Update time!
The docks of Vale weren't the most comfortable place to find oneself in, especially not if one wasn't visiting them the proper way.
"Damned missiles!" Sienna Khan cursed out loud as she tried to get to the docks from the ocean, without any boat to help her.
She still couldn't believe how another hero—because it had to be another hero—had managed to find her in the middle of an entire ocean, and sink her only boat, on top of that!
What were the chances of that happening, at all?!
The worst part about it was the fact, she didn't have the chance to see who was the person that screwed her over like that, either.
Somehow, the hero who had found her back on the ocean had managed to do that from a distance so vast they were far beyond her range. She had barely seen the direction from which those missiles were fired, let alone the person who launched them.
She sighed.
At the very least, she's been attacked in the middle of an ocean, and had powers which allowed her to easily survive, thanks to that.
Had she not been able to control elements as well as she had, she most likely would have drowned before reaching Vale, even if she survived the missile barrage unharmed.
With a quiet grunt, she swirled the water around her, before using it to shoot herself upwards in a stream so violent it could have been easily mistaken for a deadly attack.
There was no doubt in her mind that some of the opposing heroes must have been paying attention to the docks—controlling one of the main entrances to the city was simply too valuable to ignore that completely—but she didn't care if anyone saw her, at this point.
In fact, she welcomed a good fight!
As long as her opponents weren't going to attack her from the other side of the city, and she had the ability to actually fight them, she was confident in her ability to defeat any challenger.
A couple passers-by who had managed to notice her arrival turned around, and ran away in panic.
Well, she certainly managed to make an impression on all the ordinary civilians that had witnessed her.
She didn't bother chasing them down, to stop them from spreading the news about her. The fact she was here wouldn't stay a secret for much longer anyway, and it wasn't like she would gain a lot from being anonymous.
One of her plans was to present herself as a saviour of Vale by defeating all the otherworldly heroes, after all.
"I hope the first ones to arrive won't be a pain to deal with." She said with a yawn and a stretch, as she leaned on the walls of one of the buildings at the docks, waiting for any opponent to challenge her.
What she hoped for more, however, was for all the ordinary people to evacuate the area first.
It would be annoyingly difficult to present herself as a good person, worthy of being followed, if there were records of her fights killing countless innocent bystanders.
Her ears twitched a little, as she heard a couple footsteps getting closer to her.
The people approaching her were clearly in a group—the group appeared to be made of six people if she counted the footsteps correctly—so she didn't bother paying further attention to them. She sincerely doubted that otherworldly heroes like her would be able to form such a big group, for any reason at all.
If one had a lot of power, they tended to be arrogant, and there was nobody with more power than otherworldly heroes.
"I see you are a new arrival here, animal." A somewhat gruff, and clearly condescending, voice stated from her side. "If you don't want any trouble here, I would recommend paying your arrival tax as soon as you can."
It took her a second to realise the person was talking to her.
When she did finally realise what was happening, she couldn't help but open her eyes, and stare at the person next to her in pure befuddlement.
Were these thugs really trying to rob her?
Did they not see how she arrived in this city?
Although, she couldn't exactly call herself an ordinary person anymore, she always assumed she was capable of seeing the world from a perspective of one, anyway. The stream of water she created to jump up to the dock was strong enough to pierce through solid steel, and it looked like it. She had been certain that if anyone, who wasn't an otherworldly hero, saw something like that, they would have run away in fear, no matter how strong they believed themselves to be.
"Hey, we're talking to you, animal!" One of the thugs shouted, annoyed at her silence.
Apparently, she was completely wrong about that.
After losing their patience from anger because of her lack of answers, the thug took a step forward, tightened their fist, and tried to punch her.
In response, she lightly pushed herself of the wall she was leaning on, extended one of her arm in the direction of the group of thugs, and made a huge hurricane, sending all of them flying.
"Arhg!" The thugs screamed as they soared through the air.
Before they hit the ground, however, she noticed one of the thugs' arms starting to glow with a blindingly bright red light.
"Take that, you damn animal!" The thug with glowing arms shouted in anger as they thrust both their arms forward, and launched two blindingly red projectiles in her direction.
The glowing projectiles flew through the air as if they were unaffected by it, perfectly silent and steady.
"What's that?" She frowned, seeing the light rapidly approach her.
It definitely didn't look like any Semblance or Dust projectile she could think of, but it didn't really look like a power of an otherworldly hero, either.
With controlled wind guiding her movement, she easily dodged out of the projectiles' way.
The power of an otherworldly hero wouldn't have been so easy to handle.
"Damn it!" The thug cursed as they hit the ground and saw their projectiles miss.
Her head instantly snapped towards her couple opponents. Although, they were not comparable to heroes like her or her competitors, they still had powers which clearly weren't from Remnant.
"How did you get this power?" She asked the thug in a demanding tone.
No answer met her question, though, as all the thugs she was fighting were picking themselves up, and preparing for a fight against her.
As they were doing that, she managed to notice that the thug with glowing arms wasn't the only one among them with unusual powers. In fact, from what she could see, all of them had a power like that.
"We ain't telling you nothing, girl." One of the thugs said with a sneer, before pointing at her with their finger. "Get her, boys!"
Four of the thugs separated from the rest of their group, and began to run towards her, their movement looking unnaturally faster, as if it was being boosted by some invisible power.
She clicked her tongue in annoyance, before taking a stance and preparing herself for a fight.
There weren't many elements she could reliably use at the moment, the floor underneath her feet was made out of steel and wood, and using lightning while still wet from her journey through the ocean was just asking for trouble.
It didn't mean she was defenceless, however.
The moment one of the approaching thugs entered her striking distance, she shifted a little in place, tensed her leg muscles, and delivered a kick empowered by the scorching hot flames.
"Watch out!" The thug furthest away from her shouted in warning.
Two of the thugs tried to dodge her attack.
They didn't succeed.
As her flames touched the bodies of her foes, they immediately burned through any defences on their way, causing multiple highly damaging burns on the bodies of her targets.
"Argh! My arm!" A thug screamed in pain, as their arm caught on fire.
The other enemy caught by her attack didn't say anything. Although, from the way they were wincing, she could easily tell that they were in pain. It was quite possible that they might have been hurt even more than their colleague was.
As the two thugs dealt with the pain she caused them, their unharmed colleagues faltered, stopping their charge.
Seeing their people being burnt alive always made people nauseous, regardless of how comparably non-severe their damages were.
There was a reason why fire based weapons were so widely considered as needlessly cruel and brutal, after all. No person wanted to suffer the pain of being set on fire, no matter how strong or brave they were.
The fact those two just saw their companions being taken out of the fight with a single attack probably didn't help their confidence, either.
"What the hell are you four doing!?" One of the thugs away from the battle shouted, before raising their arm, and making it glow red again. "Get back to killing her! Don't just stand there like some cowards!"
With a shout, the thug fired the projectile of red light at her.
A subtle frown appeared on her fact as she saw it approaching her, the way it was flying it was bound to hit the thugs fighting her, as well.
Were her enemies so scummy they didn't care for their compatriots?
A scoff adored her face as she quickly dashed out of the projectile's path. She knew that her foes weren't amongst the most civilised of individuals, but she at least expected them to fight her together.
The moment the projectile made its way to the place she had stood not a moment ago, it exploded in a bright blast of red light.
"What was that for!?" A voice echoed from the inside of the explosion. "If you want to kill her, then come here and fight her on your own! Don't throw your shiny rockets at us!"
The frown on her face deepened as she heard those words. Despite getting hit by an attack that was clearly harmful, and quite powerful on top of that, the voice of her enemy sounded far more annoyed than hurt.
Had she overestimated the strength of the enemy's attacks?
As the light of the explosion died out, she noticed the real reason her foes were acting so jovially about that attack.
The four thugs, which had been in range of the explosion, were all engulfed in a dome of some unnatural energy. It looked way stronger than anything Aura or Semblance could produce, making her only more curious about the source of their powers.
She quickly flicked her fingers, and fired a tiny bullet of pressurised wind at the dome, in order to check how it would handle her powers.
To her absolute surprise, her attack went through the dome completely unobstructed, freely hitting the thug responsible for creating it in the back of their head.
"Damn it!" The thug cursed, feeling the pain from the bullet that hit them, before grumbling. "I swear, the boss gave me the worst ability of his. I am asking him for a refund the first change I get."
"You were the one who asked him for that." Another thug said with a shrug, acting as if that conversation wasn't anything new for them. "We did warn you to not take something too specific."
"It was supposed to counter all the abilities the other guys were getting!" The first thug argued. "How is that specific, at all?!"
"Wha-?" She couldn't help but look at her enemies in bewilderment.
Before she could fully comprehend what was happening, though, she had to get back to the fight as another red projectile flew towards her.
"Quit your yapping, and get back to killing that animal!"
With wind supporting her movement, she easily weaved under the flying light projectile, and instantly dashed towards the thug with glowing arms. If she wanted to get through this farce of a battle quickly, the ranged fighter was an obvious first target.
Air whistled through the docks, as she moved with the wind and flame pushing her forward like a rocket.
The sound itself couldn't keep up with her, as she ran forward.
"Go away!" The thug shouted, while firing the light projectiles at random in panic.
A smirk appeared on her face as she noticed all the projectile flying her way.
She had been able to dodge the light projectile when they were aimed directly at her by the shooter away from the action. There was no way a random barrage of the same projectiles could hit her any better.
By the time she arrived close enough to the thug with glowing arms, less than a second had passed, and her target looked nearly ready to pass out from panic.
"Help!" The thug screamed.
She scoffed.
Of course, the person who was pushing the whole group to kill her the most was the one most afraid for their life.
With a slight twist of her body, she delivered a wind powered punch into the stomach of the thug, effortlessly knocking them unconscious.
They were lucky that she wasn't going to kill any of them.
There was a lot of useful information she could gain from them, and sculpting an image of a cold-hearted killer for herself wasn't exactly her goal. The only people she would be killing, were the other heroes.
All the small fries could be left alive, as far as she was concerned.
The three remaining thugs—who were still unharmed and in a condition to fight her—took a step or two away from her in fear.
A quick glance at their expression told her they were all afraid of her.
She grinned.
Good, it meant they weren't going to be quite as annoying to deal with, anymore.
With a calm breath, she swept her leg at the thug closest to her, and released a wide wave of flame and wind towards them.
Her attack wasn't fast, nor was it really accurate, but at the distance she was using it, there was no way for it to miss.
"It hurts!" The thug cried out in pain, as flame washed over them.
Knowing her attack was strong enough to take the opponent out of the fight, and not kill them, she moved her attention towards the two remaining enemies, to see them already charging at her.
Not giving them a chance to get close to her, she swiftly moved her arms to guide water from beneath the docks, and launched it directly at them.
One of the thugs was swept by the current, and sent flying directly into a building.
The other wasn't.
As the hurt thug was recovering after getting hit by the water, the other one was already right in front of her, with their arm pulled back, ready to strike her with all their strength.
Her eyes narrowed as she watched her foe. She still wasn't sure what exactly was their power—throughout the entire fight, this thug had been only charging at her with strength well within the limits of humans from Remnant—and she definitely didn't want to assume that they didn't have one.
The enemy swung their arm widely, in a clearly amateurish manner.
She ducked under it.
Before the thug could try to assault her again, she quickly jabbed her fist forward, while channeling all the surrounding air directly into her attack.
It wasn't the strongest of her attacks, nor was it close to being one, but it should have been more than enough to defeat an ordinary person with their Aura unlocked, especially if they didn't have any proper training as a fighter.
The thug had to take a couple steps back because of the attack.
They were completely fine aside of that.
"Increased durability?" She asked, slightly curious about the powers of her opponents.
"W-Wouldn't you like to know, animal?" The thug snarled with a cough.
Although, the physical damage from her attack appeared to be minimal, it was obvious that the thug was in quite a lot of pain from that. Whether it was because their power was faulty, or her attacks were just that good at getting past the defences, she wasn't sure.
Either way, it seemed that as long as she was willing to rump up her power, there weren't going to be any issues with defeating her foes.
"You should pay more attention to the fight, idiot!" A voice called out from behind her.
In the time she exchange blows with the thug who had the power of increased durability, or whatever it actually did, the other thug had managed to ran up to them, and was already throwing a punch.
She took a lazy step to the side.
The fist flew right past her, and with it the entire thug who decided to shout during their sneak attack.
"Ah!" The thug shouted as they collided with their colleague.
With both her opponents right in front of her, she slowly took a deep breath, tightened her fist a little, and punched forward.
That simple action of hers threw all the air before her into a turmoil, creating a huge and incredibly powerful hurricane, which flew forwards with nothing being able to stop it, as it carried both her opponents away towards the ocean.
She wasn't sure how exactly the defensive powers of her opponents worked, but they were far from strong enough to handle her attack.
As they flew through the air, she made sure to stop them before they reached the end of the docks with another manipulation of a wind, however, so that they wouldn't die from drowning right after fighting her.
Nobody would want that.
"It looks like that's all of you." She let out a breath of relief.
Those thugs she had fought weren't particularly powerful, but the fact they had access to the otherworldly powers was enough for her to be wary of them, all on its own. After all, if they worked for another hero, then it wouldn't have been impossible for that hero to come here to help them.
It was also impossible for her to know how many of those powered thugs the other hero did have.
A sigh escaped her.
No matter how confident she was in her abilities, she wasn't quite sure whether she would have been able to defeat another hero if they were being helped by an army of otherworldly enhanced subordinates.
In the end, she was only a single person.
Not wanting to ponder on it any longer, she turned her attention towards the first two thugs she had defeated.
Those two were still very much conscious, and, although they were incapable of fighting against her in any meaningful way anymore, they could still move their bodies and talk to her without an issue.
A bloodthirsty grin appeared on her face.
The two thugs shivered in fear.
"Now, how about you two tell me who exactly is your boss, and how did he give you those powers?" She said in a tone that sounded far too pleasant.
The thugs screamed before she even touched them.
(...)
Flying into vale, when one had the access to the standard Atlesian security codes, was surprisingly easy.
There weren't any checks to see whether the arriving object was actually a bullhead, aside from the typical radar check, and a couple of security authorisation checks done through the radio.
It meant that, for advanced Artificial Intelligence with technology from another world, getting into the capital Vale unseen was as easy as walking through an empty corridor, if not easier.
Despite how concerning it was, especially for the security of Vale, Penny didn't particularly mind that, at the moment.
As long as the war of heroes was still happening, any oversight or error in the cybersecurity was a welcome surprise for her.
Not that she wouldn't have been able to do the exact same thing, if Vale had adequate methods at protecting their cyberspace, of course. It would have only been a tad bit slower and less comfortable.
It wasn't like she simply took the easy way in this time, either.
She did make sure to hide any signs of her presence here as best as she could. With no other AIs in the world to reveal her position, she was confident in her ability to stay hidden, not only from Vale but from Atlas too.
It was a pity she had to lie to her home kingdom, but the data she had made her heavily suspect that at least two Atlesian operatives present here were her competitors.
In the type of war they were at, more often than not, the person who struck first won the engagement, and there was no better way to strike first than by staying hidden until you attack.
That was the reason why the first thing she did upon arriving in Vale was finding a place to hide, and getting undetectable access to any camera feed remaining in the city.
Unfortunately, the fights that had already happened here had already destroyed a majority of cameras she could use that way, leaving her with a patchy feed from the city's border and a couple private buildings that remained standing closer to the city center.
It was far less than she had hoped for.
She sighed.
It wasn't all that terrible, however.
The feed had been enough for her to notice that the target she had shot her missiles at while on her way towards the city was another otherworldly hero, and they had managed to survive her attack, too.
Whether the other hero was going to go after her because of that, or not, remained to be seen.
Hopefully, she would be able to hide from them long enough to form a good strategy for their fight, either way.
While she was confident in her abilities, it would have been beyond stupid to enter any fight against opponents comparable to her without sufficient preparations. At best, it would result in an extremely costly victory.
There was no reason to fear the worst, yet.
A wince appeared on her face as she glanced at the camera feed she could get in the more crime-ridden areas of the city.
At least, she hoped there wasn't a one.
The actions of all those super powered thugs did look worryingly planned, and coordinated, to her eyes. It was almost like all the criminals, who were present in the busier parts of the city, were controlled by a single person.
It was without a doubt a work of yet another hero.
As she looked at them, she couldn't help but think that Sienna Khan—who appeared to be the hero she had shot down on her way to Vale—had been extremely lucky the only thugs who came to meet her were the outcasts of the gang.
If those thugs had been deemed important enough to be watched over by the controlling hero, then she was certain a bloody fight would have happened back in the docks of Vale.
It had been nothing, but a pure luck, that prevented it from happening.
She sighed again.
The chaos a fight between otherworldly heroes would have brought to the city, right now, wouldn't have been advantageous for anyone.
With a mere thought, she turned her attention towards the feed from a spy camera in one of the apartments, commonly known to belong to Vale's so-called greatest thief, to see three people hiding in there.
The Beacon's student, Pyrrha Nikos, Vale's huntsman, Qrow Branwen, and Atlesian specialist, Clover Ebi.
It wasn't difficult for her to recognise them as fellow otherworldly heroes, and consequently her opponents. It was so easy, in fact, that the ease with which she found out about them made her feel a little bit worried.
No person would allow themselves to be put in such a dangerous position so easily, if it wasn't some form of a trap.
Surely, at least one of them must have known about the camera that was hidden in the base they were staying at. The camera wasn't some miraculous piece of technology that could remain hidden forever, it wasn't even a technology that originated from outside the Remnant.
Suddenly, on the feed from the spy camera, she saw Qrow Branwen turned towards her, and put a finger to his mouth in a shushing motion.
She immediately shot off any connection she had with any camera in that part of the city.
"H-How did he notice me?" She asked herself, her body shaking from fear.
It didn't make any sense.
There shouldn't have been a single sign which could have indicated that she was looking through that camera. Hell, not a moment ago, she was pretty certain that neither of the three heroes knew there was a camera in the first place!
She carefully put multiple firewalls around all the programs she used to watch the city.
No matter how that man managed to accomplish that, she wasn't about to test her luck against him, any time soon.
That man had to be the most terrifying otherworldly hero out of all her opponents.
(...)
"Did you find something interesting?" Pyrrha asked, as she noticed her ally stare at the corner of the room with a subtle smirk on his face.
Qrow shrugged.
"Not really."
She grumbled quietly.
Although, she knew very well how exact the dusty hero's information gathering power could be, and that she could rely on it practically all the time, she couldn't help but feel worried while hiding in a base belonging to their enemy.
It didn't matter that she had practically one hundred percent guarantee that nobody would find them here.
The fact they weren't really hidden, or protected, remained unchanged.
She couldn't win the battle, if all of that battle was nothing more than someone sneaking up to her while she slept, and killing her in her sleep. Which, unfortunately, felt like a real possibility as she stayed in a place that belonged to someone who wanted her dead!
A tired sigh escaped her.
At the very least, she felt some of her stronger spirits returning to health.
No longer was she devoid of the ability to call upon Lanas to help her in battle. The fight she used him in against Jaune was now nothing more than a scary memory in her mind, as all the consequences of it were fixed.
Now, she only needed to wait for Athenas to recover, as well.
After that, she might even start feeling confident in her ability to fight other heroes, again!
"Excited about something?" Clover asked, noticing her resolve.
She nodded her head.
"My strongest familiar is going to recover their strength soon." She explained. "After that happens, our team will finally be at its full power."
Clover looked at her with curiosity in his eyes.
"If I recall correctly, this buddy of yours has been recovering practically since the city was destroyed, right?" Clover asked. "Does it usually take this long for your familiars to recover, or is this one special?"
A smile formed on her face, at the genuine curiosity someone was showing about her Guardians.
"A Guardian's ability to recover depends solely on their strength. The stronger the familiar, the more time they need to regain powers." She said in a tone that wouldn't have been out of place in a lecture. "Athenas is the strongest of my Guardians. It is entirely possible he won't be able to recover until the end of the war."
The expression on Clover's face slumped a little, in response to her words.
"Doesn't that mean that we could end up fighting the whole war without the access to all our strength, then?"
Pyrrha winced a little as her ally's words reached her.
She couldn't know exactly how long would it take for her strongest familiar to recover, but she wanted to hope that it wouldn't take that long.
They had to win this war, after all.
"Don't worry, we will have Athenas's full power when we need it the most." Qrow said, confidence seeping from his words. "We will have to make sure to stall for time, a couple of times, though."
They looked towards Qrow.
"Is your power capable of telling you the future so accurately?" Clover asked.
Qrow let out a bark of laughter.
"Wouldn't that be great?" Qrow asked with a barbed laugh. "The only info I'm getting is whatever the freaky monster contracted by me thinks would make for an interesting spectacle. I swear, the only thing that beast wants from me, is to make my life harder."
A frown appeared on Pyrrha's face as she looked at her ally with some suspicion on her face.
If that scarce info was really all the knowledge that Qrow was getting from the being contracted with his power, then how was it possible for him to always be so confident in the things he knew?
She was certain that even she wouldn't be that trusting of her familiars, if they were actively trying to make her life more difficult.
"Alright, enough questions about our abilities." Qrow said with a sigh, upon most likely noticing her stare. "As long as we work together, you can trust me, and my powers, to guide you to victory well."
Pyrrha huffed.
Well, she supposed that as long as he was on her side, then she shouldn't worry too much about it.
If anything, it would at least make it easier for her to defeat him, after only the three of them remain in this damned war.
And Cut!
You have no idea how difficult it was to get back into writing this fic, after the brake, especially when my headphones died in the middle of that.
Ugh, writing a fic with no music in the background was horrendous.
Anyway, that's it for now.
See ya!