Chapter 16 – the queen's Knights
It was a tactic Ilia had used on occasion before, but very rarely. Mutual squeamishness about their positioning relative to one another made it uncomfortable for both Faunus, but the alternative was a guaranteed death right now, so Adam ignored both breasts and held himself as still as a corpse.
A single twitch could reveal their contours against the dark floor of the work yard. Their only advantage was the black clothing that the both of them had chosen to wear that night. Ilia's skin had shifted to an obsidian black pigment to match the paved ground around them, and she'd thrown her torso over his fair skin and exceptionally noticeable bright red hair to completely shroud him from view.
It was a desperate gamble. Stealth had never been Adam's forte. Their only hope was that the brief text he'd sent to Blake would be received. They couldn't do anything, but she could. Perhaps she'd stage a diversion, or perhaps she'd mount a rescue. Either way, their fate was in her hands. He just hoped she could interpret their predicament when she saw it. He'd sent a brief message before powering down the scroll completely for fear of some loud ding or notification noise giving them away to the enemy.
Humans.
Adam's lone eye was mostly obscured by the chest that completely covered his face and head, but sneaking an occasional peak (at the humans, not Ilia) combined with his Faunus night vision allowed him to make out the scene. There was a small band of humans numbering in the low twenties loading Dust out of the shipping containers into large transport trucks. The closest shipping container was only about 15 feet away from Adam and Ilia, but the night was pitch black, and cloud cover blocked out any moonlight. The humans had weak flashlights, but they seemed entirely fixated on the Dust they work moving and hadn't yet turned them on the two Faunus. As long as they both lay stationary on the ground, they were as good as invisible.
Twenty to thirty humans should have been child's play for two armed members of K, but it wasn't the humans K feared.
"Oi, you lot. Wot's takin' so long? If you can't get it togethuh, Oi moight jus' have tah raise me voice, and we wudden't won' that, now wud we?"
The memorable accent of the crocodile Faunus. Adam feared for a moment that she might see them with her night vision when the humans couldn't, but her voice was coming from the carriage of one of the trucks that was facing away from them. They were safe, for now.
Unless she does decide to exit and supervise her workers. Please hurry, Blake.
"Things would go a lot faster if you helped us," spoke a deep, masculine voice. The speaker was easily the tallest, most muscular human that Adam had ever seen. He effortlessly carried three crates of Dust in each arm, while the other humans had to pair up for a single one. Adam prayed to the Brother Gods that the crocodile ignored the mountain of a man and stayed within the ignorant confines of her truck.
"Lil' ol' me? Shame on you, Hazel, askin' an geezuh loike me to throw out me back!"
"I was referring to Mister Torchwick. He is an able bodied man in his prime…though I do believe that you are not nearly as feeble as you claim, Lady Tock."
The crocodile cackled from the tractor unit. "Roight you are, Hazel, roight you are. Romey, why doncha 'elp out the bois?"
An orange haired man that Adam hadn't seen before expelled a rich puff of smoke from his mouth, then bit down on a cigar. "I am helping," he said. "I'm supervising. It counts – fancy folk get paid thousands for it."
"We were expecting more hands," said Hazel, grunting as placed another pair of crates into the truck with a resounding thud. "The White Fang was destroyed days before the term began, and our plans were already in motion. Actions were done that could not be undone. If we wish to meet our deadlines, we must all pull our weight and then some. I would not be relegated to manual labor were the situation not–"
"Yeah, yeah, I get it, big boy. Supply chain issues, understaffing, yadda yadda yadda. Union's been on strike, we're down on our luck, it's tough." Torchwick threw his cigar onto the ground and stamped it out. "So tough."
Hazel frowned. "Our mutual friend–"
"–is not here."
"But Oi am, Romey," called the crocodile Faunus. "Don' make me come out there."
Just pick up a damn crate, human, Adam pleaded mentally. Don't make her come out there, for Dust's sake!
Adam wasn't normally one to cower in fear, but picking a fight with the crocodile had been folly last time, and they'd had Blake and Ruby back then. His pride stung, but at least he was alive to feel humiliated.
Ilia's tears were dripping onto him as she smothered his face with her unseeable body. Adam wanted to reassure her that they would make it out of this alive, but James said K shouldn't lie to one another.
They were going to die. Ilia had faced down bad odds before, but it had never scared her. Ilia may have been the weakest fighter that K boasted, but it didn't matter, because she always been able to rely on her partners to have her back. Together, the three of them could face the world and come out on top.
But Blake and Adam had fought this crocodile bitch before and gotten steamrolled. Blake lost her sword, and Adam lost a chunk of arm that had only been fixed by the Beacon nurse's healing semblance. The safety net that the two of them had been for Ilia was torn wide open. If Ilia went toe to toe with the reptile woman, there was no one coming to rescue her.
And that terrified her.
Blake was on her way (hopefully), but what could she do tonight that she hadn't done in the Emerald Forest? If they made a break for it right now, maybe they could escape. It would be risky, though. The crocodile lady had a Gravity Dust weapon that was built specifically to prevent people from fleeing her. The docks were too wide open to use either chambers four or five on Lightning Lash, and Ilia wasn't even sure that they would work.
Waiting them out was hardly an option. It was luck and the humans being intently focused on their work that had saved them from being detected so far, but that luck would eventually run out. All it took was one flashlight being pointed their way for things to turn to shit.
Could they signal for help, maybe call in some reinforcements from Beacon? Standing out was bad for the mission, but dying would be worse. Code 01 had already been called, anyways.
But who would we call? Ozpin and Goodwitch, who might be trying to kill us? Team Yellowjacket-P, a bunch of rookies? The only other team I know is–
"TEAM SWORD! Put your hands in the air! You are all under arrest, on the authority of Beacon Academy!"
Before Ilia could help herself, she turned her head towards the extremely blatant announcement. Fortunately, none of the humans noticed her because they had also all turned to look.
Weiss Schnee and her bozos stood in formation; their weapons drawn. Weiss stepped forward and flourished Myrtenaster.
"Reprobates, malefactors, and scoundrels, I offer you one chance – surrender! We are hunters of Beacon, here to bring you to justice. Spurn this offer and we shall have no other option but to employ force."
"How did you even find us?" Hazel asked evenly.
Weiss' eyes burned with passion. "You think you can escape the watchful eye of the law? SDC owned or not, Dust freighters never unload at night. It's a violation of workplace safety codes and is generally parlous."
"Oh, cor blimey!" The crocodile woman opened the door of the truck and leaned out. "Hunty girlies and bois, come to foil our wrongdoing and safety code violatery. Gents, we've nah choice but tah surrendah. You heard 'er. Lift them hands in the air."
The human fighters did lift their hands – and their weapons. In a second, thirty guns were trained on Weiss.
A wall of ice shot out of the ground before the bullets tore her aura to bits. A massive yellow Glyph appeared beneath the criminals, followed by a wave of electricity. Torchwick dove out of the way before he was shocked into paralysis like his workers. Hazel ignored the electricity altogether and folded his arms as though he weren't mad, just disappointed. The range of the attack was so wide that Ilia had to roll away to avoid being struck by some stray sparks.
When Torchwick landed safely outside the runic circle, he flung his cane over his shoulder and fired with a flourish. The Dust bolt that shot out exploded upon contacting Schnee's ice wall, sending large slabs of ice flying in all directions. Weiss stood with her team proudly behind her. As she assessed the downed goons, she smiled.
"Down from thirty to three. This isn't…Taurus?"
Ilia then remembered that Adam a) was there, b) was supposed to be hiding, and c) had hair so vibrant that it stood out even in the weak light. She'd been covering up his face with her dark clothes and prismatic skin, but her automatic choice to move away from the dangerous electrical attack now left him completely vulnerable to human and Faunus eyesight. Ilia herself was still invisible, except to the crocodile Faunus.
"I should've known you were among these malefactors!" accused Weiss. "Where's the cat? Is she your lookout? And that would make Ruby your getaway driver, I suppose? Perhaps your air support, or your hacker?"
Hazel looked Adam up and down, then glanced at Torchwick for his assessment.
The dapper criminal shrugged in confusion. "No clue. Kill 'em all, I guess?"
"No. They are but children. Hunters or not, they–"
"–saw us. Romey's roight. They all got'sa die." The crocodile Faunus opened up her mouth, revealing rows of sharpened teeth. Her cane revealed itself to be a sheath for a gleaming sword.
"Lady Tock, we need not–"
"Oi, mate! Which wunna us did mum put in charge? Oi've got rank on ya, Hazel."
Hazel frowned but nodded solemnly. "As you command."
Okay. So, the situation had definitely gotten worse. Weiss was now intent on getting herself and her team killed, but not before arresting Adam. The bad guys had also set their sights on him. Blake was nowhere in sight, and Ilia had no idea what to do. Her only advantage was that she hadn't been seen by the humans, although the invulnerable Faunus lady, the only one she truly feared, certainly had seen her.
We're not going to win by force. We can't retreat as long as the crocodile holds her Gravity Dust swords, and there's no way I'll be able to get close enough to her to destroy them. Maybe if I reveal myself and convince Weiss we're not – argh! If I did, she'd see my skin changing and know I'm a Faunus, and that would probably set her off even more.
We need a miracle. We need the Brother Gods to part the heavens and intervene.
And just like that, a Beacon airship, the same make as the one that Ilia had taken to Vale earlier today, emerged from the clouds. As it fell out of the sky, Ilia took note of its trajectory and the point where it was about to crash land.
The truck full of Dust.
Ruby's semblance was both a wondrous vermillion tunnel of love and a jarringly nauseating log flume at the same time. Blake had no idea if she hated it or desperately wanted to see more of it. Eventually, she settled on the latter, but only on the condition that she hadn't just eaten.
They moved at least ten times faster than the bullhead, even at its maximum speed setting. Ruby had made the right call to jump out through the windshield and fly them to their destination. Of course, it wasn't really flying. Blake and her partner were slowly descending through the sky as they zoomed to the docks, but it was fine. Ruby had locked on, and there was no stopping her.
They landed on top of a building overlooking the fight scene. Blake initially wanted to launch herself into the fray, but she paused when she saw the scene unfolding in front of her. Weiss Schnee was denouncing several humans for…workplace safety laws or something.
I stole a bullhead for this?
And then she heard it.
"Oh, cor blimey!"
Her.
"Ruby, it's the crocodile woman, from initiation," Blake said. "She's over there, by the truck."
"Where?" asked Ruby, squinting.
"There, by the truck. The one that's half loaded."
"How can you even see, Blake? It's pitch dark. All I can make out is some people in suits with flashlights and…hey, is that Roman Torchwick?"
Shit, I forgot that Ruby's a human. She's going to be less than useless in a fight if she can't even see.
"She's by the truck, just beyond the others. Adam and Ilia are hiding, but they're pinned down. I think I also see Weiss and–"
A bright Glyph lit up the scene below them, and the lightning that poured out completely illuminated it.
Ruby nodded. "Okay, I saw everything. Our top priority should be getting the others out of there. There're too many bogeys, and Roman's no pushover."
Blake looked down again and saw that all of the humans save for two had been incapacitated by the Glyph. "Ruby, hold on a second."
"What?"
"The crocodile Faunus has Gravity Dust swords to prevent us from escaping. They might get in the way of our escape."
"Can't you just throw your ribbon to the others, like Ilia did last time? If we do it quick enough and pull them up here, I can run us out with my semblance before they even know what hit them!"
"It would be risky."
"Our only other option is to watch our friends die, so…"
"Not our only other option. We could fight."
Ruby stared back with pity and confusion. "Blake, she was invincible. Nothing could hurt her."
"Only for one minute. If we can hold her down long enough…"
"We don't know that for sure. Now who's being too risky?"
"There's no way this could be a coincidence, running into the same person twice like that. She's obviously targeting our team for some reason, Ruby. If we don't stand and fight her now, we're just pushing it down the road."
"Blake, I'm the leader of Team Rabies, and I think–"
Blake put a hand on her partner's shoulder. "Ruby. Please. This is serious."
"…"
"You're a good person, but you're not anyone's leader. Not yet."
Ruby deflated. "Do you really think so?"
"Chin up, Ruby. You're at a school that'll teach you what to do and how to lead. I know you'll be the best huntress in the world one day, but for now, it'd be best if you deferred to me on this one. I've got more experience with decision making on the fly."
"Oh. Well…what do we do, then?"
It hurt Blake to hear the glum way in which Ruby acquiesced, but now wasn't the time for cookies and puppies and rainbows. Adam and Ilia had already been seen. They didn't need Ruby's leadership, if you could even call it that.
"On the count of three, we–"
The bullhead they had been flying in finally caught up with them, cruising just above their heads straight towards the chaotic scene below.
"Oh, yeah," said Ruby. "I'd forgotten where we left that."
It landed directly on the truck, instantly igniting all of the Dust within. Crackling blasts of red, green, gold, and white flames exploded into the night sky like fireworks, each igniting one after the other in an unending river of light. Blake threw herself to the floor to avoid the initial shockwave and covered her ears to prevent the eardrums from rupturing. Just for good measure, she also folded down her second set of ears. When she looked up from her cover, small fires had broken out across the entire work yard.
At least Ruby will be able to see, Blake thought grimly.
Fighting had broken out among the multiple parties down below. Weiss was leading her cronies against the orange haired human while Adam was blocking attacks from the tall, muscular one with Wilt. Blake could just barely make out Ilia, who lay on her stomach, presumably knocked out or stunned by the truck's explosion.
The truck! The crocodile!
Blake looked over to the epicenter of the fire, where the flames were the thickest. The crocodile Faunus had emerged, unharmed by the heat. Her skin was glowing faintly yellow.
"She's using her semblance! One minute from now, go!"
"But–"
Blake leapt over the side of the building and landed on the ground with a somersault. If the crocodile were to team up with one of her humans, Adam and the others wouldn't stand a chance. He was holding his own well enough against the lumbering hulk of a man he currently fought, but just barely. I can't let her tip the scales.
Blake wasn't expecting to win against her. She just needed to keep this elderly woman busy for sixty seconds, and then she could kill her with ease. She'd been fast for someone who looked eighty years old, but Blake was faster. Without her invulnerability trick, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.
"Let's go, Ruby!"
"Yes, ma'am!"
Ilia was unconscious, Weiss was incompetent, and Adam was preoccupied. It all came down to the two of them.
Fifty five.
The crocodile Faunus saw the two young huntresses charging towards her and grinned. Her swords activated, and the harsh pull of gravity began drawing Blake in. To counter it, Blake threw Gambol Shroud like a grappling hook towards the lowered hook of a nearby crane. The cable went taut with tension, and Blake was lifted into the air by the two opposing forces pulling her in different directions.
Ruby went a different route. Instead of trying to dig in her heels, she ran as fast as she could straight towards the enemy. Blake had no idea what she was thinking – headbutting the crocodile was pointless; her semblance would just absorb the blow.
At the last second, Ruby switched her scythe into a sniper and shot repeatedly to her left. The force pushed her to the right, and she narrowly flew past the crocodile Faunus altogether. Ruby's momentum carried her away from the gravity trap, but she began to slow down the second she passed it as though she were a pendulum being pulled back to center. The force it exerted was in all directions, and Ruby was getting sucked in from the other side. The small girl began to run and fire some sniper shots in the opposite direction, but she was losing ground.
Forty three.
Blake saw her opening when the crocodile Faunus turned her back to look at Ruby. Blake remembered from the Emerald Forest that Ruby had been her target, and it seemed like nothing had changed since then. Dragging herself up Gambol's ribbon, she grabbed hold of the crane and held on for dear life. The entire cable was at an angle, caught in the twin swords' black hole-like pull. Blake switched Gambol into a pistol and closed one eye. Her weapon wasn't a sniper like Crescent Rose, but Blake had been practicing her marksmanship since the day General Ironwood took her in, and she could shoot the Imp of a Nuckelavee's back from a mile away with a shotgun if she needed to.
Two shots directly at the Dust chambers on both swords, and the crane fell back into a loose, slack position. Blake let go and dropped down to the ground. Ruby was still running, and Blake half expected her to run herself right into a wall, but she seemed to have better control of her semblance than that. Turning around, she took the rose petal express to right back to Blake.
"You did it! Nice, one partner!"
Thirty one.
"Now let's grab Ilia and Adam and hightail it–"
"No! We can't!"
"Fiiiiiine, I guess we can take Team Sword with us, but only if Weiss doesn't bully me when we're running."
"No, Ruby! Dammit, we talked about this! We're twenty five…twenty seconds away from being able to finish this once and for all!"
It was a risk, but it was a tactical risk. Running from a problem was not only cowardly, but tactically insufficient. The crocodile would just show up later. They had a chance to end this now, and it might be the best on they ever saw.
A sword interrupted their conversation as it flew through the air towards Ruby, who just barely managed to swipe it away with Crescent Rose. The crocodile began to sprint towards them with the spryness of a twenty-year-old. Blake knew that trying to halt her was pointless, but that didn't mean she couldn't put some extra distance between the woman and her target.
Grabbing Ruby's hand, she turned and ran, leaving a shadow clone behind to distract her adversary. It didn't take her more than one second to cut it down and see through the ruse, but that was one more second on the stopwatch towards victory.
"Get back 'ere, ya li'l bugger!"
That makes it fifteen. Almost there…
Blake glanced over her shoulder to check how close the Faunus–
"Here, kitty! Have a treat!"
The orange haired human had evidently finished wiping the floor with Team Sword and now had time to focus on Blake and Ruby. His cane shot another incendiary round that ruptured into a fireball in Blake's face, but her aura protected her from lasting damage. She lost her grip on Ruby but managed to cough out a weak command to keep moving. Ruby obeyed without question and kept running. As long as she kept the crocodile occupied, they would keep making steady progress to victory.
The sneering human in the tacky bowler cap possessed no invulnerability, so Blake decided to fire a few shots at him. The first one missed, but her second and third popped him right in the kneecap and the stomach.
"ARGGHHH! Gonna have to get you declawed!"
Blake looked closer and saw that he was bleeding. I guess Weiss and her team managed to break his aura. Maybe they aren't as incompetent as I thought.
Ruby was still running, but the crocodile Faunus stopped to check her pocket-watch. It must have given her the same answer as Blake's mental timing, because she froze.
Eight.
The way Blake saw it, there were two possible outcomes. If she chose to stick around, she was gambling everything that she could kill all of Team Rabies in the next few seconds. Otherwise, she'd have just enough time to turn tail and run.
Five.
It turned out that Miss Crocodile was feeling cautious today, because she dashed towards one of the trucks. Blake shot at her with Gambol Shroud, but the bullets clattered against her yellow glow and fell to the ground harmlessly. The Faunus just made it to the door of the truck as Blake counted to…three.
"Ruby! Get me to her! Now!"
Ruby zipped to Blake and grabbed her hands.
Two.
Ruby semblance'd Blake to the truck.
One.
Ruby swung Blake around by her arms and threw her towards the crocodile.
Zero.
The yellow glow faded just as Blake kicked the Faunus squarely in the chest, knocking her away from her getaway vehicle. All other sounds in the world – the low crackling of Dust flames, the pained screams of bowler hat human, the panting breaths of Ruby as she fell to her knees in exhaustion – were swallowed out by the shrill ringing as the pocket-watch went off.
Blake placed her boot on the chest of the downed Faunus. The toothy crocodile grin she normally wore was gone. In its place was a look of pure, bitter fury at having been bested.
Blake raised Gambol Shroud into the air, the black blade barely visible as its color melted into the night sky.
"Time's up," Blake said. The crocodile held her hands up to protect her head.
Blake brought her sword down.
It shattered.
Blake's sword shattered into pieces.
The yellow glow returned the very moment before Blake slashed her throat out.
"W-What?" Blake asked. "You're–"
"Out o' toime?" asked the Faunus, her grin returning with her protection. "Nah. Girlie, it's yer toime that's up."
The crocodile Faunus pushed off the ground, knocking Blake backwards. Jumping to her feet, the vile creature lunged. An army of gleaming teeth shot straight towards Blake. She braced herself in preparation for her aura to take the unavoidable hit.
Then, something pushed her out of the way.
Blake could only watch as the rows of teeth sank into Ilia's defenseless, auraless neck.
Author's Notes
Maybe we should listen to Ruby more often.
Happy rats, and don't do crime!
