Chapter 15: Underground Subway Fight

Sapphire quickly gathered his senses as he tumbled down the darkness of the hole he had opened. He heard Sarah's mild crying, and quickly felt around as he felt the metal band around her waist, he bit down, but Moon and Erick did have the most vitality and were limped out due to sharing pain from Sarah, so this was best he got. He quickly grabbed Stalwart Terra with his other hand and jabbed it against the side of the hole.

The Axe headed to his blood and quickly slowed his descent down the hole as he gripped around the metallic band around Sarah. The axe tearing against the side of the wall quickly slowed the fall of the two down. Sarah's weak sniffing had him listen intently, and eventually, he heard a plop against some type of metal thing. Giving him a solid answer, So, he pulled the axe out and quickly jumped down, landing on the ground. Here were the subway thingies Ironwood talked about, the train tracks and stuff.

Moon and Erick thankfully weren't looking so beat up. So he quickly turned over to Sarah, who he gently set down. The metallic band around her waist had bound her arms to her side, and it certainly looked quite tight.

"Pokey sure has quite the obsession with you all." he whispered. He wasn't sure if there would be an easy way to get this band off of her. It was super bonded to her, gently, he tapped Stalwart Terra against the band, the spike on the top battered something and it fell half apart.

Sarah shivered and sputtered as she blinked up, she gently pushed herself up and brushed off her dress. She looked at Sapphire and then quickly around the area, thankfully, for Sapphire, Moon and Erick were waking up and pushing themselves up.

Moon quickly hugged Sarah, and then walked up to Sapphire. "Thank you…" He said, before hugging Sapphire as well.

"It's fine," The boy replied. "You've done the same for me."

Erick grumbled as he picked up Gaia, he adjusted the knob as the earth knob lit up. "We need to start looking for a way out of here."

"You uh…you and Sapphire go ahead." Sarah said quietly. Both boys raised an eyebrow at her, making her blush a little. Sapphire eventually nodded before following Erick down the tunnel.

Sarah turned to Moon giving him a small blush as she rubbed her hair a little. "M-Moon?"

"It's okay," Moon replied. "I…I just…I got ahead of myself. I…I just wanted Pokey dead."

"It's fine…" Sarah replied, stepping up to her boyfriend.

"No it's not…" Moon whispered, "If we hadn't had Sapphire…Pokey would've gotten away with you…or…all of us."

Sarah grabbed his hand, obviously, seeing Nightmare…and what he had done was always going to harm both of them, no matter how much anyone tried to run from it. "Move past it," she said sweetly, "I'll help you later, we will work through this."

Moon nodded weakly before both of them jumped upright as both of them heard something bang against the ground. Moon's face went red as Sarah giggled a little, she didn't mind Erick and Sapphire eavesdropping, it was only natural for them to be concerned.

The two boys came back from the opposite end of the tunnel.

"So uh…we ran into a wall." Erick said calmly. "I guess Ironwood and Ozpin weren't messing around when they talked about sealing stuff up. There's a wall down there and from what I could tell, there was more track after it. They REALLY don't want Grimm getting in there."

"FIRE AWAY!" Moon's eyes widened before shoving all three of his teammates off the train tracks. A large train smashed through the area. The four of them looked up quickly and they each spotted Team RWBY and Professor Oobleck…and a corgi dog?

"What the hell are they doing here?" Erick asked. "I thought that we'd be the only ones Ozpin and Ironwood would let near this place."

"Whatever the reason, it can't be good." Moon grumbled. "PK Hydro!" He extended his arm out as a hand made of water extended out to the train and then wrapped his other watery hand around his friends, he grappled on to the train roof and took them to the tunnel.

Team MESS each landed on the top of the train. Quickly separating as a big flash rocket flew past them.

"AH!" they flinched as Weiss tumbled against the roof of the train. The girl in white grunted, Erick quickly ran over and helped her up. Weiss took a moment to blink in surprise before shaking herself to it.

"How did?-"

"Not important right now." Sapphire spoke up over the blaring of a train whistle. "What's going on? Why are we on the train? I thought Ironwood and Ozpin disabled them."

"Well, Torchwick and the White Fang…they wanna blow up the wall near the town. So they're gonna run a train into it and open a hole for Grimm."

"Fuck." Moon hissed to himself, That was what Pokey and Rhea were after, of course Salem would send them there as a diversion to the Grimm to lure them underground for this.

"Erick, you know how to defuse bombs right?" Sarah asked. Weiss blinked in comical surprise.

"Well…I know a thing or two about them." Erick blushed a little. "Take me to the bomb."

"Uh sure…" Weiss seemed confused. "Is…is there anything you all haven't done during your adventures against those…freakshows?"

"Not exactly," Moon replied. "You and your team protect Erick while he works. Sarah, Sapphire, and I will go make sure there's nothing more inside." The ice queen nodded her head before taking Erick's hand and dragging him along.

"Alright, let's do this." Sapphire smashed Stalwart Terra against the roof of their current train car and they each fell in.

"Uh…" Sapphire looked around. "So…it's just like a horse and buggy?"

"Basically. Just with more people." Moon's eyes widened as a chainsaw entered his memory; he quickly pushed Sarah aside as Sapphire turned around and clashed Stalwart Terra against the Chainsaw, they found themselves up against a very buffed up white fang member who seemed to have…an alligator tail?

"I see you've met Banesaw Blue." Moon grunted as Torchwick entered the train car smoking his cigar. "I think I'll leave ya too it. NEO!"

Sarah quickly rolled out of the way when a blast fire from Torchwick's cane came in.

Moon pushed himself up and clashed Saphira against Neo's Umbrella stick.

"What's your deal?" he asked curiously.

The ice cream colored girl gave him a small chuckle before poking his stomach and undoing the umbrella, it sprung up and she twirled it around hitting him multiple times before she punted him back.

"I see…" Moon muttered. He kicked off and dodged Neo's twirl before crescent slashing her backwards. Neo's body shattered like glass before Moon felt a swift kick across his back head.

Sarah quickly reflected Torchwick's cane shot with Freya, channeling her powers, the frying pan burst into flames as she smacked the Criminal mastermind aside. Setting his little tuxedo on fire. She then jumped on top of the man and quickly used a close ranged thunder to shock him back as she kicked him off, pinning him to the ground with a paralysis shock.

She jumped up and went to help Moon by smashing Freya over the girl's head. Neo quickly dropped her umbrella against Moon and flipped back, leaving Sarah to miss her entirely.

Blinking a little at Neo's smug giggle, Sarah felt a pellet burst on her back as she was flung into Moon. Both of them collided with the train wall. Moon quickly put his hands on Sarah's head and concentrated on Lifeup, curing her injuries as Neo stepped up to them.

Sapphire, meanwhile, was pushing past Banesaw's chainsaw. The blue haired boy spotted Neo doubling up Moon and Sarah, but he wasn't concerned about that as of now. He quickly jumped up as Banesaw's tail swiped. He channeled a bit of energy before swinging around and smashing Stalwart Terra against the man, his strength training paid off because he sent the large alligator faunus through the roof of the moving train with one swing.

"Guess brute force doesn't cut it huh?" he shrugged his shoulders before he heard a hefty stomp from the roof above.

"IS THAT A SCHNEE?!" Banesaw's voice echoed through the area. Sapphire felt sweat develop on his forehead. He was a faunus after all,

"SAPPHIRE!" He flinched as Neo quickly kicked him back a little. She jabbed her Umbrella tip against him before restoring and jumping up. Neo flipped back and quickly jabbed Torchwick out of Sarah's psychic hold as She and Moon got up.

"Moon's body quickly shifted into a semi-large black snake as Sarah quickly hit him towards Neo and Torchwick. He landed on them and quickly wrapped himself around both of them. He quickly shifted himself, though both of his teammates could see he was wiggling through their struggle.

"What's your plan here?" Sarah asked as she and Sapphire stepped up. They could hear distant gunfire, saying that RWBY and Oobleck were trying to stop Banesaw. "Who put you up to this?"

"Sorry Pretty lady, but that part's confidential." Torchwick sneered. "But I must say, you and your husband here could make great helpers."

"No deal." Moon's voice hissed from the snake. "I'll have you know I'm a poisonous variant, so I'd suggest you start talking. You or your little Ice Cream Waifu!"

Neo rolled her eyes before wiggling her head at her boss.

Torchwick chuckled, "You seem quite smart." he puffed out. "Why would we want to run a bomb into a wall near downtown Vale from a place overrun by Grimm?"

"Yeah, we kinda know WHY. We don't understand what YOU get out of this." Sapphire muttered.

"I have a few friends here and there." Torchwick smirked. "This is just how I live my whole life. To survive here in Remnant, you gotta lie, cheat, and steal. Like now."

All of sudden, Moon's black and blue snake body was lit aflame Torchwick and Neo bodies both shattered like glass as they moved out and away from them in the train car.

Moon's body flashed black and blue as he sprawled back to his human form. He blasted a PK Hydro over himself before going at both of them with an enraged look.

Neo smirked as she blocked Moon's sword swing with Saphria; she rotated with a swift leg sweep before bashing his head with her Umbrella. She did a puerete turn before whacking both Sarah and Sapphire back by herself.

"You see you messy little brats." Torchwick puffed. "Neo here was a perfect henchman for my strategies. I must admit, hearing about your psychic powers and PSI was quite the shock. Didn't think I'd ever get to meet them. But I'm glad to see my intuition paid off at the end of the day. Absolutely splendid, knew I'd never regret taking you in my sweet."

Neo's face blushed a little as she quickly held the three of them off.

"Alright, so, what can you do about this?" Weiss asked as she finally caught Erick up to her remaining team and Professor Oobleck. He was the History Professor at Beacon, and, as Erick amusingly expected, his weapon was indeed his coffee canister, which was now looking a bit like a hammer.

"Well…let's see," Erick leaned down as Oobleck opened the hatch at the top, revealing a pearly white timer with a red timer. "Does this bomb look familiar to anyone?" he asked.

"We've had bombs before child." Oobleck explained. "However, this particular model appears to be modified and homemade from Atlas. I already tried the technique Ironwood discussed, but it did not work."

"Hmm…" Erick adjusted his glasses a bit. He heard a loud smash, supposing it came from his own teammates confronting something.

"Can you hurry it up?!" Yang asked, a rather irritable tone. "We're on a timer."

"Technically yes, but not really." Erick replied, "We're on a timer, but not the timer on this bomb. If my calulations are correct, which they usually are, this bomb will explode the second the train collides with the wall, which is most likely sooner than this timer is set, I'd imagine they wanted to account for the possibility of a slow down or mishap."

"What are you going to do about it? We can't just blow up a hole in downtown vale!"

"Lives are at stake here you fucker."

"Okay…um…" Erick shrugged off his backpack and pulled out his carryover shielding device. "First things first, let me just use this. He pressed the button on the device and white shields of light surrounded the six of them, including the corgi dog. "This should protect us in the event I screw up, now…"

"Tick Tick." The stinging pain got worse as darkness clouded his vision.

"IS THAT A SCHNEE?!"

"Trouble, we'll hold him off, let's go girls!" Oobleck commanded.

"Okay, just concentrate." Erick whispered. He used a screwdriver and attempted to pry open the bomb to look for wiring, only to find that wasn't going to budge. "Dammit." He felt his black hair stand up on the top as he heard a few distant explosions and shouts from Team RWBY and the person they were keeping away from him and Weiss."

"Weiss, can you just help me with something?" he asked.

"What do you need?" He caught her looking over at her team and Oobleck.

"Can you like…use your glyph thingies with Myrtenaster? I think if you could summon one we could dislodge the bomb and take it out."

"Um…" he looked up and found the ice queen blushing heavily. "I uh…I can't use the Glyphs properly yet. My sister Winter was training me before…well…before she left the manor to get away from my father."

"Ah…" Erick bit down.

"And it's one, two, three strikes your out!"

"You don't know how to use your own semblance?" He asked in slight disbelief.

"I'm sorry…is there another way?"

"Judging by how it's lodged in here, not really." Erick muttered, glancing back down at the bomb. "I wanted to try and dewire it, but I couldn't pry it open."

"WHAT?!" He flinched as Weiss gave him an angry glare. "You're supposed to be a certified genius! And you can't defuse a bomb?!"

"But I-"

"You're the most useless member of your own team! Why would they even think to bring you here? You're gonna die at this rate if we somehow SURVIVE THIS!"

"Sheesh, you blew your shot a bit too quickly." Dark Erick hissed.

Erick felt his hazel brown eye twitch as Weiss gave him an angry glare. Jesus, this was insufferable, maybe Moon had his own point stand corrected. Dark Erick's cackle entered his brain.

"Useless, Useless, you piece of shit. Embarrassed again, just like every time before!"

"I'M NOT USELESS!" Erick hissed, without thinking, he lost consciousness and his eyes flashed red.

Weiss blinked as she watched the genius's eyes behind his glasses flash red. Much like Moon's darkside on that fateful night, the genius's usually soft but uptight demeanor looked psychotic. The harsh glare had the same energy. Blinking, she watched as his outfit and skin changed to the shadowy color as well.

"Oh thank goodness." Weiss breathed. "I was concerned you'd be harder to make angry."

Erick's darkside raised his shadowy eyebrow at her. "Did…did you…intentionally want me out?"

"Well…I just thought that maybe you'd…"

Dark Erick chuckled a little as he pulled out Gaia and shot it down at the train car, Weiss yelped as a bit of the metal wrapped around her legs. The genius walked up to her and moved around her in a creepy manner. She shivered a little as she felt a cold hand rub her arm a little.

"You know, I can see why you fluster my host so much." Dark Erick hissed as he stepped back in front to face her. "You really are quite cute, his dreams made you out to be some sort of goddess of sorts. Though…I guess an unsuspecting person could mistake you out to be one."

Weiss felt her face heat up a little. She shook her head before giving the darkside an angry glare. "Enough messing around with me! Can you help or not?!"

"Of course I can help." Dark Erick hissed, leaning into her. "But, unlike my leader and his lover, I should let you know I have no obligations or requirements to you. So, unlike last time, this time, you'll owe me something."

Now this was getting ridiculous, surely this was a trick right? She just narrowed her icey eyes, before a shaking violation came forth as she heard a large smack aside and heavy footsteps getting closer.

"WEISS! ERICK!" She heard Ruby's voice call out.

"Time's ticking." Dark Erick flashed his fang-like smile as he outstretched his hand. "Do we have a deal this time princess?"

The sounds of a whirring chainsaw grew louder and louder in her ears, and the metal around her legs prevented her from moving. She wiggled her legs a little, hoping Erick would overpower his own darkside and stop this.

As if he could read her mind, Dark Erick's glasses flashed a little sparkle. "Ah, seems like my host forgot to mention that if we get forced out by anger, the only way to be snapped out is for a keeper to pull him out, or for him to overpower me, which uh…let's just say he's not in the mood at the moment."

She bit down her lip as she spotted Banesaw's shadow towering over her own. "Okay! We have a deal! I'll do whatever you need!"

Dark Erick chuckled, then, he swiftly pulled Gaia up and fired a large blast of black energy from the beam. The beam shot past her ear and she heard a large shout from Banesaw before a loud slam against the ground.

"Good choice." Dark Erick hissed in a voice low enough Weiss knew her own team wouldn't hear. He then turned to the bomb hatch and Weiss watched as a purple gravity beam shot from the laser's handle the bomb flew out.

"Okay, now to dispose of this!" Weiss watched him pull out another invention and fired a bunch of gooey green slime as it splattered against the bomb and knocked it out, of the sky, she heard the splatter followed by the lowering of metal. When she turned, she found the bomb slimed stuck to Banesaw's body.

"The slime generator was modified by my host, I think it'll have the strength to subdue the explosion."

Weiss sighed as she watched her teammates push themselves up and go to help one another. "Thank you very much-"

"Yeah yeah, I get that." Dark Erick grabbed her wrist and spun her around to face him again. "Now then princess, we've got a bit of business to discuss. Now would be great while your friends are distracted with my work. If not, we'll have to add interest an-"

"Okay fine, what do you want?" Weiss felt her heart race a little as she just nodded her head at the darkside's creepy glare. "Please…just…nothing humiliating please."

"Oh no, this'll be simple." Dark Erick gave her a wink. "I just want you to say exactly what I say, but swap the name."

"You…just want me to repeat a sentence you say?" she asked in disbelief.

"Yeah, it'll make for a fun little nightmare memory to give to my host."

"Ah…" Weiss frowned to herself of course that was what the darkside would be after. Erick did tell her that he, Moon, and Sarah had taken precautions to ensure that his darkside couldn't haunt him as easily as the two of them. So if Dark Erick could see Erick's dreams about her, of course he'd want a memory of her he could use constantly to make him angry so stuff like this could happen again more frequently.

Dark Erick snickered at her concerned face. "Awe, are you feeling a bit guilty now for acting so rashly? Well, my host is just about conscious now, he's just asking you for a kiss. Might as well give it to him. Seeing as how it might get him out quicker."

"Alright, alright," Weiss shivered. "Just tell me what you need me to say."

"I, Erick Andonuts, formerly accept you, Weiss Schnee, as my eternal lover."

She blinked a little, these darksides must've really been good at manipulating memories and dreams if this would be enough for him with her swapping the names. Especially if this memory was going to be followed up by a kiss for Erick.

"Okay…I, Weiss Schnee, formerly accepted you, Erick Andonuts, as my eternal lover." She tapped her heels a little, her face flushing as she stepped up and pressed her lips against the darkside. She felt a little bit of coldness before it was replaced with a warmer feeling. Her eyes remained open to see as the genius' skin and clothes returned to normal, and his eyes blinked back to hazel brown.

Actually, now that she was kissing him, he was actually a pretty good kisser. At least, that was what she thought until she felt him push her off of him. She stumbled back on her heels before catching her balance.

"Shit, shit, goddamn it." She blinked as she watched Erick shake a little. Out of nowhere, he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her towards him with a frantic look in his hazel eyes.

"Please…Please dear god tell me you didn't just indicate or confess feelings for me!"

She blinked her icey blue eyes in confusion. "Uh…I mean your darkside just had me say I accept you as an eternal lover. I'd imagine he wants to use this to torture you, so I figured if I kissed you immediately that'd stop any pain you may experience if he tried to manipulate the memory of me against you." she blushed a little. "He did tell me you dream of me, which is flattering. So giving you a happier memory with me would-" she fell quiet as Erick's own face looked ready to just melt off.

"Dammit, Dammit, Dammit." Erick's fists clenched shut. "Moon's going to fucking explode."

"What…what is going on?" Weiss asked.

"Weiss!" She heard her own team finally approaching her. Erick quickly leaned in and whispered.

"Just, please, please, don't tell Moon, I'll have to figure this out later. Is there anywhere private at Beacon we can discuss this later?"

She felt her body stiffen at that, but she did nod her head.

"So…the bomb is nuetralized then?" Ruby asked Erick.

"About as well as it could be." Weiss could sense the stutter in the genius's voice. "The slime is compact, unfortunately, that Banesaw fella will go down with it."

"Wait…so he's gonna die in the explosion?!" Blake's yellow eyes widened. "You do realize that-"

"That's enough." All of their heads turned to Moon, Sarah, and Sapphire. Moon simply gave them all an irritated glare as he took Saphria and slashed a blast of water, knocking Banesaw and the Bomb off the train.

"We can't just do that! We need to go back for him!"

"Go back?!" Sapphire narrowed his own eyes. "To rescue the person who tried to tear our heads off with a chainsaw?! Who is deliberately trying to send swarms of deadly Grimm into Vale?!"

"But–"

"We have bigger fish to worry about right now." Moon narrowed his eyes. "Torchwick and his little Ice Cream maiden managed to give us the slip. However, we've got a bigger issue that we'll have to deal with later, that bomb is the least of our concerns when we've got a bullet train speeding right towards a wall. The bomb was likely just extra insurance!" His eyes suddenly widened and he quickly flashed his hand yellowish brown as steel surrounded all of them. The last thing they all saw was the faces of each other before their vision was cut out and an explosion ringed behind them.

You know, there's a bit of a a convoluted story going in twenty different directions, I like the ideas of trying different things as I go around playing my cards over everything. I did receive a few criticisms about Erick feeling out of place majority of the time, only serving to do mediocre explanations to characters sometimes and rather just feeling out at times. Which is weird to me when I've got everyone else running around, though I do suppose developing Weiss and giving Erick something to do while Sapphire just hangs out with Moon and Sarah is something.

You know, frankly, I had a rough time writing this chapter, which is why it wasn't out a month ago, I had like 6 scripts thrown out because of Neo. You never realize how hard writing a character who can't talk is until you try to have people interact with said character outside of combat. I was debating about Moon using telepathy to do like translation on Neo's thoughts to broadcast speech, but that didn't really appeal to me since we don't know how Neo thinks other than avenging Torchwick.

I do have a direction for this story, but how I get there is uh...not really my fortay, much like RWBY sometimes. I guess that feels appropriate.

Anyway, if you have any thoughts or criticism, you're welcome to share.

See you all, next time.