6

Issue #13

Vermilion huffed and puffed as she carried her unconscious partner through the burned out forest. Distantly, she could hear the sounds of combat as they drew closer. The clearing was just up ahead and the din could be heard clearly. Letting Silvia rest against a trunk, Vermilion let her down ever so gently, careful of her auraless partner. It took her a moment to take stock of what was happening in the clearing. Some space had been cleared out between the dueling parties, whether that was a plan by the attackers or her team she wasn't sure but at least it looked like Noel was holding her own against her opponent. Her Duet was keeping the man at bay as his staff, glowing blades on both ends, fended off her various thrusts.

Willa wasn't faring as well as her own partner. The man with hook swords was diverting her attacks with ease and though he never scored clean hits, he was steadily chipping away at her aura with his counter attacks. The girl's stamina was clearly lagging and it seemed she wouldn't be able to keep up with the intensity for much longer. It was obvious to Vermilion that the man was wearing her down on purpose, only attacking to keep up the pressure but otherwise content only to counter attack the Schnee.

Jaune was… Jaune was doing surprisingly fine, or at least it seemed so to her. Considering he was against two huntsman level opponents, the fact that he was still going strong had to have been a good sign. The woman with the massive chakram created distance constantly to try and throw her weapon, distance that Jaune was acting to prevent. Rapidly he closed in, diverting the blade with his shield and coming in for a round slash at her midsection. It seemed his other opponent wised up to his strategy and slid in with her own shield and took the blow for her ally. Instantly her flail started glowing as she swung it at Jaune. It must have happened many times before because he darted back instead of blocking.

A yelp drew her attention back to Willa as her opponent managed to hook her leg and draw it out, upsetting her balance as he stabbed at her midsection. The haft of her weapon blocked it but she clearly felt the impact since she was sent flying, soot and dirt scattering as her body tumbled along the ground.

Vermilion couldn't wait any longer and she darted into the clearing, feet tearing up the burned soil as she closed in on Hooksword. His advance towards Willa was halted as she hurtled into him at full speed, shield first. He most likely hadn't heard her and she hit him like a freight train and bore both of them to the ground. Through some luck she managed to straddle him, pummeling his face with the pommel of her blade. Desperately, the man struck at her with his own blades, the sharp edges around the hilt impacting her neck and tossing her back. Her aura dipped and hovered perilously low.

However that was enough to allow Willa to recover and the girl was at Vermilion's side in a second, trident held in a high position, ready for the enemy, "Vermilion! Where's Silvia?"

"Fine but unconscious. She should be safe for now." Vermilion's answer was curt and it looked like Willa wanted to inquire more but realized it probably wasn't the best time. If the enemy found their teammate she would be helpless.

"Let us defeat this man and then help the others." The brunette could only nod and out of the corner of her eye she could see Willa tense up.

"Rising Dawn?" Vermilion asked. They had trained a few team attacks, a staple as Professor Xiao-Long called it.

"Hm, may as well. Ready?" Tri-hard switched to it's glaive form.

"Yup."

The enemy eyed them warily, unwilling to underestimate them, since it seemed she had come back and his ally had not. They could all tell what it meant, but that didn't mean they necessarily had the advantage. Vermilion still had low aura and the squad display on her scroll told her that Willa wasn't in much better condition. The pair needed to end this fast.

Vermilion charged ahead, shield up with her eyes just above the rim, hearing the footsteps of Willa just behind her. Hooksword took a stance, one blade low and the other high as he watched them approach. What he didn't expect was all the glyphs that sprung to life around him, whirring in a dome. She was glad her teammate had the strength to summon so many as another appeared just before her, a foot off the ground.

Without hesitation Vermilion leapt onto the glyph, feeling the weird sensation of being forced into a certain direction as her foot contacted the tangible glyph. It was like being sucked into a tunnel and she surrendered to it, leaping off of the glyph and into the direction it was pushing her. Doing so she felt like time was slowing down again and her mind raced. As she rocketed past the enemy, her blade was deflected by his as Vermilion twisted about in mid air, legs absorbing the impact of hitting the next glyph in the sequence.

He must have realized what was about to happen but it was far too late for him to react. Rising Dawn was an attack they had come up with utilizing Willa's glyphs and Vermilion. But now it was unlike anything they had ever pulled off in practice. The man moved at a snail's pace and she could feel herself getting faster, like before with the aura user. So she focused on the sensation, sharpened it and felt the air around her getting thinner, less resistant. All this took place in the fraction of a second it took for the glyph to redirect her towards another one and her blade flashed out faster than the eye could see as she raced past him, scoring a hit on his shoulder, aura crackling as it prevented her blade from slicing him in two.

But that wasn't the end, of course, the dozen glyphs around him shot her from one to the next and each time she landed a blow against him, his aura flaring with each. The final glyph was head on from the man and he was reeling from the high speed assault. Her legs absorbing yet another impact, she landed on the glyph. With the point of the blade straight out, she chambered the sword against her shoulder.

This was it, her best chance!

Vermilion launched off of the glyph in a streak and thrust Rosa Mors out as she did so, slamming into the man and tackling him to the ground. Rolling to a stop, Vermilion leapt into a crouch, ready for anything.

"What?", Her eyes expanded as she saw her beloved Rosa Mors, dug into the man's chest and a scarlet pool was quickly spilling onto the ground around him. She'd seen it but at the speed she'd been going there was nothing that could have been done.

A short distance away Willa met her eyes and she received a small nod from, before rushing off to help Noel and leaving her there with the man she had just killed. Swallowing, she walked up to the still warm corpse and grabbed the hilt of Rosa Mors, pulling it free with a sickening squelch that had her bringing a hand to her mouth in order to prevent something from coming out.

-SY-

Jaune spun just in time to block the flail that had been hurtling towards the back of his head, but couldn't stop to take advantage of the opening as the large, circular blade his other opponent wielded came for his midsection. It sparked and glanced off of his own and his lungs were starting to burn as the two women didn't let up on the pressure. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his own daughter take out one of the assassins and would have felt a rush of pride had he not been sandwiched between two skilled opponents.

It seemed he could worry less now that it looked like two of the assassins were out of the fight. Despite that, it was taking up much of his concentration just defending from the two attacking him. Jaune threw himself backwards as the hula-blade spun past him and a part of him hoped it would hit the flail woman. It did - but not in the way he was hoping. With ease she caught it on her shield and sent it spinning off into the air, arching back towards its user thanks to the gravity dust inside it. He groaned inwardly as the flail took on a pink glow once more, knowing what was coming next and not looking forward to it. This was the reason he was having such a hard time against the pair. They were working in near perfect sync with each other to cover their own weaknesses. If he was fighting them one at a time the fight would have been long over.

He'd been trying the whole fight to get a bead on her semblance. It was obviously like Yang's, some kind of absorption ability that worked on her equipment. The question was whether it worked only on the shield and flail or if she could do it with any part of her and now he had his answer.

She had attempted to take every attack on her shield but the one he had landed on her flail had been absorbed as well. Next he had landed a strike against her thigh, the same feeling of the force of his blow being sucked away was missing and it had glanced off of her aura.

Now he just had to hope the other one didn't pull out some crazy ace in the hole semblance.

He'd been whittling their aura down through small blows and diversions. A nick here and a scrape there. Jaune's muscles were already starting to burn. Huntsman on huntsman combat was incredibly high intensity and even with aura to supplant stamina, it was the one area that was considered most important. Flashy moves couldn't help you when you were tired.

Qrow had taught him that and the man didn't earn the title as one of Vale's strongest for nothing. The man had spent years training him and his friends to be top notch hunters, add on to that their other teachers and the massive amount of experience they gained from the life and death fights they'd been in over and over again? You produced some of the best huntsmen and huntresses on Remnant. They had to be. It was do or die back then.

Still was.

Of all the people they had learned from, Qrow was the most unique. The one with the most tricks to share.

Tricks like saving your trump card for last.

Jaune always kept something hidden in his arsenal. It was for fights like this. Most of the time he got by on pure skill but when he needed something extra? He always had something to fall back on to bridge the gap. That's why the two assassins never saw it coming as the pink flail sped towards his head.

Jaune had figured out most of the principles behind how it worked. She could absorb and divert the energy to her weapon, adding to it. The woman could keep adding to it, and though he wasn't sure there was a limit or not he wasn't keen to find out. The important part was that the flail only had the added energy of her swing and the impact from earlier. This meant Jaune could overpower it with a stronger force.

So he pressed an unused button on the inside of his shield, the symbol on it flashed purple before exploding outwards in a burst of force. The woman was blown away with a surprised cry, she wasn't completely out of the fight but it was enough to just remove her temporarily. Jaune spun around in a slash at the other assassin whose eyes were just widening and she took the unexpected attack across her chest, aura flaring again.

He had disrupted their rhythm and in so doing had gained a tremendous advantage. The blonde knight needed to press it as hard as he could. The spinning slash was followed by smashing his shield into her face by the rim before drawing it back and bashing her arms aside before she could get her guard up. The rim drove into her stomach for more damage and there he pressed the last button on his shield and blue light, hardlight in fact, spilled out of the edges to extend the shield but also act as another blade. This cut into her aura and he could see it flicker and then shatter.

By the time she recovered and swung her bladed ring at him, right at his neck. Jaune ducked while spinning, Crocea Mors coming into a reverse grip as he stabbed backwards, right underneath his armpit, and felt the blade bite home and sink into the assassin. He felt her body slump against his back. Standing quickly he spun back around the blade flashed crimson as it severed the woman's head in one clean motion. By the time the head hit the ground Jaune was already facing his other opponent.

"Bastard!" Flail screamed as she charged in with full force and fury.

Jaune winced internally at what he was about to do. It was his final trump card but not one he relished using in this way. In the decades since becoming a huntsman he had learned a lot about his semblance and different ways to apply it. It could transfer aura from him to another and also enhance their semblances. Most would think that would be useless to him by itself but that was not the case. The idea had come from Ren, a master in aura manipulation, and involved using his own aura to strengthen itself. Or a more appropriate term could be called hardening. By flooding his aura in one place and activating his semblance he could mitigate the damage and force of an attack.

So of course it came as a surprise to his attacker when his shield contracted into it's sheath form attached to his gauntlet. It was far too late for her to check her attack. It was possible with a sword or some other solid weapon but her weapon of choice was a flail. Once swung she could not divert it much and he could see the beginning of panic in her eyes when his hand glowed a brilliant white and he caught the head of the flail. When pink and white collided there was a tremendous flash of light and Jaune felt pain as the force, even mitigated as it was, forced his feet further into the dirt and his shoulder creaked ominously with the strain.

Jaune could even feel his aura dip dangerously low.

Crocea Mors' blade fell to the ground as he brought his arm up inside her guard, hand clamping around her shielded wrist. Now he had control over her weapon and her choice was to either maintain hold of her weapon or drop it in order to attack him unarmed. She didn't disappoint him, instantly letting go of the flail and rocketing a punch straight into his cheek. Using the trick again his semblance shielded his cheek and rebounded the strike. He didn't do it senselessly. There was another flash as her fist sparked off of his aura and he could even see the telltale sign of her aura flaring to protect her knuckles.

Dropping the flail in the moment of blindness, Jaune's free hand snaked out to catch her other wrist.

The fear in her eyes was vindicating as he pressed on, smashing his forehead into her nose, disorienting her enough for his heel to come around and hook her knee. Center of gravity ruined, she was taken to the ground with him on top.

There were many ways to kill someone who still had aura and in his thirty years of experience he knew most of them. One was depriving them of oxygen and it was this method he employed. She kicked and fought for her life, knee driving up and into his back forcefully as she struggled to avoid him getting behind her.

In the end he was successful and she had one arm drawn across her chest as the crook of his elbow was pressed against her neck. Her arms were secured and unable to effectively attack him as he strangled the life out of her.

Weaker and weaker she finally went still after several minutes.

Vermilion had long since joined the others' fight. Three on one, or four if you counted Noel's Duet, wasn't good odds for the assassin and he seemed to know it.

His aura flickered and failed and finally broke from a particularly impressive feint from Noel. The followthrough by Willa finished him off, her glaive piercing his stomach from behind. Falling to his knees the man clutched at his stomach for a moment before reaching behind him.

Jaune's eyes went wide as a device was produced.

"GET BACK!" He bellowed, but it was too late.

A large fireball engulfed the three team members.