Chapter 5 – KroKodile
What on the Brother Gods' green Remnant is a professor doing out in the middle of this forest? thought Ilia from her perch. The headmaster dude had specifically said that instructors would NOT intervene! I gotta follow her.
Perhaps she would miss out on locating every student in the surrounding area, but this woman was clearly far more suspicious. Teachers had no reason to go into the Emerald Forest, and this one was obviously trying (but failing) to remain unseen. That alone would have been suspicious enough to warrant Ilia's ongoing investigation, but the fact that her huntress weapon was out and ready for combat was the smoking riding crop.
A noise rang out in the distance, causing the woman to break out into a run. And damn, could that old bat run like a professional sprinter despite wearing high heels. Ilia flew through the treetops in her pursuit while still keeping her camouflage active. She was now jumping and leaping so fast that anyone looking up would see her by the motion alone, but the prime target was entirely focused on what was in front of her and didn't seem to have time to spare a glance behind her.
Ilia caught a glimpse of some students as she zoomed past them and desperately tried to commit their faces to memory. It helped to reduce them to a handful of easily differentiable key traits.
Blonde bimbo with a surprisingly nice rack arguing with the tall gray racist boy from before…
Red Amazon and second blonde, male this time, being chased by a medium sized Deathstalker…
Some…someone…the student, greenish and short, was too far in the distance to…
No. That wasn't a student.
The crocodile Faunus was milling about near the relics, idly tapping her cane against the stone pillars. One of them had tumbled over, likely the source of the noise that Ilia and the teacher had heard earlier.
I guess that explains her hurry. If this old dame is loitering in the forest, she might accidentally get eaten by a Grimm, and her grandkids would sue Beacon.
Ilia prepared to head back and get a better look at the students, but before she could, the professor lady anxiously shook her head and sprinted off in a different direction.
She isn't here for the old lady…? But that makes no sense! What could be so important that it would drag a professor away from a civilian wandering into a warzone? What objective is there that's so important for Miss Dominatrix to–?
In hindsight, the answer seemed so obvious that Ilia felt stupid for not immediately realizing it.
K.
She's the one. She's after us.
Dragging her eyes away from the tottering reptoid Faunus now taking a seat on an empty relic pedestal, Ilia continued her chase after the wayward professor.
In the split fifth of a second when the metal-toothed bitch bounded forward, Adam did not have time to think about how the girl he was defending was a human. He didn't consider the fact that he was annoying, childish, immature, and an all-around bother. When Wilt smacked the old woman's head backwards like a cricket bat, the only though passing through Adam's mind was that if Ruby Rose died now, he would miss his chance to interrogate her. That would mean he would never be 100% sure if she'd been the one who killed K's briefest member or if it had been someone else, and that simply was not an acceptable outcome.
The crocodile Faunus clearly hadn't been expecting the lighting speed reflexes Adam possessed, and Adam himself was rather surprised by how quickly he'd responded. Of course, once their initial attacks had passed, neither slowed down for a single second.
She was old and slow, but Adam actually found himself losing ground as they traded attacks. It didn't make sense at all – he brought down Wilt with the weight of a Megoliath and followed it up with three consecutive rounds of buckshot from Blush, but the woman wasn't affected. She brushed off the shotgun pellets like they were a butterfly's sneeze and continued in her quest to disarm Adam.
No, she wasn't trying to disarm him. She was trying to…get past him?
Regardless of her unknown objective, something else did soon become clear to Adam: this yellow shimmer around her wasn't the same as aura.
Aura was a force field that muted the most damaging effects of most attacks while it held, but some of the momentum inevitable pushed a body back. This Faunus seemed to be immune to the attacks entirely, as though she was using something other than aura altogether. His sword bounced off her, no different than if he tried to stab a mountain and was surprised that it didn't recoil.
"Fifty…"
It was then that Adam noticed a small golden pocket watch dangling from the aged woman's hip. It flopped about wildly as she engaged him in their ruthless duel, but he could clearly see that the seconds hand was moving.
Is she counting down to something?
If so, he needed to end this fight quickly, before whatever surprise she had in store was sprung.
Even an invulnerable opponent was useless without their weapon. Wilt had accumulated enough energy for a light attack with Moonslice, so Adam willed the stored potential to the tip of his blade. Drawing it down in a wide arc, he sent a devastating wave of glowing red at the woman, enough to shatter her sword in half when she tried to block it.
But she didn't block it.
The woman lowered her sword and made a splashing motion downward with a single unarmed hand. The entirety of Adam's semblance-fueled strike was swished away like it was nothing.
"Can't have ya shreddin' me down to me knickers, luv," said the woman, peeling off a torn glove from her hand. "I moight be all set, but me threads ain't." She checked her watch. "Thirty-foive…roight then."
This wasn't working. Adam glanced behind him at the human he'd saved. She had fallen onto her back and was crawling away from the fray towards the scythe she'd dropped from this crocodile Faunus' initial attack.
Where is–?
As though summoned by his thoughts, Blake appeared out of nowhere behind the unknown enemy. Whether she'd been simply hiding or pulling some trick with a shadow clone, Adam knew not. All he knew was that the battle was not in his favor, and he help was most appreciated.
Wasting no time, Blake went straight for the throat. To carve through an opponent's aura, the most vital body parts tended to be the best bet. After all, someone might partially lower their aura around a shoulder or a thigh and take the pain, but only a fool would risk something like getting a jugular nicked.
Gambol Shroud met its mark, but the reptilian woman seemed unharmed, almost nonplussed. Lifting her shoulder up, she bent her neck into the sword and caught it against her collarbone. Blake tried to pry back her sword, but apparently the elderly lady was stronger than she looked.
"Heheheh," she cackled. "Not bad, but not all that good, eithuh!"
She tilted her neck further, and the katana was snapped in two against her shoulder. Blake tripped backwards in surprise, then regained her composure, kicked away, and disappeared into the stony ruins. This was no cowardice; without a weapon, she would be more useful hidden in the shadows waiting for another opportunity to present itself. For now, though, Adam would have to cope with this invincible Faunus by himself.
"Don't forget about me!" shouted a squeaky voice.
Ruby Rose now stood tall, her previously lost scythe now firmly back in her grasp. Twirling the weapon with both hands, she took a fighting stance.
"Dah!" the crocodile wheezed in delight. "How could Oi forget about you, lass?"
Adam backed up to join her. "Human, regular attacks aren't–"
"There's no time!" interrupted Ruby. "Listen up, Blake and…boy who might have said his name but I can't remember for sure. Regular attacks aren't working, so we need to start getting creative."
Adam nodded. "Let's–"
The crocodile woman must have been in a hurry, because she didn't wait for Adam to finish or even start his sentence. Launching herself forward, she went straight for Ruby, but Adam once again stepped in between them.
She gripped him in a bear hug, knocking both of them over onto the soft grass. Her assault didn't stop with that, though. Ignoring any strategy, logic, or tactical considerations, the woman repeatedly brought her face up and down into Adam's chest. Adam attempted futilely to break free, but she seemed to have locked her hands behind his back, and none of his struggles seemed to phase her. It as though physics didn't affect her in the slightest, and force or momentum just passed through her body. Whatever power she had was like aura, but a million times stronger. Anyone else should have shattered their own aura, broken their nose, and concussed themselves from slamming their head into Adam's full aura so many times, but this creature just grinned and kept self-destructively attacking.
His aura broke. That it was inevitable offered him no comfort. His pride was deeply wounded in the knowledge that someone who had to be an octogenarian had so easily subdued him at his full strength. Him, the strongest Faunus on the strongest elite unit from the strongest kingdom, unable to even scratch this geezer.
His body was also deeply wounded; the woman dug her metal teeth into his shoulder and tore out a small chunk of flesh. Adam roared in pain and clutched the wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding and prevent it from being exposed to the dirty forest floor and the Faunus wretch's gooey saliva. Even though it wasn't going to matter in a few seconds when she finished him off, the instincts from his training were too strong to be ignored.
Before the White Fang, before K, before even Blake, James had shown him his robotic enhancements and impressed upon the then young bull Faunus just how detrimental it was to over-rely on aura. It was not an enemy or attack that had done it to James, but carelessness. An IED from a Mantle-based separatist group had gotten him before his aura was fully up, but the overconfident General, then just a Major, had healed up his wounds using aura moments later. Assuming that the restorative power of his soul had negated the attack entirely, James had dismissed a lingering ache from one puncture wound by a rusted piece of shrapnel. Time passed, and the pain in his muscles had slowly intensified until surgeons cut him open and saw that a tetanus infection had ravaged his body, and his aura had passively damped the bacterial infection enough to let it spread without killing him.
The sight of his mentor, revealed to be nearly as much machine as he was man, had stuck with Adam for the rest of his life, and he'd thrown his full efforts into first aid classes from that moment on. It was the immense breadth of medical knowledge from which he drew that told him not to expose the shoulder that had been torn asunder. Soilborne diseases were aplenty, and crocodile spit probably was most unsanitary, too. Releasing the pressure on his shoulder for just a second, he quickly reached into his pocket and pulled his mother's sewn emblem. It was the only bandage-worthy material quickly available without having to tear his shirt, an action which he likely lacked the strength to do at the moment. Pulling himself through the pain with nothing but his willpower alone, he wrapped the cloth around his shoulder and resumed squeezing down to stop the bleeding.
"Oooh, don'tcha taste noice, boy?"
The Faunus woman finished chewing up what she'd bitten off, swallowed, released him, and stood over his body. Even with her hunch gone, she was still a very diminutive person. Adam should have towered over her, and yet here he was, at her mercy. At least it's by a fellow Faunus' hand…
"Go on, then. Do it."
She looked down at him with a maelstrom of chaotic excitement in her eyes. "Aw, n-nawww." Her head shook from side to side. "Ain'tchu wot oi came for."
She checked her watch again, then whistled. "Down to twenty. Reckon' it's toime we finished this li'l tea party, innit?"
The sword came to Adam's throat.
"Now, then. Oi know ye moight be thinkin' ah runnin' for the hills, li'l lady." The crocodile Faunus glared at Ruby. "But if you surrender in the next five seconds, I moight just let you yah ragin' bull survoive."
"I–"
"Four."
"Okay, okay! Just let him go!"
"Ain't how it works, luv. Drop the gardnin' tool and come a li'l closer so oi can get a good look'atcha. Two."
Ruby threw down her weapon and came closer to the hostage and hostage-taker. The little girl was trembling. Blake wanted nothing more than to end that murderous reptile with whom she was ashamed to share a species, but that clearly wasn't on today's agenda. Even so, she wasn't simply going to allow this to play out the way the enemy wanted.
The crocodile smiled as she glanced down at her watch one last time. "And not a moment too soon." She raised her sword and pressed it to Ruby's cheek, checking her to make sure she'd lowered her aura. A single drop of blood confirmed it.
"Sayonara, silvah eyes!"
It was then that Blake struck. Not at the Faunus herself; that would be suicide, or at least a meaningless action. Unlike Adam, though, Blake specialized in fighting dirty. Her true goal was not to slay this woman, but to keep her team alive and possibly stall until Ilia could return or whatever timer the enemy kept referencing expired. Besides, she had no functioning weapons save for a ruined half-sword with a torn ribbon.
Ice Dust was the key to their survival. The meager quantity she had brought with her to Beacon was stored in a single vial hidden in her sleeve. It would not do for a supposedly impoverished Faunus to be seen toting excessive Dust stores, even if she was secretly funded by Atlesian taxpayer lien. Regardless, all she needed was a single crystal for her semblance to become enhanced.
Blake threw herself in front of the blade before Ruby was run through. To whoever this unkillable Faunus crone was, it must have looked like a noble but ultimately purposeless moment of self-sacrifice, but Blake left a duplicate to take the hit for her. And not just any duplicate; this was a freezing shadow clone, made of rigid ice. The enemy Faunus' hand and sword both were immediately encased in a physical Blake-shaped handcuff made of frozen water.
Blake had cracked the code. The enemy's semblance, presumably, gave her an infinite resistance to damage, pain, aura expenditure, impact, or literally anything her opponents threw at her. However, based on how she'd thrown herself at Adam and resorted to brute-forcing her way through his aura without a hint of finesse or talent, it was likely that she lacked skill beyond blunting putting down her opponents in the quickest way possible. She literally used herself as a hammer and treated everything like a nail.
She couldn't be overpowered, but she could be stalled. In the time it would take for her to either thaw the ice or break herself free, Blake would be long gone. Scooping up Adam and screaming for Ruby to run, Blake took off like a bullet.
…only to be stabbed in the back by a blade. Blake turned around to see that the woman was still stuck in the ice, as was her sword. Her first sword.
She had two?
Kicking herself up, she gave Ruby a shove forward and tried to stand, but it suddenly felt like the weight of the world had become lazy and sat its ass down on Blake's back.
"You lot think Oi haven't evuh been up 'gainst someone with a tricky trick before? I got me own Dust, mate."
Blake looked down at the sword that had embedded itself into the ground by her feed. A Gravity Dust chamber!
Ruby strained as she pumped her arms in an ineffectual attempt to sprint away. "I can't…not even at my full speed…"
"Don't waste your energy! We can't escape from the pull of her Gravity Dust. Just get ready for a fight. She kept looking at that watch – I don't think she can last much longer."
The Faunus pulled free of the ice, jerking her hand violently. "Oh, Oi got plenty o' toime. In fact, one moight even say Oi've got…toime to kill."
As she said it, the stopwatch began to ring, and the yellow sheen around her vanished.
Out of nowhere, Lightning Lash shot forward and sliced open the Dust chamber on the sword by Blake's feet. The Gravity Dust field faded away, and not a moment too soon. Blake reacted quickly, wrapping one hand around Ilia's whip and the other on Ruby's hood. Adam took hold of Blake's ankle, and Ilia, wherever she was hidden, yanked the trio to safety.
Now that they were out of the gravity trap that the woman had set, they could formulate a plan to counterattack her. She'd claimed to have more time on her superpowered semblance, but Blake figured that the yellow glow around her fading away signaled the end of her tricks. If Ruby could tend to Adam's wounds, perhaps Blake and Ilia could herd their enemy to a more advantageous locations and corner–
"Don't worry, ladies and Blake – er, I mean, ladies and boy with red hair! I got this!"
"Wh–"
Suddenly, the three of them were swept up in a tornado of rose petals and thrown across Remnant in a violent heap of nausea and blurred colors.
Blake had to steady herself; she probably would have vomited if she hadn't already emptied out her stomach upon seeing the specialist's corpse.
"Why did you – mmmmrrrrggg!" Adam had tried to prop himself up for a rebuke, but his wound was still open.
Blake gently patted him on his good shoulder and took over. "Ruby, why did you run us out of there? We could've taken her."
"She was invincible or something! I don't know if ponytail girl would've made that big a difference."
"She was going to run out of time with that semblance of her."
"But she said she had plenty of time!"
"Ruby, she was lying!"
"How do you know that?"
"She was counting down to something! She hit twenty about twenty two seconds from when Ilia pulled us out! Her stopwatch went off!"
"Well…but…why would she count down right in front of you?"
"That yellow glow around her had just disappeared–"
"That could've been anything!"
"It was clearly her aura breaking and her invulnerability fading!"
"She was trying to kill us, and we were already down one!" Ruby said frustratedly. "I made a call! If I left us there and she had more semblance and it got you hurt–"
"You're supposed to be a huntress! Do you normally just run at the first sign of danger?"
"I didn't run! I evacuated a wounded teammate – who's still wounded and needs to be taken to a hospital, by the way! So let's stop wasting time and get him in front of a doctor, ASAP!"
Blake wanted to argue more (Adam had taken worse wounds before he was even in K), but she decided to let it…
…go.
Had Ruby intentionally thrown the fight? She was still a suspect in Marrow's killing, and the evidence against her was piling up more and more. The crocodile Faunus woman was clearly uninterested in K and had targeted Ruby, but that didn't mean Ruby was innocent. For all Blake knew, Ruby was in league with the crocodile, and this whole thing was an elaborate charade to wound Adam without blowing Ruby's cover. If so, it had completely succeeded…
Needless to say, Blake was going to keep a close eye on her new partner.
Adam managed to somehow convince the childish human that he didn't need a bullhead evac or anything of the sort, so that meant Ilia was stuck on carrying duty once more. It seemed like every other day she was saddled with the big lug, whether by drunkenness or injury.
His aura was regenerated, but some sort of trauma in his youth regarding tetanus led to him refusing to accelerate his healing until he'd had the wound diagnosed and cleared by a medical professional. Ilia knew that it was better not to pry; when Adam brought up a childhood memory from before his time at K, he told you everything he was comfortable telling and not a peep more, end of story.
"…and that was when the relic rolled off the pedestal and fell right into my hood!" said Ruby. "I noticed it after the fight."
"So you didn't grab it during the fight?" Ilia asked.
Ruby shook her head. "Nope!"
"And the second, matching relic you're holding?"
"Uhhhh…I was going to use it as a weapon! It's kind of got a pointy end, right?"
The bishop chess piece was rounder than an apple at the tip, but Ilia didn't bother pointing that out. It was to their advantage to have the relics, as they still needed to pass initiation and get into Beacon, crocodile or not. After that whole affair, the rogue teacher, and Marrow, Ilia needed to consciously remember that their mission was some aura switcheroo machine, not all these distracting little side quests.
Ruby inspected her relics, one in each hand. "So how do we turn in the little moley-mole…s? Did Headmaster Ozpin say that there was a drop-off box, or do we have to find that too?"
Ilia sighed. "We're supposed to take them to a designated landing zone where some bullheads will pick us up at a set time."
"And then what?"
"And then we're a team." Ilia managed to eke out a weak smile. She didn't dislike the girl, but the idea of anyone other than Blake or Adam with her was a general turn-off.
Ruby ran forward so that she was in front of the three Faunus, then turned to look at all of them.
"K!" she shouted excitedly.
Then, the turned around and started running ahead.
What?!
"What?" shouted Blake.
"WHAT?!" screamed Adam. "WHAT DID YOU SAY?"
Ruby turned around and waved her hands. "O-Or maybe we don't! If you guys and gals don't want to be on a team with me, then we don't have to! I…I can team up with…c-crocodile lady?"
"No, what did you just say?" asked Adam frantically. "What word was the last to come out of your mouth?"
"Lady?"
"Before that!"
"Crocodile!"
Blake gripped Ruby's shoulders. "What did you say after Ilia said we were going to be a team?"
"I…said ok? Was that not ok?"
Ok, abbreviated to 'kay…phonetically pronounced kay…like saying K…
Ilia's heart started beating again. Somehow, despite the fact that they'd faced Grimm, dead bodies, rampant professors, and Faunus assassins, that one syllable had to be the scariest part of the day.
"I'm sorry if it's not ok! I didn't mean to assume, but since Blake and I are partners, I just thought that the four of us would–"
"It's not that," explained Ilia. "We just thought…something else. Don't worry, Ruby; we'll all be a team."
"K."
Omake
Blake: Thanks for saving us, Ilia. I could kiss you right about now.
Ilia: I mean, like, we could…if you want to…
Ruby: But don't you guys know? Every kiss begins with–
Ilia: DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE FINISH THAT SENTENCE!
