To Hewhoreads on Ao3, asking if they need to read anything else to understand this story: You don't have to read anything else to get what's going on here, though I still greatly encourage reading Remnant of a Rose, it's a great fic. If anyone is confused or has lore/story questions, it's most likely intentional, and I plan to reveal it later in the story.

:]

/

The road was a ghostly ribbon:

a strange violet hue.

The sycamore trees thrashing

as a frenzied wind blew.

A dark cloaked horseman

appeared on the horizon's edge.

He whipped his horse forward;

this horse almost flew.

The pounding hooves echoed

down the cobbled road.

The madman charged forward

with his deadly load.

They never caught the horseman

who murdered her father that night.

He shot his pistol once then the old man died.

No're was he ever seen again

after the red cobbles dried.

They never found his stallion

with nostrils flaming fire'

who flew like a dragon

until the prey expired.

The girl wept and moaned

at her window. Always watching for him.

Watching the winding road; she could redeem his sin.

A kiss my darling sweetheart, kiss and let me fly.

His shadow was imprinted on clean cobbles.

His scarf around her neck but nothing made things right.

The devil surely wanted him

and death breathed down his trek.

They searched swearing they'd catch the wretch yet found

no trace of him. The girl she smiled sadly.

For now he rode the wind.

-A poem by Blakeley Notch, following the Death of Dredgen Yor by the hands of two guardians...

/FALLEN ROSE/

Angie flipped around a protruding pipe to avoid a scatter of bullets that bounced off the metal she now took cover behind. How the Traveller did she end up in this situation? Oh, that's right, the man with the fishing pole had accidentally made a large swing back and by sheer luck had accidentally hit the exact spot where Angie was clinging to, causing her to need to move out of the way and drop her active camouflage.

The specialists noticed almost immediately, forcing Angie into a firefight. Summer had offered to help, but the Templar Vanguard had ordered her to keep gathering the materials they needed. Besides, any fight Angie was in was going to be one-sided.

Her side.

The only problem that now presented itself is that of not wanting to (permanently) harming them or any of the other guards, let alone the civilians on the processing plant.

"Lantern," Angie asked as she fired a few shots of one of her hand cannons to deter the approaching force, "Can you give me the Aura levels of those specialists, as well as any information on them that you can?"

"Sure thing!" Lantern answered. The sound of Lantern doing whatever she did played before the phantom's voice returned. "All done, the aura levels should now appear like any other enemy threat reader would.

"Thanks," Angela said quickly before vaulting the pipe and landing on a guard, pushing them against the ground before grabbing him by her feet and threw him into a group of other guards whilst using her four arms to support her. Next, she generated a suppression field grenade in her bottom left hand and tossed it in front of another pack of guards. They shielded themselves to hopefully be protected from the detonation, but instead of exploding like they thought it would, it instead blossomed out into a purple bubble that began sapping they energy. Shortly after, they had all fallen to the ground unconscious as the grenade collapsed inwards on itself. With all the present threats taken out, Angie turned her attention to the five specialists.

All of them had their weapons drawn and aimed at her, unlike Angie who was casually holding hers at her sides. As a test, she gently lifted the solar 'King' hand cannon to watch their reactions. As she expects, they tensed and leaned forward, ready to fight. Angie returned it to her side with an audible chuckle.

The short tan girl scowled. "What's so funny?!" she shouted at Angie.

"You're all so jumpy," Angie replied, amused. "First day on the job, is it?"

When none of the specialists answered, Angie was given her answer.

"Really? This is your first mission?" Angie laughed. "My mistake, I've been thinking you were going to be actual opponents."

"What does that mean?!" The short girl snapped. Angie grinned behind her helmet. Good, they were taking the bait and beginning to become frustrated.

"Well, if you're all just beginners, I'll just have to even the playing field," Angie then holster her stasis, void and solar hand cannons, leaving her only with her arc one. "Show me what you got."

The short girl let out a war cry and charged at Angela at lightning speed, intent on pummelling the eliksni with the help of her exoskeleton. Angela had to give her an A for effort, she certainly tried to hit her, and did so an unlaughable and unremarkable speed. Angela would have even bet that it would've hurt if the girl had actually hit her. But Angela regularly sparred with titan legends, who all loved to used swords, and knew the only way to actually beat their opponents was to get close to them. Fast.

The girl realized that when Angela moved around her supersonic punch with relative ease, grab the back of her neck and sinking a full cylinder of hand cannon ammo, point-blank, into her chest.

"Harriet!" the other woman called in dismay.

"Overconfidence," Angela announced, ignoring the other specialist and letting the girl drop to the floor, groaning in pain and almost completely out of aura. "Should have tested the waters, watched how I handled with only one gun. Instead, you rushed in, thinking I was an easy target." Angel turned to the others. "Who's up next?"

The answer to that question was: all of them.

Quickly, Angela limbo-ed under a thrown boomerang from the dog faunus, leading into a backwards cartwheel and scuttling away on three of her arms as she fired with the fourth. The remainder of the specialists took cover behind either side of the entrance into the facility.

Angela pushed away from the ground and clutched onto a pipe, dropping another smoke grenade to cover her movements. The specialist began talking to one another in hushed voices, unaware that Angela could still hear them thanks to both her armour and Eliksni physiology.

"Clover, what's that plan?" The faunus asked the man with the fishing pole.

"First thing first," the man replied, "we need to get Harriet out of there, there's no telling what could happen to her with the rogue inside." He looked to the large woman and pale man across the entranceway. "Elm, Vine, you go in first, move past Harriet, guard Marrow and me while we get her outside and attempt to apprehend the rogue if possible."

"Got it, Clover." The tall woman nodded. "I'm going to knock their head in for mocking us."

"Always the brutish one, aren't you Elm?" the pale man asked dryly.

"Shut up Vine." Elm shot back.

Above them on the interior of the roof, Angela's eyes narrowed as a grin sprouted on her face.

'Oh good,' She thought, 'A weakness to exploit.'

Quickly rounding the corner and fanning out slightly, Elm and vine entered with a hammer drawn and, what Angela assumed were arms constructed out of aura, at the ready. They crept forward slowly, scanning their surroundings for the faintest sign for Angela. When they neglected to look directly upwards, Elm signalled for Clover and Marrow to follow in.

Oh, what a mistake that was.

As soon as Clover had slung Harriet over his should and began to move back to the entrance with Marrow, Angela dislodged her feet's armoured talons and descended silently towards the specialists, more specifically Vine. Angela wasn't sure why Elm looked up when she did, maybe it was the slight whistling Angela gave off from falling, maybe the specialist saw her out of the corner of her eye. Whatever it was, Elm saw her, and instead of alerting Vine with a warning, she instead quickly shifted into action and used Vine as a makeshift springboard to launch herself at Angela.

Vine exclaimed in shock and anger whilst Elm only focused on Angela. Unfortunately for the tan skin huntress, was Angela's aerial mobility. With a quick evade to the side, she left Elm in bewilderment and in a prime position to attack. Which Angela capitalized on. Knocking Elm right out of the air and back onto Vine, crushing him.

"Ah!" Vine exclaimed as Elm's mass was thrown on him. "Get off me Elm." He growled at the large girl.

"Ugghhuh..." Elm gurgled as she groggily stood up whilst clutching her dizzied head.

She, nor Vine, had any time to recover though as Angela leapt back up into the air, leaving a small, slightly cylindrical object to roll along the floor towards them. As it came to a rest in front of the two specialists, both Elm and Vine stopped to look down at it. They finally caught on to what it was when it made a beeping sound and a red light appeared. They each tried to push the other out of the way to clear themselves from the impending blast zone, which ended up leaving both of them going nowhere.

The grenade detonated, sending a blast of ice spreading out.

"Elm! Vine!" Marrow exclaimed as he watched two of his three remaining teammates become encased in an opaque violet ice.

"Teamwork." Angela's voice echoed through the room. "They failed that from the start. Instead of assisting one another to reach their singular goal, they instead opposed one-another, in the end dooming them both."

Marrow and Clover whipped around to where Angela's voice was originating from to see a slightly more incorporeal version of her with the same opaque violet ice that had trapped Elm and Vine growing off parts of her. She began charging at the two on all sixes, fully intent on barrelling into them.

"STAY!" Marrow clicked his fingers and pointing towards Angela, causing her to freeze to a halt as if she was trapped in her own ice. When he was sure that she was not moving, he let out a sigh of relief and raised a finger to his ear to activate his comms. "This is special agent Amin, requesting security to assist in securing apprehended assailant."

There was some sort of response before Marrow nodded.

"Thank you." He then turned to Clover, who was near the entryway, setting down Harriet.

"I'm glad that's over, but there's still possibly another rogue huntress and we're down more than half the team," Clover spoke.

"Should we return to Atlas with just this one?" Marrow questioned.

Clover thought before slowly forming a nod. "That may be for the best, we..." he cut himself off when he saw it.

Her. Another Angela. Charging at the distracted Marrow with a double-barrelled shotgun.

"Marrow look out!" Clover called a warning, reaching out a hand. Marrow turned to see Angela still running at him.

"STAY!" Marrow quickly activated his semblance to freeze Angela in place again, succeeding in doing so. Marrow then glanced to Clover, flashing a smile. "Just in time, huh?" Marrow asked.

...

Right before the ice-covered Angela tackled him with her full body. Whilst pinning the struggling Marrow to the floor, it detonated into another explosion of ice, now freezing Marrow too.

"Marrow! Dammit!" Clover yelled, brandishing his fishing rod.

"Not being satisfied with one had." Angela mocked, now unstuck. "Instead of leaving my wraith stopped, you wanted to freeze me as well, and in the end, you lost both."

Clover flung his fishing rod at Angela, attempting to hook her. Instead, Angela dodged out of the way and, with great skill, attached a flashbang grenade to the end of Clover's hook. As the hook reeled back towards the specialist, he tried and dislodge the flashbang, only succeeding when the concussive armament was too close.

Going off, clover covered his eyes in pain of the bright light, his ears now ringing. Trying to blink away his blurred vision, he scanned around for Angela, who had kept on the move. Believing to have spotted her, he flung his hook at the location, only to snag a protruding pipe instead, and receiving a swift kick to the chest by Angela herself, who as it turned out, was far closer than Clover's mirage.

"Patience is a virtue, y'know." Angela said to the down Clover, who was struggling for breath since the kick severely winded him. "You could have retreated and waited for the effects of the grenade to wear off, would have lasted only a few seconds, but instead, you chose to charge right into action."

Angela finished the one-sided conversation by knocking clover out with another kick, this time to the face causing his aura to break away.

Stepping away from the unconscious specialist, Angela radioed Summer.

"Summer, did you get everything we came for?"

"Yep!" Summer's chirpy voice appeared, speaking back. "Me and Drei finished up and now we're sitting up in DtK!"

"Drei and I, Summer." Angel corrected with a faint smile and a shake of her head.

"Yes, Mum..." Summer drawled, eliciting a giggle from Angela.

/FALLEN ROSE/

"..."

"..."

"So are we going to..."

"Yes, we'll send Qrow now, Ozpin."

"Thank you, James."

"I'm still worried about that four-armed creature though, especially after retrieving that bodycam footage from the first facility."

"I am as well, James. Those black rose petals were not reassuring..."

/FALLEN ROSE/

I wish I could write more but I want to gent a new chapter out and this seems like a nice intermission-able spot