instead of striking the ground or hitting Mercury as I'd hoped, the path of the attacks curved upwards as they followed me. 'Homing attack. Fun. Note to self: make one of those—call it Magic Missile or something. So, now I've got at least some idea of his capabilities.'
Flipping over so I was pointed head-down towards the ground, I pulled my sword back and reversed course. Pulling up Haste, the world slowed as its second-tier evolution of haste-speed perception kicked in. Tracking the attacks coming towards me, I noted their placement, speed, and path and planned my attack accordingly. I swatted the first three aside back to back in three quick strokes, sending them spinning off into the air around me where they exploded harmlessly.
Mercury's look of triumph as he tilted his head up to watch shifted to one of fury as I made my way through his string of attacks. When they became too many and too dense for me to handle with one sword, I Conjured up a similarly shaped sword, which gleamed white in the mid-day light, and spun to catch the last of the attacks as they closed in on me, deflecting the rest into the ground, where they sent up small gouts of earth as they exploded.
I flared the wings wide, killing my momentum as I landed in a crouch. Giving the swords a spin in each hand, I released both in a Strike Raid, the black one curving in from the left while the white one curved in from the right. Mercury tracked the swords for just a moment before he realized they would miss. Gray eyes shifted back to me just in time to watch me disappear, reappearing with my booted foot in his chest and sending him flying backwards, into the path of the swords I'd thrown.
I raised an eyebrow in surprise when he kicked out his feet, throwing himself into a spin that allowed him to narrowly avoid the first sword as his hand streaked out and caught it, repeating the process with the second blade before touching down. Hefting the weapons in his hands, he shot me an incredulous look, apparently noticing that they weren't sharp. "What the hell kind of swords are these?"
I released the Conjuration holding them in place and they disappeared from his grip in a flash of light. A twitch of my wrists and another Conjuring brought them back to my hands, giving the impression I'd summoned them from him somehow. To his credit, the boy didn't waste time questioning it. He took off for me at a dead sprint, closing the distance before making a Dust-assisted leap into the air above me. He spun midair, throwing out kick after kick—the force of them keeping him airborne much longer than would have been possible normally—as unspent attacks began to orbit his spinning form. About a quarter of the attacks were directed at me, forcing me to swat them aside or block as he attempted to pin me in place long enough to build up for what looked like a finisher.
'Does he just expect me to sit here and eat that?' I wondered. 'No, he's still under the impression he's keeping me pinned here with his shots. Arrogant little shit.'
Behind him I noticed clouds suddenly gathering in the clear sky as the wind kicked up, the temperature dropped sharply, and lightning began to pop around us. 'Oh, shit.'
It took a moment, focused as I was on this fight, before I realized that it wasn't Mercury who had summoned up a sudden storm as I'd worried, but the Maiden. A glance over showed she had lifted into the air, eyes burning with supernatural power and a sphere of visible wind swirling around her as she began to rain down lightning on Cinder. 'Weather manipulation? So, a cheap Storm knockoff powerset?'
My danger senses tingled and I returned my gaze to Mercury, who had curled into a ball before kicking both legs out and down, towards me—his entire attack buildup having taken place over the course of only a few seconds, but it still seemed ridiculously slow to me. You really needed a teammate to keep the enemy occupied if you were going to try to build up an attack like that. Well, it's not like I was going to be giving the kid any pointers—it was an exploitable weakness one of us could use later, so it was best to let him continue thinking it could work.
Every sphere of Aura and Dust circling him abruptly shot downwards, expanding into a virtual Aura carpet bombing on the area where I was standing. I Leapt to meet them, wings flaring around me and pulling me up. My conjured swords flashed out, striking only those attacks that would have hit while I ignored the rest, punching a hole through his attack and throwing out another double Strike Raid at him.
The boy curled his legs up in front of him to block, with his hands crossed over his face behind them, and I saw my opportunity. The sound of a thousand chirping birds filled the air and, for an instant, realization crossed Mercury's face as he saw how he'd been played. That everything I had done against him so far had been to gauge his skill, test his speed, probe his defenses, and take the full measure of him before I brought him down hard.
Instead of saving time and curb stomping him, I'd underplayed my hand. Ten million EXP was a lot, yes, but I wasn't going to start revealing all my secrets for that prize—and especially not when the quest said that I'd be coming to some unknown factor's attention by intervening. I would much rather play it safe and avoid showing off everything I could do. This way, when they went off to lick their wounds—assuming they got away—there would always be that lingering doubt. By comparison to the fight I'd set up between the Fox and Shiro, with Penny and Neo's help, I had been practically moving in slow motion. And seeing as I was doing all of this while running under full Aura Suppression, it would leave the impression that I had never really gone all out—that I was simply toying with them. Or at least I hoped it would. The only problem there was the whole 'zero Aura' thing, but I'd deal with that when the time came. I had an idea, but it would mean contacting Neo shortly after this fight was over to ensure my alibi.
But what had really done him in was a simple mistake. He had chosen to block when he should have dodged. If he had chosen to dodge instead of block, he wouldn't have obscured his view of me. The swords, as close to being imitation Keyblades as I could make them, would hurt when they hit but he could easily shrug it off—especially if they hit his prosthetic legs. They were relatively harmless, and mostly made for bludgeoning. The blade in my hand, however, was anything but harmless. I'd lulled him into a false sense of security and he had taken the bait hook, line, and sinker. It was entirely too late for him to do anything about it, however.
I dropped into Flash Step, reappearing under him in mid-swing. Lightning met metal and the boy's entire body seized up as the Plasma Blade met the prosthetic on his right leg and dumped crunchy, crunchy voltage into his body. The artificial limb sheared off, spinning through the air and taking part of his pants leg with it, leaving behind a stump with a ragged end covered in molten slag where the blade had melted the metal. An instant later, the unspent Dust in the weapon detonated, the shockwave slapping across both of us. The two conjured swords were insult to injury, as one caught him in the stomach and the other in the face before I dismissed them. To finish it off, I sighted him in as he began to fall and subvocalized "Ventas," sending a blast of wind slamming into him and driving him the hundred or so feet down to the ground, where he collapsed in a heap. He groaned, attempting to roll onto his back—I had to give him credit where it was due, he was one tough little bastard.
Stilling myself in the air, I sighted down my hand and cast Mana Bolt for good measure. 'And stay down.'
The attack exploded on impact, sending him skidding and rolling across the dirt road. He did not get back up. Abruptly, the lightning stopped and the clouds above dispersed. 'Guess I was right about her being able to hold off Cinder,' I mused, turning to find the other fight now that Mercury was down. What I saw chilled me to my bones. I was wrong—dead wrong. Amber had not, in fact, defeated Cinder. Quite to the contrary, it looked as if Cinder had handed the woman her ass.
Both were beat to hell, but Amber was clearly the worse off of the two, considering she looked like a human pincushion. A pair of silver arrows nailed each of her feet to the ground, while another had lodged in her right bicep. A fourth was buried in her left thigh, just above the knee, while a fifth had punched through her chest and either penetrated or grazed a lung if the bright pink bloody foam at the corners of her lips was any indication. My mind came up with a likely scenario: the first had possibly been the one through the bicep, then the one in the meat of her thigh had slowed her down or possibly even sent her to the ground. The two arrows pinning her feet to the ground were most likely to make sure she couldn't get away, while the final one to the chest was a slow death sentence.
'Not going for capture,' I realized, my eyes tracking to a sudden glow. Amber lay on the ground writhing in agony, and while the arrows may have had something to do with it, the line of glowing something connecting her face to a fucking Grimm bug of some sort sitting atop Cinder's gloved hand was the more likely culprit.
Dropping into Flash Step again, I reappeared between the two women, my Plasma Blade dragging a line through the middle of the tendrils connecting the woman on my left to the bug on my right. The golden glow of Aura connecting the two faded and Amber went silent and limp. There was a moment of silence as the bug shook itself before diving through the odd red symbol on top of the white glove on Cinder's right hand and disappeared. The glove didn't so much disappear as it seemed to melt into Cinder's hand, reminding me of the cloak and mask the twins had equipped. I felt an immediate power buildup in the air. 'Fuck your goddamn power up sequence, it's not a free action,' I thought, casting Ventas in Cinder's face and blowing her off the dirt road, to roll into the ditch.
Moving quickly, I dismissed my Plasma Blade, dropped to my knees, and yanked the arrows pinning Amber to the ground out. I gathered Amber in my arms and Flash Stepped away from everyone else there. Finding a couple of boulders, I set her down out of sight of the road and checked her over. Her title had changed. It still read as 'Fall Maiden,' but the letters rotated slowly through normal text and the sort of eye-stabbing fucked text that I had come to associate with things outside my Semblance's ability to understand. Her Aura was mostly depleted and going down quickly, while her health was at 30% and falling. I began removing the arrows and throwing them to the side, at the same time hitting her with both Heal and my HoT spell—there wasn't time to be delicate here, so I had to hope my spells would heal any damage pulling them out as I had had done. 'God fucking damn I should have spent more time leveling these spells. She's stable, but her Aura is still draining. Fuck, deal with Cinder first, then fix it.'
Looking up, I spotted Foxtrot-1 circling overhead. 'Penny, change of plans. Move closer and keep an eye on my current position. If anyone other than me approaches this rock formation, light them up.'
The gynoid's response was immediate as the Bullhead tightened its orbit and shifted from straight flight to a hover that would allow her to keep the rocks, and subsequently Amber, in sight at all times. 'Do you want me to fire on the other woman, Jaune?'
I considered it for a moment. I would love to drive her off, but at this point what I needed and what I wanted were two different things. I absolutely needed information—combat data about Cinder's capabilities, especially now that it looked like she'd acquired some sort of instant power up. With an idea of her capabilities, I could plan around it as opposed to going in blind later. 'Negative. Only engage if she approaches or attacks the injured woman hidden back here.'
A roar of wind drew my attention to where I'd swatted Cinder and I Flash Stepped away, dropping the technique when I came within sight of her. Her left eye was glowing, burning with power to the point that it leaked out, while wind whipped up into a sphere around her. A glance at my minimap showed that her previous phoenix-like icon had changed, replaced by a familiar symbol that I had expected her to have the first time I'd met her—the angular heels forming a hollow heart I recognized from seeing in what passed as 'canon.' More disturbing though was the fact that her information had changed in my Semblance.
Cinder Fall
F̶̯̭̼̦̜̪̦̹͐̋̐̄͞͠all̸͎̠̬̀͌̉̎̐̊̍̀̏͢͡ͅ Maid̦̜̟̬̩̙̦̲̊̓̀͘̚ͅe̷̞̯͇̟͓͎̳͋̋̀̉̃͊̐̕͞n
Level: ?
Where before, her suppressed level had been listed in the 60s, it was now outside of my Semblance's ability to even guess. There was also the fact that she shared the title of Fall Maiden with Amber now, complete with fuckups. 'Cinder, what the fuck did you do? How? Where did that glove come from and what was that Grimm?'
She noticed me and the wind stopped. She dropped to her feet, her dress flashing in a pattern of orange tracery. Her face was suddenly obscured by what looked like a heat haze as she looked around for her underlings. I wasn't stupid enough to take my eyes off of her to check for myself, but a glance at the minimap showed Emerald was moving slowly towards Mercury's position.
'She's awake. Fuck. If she casts, Gamer's Mind will give me away,' I realized. Well, I did have one way to deal with that eventuality. Reaching for the mental toggle switch for Gamer's Mind, I flipped it down from Defensive to OFF. If worse came to worst, I could deal with Emerald's bullshit Semblance the easy way: large scale AoE attacks centered on my position. I might not be able to perceive her properly, but an AoE wouldn't give two shits about that.
Cinder's burning gaze shifted back to me and a sword appeared in her left hand. A twitch of my right hand brought the Plasma Blade back to life, the sound rolling over the land around us as we stared each other down. Abruptly, Cinder shifted forwards on her heels and shot across the distance between us, bringing the blade in for a strike. Tracking her with Haste speed perception, my Plasma Blade came up in a casual block. Her sword came down on mine and the smirk that had been forming on my lips died stillborn as her body refused to lock up. She shifted on her heels, bringing the blade in from another angle—high and right—and I met her strike again. The locked blades hung there between us for the span of a breath before the flowed into a sweeping combo of strikes. Taking the Plasma Blade into a two-handed grip, I brought it up and began parrying her strikes aside as I waited for an opening, my blade crackling every time it met hers, sending sparks and flashes of light dancing around us. 'Why doesn't the Plasma Blade cut straight through that thing? It's obviously non-conductive, otherwise she'd have either been fried or dropped it by now. It's also not heating up much, likely for the same reason. Well, that, or Aura did it.'
We clashed again before she spun away, her empty hand flashing out at me with her palm splayed out and an instant later, I was thrown backwards by a burst of hurricane force wind. I bounced along the ground twice before righting myself with a chuckle. 'I deserved that,' I mused, before motion caught my eyes. Cinder had conjured up a second sword and joined them at the hilts, a silver line connecting them from tip to tip. 'Recurve bow,unknown composition, unknown draw weight—with Aura, there's no telling what the upper limit is. But it's safe to assume bullet-speed arrow velocity, because otherwise it's a waste of time.'
She put a trio of arrows on the string and fired. As they neared, the screaming sound from before came back as their tips began to glow and I frowned as I caught sight of a faint outline, hidden in the glow. 'What is that? A glyph? A small Bounded Field pattern? Looks sort of like what I saw of the design on that glove with the little Grimm.'
I jerked my own free hand up, a blast of wind from a subvocalized "Ventas," sending them spinning back towards the woman. One hit the ground in front of her and exploded, kicking up a fountain of dust. The second went wide, while the last blew up nearly in her face—or I thought it did, seeing as I couldn't confirm that with the dust between us.
More screaming announced the presence of a second flight of arrows from above me, and as I lifted my hand to blow them off course, my detection skills pinged and Sense Danger flared to life from my left. I dropped into a dive, just missing having a pair of arrows punch through my left lung followed by a third arrow coming down and exploding where my head had been. 'Okay, she's a fair bit faster than she lets on,' I mused, finding her again as she moved to close the distance between us, the bow breaking apart into a pair of swords and the string between them disappearing.
I blinked as she flung the sword in her right hand at my head, sending it spinning through the air similarly to my own Strike Raid. I batted it aside before closing, swinging my blade down in an overhead strike. The blade in her left hand came up in a block and as she flowed into a follow-through strike with her right hand, my own experience summoning blades screamed at me to move. Cinder's dress flared to orange life and even without the nascent elemental sense manipulating wind gave me in the same way manipulating gravity allowed me to sense the specific gravity of objects, I could feel the sudden vacuum as air was drawn in towards her. I dodged backwards just in time as a wave of heat and orange light rolled over me, and the sound of chirping birds was joined by a deep, prolonged roar as orange fire sprang to life in her hand, taking the form of a blade like my own. Her blow went wide and I frowned as she began slowly circling me—no, not circling, stalking.
'Fuck it,' I thought, twitching my left hand and Conjuring up another imitation black keyblade. We shot forward at the same time. Cinder's blades came in from an outwards arc on my left, the non-conductive blade leading. I brought my own blades up, snapping the first away in a parry and attempting the same with the fire blade, only to see the imitation keyblade go red hot at the point of contact before her fire blade ate right through it, sending sparks and molten metal blasting off of it from where they met. I dodged back quickly, the conjured blade in my hand falling apart as the magics holding it together failed entirely. 'Okay, note to self: don't try to catch that thing with physical constructs.'
The woman across from me began stalking closer, and I realized what she was doing. Much the same way as I'd tested Mercury, she was testing me. Not liking that idea one bit, I decided to tip things back in my favor. I dropped into Flash Step, reappearing in her face with an overhead strike from the Plasma Blade. Her fire sword streaked in, aiming to cleave me in half from the shoulder, and I smirked under my mask. The chirping of thousands of birds and the jet engine roar of fire was joined by the howl of a blizzard—a pale white blade of condensed, spinning, sub-zero frost and wind spinning up in my left hand and intercepting her weapon. After that, we began trading a flurry of blows, lightning crackling, fire roaring, and wind howling around us as we probed each other's defenses.
I was forced to admit that with a sword in her hand, Cinder was much better than I was. The fact that both my Sword Mastery and Dual Wield skills were leveling as we fought was testament to that, and it was only Haste perception that allowed me to keep the playing field somewhat level. And then, suddenly, everything changed.
Parrying another of her swipes with the flame sword off to my right, the red-clad beauty stumbled two steps following the path of the deflection before regaining her balance. The jet engine roar of her blade spluttered once, twice, before dying entirely. The heavy feeling of an unsuppressed Aura that had been swiftly climbing as we fought, threatening to crush the air from my lungs, likewise spluttered and died. I blinked as her level plummeted from triple question marks to 13, and the heat haze hiding her face failed entirely. I skipped back and brought my weapons up defensively and across from me, Cinder did likewise as we resumed circling each other. 'Nuh-uh. That's bait,' I assessed. 'Feign power loss, lure your opponent into a false sense of security, then power up again when they get close and it's too late for them to react? I'm not stupid enough to bite.'
There was only one problem with that theory—namely, the fact that Cinder looked suddenly tired, exhausted really, and surprised. I suspected it was an act, and if it was, it was a good one. She cast a glance back over her shoulder, towards where I knew Emerald and Mercury to be. I could just see the greenete trying to rouse the boy, but it appeared Mercury was still down for the count—and even if he wasn't, he wouldn't be going anywhere fast any time soon. A glance at my minimap showed Qrow getting closer, but still a minute or two out. 'Hold her off till he gets here, then we'll double-team her and bring her in. Capture her, find out what she did to the Maiden beyond the obvious, figure out how to reverse it. Sounds like a plan. I think I have enough combat data now that I can call it. Time to end this fight.'
Deciding to go for the quick finish, I subvocalized, "Sleep."
Cinder wavered, her eyes slipping closed and her grip going slack on the blade in her hand. And then the battle changed again. The crushing power of before was back, ramping up to a height I hadn't seen outside of the Arc twins—and this had well and truly eclipsed what I'd seen from them, by a large amount. More disturbingly, a low moan floated across the space between us as the brunette shuddered in a moment of what looked to be rapturous ecstasy. Golden eyes flashed open and locked on my green under the mask, and she smirked—the effects of Sleep blown off like cobwebs in a hurricane. Her level once more changed to outside my range to detect, and I reassessed my earlier observation. 'Not faking it? Genuinely has a problem keeping a handle on the power, because it's still settling? If that's the case, fuck. I missed a chance to end this.'
Wind exploded out from around her and she shot forward, leaving gouges in the ground as she closed the distance between us. The jet engine roar came back as I caught her blades on my own, only to be thrown completely off my feet, sent tumbling head over heels for several yards before I was able to right myself, only to find her right back in my face. I was forced into close combat again, once more relying on Haste to keep me a step ahead. I parried a thrust, with her physical sword, blocked a low slash at my legs from her fire sword, and attempted to put my boot in her chest between them, only to find her a step ahead, her own foot flashing out to connect with my chest. Wind exploded outwards from the blow, sending me tumbling again before I cast Air Walk and redirected my flight, sending myself hurling off to the side and out of the path of a fireball that had followed her kick.
The fireball exploded off to my side and I brought up my hand, sighting her down and casting Mana Bolt. She dodged and returned fire with an explosive arrow. I threw both the swords in my hands in a pair of Strike Raids before dropping into Flash Step, Conjuring up an oversized two-handed sword as I did. Reappearing at her 5 o'clock, I put all my strength into the swing as she was forced to deal with the two flying blades. The sword in her left hand flashed out, batting aside the Plasma Blade spinning through the air at her, before she began turning. The fire blade in her right hand caught the arctic blade I'd made to counter it and slapped that off to the side as well. In the time between when I'd dropped out of Flash Step and swung my oversized sword, she had parried both my thrown blades and completed her spin, bringing both her weapons up to try to catch my own.
A slab of sharpened steel eight feet long, a foot wide, and several inches thick weighing a couple hundred pounds and driven with Flash Step speed backing it up crashed into the physical blade she'd constructed, forcing it back into the fire blade crossed under it and I saw her Aura flare bright red from the center of the blade. Between the combined forces, the blade in her left hand shattered, and I realized why I was having such a bastard of a time simply cutting through it with my Plasma Blade and why it was nonconductive—she'd created her swords from glass and she'd been dumping Aura into them to keep them from melting or outright shattering.
The woman below me flinched away, closing her eyes to protect them against the spray of glass as my Buster Sword replica passed through the shattered sword without slowing down and met the fire blade under it. Once more, steel melted and sheared off before it could pass the blade, spraying flecks of molten metal all over the place as half the blade went spinning off behind Cinder while the half still in my hands continued its swing, missing cleaving through her dress and chest by a hair's breadth before both halves shattered into light particles as the spell holding them together failed.
Shattered glass flew up from the ground around us, spun through the air and collected, flowing almost like liquid as another glass sword appeared in Cinder's hand and I spun up an arctic blade while conjuring a thick, curved, and dense steel sword in the style of a falchion. Cinder's eyes narrowed as the fight changed again, her glass sword cracking under the first blow of my falchion while I kept her fire blade at bay. The second direct hit to her blade snapped it cleanly in half and she spun, presenting the fire blade in a defensive whirl of flame as she created another physical sword, this time allowing the more dangerous of her blades to lead while she looked for an opening to slip the glass sword in. I exchanged strikes with her for a moment before presenting such an opening, and as the glass sword slid in I dropped the out of place falchion and the arctic sword, summoning up a pair of the same in hands opposite to what they'd been in a moment before, and shattered her glass sword again before stepping in with a thrust of my own with the arctic sword and reversing the downward swing of the falchion into a swipe that could cut across her breasts if it hit.
Wind exploded around us as she called up her new power again, knocking me back several feet again, though this time I managed to keep my balance. The wind died down an instant later as the fire blade in her hand spluttered and died out and she growled, calling up a pair of glass blades and dropping into a defensive stance—her level dropping down to 38 as her new power failed her. 'Way less of a dip than it was before. Shit. Is she getting it under control, or is it random? Either way, it's still above my level at the moment.'
I cast a silent Sleep on her, which she shrugged off. I tried Confuse/Sleep combo and suddenly felt like I'd slammed into a brick wall, and I frowned. 'She was at least vulnerable for a moment there, but now mental spells aren't even working anymore. What the fuck?' It was like her own Will save didn't even matter—something was actively no-selling my mental spells now. 'Stop wasting time on shit that doesn't work, focus on what does.'
Dispelling the arctic blade, I dropped into Flash Step, Conjuring up a second falchion as I went, and reappeared in her face in the middle of a three-pronged attack. My swords swept in from either side, forcing her to block while my booted foot came up in a kick aimed at her groin which, even with Aura, would still hurt like a bitch and leave her temporarily stunned. Instead of outright blocking, however, she twirled to my left—the sword in her left hand coming up to push aside the falchion coming in from her right so that her own blade wouldn't break, while she shifted outside the range of both my kick and second swing.
Stepping into a short combo, I occupied her attention for a moment, forcing her to focus on turning away my blades and keeping me from shattering hers. When she was out of place to respond, I dropped the falchion in my left hand and subvocalized "Ventas," sending her spinning away from me. To her credit, Cinder contorted her body and brought her blades in for a defensive spin to ward off any potential follow up on my part unless I wanted to get gutted. Instead of following the blast of wind in with my swords, I sighted her down and tossed off a Mana Bolt. My eyes went slightly wide when her sword flashed out and smacked the Mana Bolt back at me, forcing me to dodge to the side or eat my own attack. I fired off two more—one at her head, which was batted aside with contempt, and one at her feet. I could almost see her crunching the numbers for a moment before she ran towards the second blast and jumped. She cleared the immediate blast, and I raised an eyebrow as she was thrown skyward. 'Did… did she just rocket jump? I call bullshit!'
Cinder was not idle in her temporary height advantage, as she sent her swords spinning down towards me, conjured up a second pair and tossed those as well, before summoning her bow and sending a trio of arrows following after the swords as she hit the ground in a roll. Glass shattered and fell around me, pelting off my cloak and mask as I smashed the four swords she'd thrown and began advancing on her new position, moving swiftly into a run. The earth rose in front of me and the arrows impacted against my Wall and exploded as I Leapt, flinging my own swords at her and opening fire with a trio of Mana Bolts fired one after another, as fast as I could chant, my hands streaking out—right, left, right—and sending the bright blue orbs downrange in a short bombardment of the area around her.
What I had not expected was the second volley of arrows that had come in behind the first. There had been no sound, no tell as to their having been fired—meaning these were sub-sonic. Either way, they still punched through my Aura and Reinforcement, leaving them buried in my abdomen and just under my left lung where they pinned my cloak against my body.
'The bitch gut-shot me!' I growled internally, as pain racked my body and the scent of burning flesh reached my nose and I realized how they had punched through my Aura—she had coated them in her own Aura and likely super-heated them. The edges of my vision went red, then gray as the arrows continued to burn and a glance at my HP bar showed me that the one good hit she had gotten in had cost me more than 80% of my HP.
I reached down and grabbed them, my gloves beginning to smoke the moment the leather came into contact with metal, and yanked them out—at the same time quietly chanting, "Anesthesia, Heal, Regen," as fast as I could get the words out.
Across from me, as I hit the ground with glass buried in my guts and dealt with that, the brunette danced around my Strike Raid attacks; her hands streaked out and caught the swords in much the same way Mercury had earlier. The first Mana Bolt was swatted aside by my own sword, as was the second. Her eyes went momentarily wide as she caught sight of me tossing aside her arrows—my cloak and the long sleeve under it each with three holes in them, their edges clearly black where her arrows had burned what they'd touched but my flesh underneath smooth, unmarred and white. Gamer's Body had removed the physical evidence of her attack the moment I'd removed the arrows.
The instant of realization passed as the third Mana Bolt neared her face, only to be countered with a double overhead strike that sent it back down the trajectory it'd come from and would have sent the Mana Bolt slamming into me if I hadn't seen it coming. I hit the ground, rolled, and came up with a new weapon in hand—a Conjured recurve bow, about the size of Cinder's own, with a conjured aluminum broadhead arrow already nocked. Lightning danced along the arrow as I electrified it, reinforced the bow and string with Aura, drew, and sent it running downrange with a crack! as the arrow went supersonic.
I ignored the message telling me I'd imported Bow Mastery at level 9—now wasn't the time to assess whether my Semblance had accurately judged the skill I'd gained using bows and crossbows for hunting back on Earth. I was, however, mildly annoyed that using a bow hadn't been rolled into Firearms Mastery since that had a much higher skill level. Then again, using a bow and using a gun were two entirely different skill sets and this was one I had only picked up in the last few years before waking up on Remnant, so I supposed I shouldn't be too surprised at its low level by comparison to my other imported skills. I was surprised that it had given me the skill, considering I was far more familiar with a compound or crossbow.
The look on Cinder's face at seeing me turn her own trick against her was priceless, for all of half a second before she reacted instinctively, dancing to the side and out of the line of fire while bringing one of her stolen falchions in to swat the arrow off to the side. An instant too late, she realized her mistake—why I had let her hold onto my swords, when I'd clearly shown I could summon and dismiss them at will. One of those thick slabs of metal touched the arrow I'd sent downrange, and there was a zap! and a flash of light as the arrow dumped its payload into her body. She locked up for an instant before dropping to her knees.
Cinder's gaze shifted back up and our eyes met again as I conjured up another arrow—this one hissing with the near silent sound of wind spinning around it. Her head tilted down for a moment as her fists clenched at her sides—I had her now and she knew it. And then she arched back and the ground exploded around her as a swirling vortex of wind spun up around her body, lifting her into the air—her mouth open in a silent scream as once more, her eye lit in a blaze of eldritch power. "Fuck," I growled, loosing my arrow with another crack!
The arrow flew true, punching straight through her wind barrier. A hair away from burying itself in her gut, her hand snapped out and stopped it dead. Cinder dropped to her feet and held the arrow out to inspect for a moment, before negligently snapping it and tossing it aside—where, like the rest of my conjured items, it disappeared into light particles after a moment. A rush of air and a quick flash of light from her dress and hands, and the jet engine roar was back, rolling across the area at double the volume it had previously—she had skipped out on summoning her glass swords and had moved straight to fire swords.
My hands twitched, fingers spinning in a familiar pattern as a pair of Plasma Blades burned into life in my hands and twirled to a stop in an attack stance. We charged, wind exploding around Cinder as she moved while I dropped into Flash Step. The red-clad woman glared as we locked blades again, the heat between us suddenly almost unbearably intense. Where before, we had initially seemed to be evenly matched—even the occasional instance where I had been the stronger of us—that was now clearly not the case as she began forcing our joined blades back towards me. Molten gold eyes met my green through the mask and I knew then that I was being played with. She felt she had the upper hand and she was drawing things out.
"You've lost a step," she purred across from me, lips twitching up in an almost parody of the look I was used to seeing on her face in the bedroom.
A glance at my HP bar showed me back up to about half and slowly rising as Regen did its job, but I was running very low on Mana—to the point where I I had a choice now: I could continue this pointless fight and get myself killed, or I could grab Amber and retreat to safety. The only problem with that second option was safely disengaging and keeping Cinder off my back long enough to get to Amber, then get us to Penny and Foxtrot-1.
Cinder shoved her blades outwards, and I allowed myself to be thrown, coming up several yards away and rolling to my feet just in time to see a pair of flaming swords flying through the air at me, thrown like spears, with Cinder herself following right behind with another set of glass swords. Dropping the Plasma Blades that were drawing too much Mana now, I went with reflex that I had drilled with so often with Ruby, Yang, and the others. "Kaiten."
Heat was sucked out of the air as an icy sphere of spinning Mana whipped into existence around me, shrouding my form in a momentary white-tinted blue glow. The attacks struck home on the spinning barrier and exploded, the resultant bloom of fire swept away and the heat drained from it before it could do any damage. I dropped the barrier in time to Conjure another pair of falchion style swords and once more catch Cinder's blades as she crashed into me and sent me to one knee.
Before either of us could break the blade lock—either for me to attempt to run or Cinder to attempt to skewer me—my detection skills pinged at the same time I felt a massive Aura unsuppress from my 7 o'clock. I managed to catch a faint mechanical sound behind me, and then the sound of a shotgun going off. Following my instincts, I ducked. At the same time, Cinder's eyes went wide and she sprang back.
A massive length of metal slid through the space Cinder and I had occupied a moment ago as a white-clad form materialized at my side. Turning my head enough to confirm my suspicion, I found Qrow standing there, hefting his scythe over one shoulder and pushing a hand through his messy hair to get it back out of his eyes. "Hey," he greeted, before his eyes shifted back to Cinder.
My own gaze returned to the woman as her face wavered back into heat haze. A moment later, my brain itched as Emerald's green-haired form popped up from the ditch behind Cinder for an instant before the trio disappeared. I could have kicked myself for allowing situational awareness to slip. Cinder had lead me, bringing us closer to where Emerald was waiting with Mercury—potentially in an attempt to try to have Emerald ambush me or otherwise create an opening for Cinder, but with the way she was kicking my ass I kind of doubted it. But with Qrow showing up, their plan—whatever it was—had gone out the window and it looked as though Emerald was looking to secure their escape.
Reacting quickly, I flung one of my falchions out in a Strike Raid towards the greenette's last position. The blade spun in, before abruptly changing course and veering off to my right. Now sure of Cinder's position, I flung my second falchion at her and tossed out a Mana Bolt after it, the second projectile aimed at the ground. Qrow took off running, following in the wake of the attacks. The falchion was swatted out of the air, but it cost Cinder as the Mana Bolt hit the ground and threw up a gout of dust—effectively ruining Emerald's efforts to cloak them however she was doing it.
Qrow took advantage and launched himself skyward, aiming to cleave her in two and follow through on the pair behind her. Cinder's hand jerked downward in a slashing motion and the ground screamed as it was lit with a line of orange. I had only seen her cast her fire mines using the bow and arrow, but now I realized they were either props or a long range delivery system, because she was perfectly capable of creating them without the weapon.
"Qrow!" I warned, jerking my own hand downwards and sending a Wall exploding out of the ground in front of Cinder's fire mines, tilted at an angle to put it over them to mostly cover them and hopefully shape the blast to come back towards Cinder. To his credit, the white-clad reaper saw the threat as it was forming, along with the wall I'd put up, and made his own escape. He shifted his grip on his weapon and the gun component of his scythe fired, arresting his forward momentum enough to get a foot on the top of the wall and kick off backwards a moment before the mines exploded under it, destroying the construct and erupting into a wall of fire that spread across the road like napalm, covering the trio's retreat as they ran for the barn in the distance—which looked like it had sat unused for a while, if the fading red and white paint and the hole in the roof was anything to go by.
Reaching up to my mask, I began speaking aloud at the same time as I sent a message to Penny. "Foxtrot-1, come around and fire on the barn."
'Penny, target the barn and open fire.'
'Okay Jaune!' Penny answered, and the armed Bullhead pulled out of its protective circling over Amber's position, the nose gun spinning up and sending a line of red at the barn. An instant later, the barn exploded as the vehicle hidden there went up when Penny's rounds punched through what I assumed was its fuel tank—unless there was a stockpile of Dust in there. I heard a faint, female yell of "That fucker!" from the direction of the barn in what sounded like Emerald's voice.
"Now, neutralize the fleeing targets," I spoke, at the same time I sent, 'Fire on their heels and chase them into the woods.'
Even with Qrow here, I didn't want to risk dealing with Cinder since it seemed like she was quickly getting a handle on her new powers—not in the close confines of a Bullhead with Amber's insensate body nearby, at any rate. Cinder's threat level was way, way higher than I had initially estimated it and while I might have thought it could be done before, I knew better now.
'Yeah, no. She, Emerald, or Mercury would kill Amber first chance they got and there's no guarantee mental spells would even work on them, since Cinder can apparently no-sell them now. Besides, never transport prisoners with the injured. It was a bad idea from the start.' And that was assuming we could actually win. With Gamer's Mind off, I couldn't just no-sell Emerald's Semblance and I didn't know if Qrow was resistant to it or not. Likewise, I didn't know if Cinder was a match for Qrow with her new powers.
Penny opened fire, and I turned and Flash Stepped to the rock formation where I'd left Amber. Looking over her, I frowned, seeing her Aura was down to less than 10% and she seemed to be unconscious. Kneeling, I scooped her up into my arms and began walking towards the road while Qrow quickly made his way over. "They got away," he growled, and I shrugged.
"But not with the prize," I countered, before again miming as though I had a radio in my mask. "Foxtrot-1, cease pursuit and swing around for pickup." I sent, 'Penny, need you back here quick.'
The gynoid sent an affirmative and Foxtrot-1 pulled away from where Penny had been razing the tree-line, and incidentally starting a small fire—nothing like the forest fire I'd started in Atlas, but still a good chunk of woods burning off. "How is she?" Qrow asked, moving closer to examine the girl in my arms.
"Losing Aura quickly," I answered shortly. As soon as we were in the Bullhead, I was going to try to hit up Skill Creation to make something to stop that.
Nodding, Qrow watched as Foxtrot-1 came to a hover a meter or so off the surface of the road in front of us, kicking up loose dirt everywhere as it did. The side door slid open and that was all the invitation I needed as I made the hop inside and dropped to the deck plating, laying Amber's head in my lap as I did. The sound of boots on metal echoed through the Bullhead as Qrow made the leap after me. Penny turned around in her seat, drawing Qrow's attention to her fox-masked face and eliciting a raised eyebrow from the older man. "Should I get rid of him?" Penny asked quietly, and I shook my head.
"No. Get us back to Vale," I told her, and the ancula nodded, turning around in her seat and hitting the door close switch. Qrow sat in one of the jump seats as the side door slid shut and we gained altitude and speed.
"We're taking her to Beacon."
I looked up and met his eyes for a moment, frowning. "Shut up, I'm trying to concentrate. Argue in a minute." Closing my eyes, I focused on what I wanted from Skill Creation and took Amber's hand in my own as I brought up Meditation and began regenerating my own spent Mana. At the same time, I began going through the active buffs I had on and shutting down everything eating Mana that wasn't also contributing to raising or regenerating my Mana. 'Come on, I need something to let me give others Aura. That one should be a basic Aura control exercise.'
Skill Creation kicked in and awarded me with Aura Transfer, which would allow me to transfer Aura from one target to another by touch. 'Skill reads like I can transfer from people other than myself,' I noted, then shrugged it off. It wasn't germane to the situation. I could potentially borrow Aura from Qrow, but I would only ask if this failed. My eyes shifted to my HUD, locking onto my Mana bar as it stopped increasing. At the same time, Amber's Aura fell to 9%. I sat and waited, watching—and the entire time, Aura Transfer leveled, with the first ten levels coming within the first thirty seconds of simply holding it active on her. 'God damn, level disparity between us is ridiculous,' I mused, watching as its growth slowed but did not stop. 'It may get into the 30s by the time we get to Vale, if not higher.'
Her aura did not tick downwards again over the course of several minutes, and I sighed. 'Okay. Let's say we've got ninety minutes to get back to Vale, before my Aura runs out, followed shortly by Amber's unless Qrow wants to help. I'll ask him if it gets under 5%.'
"She's still losing Aura, but it's slower than it was. We've got time to get to Vale," I announced quietly. Pulling up Air and Gravity manipulation, I focused on the Bullhead and lightened the aircraft, while at the same time streamlining it. My Mana took a dip, but I reached into my side pouch and pulled out a pair of faintly glowing blue potions.
"Wait, are those…?" Qrow asked, eyebrows climbing towards his hairline.
I smirked under my mask. Twisting off the cap on the first, I tilted my Fox mask up a bit and brought the bottle to the hole I'd stitched in my neck gaiter specifically so I could drink or eat with it on—a recent modification I'd also made to the one on my 'Shiro' outfit. I downed the potion and my Mana shot up again while my regen rate also went up, countering the loss I was taking sustaining Amber while speeding us on our way. Pulling my mask back down, I dropped the spent bottle into my side pouch before twisting the top off the second potion. Tilting Amber's head back, I parted her lips and tipped a dribble of blue potion past them.
Her face was scarred now—the scars following the same pattern the goop connecting her to the Grimm bug had left—but they looked ike they had been there for years. The scars themselves didn't even register as a concern at the moment, compared to the possibilities they brought up. 'Acid-based maybe? Too bad I couldn't get a sample. Or the bug itself. Where did that fucker go, anyway? Did Cinder's glove have some kind of space-expanded storage field on it, or was it something else? The fact that she absorbed the glove would imply that, if the Grimm was inside it, she absorbed that as well. That can't be good.'
Amber coughed once before reflexively swallowing as I drained the rest of the potion into her. 'Okay, that's bought me a few percent. She's got way more Aura than me,' I assessed. Still, it had stopped her loss of Aura for the moment, so I wouldn't complain.
"Restoratives," I answered shortly, before asking, "Why Beacon?"
"Ozpin," Qrow answered shortly, and I nodded. "I can feel it from here—her Aura doesn't feel right. Like it's only half there and bleeding out. Oz might be able to stop the bleeding, so to speak."
"Uh huh," I deadpanned. While I couldn't sense what he was describing, my Semblance could see its effects—telling me that I was either missing a skill, or I needed to level Detect Aura further. Fact of the matter was, I was coming to over-rely on visual cues from my Semblance when I should be focusing on the sensory input I was getting from my various detection skills. It was something for another time, though. At the moment, I had a dying Maiden to deal with and I needed to make a decision fast. "'Might,'" I quoted. "Whereas Fox Hunt has a dedicated medical facility."
"Got an Aura Healer, then?" Qrow asked, sounding a bit smug as he did, and I went over my mental list of base personnel before I shook my head. I'd need to get one of those, and the sooner the better. "Well, Beacon does."
'If Beacon has the better facilities, then we should take her there. I can sneak in and try to help later, if I have to,' I mused, before nodding. "Pilot, change course for Beacon Academy. Radio ahead, let them know we're coming in with injured."
Qrow shifted his gaze to Penny before adding, "Tell them it's a Code Corvus, that should get you ground clearance to land by the medical wing."
"And let Ozpin know you're aboard?" I asked, raising an eyebrow under my mask. "Corvus being the genus crows, ravens, rooks, and jackdaws belong to, if I recall correctly."
"Clever," Qrow admitted, turning appraising eyes on me. "You know, you don't act like a kid with amnesia."
I blinked, thankful for the mask over my face as I shifted my gaze to meet his. "Excuse me?"
"It's the swords that give it away," Qrow smirked, holding out one hand and shifting his fingers and flicking his wrist in an all too familiar pattern, "Jaune."