The bell rings again. Our fighters clash once again. This time, more have joined the fray.

[So... I accidentally merged this chapter and the next one, making it too lengthy (as if this isn't too much words for one chapter).]

~A few minutes ago~

"Just to be sure… You know how to fly this thing, right?" Blake warily asks Luz as she (cautiously) and Ruby (excitedly) hop onto Owlbert. Gus and Willow watch the trio fumble around a bit before they pull out their own scrolls.

"I've been practicing… A little bit, a-as long as we just keep it high and straight ahead," Luz replies sheepishly before correcting her with an index finger pointed up like a nerd saying facts, "and his name is Owlbert."

"We finally get to ride a palisman, Blake! Will every witch get to fly one of them?" Ruby asks giddily.

"I hope so! Can't wait to see what I'll get!" Luz answers just as excitedly.

Ruby snickers, "a giraffe."

"Hey!" Luz shoots back, "a-anyway, let's go save your sister!"

Woosh!

"Good luck, you guys!" Willow and Gus bid farewell as the trio took to the air.

Blake keeps herself steady as she sits in between Luz at the helm and Ruby at the back. Meanwhile, Ruby takes delight in the Bonesborough marketplace they visited just moments ago coming into view below them, watching witches strutting about like ordinary citizens and the various creatures she could guess are different kinds of demons like King and Hooty actively scattering with the afternoon hustle.

This scenery would soon change though as the trio start witnessing a certain region of citizens moving in a suspiciously singular direction. Away from where they're heading.

"Looks like the commotion is bigger than thought," Blake notes as she points to various dust plumes from a distance. Ruby sighs amusedly as she brings out the baseball bat, this grabs Luz's attention.

"Are you sure that'll hold against a group of Emperor's Coven scouts? Much less the Warden?" Luz asks.

Blake waves off the concern, "we huntresses have our aura that protects us from extreme danger, we can extend it to objects and make them much harder."

"Aura?" Luz asks.

Ruby answers, "it's something all things with a soul have in our world. A friend of mine describes it as a force field."

"What about animals?" Luz asks.

"Yep, even animals like Zwei," she confirms, before musing lower as her thoughts drift to a certain friend with a pink ribbon, "and then there are those you wouldn't even expect…"

"What was that, Ruby?" Blake asks.

"Nothing! Just thinking out loud!" She replies back. Blake drops the matter and looks ahead again.

Luz could take Ruby's word for it, but she has a nagging feeling there's something else that could be done. Reaching into her pockets, she fishes out a fistful of glyphs written onto paper sheets and glances back onto the bat. Luz's inner light glyph glows up as an idea crosses her mind. Patting the rest of her pockets, she unfortunately can't find any glue, only her pen.

Hmm…

"Uh… Your name's Blake, right? Mind taking the lead for me? I just need you to keep our path steady," Luz invites

"O-Oh… Umm, alright, sure," Blake hesitates as they momentarily stop Owlbert in mid-air to change seats. Luz hangs from the pole like monkey bars while Blake walks over like she's on a tightrope. With Ruby's help, Luz gets back up onto the middle 'seat' while Blake takes the lead and continues driving the Palisman quickly by slowly leaning forward.

It's her first time, let her get used to it.

Luz pulls out three ice glyphs and two plant glyphs, she hands them to Ruby, "you think you can use your aura to stick these onto the bat?"

"Hmm… I'm not sure, never tried gluing or anchoring… But if it's just paper, I can give it a shot!" Ruby answers as she grabs one in each hand and places them around the bat. She narrows her eyes to focus while Luz holds the other three across the body as well. Moments later, a red shimmering outline extends from Ruby's arms and temporarily surrounds the baseball bat, though Luz doesn't feel anything new herself, she can see the paper starting to flap against the wind less.

"Whoa…" Luz gasps in awe as she watches the aura fade away, and she slowly lets go of the bat. To her surprise, the papers don't come flying out, "that. Is. So. Coohohool!"

Ruby grins triumphantly as she rubs across her nose with a finger, "you're not the only one with tricks, Luz the human witch-in-training!"

"I see them!" Blake cuts the chatter as all three of them quickly turn their heads to see a dirtied-up and slightly bruised Yang, with both hands already tied down by coven scouts as Warden Wrath prepares a sickle-hand to swing at Yang's right arm.

Ruby gasps in fear and worry, wasting no time standing up from the pole by pure instinct and leaping downwards towards the group, she shouts, "YAAAANG!"

"Ruby, wait!" Luz tries to stop her but it's too late as Ruby activates her semblance Petal Burst to dive faster.

"Don't worry, she'll be fine! Luz, take back the controls and stick your landing, I'm going in!" Blake reassures her and starts jumping too, albeit a little softer than Ruby's dive.

"You too?! These huntresses are crazy!" Luz laughs off and starts her descent.

"YAAAANG!" Ruby shouts as she dives from the sky.

WHACK!

An ice glyph activates from Ruby's glyph-bat, crystallizing at Wrath's jaw and sending the Warden flying to the group on his left that were roping Yang's right arm.

After the strike, Ruby stands up straight, fully cloaked to the head with her red hood and wielding the glyph-bat, before temporarily peeking back from her hood and smiling.

And some distance away from the commotion…

"Just when I thought Yang couldn't put on a bigger performance, Ruby comes in and surprises me once again," Weiss sighs as she and Amity sneak their way to the locale of the brawl. Hiding behind fruit stalls to avoid attention from oncoming scouts and guards, she tugs at an old garment Amity found to cover Weiss' head.

"What are those scouts doing to the big guy? They're not giving a power glyph, right?" Weiss asks her as she points to the four coven scouts surrounding Wrath as he gets up from the strike of Ruby's glyph-bat.

"That's a healing circle, the Warden did take so many hits from your friends," Amity answers. Even in the distance, the two can see Wrath getting up much more easily with each second as his bruises start to lighten up and the scorch marks fade away. Even some wounds are stitching themselves up.

"Being undone in a couple of seconds…" Weiss concludes before readjusting her hold on Crescent Rose.

They see another scout walk up with a small piece of paper and sticks it to Wrath's back, Amity points out, "that one is a power glyph."

"They need to take him out… How are we gonna do this, Ruby still needs her weapon too."

"You're not gonna jump in?" Amity asks her, Weiss shakes her head.

"Not sure… I have to be subtle about this, and I'm not exactly precise while holding this bulky thing."

"My name is Luz Noceda! You must be Ruby's sister, nice to meet you!"

Upon hearing that familiar voice, Amity whips her head back to see Luz herself into the fray.

"And of course, she has to be involved. I just had a feeling about it," Amity mutters under her breath. Weiss gives a side glance at that remark but holds off the question, now's not the time.

"I'M NOT DONE WITH THIS DEMON! HRAH!"

The two witness Yang leaping forward and wrestling with Wrath once more while Ruby talks with Blake and Luz.

"Shoot, they've started their move…" Weiss observes. Amity quickly looks around to find anything.

Wall debris, abandoned stalls, planks… Hmm…

"Sorry for rudely assuming, but do you have a semblance like Ruby?" Amity asks her.

"Look out!" Luz shouts and points behind Ruby, who turns her back to see a lightning whip aimed directly at them. She reacts first by throwing an ice glyph to counter the lightning.

Ruby leaps towards Luz with her semblance and whisks the both of them away from the explosion, leaving a trail of rose petals as she carries her princess-style while miraculously keeping her hood on her head despite the inhuman speed.

Blake spots the freed demons and witches being chased by three coven scouts and one Conformatorium guard. Using Gambol Shroud and the shade of the market stalls, she throws her weapon across the street and it anchors onto a pillar, creating a trip-wire as soon as she pulls on it. The pursuers get caught by the stomach and are knocked back in response, though they quickly get back up and start drawing magic circles.

"Hey dude, uh, your shadow's moving," one of the scouts points out.
"Whu-!"

That's when Blake interferes by showing up behind the frontmost one and landing a cross elbow strike right in the face as he turns, knocking him out. Grabbing her sheath, she turns and pushes their forearms up using the broadside, making all three shoot into the sky instead. She smacks the one on her left with her sheath's broadside and lands a back kick to the other on her right.

Whack! Bam!

The Conformatorium guard finally draws his sword and clashes with Blake's katana. The guard draws a magic circle which causes Blake to back up. The guard takes the chance to stab straight to her gut, only for her image to fizzle away into thin air as soon as his blade sinks in.

"An illusion?" He asks in surprise, before he notices his waist being wrapped around in a black ribbon.
"Not quite," Blake whispers as she pulls and rotates him, disorienting him before she sweeps his feet and trips him to the ground, making him land head-first into the dirt.

"Thank you!" The witches and demons bid, seeing how different they are from humans and even faunus, but are grateful nonetheless resurfaced an old yet comfortable feeling. Something she once shared with her old leader (that was until he took it too far) but got to experience again with her new one.

Now that the freed prisoners are finally out of Blake's sight, she takes this as the cue to hop back into the bigger fight.

Heading towards one of the guards, Ruby reorients her boots against them. Luz takes the chance to land a plant glyph onto the guard before Ruby launches herself up by kicking them off. As soon as the guard crashes onto the ground, the plant glyph lights up and vines start to grow from it, weighing down on them and scattering three scouts.

As soon as the duo land, Ruby lets go of Luz and sees a line of scouts approach them, she and Luz look at each other before nodding.

Luz throws a fistful of glyphs into the air around Ruby. Ruby uses her speed to spin around and her cape touches the glyphs. The air current she creates with her speed shoots out the glyphs in every direction, launching ice chunks and plant 'balls' at the scouts.

"Augh!"
"Oof!"
"Ack!"

Luz gasps as she invents, "a Spinning Sphere Blast!"

"Luz! Duck!"

"Eep!" She does by instinct, barely dodging a fireball over her head as Ruby zooms toward her and swings her bat at a scout's chest.

Whack!
Voom~
Rustle! Rustle! Rustle!

More plants grow from the bat and Ruby grunts further, hurling the guy towards another group.

That drawing looked different, so it summoned a different element?

Luz spots two Conformatorium guards sprinting towards her while drawing magic circles, she immediately pulls out an ice glyph and clutches it with both hands before calling out, "Ruby!"

Upon hearing her name, she sees Luz throw a piece of paper that transforms into an icy baseball speeding up towards her. Winding up her bat, she unleashes a swing that hits the fastball squarely onto what she assumed was another ice glyph.

Smack!

Upon activation, the ball suddenly grows in size, developing icy spikes and even a tail much like a comet as soon as it leaves her. The ice boulder whizzes past Luz and scores a hit against the two guards, knocking them out temporarily. Just whizzes, not whistles or flashes, that feat belongs to another huntress who also likes to swing large weapons much better.

"The papers disappear too after one hit. I've gotta be careful, I only have two swings left before I run out of those drawings…" Ruby observes.

Maybe if I head back and re-! No! I can't ask more from Luz, she needs those to defend herself, I can still make do with the bat alone.

Ruby scolds herself before switching to the face of the bat with no glyphs and dashing to the next target while Luz continues throwing her glyph-papers and evading spells with the help of Owlbert.

An enraged Yang and a healed Wrath clash again, with the buffed demon trying to slash Yang while the huntress either blocks, holds, or slides in and out of his sickles. With the speed advantage, Yang follows up with a knee-kick to his arm and sliding a right uppercut directly to his chin, the increased power from her semblance disorienting him as Yang winds up a left cross to his chest that sends him skidding back a few feet.

Wrath growls at the pain and throws his tentacles at her. When she launches herself up into the air, he prepares a fire breath only to be interrupted by something tugging at his leg, getting him to aim somewhere else. Looking down, he sees a metal contraption tied to a black ribbon pulled by the enemy catgirl. Taking a chance at his confusion, Yang spins downward and lands an axe-kick straight to his right shoulder, hopefully hitting where his collar bone should be.

"Get off me!" But Wrath snarls in response and literally shrugs Yang back while he prepares his sickle-hands to cut them both up. Blake's clone image gets swiped away but the actual catgirl manages to back away in time.

Damn it! Can't tell if he's losing if his whole body's tougher now, how did he recover so quickly?!

Yang backflips as Blake charges in with her bladed sheath and pistol, parrying the Warden's swipes with the sheath followed by a few shots to the face, which merely stings him. Wrath prepares a right hammer as Yang comes back to land a left hook against his strike, staggering him while Blake lassos Wrath's shoulder. Propelling herself off of her Shadow, Blake swings herself under him and into mid-air while Wrath tosses Yang again with his left arm transformed as tentacles.

Bang!

She untethered herself from Wrath and spun herself vertically alongside her pistol-kusarigama to repeatedly slice away Wrath's tough hide. Wrath guards against it by crossing his sickle-hands before breathing fire at the landing catgirl. Blake creates another clone using her Shadow semblance to jump off of while in mid-air to dodge the flames when Yang ducked under him and landed four jabs topped with a double fist punch to push him back even further. At the same time, Ruby and Luz catch up to Blake and Yang after reducing the number of conscious guards and scouts.

"Your friends have unusual tricks, Luz," Wrath groans to the group as he can somehow walk up a few steps again, closing the distance between him and them. He lets the four scouts keep their magic circles behind him.

"How is he able to last this long against you, Yang?" Blake asks.
"Something's keeping him going. It must be that magic they're giving him," Yang says.
"Energy? Strength? Healing?" Ruby tries to guess.
"Healing," Luz answers.

And sure enough, some of the cuts and bumps he's sustained are reverting back to the natural contour of his body.

"What if we leave now?" Ruby asks.
Surprisingly, both Luz and Yang answer simultaneously, "can't while he can reach us."

Guess the initial plan is gonna need an additional step.

"Then finish him with your semblance," Blake suggests.
"I need him to hit me hard with the hammers, but he's using it less against me."
"Did he figure you out?"
"No, I haven't even used it up until now. He must've noticed me tanking the punches instead of dodging them."
"Alright. Blake, coordinate with Luz to take out the guards at the back," Ruby plans.
"What about you two?" Luz asks.

Ruby and Yang exchange a glance before simultaneously charging headfirst to Wrath from his left.

"Come on," Blake urges, Luz complies and they both sprint at Wrath's right as she brings out her last two glyphs.

The split-up confuses him long enough for Ruby to dive to his legs, landing a strike with her glyph-bat, "yheaaa-ha!"

Vines start growing and wrap themselves around his knees and ankles, giving him difficulty to walk. Wrath retaliates with a fire breath, but Ruby uses Petal Burst to circle around the attack and back up easily.

Blake takes initiative with her pistol and sheath at the ready, firing one bullet each to distract the four. Their attention shifted to them, Luz follows up by palming a glyph and slamming it to the ground, ice grows from it directly to the first scout, encasing them in ice all the way up to the neck. The other three draw their magic circles when Blake gets to the second scout and lassos their arm, pulling the witch away and whipping her forwards, she proceeds to kick straight at the helmet.

Keeping Wrath's attention in front, Yang jumps up and lands a punch to his jaw. She somersaults when he swipes with a sickle at the same time when Ruby charges from below in the same line of focus using Petal Burst and attacks Wrath's underarm, ice accumulates and keeps his whole arm propped open, stuck at an angle.

The remaining two witches unleash their fireballs at Blake and Luz, the former grabs the latter by her hoodie and takes the hit. The scouts watch the figure get engulfed in flames when a second Blake and (confused) Luz suddenly show up at their side. Blake wraps the third one up with the cloak and pushes them to the fourth one, Luz finishes it off with her last glyph that entangles them back-to-back in vines.

Luz glances to Blake's left shoulder to see a small flame grow on her clothing, "Hey, Blake, you got a little something on your shoulder."
"Huh? What the?!"

Upon noticing it, she widens her eyes in shock and immediately pats the fire until it dies, "that's weird… My semblance isn't fully working?"

"No, it's just their magic!" Yang shouts as she sticks her landing, "our auras are not used to them, even I can't completely protect myself from their spells."

However, when Ruby steps back in an attempt to disengage with her semblance one more time after repeated usage, she squeaks fearfully as she fails to flee and her concentration falters, receiving vertigo as a consequence. Wrath manages to grapple the hooded girl with his tentacles locking around her waist before breathing fire just above the ice, melting it in the process as he forces it to break off. As soon as his other hand is free, he rips apart the vines under him.

"Ruby!" Yang cries out, raising her arms up once more while Blake aims her pistol at Wrath's face.

Ruby swings her bat three more times at the tentacles, but since she doesn't have anymore ice or vines glyphs, the best she can manage is to bruise Wrath, but not hurt him enough to let go. Luz hurriedly rummages her pockets to find no more glyphs, only her pen. Owlbert hoots from Luz's shoulder and transforms into a staff for her.

"Tired so soon, witch… Ruby, was it?" Wrath picks up the name as he watches her struggle to get out and he squeezes tighter in response. Her aura glows around her waist, and though it has yet to break, it doesn't mean she won't feel the pain as the tentacles wrap around her.

"G-Guys! D-dagh!" As soon as Ruby starts wincing and groaning at the strain, Blake starts firing rounds at Wrath's face, which grabs his attention and only garners another armful of tentacles launched at them, causing all of them to split up. Luz takes the air while Yang ducks to the side as Blake rolls forward. Yang attempts to-!

Wrath unleashes a breath of fire that forces her to leap back.

Blake lassos her ribbon unto Wrath's neck and pulls herself forward, jumping and aiming her sheath at his fa-!

He pulls Ruby towards him and in between Blake's trajectory, using her as a shield.

"Tch!" Blake unfastens the ribbon and uses her clone to double-jump, leaping over Wrath as she instead opts to fire rounds into his eyes. He responds by throwing his free arm around as it morphs into a sickle, her Shadow takes the hit while she rolls to the side of the attack. Upon landing, she backs off as well.

Luz free-falls from the sky and winds up a mean swing with Owlbert. She's knocked out Wrath once, she can do it again. And Owlbert is willing to take a harder hit.

But Wrath pulls the Ruby-shield trick again, this time on Luz. However, unlike Blake, Luz is nowhere near agile enough to pull up or redirect, so she fumbles in mid-air and exposes herself to Wrath's capture at his other hand. Owlbert tries pecking at Wrath, only to be swatted away towards Yang.

Wrath declares his victory with a chuckle as he holds Luz and Ruby hostage while Blake, Yang, and Owlbert get surrounded by him, one Confotmatorium guard and three injured scouts, "this must be my lucky day, after a whole morning of wrestling, I finally get to capture three new fugitives and the Owl Lady's human apprentice. Gather the remaining conscious scouts and guards, these won't be winning or leaving anytime soon."

"Yes, sir!" The guard obeys and runs off.

Only to be frozen stiff, encased in ice. But this ice is different, it's more opaque and light blue in contrast to Luz's translucent and white.

"Hmm?" Wrath notices and turns around, glancing back at Luz (whose hands are busy prying herself away Wrath's grip).

"Who goes there?" Wrath asks towards nobody in particular.

The only response he got was another grunt as well fabric tearing from one of the three scouts, suddenly down as if tackled by a pale-white figure that left as quickly as it came, leaving behind a path of the same opaque ice as a while ago.

"It's the White Ghost!" The standing two guards shout as they fail to hit the supposed apparition. The rest of the scattered guards and scouts immediately panic and start looking every-which-way.

As soon as Wrath notices the figure appear behind him, a circular glyph with a snowflake design grows from underneath him. Trying to swing Ruby at the ghost does nothing as the figure backs away, the face of which is a blur save for two blue orbs and a red neck.

He suddenly gets frozen by the same unusual ice up to his waist when this strange glyph changed from white to blue to yellow, followed by a subsequent-

Boom!

That lifts Wrath up unexpectedly into the air, forcing him to let go of Ruby and Luz in order to free his hands for any proper landing.

Ruby gets grabbed by the White Ghost while Luz falls into the arms of… An abomination?

"Whoa, nice catch there!" She pats the abomination on the head before being gently brought down, the abomination promptly leaves towards a stack of debris and gives two thumbs up.

As soon as Wrath gets up from crashing onto the floor, he melts the ice on his lower body, creating steam that fogs his immediate area.

Ruby finally breathes properly and glances towards the White Ghost, who she correctly hoped to be Weiss.

"Weiss! How are you mov-?"
"Time Dilation, remember? Used it last night to run and hide, and casted it again just now."
"Oh!"
"Can you still fight?" She asks.
"Of course, just let me take a quick breather," Ruby answers as Weiss lets her go so she can start stretching and focusing.
"Well, hurry up and get your strength back, because we got a little surprise for you."

As Weiss spots the abomination and the thumbs up, she points her rapier and activates more glyphs behind the debris. Behind that is Amity, clutching Crescent Rose firmly while propping up a wooden plank like an inclined plane. As soon as Weiss' glyph pops up, she places the weapon on the plank and watches it get launched like a slingshot high into mid-air.

As soon as Ruby's eyes track Crescent Rose, she suddenly energizes and crouches down, letting go of her bat and gathering the strength to leap off with one more Petal Burst, thus-

Fwoosh!

She scatters rose petals from where she was and some of them even reach Luz. Upon grabbing a petal, another light-glyph-idea pops into her head.

Hmm…

Wrath looks up and sees Ruby approaching an airborne object insanely quickly, a red tornado blurring upwards. He stands up and fully winds his tentacles to launch at her in advance. Ruby spots this as a small gray mole at the corner of her eye and pushes up a little bit harder, her hands outstretched to reach further. Just a little bit mooooorrrreeee-!

Gotcha!

In one fluid motion, she grabs Crescent Rose and lets it completely extend as she passes it around her, revealing the shaft, trigger, and scope. She turns around to face Wrath and aims her sniper at him, a good look at the scope and a steady grip gets him locked in her crosshairs.

"Oh no…" Wrath realizes.
"Oh~ … Yeah~" Ruby whispers triumphantly as she cocks the sniper

Chuck-chuck!

And pulls the trigger.

BANG!

The warden's vision flashes into pure white as he takes a charged headshot. Fortunately, since these are Dust rounds and not the metal bullets, it doesn't pop Wrath's head off cleanly, but the sensation of his face being blown up is enough to send him lying down on the ground.

The unfamiliar loudness of the sniper rifle grabs everyone's attention and has them track the red cloak falling from the sky. Ruby lands gracefully with one foot after the other, dispelling the fog and revealing her hooded figure to the rest of the enemies as the ends of her cloak flap gently against the soft wind. Holding up her sniper rifle behind her with her shoulder, she lets the weapon unfurl and reveal the curved blade of her humongous scythe.

In one more display of theatrics, she twirls her scythe around as she passes it back-and-forth between her hands -demonstrating her expertise in using her scythe, before sinking the tip of the blade into the ground on her left with a resounding-

SHINK!

Upon scanning the crowd do they meet her gaze under the hood. Focused, proactive, patient, her silver eyes showing a clear intent, akin to being on the hunt.

"Now that's a huntress!" Luz proclaims as the hairs on her nape start standing up and she gets goosebumps.

Half of the coven scouts gulp and start sprinting away, "this ain't worth it!" "Let's get out of here!" "We're gonna get killed!"

"Get back here and get her!" But the braver (or more foolish) half of the guards and scouts stand their ground as they approach and surround her whilst drawing their magic circles, but they hesitate long enough for Ruby to take initiative.

Too slow.

Bang!

"Fascinating. Absolutely… Fascinating…"

Next chapter might come out next week. I know there's a lot that I'm wrote them doing, I was trying to base their movement on Volumes 1 - 3 (as well as the character shorts and trailers) so lemme know what you guys think of the combat and writing, I'll gladly take your reviews and comments. Any expectations, ideas, and suggestions will be taken into consideration too.