Weiss Schnee

She sighed as the call with Blake ended, and glanced around her room. It's was probably near midnight or later, she couldn't remember the last time she had gotten to sleep at a decent hour.

"I feel like I'm going to be sick..." Ever since Ruby's two week trance as it had come to be known, Weiss had been busy... really busy. It hadnt made any sense to her. How did Ruby keep herself awake and even alive during all of that? She should have passed out after two or three days...

It hadn't made sense at all.

Until she did some digging.

Weiss looked through dozens of different papers and records, until she finally found some history from Rubys family. A report on Ruby's mother, detailing exaclty how she died.

"Creatures can force there body to continue past its breaking point using mana... humans can do the same thing but they dont have much mana to use, so they burn through life-force..."

There was a likely chance that Ruby's 'trances' were eating away at a good portion of her soul, exaclty what like what had killed her mother. Weiss had to make her stop, had to make her slow down... Ruby had to get a break but... she didn't want to, so Weiss had to make her.

The princess wasn't fairing much better. Her father had been complelty silent for nearly two months now and it was stressing her out... worst of all she had no clue when the wedding was supposed to take place... for all she knew her father could spring it on her tommorow!

She shook her head.

"Don't be ridiculous Weiss... it's not tommorow... you're just stressed... though if anyone had the resources to throw a wedding with no notice it would be him..."

He wouldn't be willing to go that far though... right?

Still, for now Ruby took the priority. Blake was having Yang look into the warehouse business tonight, so tommorow should bring some good news...

"And that's another thing to stress about..."

Her father's office, in Blake's words, had been immaculate. There was practically no papers or information anywhere. Weiss knew he was a careful man but... it was frankly suprising. The only thing Blake had found besides some letters from Ozpin and a report that had to be sent back to Atlas, was the info on the White Fang deal, and apparently it wasn't easy to find.

Blake had paraphrased... but something about a series of photos rearranged correctly opened a small pocket dimension..? Weiss hadn't followed well, Blake was no where near as good at detailing magic as Ruby...

"I haven't heard one of Rubys magic talks in ages..."

Things were... tense between Ruby and Weiss at the moment. They were still friends, but Ruby was clearly annoyed at the limitations that were being placed on her research... Weiss wasn't exaclty thrilled about them either but her choices were to make the girl slow down or to watch her wither away... and that wasn't a choice that even required thinking to make.

Weiss slowly stood from her desk and stepped over to her bed. She had to force her mind to keep itself away from that topic for now. Her distance from Ruby recently had done no favors towards her goal of being with her... but she needed to keep her safe. She needed to find dirt on her father, she needed to keep Jaune from awakening, she needed to-

"Ruby's progress... the warehouse... my father's secrecy... all of that can wait..."

She needed to sleep.

She layed down and breathed out a sigh as she sunk into the blanket.

"Nothing else matters until i know Ruby is ok..."

Yang Xiao Long

Welp, this sucked.

Yang wasn't usually one for stealth missions, in fact, the only ones she usually ever went on were with Blake and she may or may not have just been there to make a distraction.

But Blake couldn't exaclty come on this one... she had made it clear years ago that she didn't want anything to do with the White Fang and... well, fair enough. Most faunas she knew probably wanted to avoid the White Fang at all costs.

Still, even on top of all that... the worst part was that she had been made team leader of this mission...

"I don't think this is a great idea." Her voice was more concerned then usual, but Ozpin didn't seem to care.

"The warehouse is somewhere that the criminals Qrow have been investigating have been sighted. For whatever reason, Cinder Fall and Neo are not in the warehouse tonight, Qrow confirmed that himself. I simply want you to sneak in, locate any useful information, and if you believe you can get away with it? Level the place."

That chick with the Gold eyes and Neo not being here was the only reason they were even doing this mission. Yang was confident she could give Neo a decent fight before going down so long as she had her weapons but... well, Qrow had said that the Cinder chick was probably stronger then Neo.

"I don't really wanna find out..."

Her team was full of people that seemed to be more suited to the 'leveling the place' part of the mission. Between Cardin, Coco, and Yang herself, the only one any good at sneaking in there team was Fox.

So he was leading point.

The warehouse looked like it wouldn't require much effort to destroy once they were done. One swing from Cardin once he transformed could probably knock most of it over. It didn't have any mana pipes running underneath it either, though maybe that was why they had picked this place.

The front door wasn't guarded that they could see, but they still decided against just walking up and knocking on it.

"Why exaclty are we sneaking in? We could just destroy the place now."

"Because shut up that's why." Yang snickered a little between Coco and Cardins banter.

"We should try to be quiet..." Fox was rather a rather soft spoken man, but that just made him pretty scary a lot of the time. In there few interactions over the years, he had nearly snuck up on Yang more times then Blake had.

They were heading to the back of the warehouse at the moment. The loading bay was apparently the best means of entry, Yang didn't really question it. Fox was doing his best but Yang had long since accepted that with this team it was a matter of when things got loud, not if.

Turning the corner, they noticed that there weren't any guards stationed by the loading bay doors. Apparently Qrow had left a report that there were regular arrivals of White Fang members today. They would show up, load some boxes, then leave.

They must have shown up between rotations.

"Certain Faunas can have really good hearing or senses of smell..." Fox added as they continued.

"Right. Cardin, you keep watch out here." Yang gave him a thumbs up and while he clearly wanted to retort, even he was smart enough to not question it.

After slipping inside, the loading bay was empty. No carts, no crates, nothing.

"Is this place abandoned...?" Coco whispered.

"No way, Qrow spotted people here a few hours ago... they couldn't have emptied out so quickly." Moving forward there were two ways to go, a door that had some light coming out from under it, and a stairway up to a metal catwalk that lead into the same direction.

"Coco, you wait by the door, Fox and I will head up there and see if this leads to the same place." It probably did, but checking for traps or enemies was also helpful, even with Yang and Cardin here, Coco was the muscle.

She gave a thumbs up and the duo headed up the stairs. Fox leading with feather light steps, while Yang continued much more carefully behind him.

The walkway lead through a gap in the wall closer to the roof into the next room. The room was clearly originally meant to be some kind of a large storage space, different large shelving structures lead up to just below where they stood, but there had been room made in the centre for a large table, along with a decently sized ritual circle on the ground next to it.

"So, what are we supposed to do now?" Orange hair, stupid hat, cane that seemed magical...

"Roman Torchwick." Yang muttered.

"I'm not following?" This guy was someone they lacked a description on... Silver hair, decently tall and... Grey eyes... well, he'd be fun to fight...

"Neo's on his list! She can't get near the Hunters anymore."

"And we have someone else handling that, now shut up." He took a step closer to Torchwick. The man was wearing braces around his legs that were similar to Yangs gauntlets... she could assume that's how he fought.

"The Hunters...? There trying to plant a mole...?" Fox was probably right... Still, that would take time. The next Hunter Exam was next year after all, Ruby was participating in that one too.

"So I'll be there to look out for them anyway..."

Currently they were both on opposite sides of the table, there were a few documents littered on it, but the main concern was the magic circle... it had dust still inside of it, and not a small amount either...

"There doing a Ritual...?" Fox shook his head in response to Yangs whisper.

"Looks more like they were preparing for one... but stopped for some reason..."

"Just focus on getting this place packed up. Is the dust all gone yet?" The silver haired man sounded frustrated.

"Besides that stuff." Roman pointed to the ritual circle with his cane.

"Start sweeping then."

"Come on Mercury, you really expect me to do that?" Roman smirked and Mercury let out a growl.

"Fine. Just get one of the faunas to do it then, I don't care. Cinder only sent me here for the-" A loud crash interrupted the boy and Yang let out a sigh... that had come from outside.

"Cardin..." Both her and Fox groaned out at once, though, quietly.

"Looks like we got company, aye kiddo?" Roman had a smirk as he leaned on his cane.

"They took out our backup, I wouldn't be so calm if I were you, Torchwick." Mercury started heading to the door leading to Coco and Yang turned to Fox.

"You jump Torchwick, I'm gonna handle this Mercury guy."

"Are you sure that's a- oh ok then." Yang had already jumped from the catwalk.

She waited as long as she possible could before transforming. Shifting into her half form just before she brought her fist down onto the mans head and brought him to the ground as she landed, the crash was probably loud enough to let Coco know that something was up... if she hadn't already gone to help Cardin.

"That should've done some damage-"

She felt her legs be kicked out from under her, and with quite a bit of confusion going through her mind she was now falling to the ground, before she was sent flying with another kick, punted like she was a ball.

Yang crashed into one of the many large shelves and the thing collapsed on top of her. She let out a groan as she climbed out of it and threw some rubble off of herself.

With a glance she could see that Fox was fighting Torchwick... who was surprisingly holding his ground. He used his cane as if he was a fencer, managing to deflect most of the attacks coming from Fox's katars.

Yang turned back to Mercury only to be met with both of his legs in her stomach, she let out a gasp of pain as the dropkick sent her flying back and another loud groan as she crashed through a wall.

She ended up in some kind of office like room, taking a glance at her surroundings showed that they had some important info up on a wall behind the main desk. She didn't really read it, but noted its location for later. Yang took a deep breath before charging her gauntlets with mana.

"Alright asshole... let's do this." With a roar she leapt back into the main room. Mercury had moved to assist Torchwick by now, but he was quick to react to Yangs interruption. He managed to deflect her charge with a kick, and they begun to trade blows.

"He's stronger then me... is he already transformed??"

Yang didn't know of many people that just walked around in there mastery form... and he probably wasn't a faunas. She couldn't spot any differences between him and a Human either. Was he still in his base form??

No way, he couldn't be keeping up with her like this if he was... though he did have Grey eyes...

Another kick to the head made her rephrase that in her head.

"He couldnt be beating me like this if he was in his base form."

But that was fine for now. Afterall, she wasn't alone.

Coco burst through the door finally, and Cardin followed through the nearby wall. He had already half transformed and was currently standing at about eight to nine feet tall, his large mace magical in nature had grown to match his size change.

Coco kept her distance and held her hand up, a spike of metal formed in front of her hand and it fired faster then a crossbow bolt, nailing Torchwick in the shoulder.

"Ahh!! What the hell!!" He let out a few groans of pain before shaking his head. "You know what? Fuck this, you're on your own Mercury!" With a flick of his head his hat flew off and landed on the floor, he then... dived into it...?

His body seemed to shrink to allow himself to fall straight into the thing... and it collapsed in on itself not long after that, complelty disappearing.

"Ok I guess the hat isn't so stupid... shit."

"Asshole." Mercury muttered before letting out a sigh. "Alright, guess I have to take you all seriously." He closed his eyes to concentrate and didn't react as the Giant ran up to him.

Cardin brought his mace down directly onto the mans head... well, he tried to. A kick straight upwards sent the mace flying back with enough force to knock Cardin off of his footing, and Mercury leaped up to send another kick straight into the Giant's chest. Yang decided he must really like sending people flying.

Getting a better look at him now... he was in his base form earlier. This was a transformation... but a half form or a mastery form...?

His skin was barely exposed with his current outfit so it was hard to tell. His eyes had sharpened to be canine like and his teeth had grown fangs, his hands also ended in claws now... if Yang had to wage a bet, this was probably a half form...

"A Werewolf maybe...?"

Even with a Physical Enhancement Affinity, would a half transformed Werewolf be this strong? Perhaps he was a rarer variant, but hard to say for now.

"Coco! Do the thing already!"

"Don't rush me!" Coco let out a scoff and pulled a vial from her bag. The liquid inside glowed blue and Mercury seemingly recognised it immediately as he tried to dash over the second he spotted it.

But a large hand suddenly blocked his way, swatting at him with enough force to make him try to deflect.

Cardin had fully transformed now and stood at a good ten metres tall while crouching to not bring down the roof. Mercury attempted to continue but Cardin had long abandoned trying to use his mace in here, instead essentially diving at the man and trying to wrestle with the now tiny target.

Fox was using this to his advantage, leaping onto Cardin and using him as a foothold to try and get some attacks in while Mercury dodged the Giant's attacks.

Coco downed the whole vial and let out a noise of disgust before throwing the empty container away. She then reached back into her bag and pulled out a large Staff.

Staff's were usually designed to be durable enough and just long enough to be used well in close quarters combat... this one in particular was not. The thing resembled a lance more then a spear, and the entire thing looked to be covered end to end with Runes. It wasn't the most pretty of weapons... but it resulted in the same exact same reaction from everyone that had it pointed at them.

"Oh fuck..." Mercury immedaitly leaped for cover as Coco smirked, pumping her mana through the weapon before it started screaming with a noise that could only be called rage. The weapon released smaller variations of the spike she had used earlier, more akin to shrapnel then an arrow in size. But each was made of rather durable metal, and each burned a hole through everything it was fired at, and it was letting out at least fifty of these things a second, pointed straight at wherever Coco happened to be aiming.

She let out a laugh as she followed Mercury through the room, he kept leaping from cover to cover and having to abandon it when it was shredded by Coco's weapon.

Raw dust was usually too dangerous to consume. Sure it was pure concentrated mana, but if you consumed some of an element your body wasn't attuned to, the results could be bad. Which left only two ways to do so. The first was if you didn't have a natural Affinity towards any elements.. which wasn't common. Or, to concentrate the dust down further into its liquid state, where it would lose all traces of elements, most of its usefullness in rituals, and you would be left with a-

"Fucking Mana Potions!" Mercury screamed as he kept darting around the room. The others supported with some long range magic, knowing that getting into the firing range was a stupid idea. Yang supported with some Fire magic spells here and there, mainly using the same basic spell her father had drilled into her head growing up. Cardin attempted to use some Earth magic to cut off Mercury's escape, summoning walls of stone in his path, and Fox had moved to be next to Coco.

Fox and Coco often worked together, so they had a system in place. Coco couldn't drink more mana Potions while firing, but Fox was able to transfer his mana to her, and he was fully able to keep drinking the things.

Coco's weapon would burn through mana a little faster then Fox could transfer it though, which meant this wasn't something they could keep up forever, but neither was Mercury's running something he could keep doing.

Finally Cardin placed a wall up in front of the man in just the right place, Mercury was blocked off for a second and-

His screams of pain were admitedly incredible cathartic for Yang as Coco's spell shredded through him. She kept it concentrated on him for a second or two before stopping, to which Yang immediately rushed over.

Sure, they couldn't let him escape, but they would get more info out of him if he was still alive.

"Oh what a shame..."

He was still breathing.

His body was littered with holes, one of his hands had been complelty blown off and it looked like you could play wack a mole with his organs through his chest. He was actually still concious surprisingly.

She crouched down next to him.

"So, here's what's gonna happen. We're gonna take you back, your gonna answer some questions, and in return? You won't die." Mercury coughed up some blood and Yang smirked. "I'll take that as a surrender."

She stood and turned, smiling to the others who had all relaxed now. Cardin had turned back to his base form while Coco and Fox were calming down after using so much mana.

Yang just had to do one thing before they could destroy the place and leave with there prisoner... check whatever had been in that office.

She took one step towards it and felt something slip through her chest. It was a cold sensation, one of metal. She looked down with dread and saw the tip of what she assumed to be some kind of very thin weapon. Her pulse was heightened and she attempted to turn but was met with a kick to the side of her head from behind, sending her flying once again.

Fox was next to her immediately when she landed, with Cardin and Coco standing in front of them to guard. Yang winced as Fox started to heal her, letting out a sigh of relief after a few seconds as she felt her body stitch itself back together... that attack had missed her vitals luckily... but Fox was already drinking another potion. Yang wasn't sure how many more of those they had.

Sitting up, she was greeted by her assailant and her company.

There was a figure standing next to Mercury. It was shrouded in a black smoke that seemed to flutter every now and then, a red hue was slipping out from underneath and Yang recognised what it was.

"Vampire..."

It didn't speak or turn to them, she couldn't even make out if it was a man or woman... But it kneeled down and touched Mercury on the head before they both vanished in that same black smoke...

"Dammit..."

They had escaped but... that wasn't her biggest concern at the moment.

She turned her eyes to the girl that had stabbed her, who was standing just in front of where the other two had just been, she was holding the weapon she had used to stab Yang by both the handle in one hand and the blade in the other. She had a confident smirk on her face and her body was cocked to one side, leaning on her hip.

Pink, white, and brown hair... short figure... used a very thin bladed weapon, that last part was different but Qrow had destroyed her last weapon so Yang supposed that made sense...

And her eyes. One was Brown and one was Grey, before she blinked and the Grey was replaced with Pink.

"Neo..."