A/N: Chapter 47 of REKT. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or teams of RWBY, they belong to Rooster Teeth and Monty Oum. What I do own are the characters and teams of my OCs: REKT, GTSY, KACE and DAZE.
Special thanks to the reviewers and to the readers who Fav/Alert this story, I really appreciate it.
Chapter 47: A looming threat
Inside the dormitory...
"I'm sorry, but you've left us with no choice."
"But he attacked me! I keep trying to explain it to you!" Yang, anguished and upset, glared at Ironwood as he stood in the middle of the room; inwardly she hoped he had spontaneously combusted. After being confined in a jail cell like a criminal and interrogated like one, she was heavily escorted back to the room – not only for her own safety but also to keep her out of the public eye – and put under house arrest.
"Video footage and millions of viewers say otherwise." was the curt reply.
"...damn it." Yang all but covered her face with her hands in misery. One moment she thought she could of stood on top of Remnant and the next, she was labeled a criminal and in the eyes of watchers, a huntress who lacked discipline.
"Yang would never attack out of the malice of her heart! And believe me, she is the gentlest person I know!" Weiss spoke up from where she sat next to Blake with her hands folded over her lap. It was totally out of character for her to speak her mind, but she couldn't hold back. She stood up, looking at Ironwood in the face and said, "Sure she has her blunders and make really crappy jokes, but the Yang I know and I love and stood by my side during our double battle...She's innocent!"
"You all seem like good students. And the staff here at Beacon are fully aware that you would never lash out the way you did." Ironwood said as the fuming Schnee sat back down. "Under normal circumstances."
"The fuck do you mean by that?!"
"Weiss." Blake spoke up, giving Weiss a stern glare for her outburst. The heiress held her tongue, stood up and decided to stare out the window instead, her hands firmly planted on her hips.
"...I can't believe we're listening to this...this bullshit..."
"But I believe, and hope this to be, nothing more than the result of stress and adrenaline." Ironwood ignored Weiss' outburst as well, but one of his eyebrows twitched. "When you're out on the battlefield, your judgment can become clouded in an instant. Sometimes you see things that simply aren't there. Even after the fight has passed."
"But I wasn't..."
"That's ENOUGH!" The headmaster of Atlas yelled, cutting Yang off immediately. Reining in his emotions as the students looked at him with wide eyes, he said, "The sad truth is...whether it was an accident, or an assault...it doesn't matter. The world saw you attack an innocent student."
"Innocent my ass..." Weiss snorted to herself and crossed her arms over her chest. She knew she didn't have any physical proof to justify Yang's innocence, but she would be damned to let her teammate suffer such atrocities and be labeled a monster for the rest of her life.
"They've already drawn their own conclusions. And it's my job to inform you that...you're disqualified." Yang opened her mouth to object, but decided to be against it, seeing as what has happened can't be changed and she would just add more fuel to prove her innocence.
"You're taking into consideration, the opinions from hundreds...no millions or thousands of people and they somehow overrule your own decisions?!" Weiss turned around to openly stared at him, mouth slightly gaped. If there was anything she learned from her father in terms of negotiations, it would be making sure the other side see all the benefits and that in the end, the company prosper. If not, then run the other competitors out of business. "What makes you think they have full control over you? Aren't you supposed to be top of the list, head honcho?! Headmaster of Atlas?!"
"Weiss..."
"No Blake, let me get this straight because I wanna know exactly what this man is thinking." The heiress marched up to where she was toe to toe with Ironwood, almost icing the entire floor. "You can't always believe what you see in front of your eyes, or what the media broadcasts through the CCT. Why don't you believe what Yang has to say or take her words into consideration? She was there, first hand and saw what happened. For all we know, an enemy could've had an ability to make others see things that looked believable. Have you ever considered that? I bet you didn't and decided, just to please the masses, that Yang was nothing more than a reckless child who wasn't brought up right and therefore lack restraint!"
"To brainwash the entire stadium takes a lot of power. What you're hinting at is quite impossible."
"I know that! If a person with such an ability were to pull off such a feat, he or she must've used a lot of power to do so!"
"...you are nothing like Winter. She definitely has her emotions in check, unlike you." Ironwood spoke after a minute of listening to Weiss blow up in his face, keeping his gaze level with hers. "And you certainly are not like your father."
"How you dare bring him into this!"
"I must get going now, got some errands to run. You four stay here or something and behave...you especially, Yang. You've done enough to enrage the public." Ironwood turned on his heels after that scalding remark and proceeded towards the door, a hand reaching for the knob.
"Wait...please..." Yang spoke up, fixing her gaze on his back. "May I...say one last thing?"
"...go ahead. I'm all ears."
"I...I know what I saw, with my own eyes..." Yang said to him as confidently as she could, despite on the verge of bursting into tears. "And I stand by what I believe in...deep down I know I'm right." Ironwood didn't say anything in response and headed out the door. The clanking of heavy footsteps indicated that the guards that stood outside followed their leader and they soon disappeared. Glancing at her teammates, the blonde asked, "You guys believe me right?"
"As I said Yang, you're reckless but you aren't ruthless." Weiss spoke as she sat back down with a huff, Ruby nodded her head in agreement. "What you did was not a normal Yang thing to do."
"Blake? What about you?" The raven-haired huntress looked up when her name was called before gazing downward.
"I...I want to believe you."
"What do you mean by that?" Weiss questioned as Yang teared up. "Yang would never lie to us, so explain yourself!" The faunus looked over with a very sad expression and sighed.
"I had someone very dear to me change. It wasn't in an instant, it was gradual...little choices that began to pile up over time. He told me not to worry and that everything will be okay. At first, they were accidents...then they became self-defense. Before long, even I began to think he was right. This is all just...very familiar..." She gazed at Yang who met her own and said, "But you aren't him, you're nothing like him. What you did...you've never done anything remotely close to it before. So...I want to trust you. I will trust you, but you need to look at me with confidence and tell me that he attacked you first."
"Blake..."
"Yang I need you to promise me that you regret having to do what you did."
"I saw him attack me. So I attacked back." Yang stated confidently, quickly wiping away her tears with a hand. "That's all there is to it." Closing her eyes, Blake processed what the blonde said and slowly her mouth curled up into a smile.
"That's all there is to it." She said, gazing at Yang with warmth in her amber-colored eyes. "Thank you."
Tap! Tap! Tap!
"Hmmm?" Standing up, Weiss crossed the room and cracked open the window. Sticking her head out, she looked to the right and stated, "Oh, it's you two. What are you doing here and for that matter, how long were you guys up here?"
"Yeah, it's unfortunate that we can't get in through the normal way since there are soldiers guarding the front door. In fact, they apparently have the entire building on lock down until Ozpin told them that only your room be guarded. So, the next logical option was to pull a Neptune and scale the walls up here." Kairos spoke once the heiress stepped back and she eased her way in; I soon followed after her. Efram and Timber stood outside to keep watch in case anybody came looking for us or if any of the soldiers caught us. "Surprising they didn't do anything for the windows."
"I don't know about you, but I think it would be really silly if they put some kind of device on the window."
"Huh? You think so?" I turned as the ice heiress closed the window shut, an eyebrow quirked up in wonder at her. "How so? If I were Yang I'd try to leave if I felt like it."
"Even if Yang was under house arrest and can't leave through the front door, she knows that punishment for going against the rules could be...much harsher than just sitting in jail. Don't get me wrong, I too would like to obtain freedom and spread my wings out there. Unfortunately, as of now, there's really nothing we can do." Weiss huffed before sitting back down, crossing her arms over her chest. "Frustrating isn't it? This feeling of almost helplessness...it's suffocating."
"It is for sure an ugly feeling, but don't let it over take everything." The faunus huffed before sitting down carefully by Yang. Looking at the brawler with kindness she asked, "Are you okay?" Not saying anything Yang turned and buried her face against the huntress' shoulder, her hands shakily grasped on the shirt. Kairos responded by cradling her friend, leaning her cheek against the top of the brawler's head.
"We kinda overheard the entire thing, well, not entirely. We listened in around the time he mentioned the disqualification." I answered Weiss' question and opted to lean against the window. "Sometimes having such thin glass is useful."
"How does it look out there?" Ruby asked me, her hands folded over her lap. "We...kinda don't want to look at our Scrolls..."
"How do I say this...the situation doesn't seem to be looking good. We've heard some not so nice things on the way over here...other not so nice things ended up being very nasty comments. Kairos over there nearly punched the hell out of one person in response." I replied, pushing off against the window and opted to pace around. "Not only did you guys get banned from the tournament, Yang's been framed as a criminal and it's probably...no, definitely...nationwide news. There's no way she'll be well received after the match."
"Are you telling me that Yang can kiss her career as a huntress goodbye?" Weiss questioned with anger laced in her voice, her icy gaze hardening to the point I could see the blue aura billowing out of them. It was quite a scary look if you ask me. "That's totally not fair!"
"That's a little extreme, but I think Yang will have a tough road ahead towards rebuilding her reputation." I explained, trying to ease her anger. "I know she can do it." Taking a deep breath I continued, "But I thought you ought to know that I saw something during the match. I have a hunch that our enemy used her Semblance to subject everyone to a false illusion."
"So I did it the nail on the head!" Weiss pumped her fist into the air before lowering her arm and her face flushed red with mild embarrassment. "Kinda...but do you know who it was?"
"I believe she's one of those new transfers we met in the hallway that one day. The green-haired girl, I saw lingering threads of her Aura surrounding her when she went to Mercury."
"God damn it." Kairos growled under her breath after she pulled away from Yang, tapping her foot against the floor. "I knew those guys were suspicious, but I didn't know they had someone like that in their ranks."
"But why didn't you say anything?" Yang asked me, her voice sounded so broken that I couldn't help but lower my head. "Couldn't you have persuaded them or something?"
"Would they have believed me?" I asked calmly, giving her a sympathetic smile. "There's only so much one person could say without being labeled as a serial crazy coot."
"...You could have at least tried..."
"Oh believe me, she tried. Marched right up to Ozpin's office to talk with him right before we came here." Kairos told them, nodding her head when they looked at her with disbelief. "We got escorted out by a very enraged Glynda though, she looked extremely pissed when we showed up and started spouting what she considered, 'creative imagination'. After some colorful words, she threatened to remove our entire team from the institution should we decide to continue the farce."
"Ozpin didn't listen either, but he had that weird twinkle in his eyes."
"You noticed it too didn't you?" The faunus questioned and I nodded my head. She sighed and scratched her head with frustration. "Honestly, the headmaster is so mysterious. It's like he's hiding his true self for some reason, keeping it out of the public eye."
"But back to the situation at hand, I'm only one person, but the entire nation had been lured into their trap the moment she used her Semblance to trick them." I turned to address the other team, keeping my tone light. "I know that it wasn't an accident, Yang won that fight fair and square."
"So that means Yang can be proven innocent right?" Ruby questioned hopefully from where she sat next to Blake.
"If you ask me our enemies might have this entire tournament rigged. And it would be extremely difficult to prove innocence once something like what happened out there can't be wiped clean. The moment Yang broke Mercury's leg is still freshly imprinted in their minds."
"Leader!" Efram called up from where he was standing outside, his hands cupped around his mouth. Timber was right beside him with his Scroll in hand. I opened up the window and leaned half-way out. "We're up next, the bracket for the fights have been revealed. Let's go!"
"You two go on ahead, we'll be right there!" I called back and closed the window. Taking a deep breath I murmured, "I have such a bad feeling about this...things are about to go downhill from here."
"If that's the case, shouldn't we just protest the tournament? Like you know, put it on hold until everything settles down?" Kairos questioned as she stood up. "Isn't the safety of the audience – the entire student body from Beacon as well as fellow travelers – a high priority?"
"Can you imagine the carnage or weird expressions we'll get if we suddenly didn't show up?" I shook my head with a small frown. "We have no choice, but to follow through and show them that we still have spirit. I know how you feel and I agree with you, but we can't raise suspicion."
"But..."
"Get going, you still have a battle to win." We turned to see Ruby looking at us with a small smile on her face. Weiss had almost the same expression, showing us how supportive she was. "We'll cheer for you here by watching the match on our Scrolls."
"Heh, and here I thought it would be us cheering you guys up."
"Hey." Yang looked up, watching as Kairos walked up and extended a closed fist towards her. The faunus had an unreadable expression before she cracked a smile. "I'll fight my match not just for reputation of this school, but to also get them back for your injustice. I'll stand behind my friends no matter what and have their backs when they need me. So, watch me kick ass out there."
"...yeah." She returned the fist bump with a small half-hearted smile on her face. "Thanks."
"And I still owe you 50 lien so, after I win I'll make it back to you in a jiffy!" Yang chuckled at the little bet, shaking her head with wonder. "You best believe that."
"Then we'll get out of your hairs. Take it easy guys." With that, Kairos and I left their room by jumping out their window. As we trudged towards the arena, uneasiness settled within my core and I couldn't articulate the words to say. It was safe to say that the walk was kinda awkward.
"Reina...I know what you're thinking." I released a deep breath, thanking the gods when my teammate started up the conversation first. "I can feel your anxiety and fear all the way over here. Not a good emotion for me to be sensing before my fight."
"Kairos, I'm worried. Like really worried." I told her, gripping my scarf tightly between the fingers of my left hand. "I'm not sure if you felt it, but all of the negative emotions that came out after Yang's match stirred up the nearby Grimm. I have a feeling like we're in for some kind of overtake."
"Whether they come or not, let's not worry about them right now."
"How could you-"
"Listen, whatever happens out there or in the arena I want you to know that I'll be well aware of my surroundings." As we got inside the coliseum, she quickly stood before me and placed both hands on my shoulder. I could sense some sort of anticipation as well as borderline nervousness radiating from her. "A lot of things can happen in the blink of an eye, and I'm sure something may happen during my match. I don't know what it is, it's just a feeling I'm having."
"Then...when something bad happens I'll do my best to protect you, whether or not you want me to or not." I promised her, giving her a grin. "After all, it's my duty as leader." She huffed and tapped her forehead against mine.
"Don't worry about me, I can handle myself." Taking a step back she turned on her heels and walked off towards the waiting room. Waving a hand in farewell she added, "Just sit back and enjoy the show."
In the arena...
"If you ask me...something just doesn't seem right, and I'm not just talking about those three stooges looking at us strangely. It's like they're sneering at us because we're fighting for Beacon." Sun whispered as Kairos approached him for her match. He was standing near the entrance and jerked his head to where the other three huntsmen were standing together on the opposite side of the stadium.
After the fight with Yang, some of the guests decided to put some distance from any of the fighters from Beacon. It was like Yang's match painted Beacon Academy in a terrible light. Shaking his head the monkey faunus asked, "But enough about them, is Yang alright? I know you guys went to go see her and all..."
"She's doing the best she can to handle the situation, and honestly I couldn't agree with you more." Kairos muttered in agreement, glancing out to the audience. Some of the students had a look of pure horror and disgust on their faces; it was like they weren't enjoying the matches anymore and not so surprisingly, some of the sections were empty. The attraction was slowly loosing its watchers. "Something fishy is definitely going on that I don't like, feels like the entire thing is rigged."
"I'm surprise Ironwood hasn't ordered more guards, considering what happened in the match if they assume the fighters to become aggressive. I'm surprised the citizens still believe their government will come and protect them."
"Kairos Klain versus Aahil Serval. Will both fighter please approach the field?"
"Well, I guess this is it." Kairos sighed, pumping and psyching herself up for her match. "No turning back now."
"One quick advice from me then. No matter what happens in the match or who you go up against, go out there and fight not only for yourself but also for the others." Sun said with confidence, crossing his arms over his chest. "Don't let anything slip past you."
"Yeah, I hear you loud and clear." She replied and put her earmuffs on, the tail disappearing and her ears covered by the object. I know I should go all out, but I don't want to hear anything the audience has to say. I know I'll loose control so this time...I'll believe in my own strength. Biting her lower lip she walked out and focused on what was in front of her, each step carrying a strong purpose. Once she came to a stop on the arena floor, she took a deep breath and glanced around.
The atmosphere has indeed changed, not as electrifying as before...I don't know how I feel about it. It's almost ominous...Kairos thought to herself before glancing at her opponent who stood opposite of her. He was donned in a dark, hooded shawl that covered his head and shoulders, reaching the middle of his back. On the right side he had gold shoulder guard which went down the length of his arm like plated armor. A blue jacket lined in gold and red threads covered his high-collared white dress shirt. Red tassels could be seen around his body, the thicker one holding together some body armor; for bottoms he opted for brown dress pants and boots for his feet.
His dark colored hair barely stuck out from under the hood and his golden eyes reminded her of Blake's. He had red lines drawn down his nose and two single lines under both eyes. For accessories she could vaguely see a golden hoop earring on his right ear and gloves on both hands. The thing that almost irritated her was the small but confident smirk on his face. He's not from around here...Vacuo perhaps? I've never seen that kind of clothing before.
"Prepare for battle!" Port's voice rang out as the layout began to change. "Are you ready?"
"I must apologize for what happened to your...friend, if that is what she can be called from this point forward. But when a fighter attacks someone out of aggression, that is something I will not stand by lightly." The male known as Aahil spoke, keeping the same smug expression on his face with his left hand placed on his hip. "We must be grateful her and her team were disqualified. They are all, oh what's the word I'm looking for, disgraceful as huntresses and frankly, shamed the entire school's reputation. I feel sorry for those who attend Beacon Academy."
"Shut. Your. Face." The faunus all but glared at her opponent with anger, stabbing her weapon through the ground. The impact could be felt by the audience who sat close, but it soon disappeared as she twirled her sword in hand. Even with her muffs she could read her opponent's lips and she wasn't too thrilled by what she just interpreted. "Your fight is with me and it'll stay that way."
"Why are you so angry? You must learn to channel your anger, not everything can be solved by charging head first. That's such a reckless impulse." Aahil spoke playful, his golden eyes twinkling with amusement. "After all, that's what brought your friend to her ultimate downfall. Who knows if she'll be able to get back on her feet."
"How do you like this for channeling anger?" Getting into an attack stance, she let loose a burst of her Aura which began to form a circular scorch mark on the tiles. Her eyes were illuminated with the massive flame within her. "I'll use all my strength against you. Don't hold back on me!"
"Of course, don't worry about that." He replied, feeling excited for the match. "I always use my full strength in battle, nothing less. None has withstand my devastating sand attacks, so I can't wait to see if you can handle it."
"Give it your best shot!"
Outside the arena...
"Mmmmmm so she's fighting in the match now is she? There's no mistaking that burst of Aura just now." A figure whispered as the Atlasian guard standing outside slumped to the ground dead, a sword impaled right through the chest. "Well now, I'm surprised she made it this far since I last saw her. Never in my wildest dreams did she surpass my expectations."
Briiiiing~ Briiiiing~
"Hmmm? Messages from my mistress already? She's probably wondering if I made it here in once piece or something..." Pulling out a Scroll from her pocket, the figure swiped through and took in the words that scrolled on the screen. An eyebrow arched up with interest before the Scroll was shut off and the weapon was slowly removed from the dead guard. Flicking specks of blood from the blade the figure approached the entrance of the structure. "Now then, how do I want my entrance to be? With a large bang? Or with a stealthy approach?" From the shadows created by the cloak, a grin appeared, showing off pure white teeth and glowing pink eyes. "Even better...I'll shower her with her opponent's blood."
