Author's Notes

Oh my god, what the actual fuck is wrong with you? You read Her Dying Wish and kept going? Bruh.

All I can say is get help. You need help. You need Jesus.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!

Chapter 10 – His Name Starts with a Q

For the first time in her life, Ruby wasn't fast enough.

It was a horrible sensation, not being able to keep up with an enemy, but this guy who'd followed to the ruins of Oniyuri moved like a buttered lightning bolt tied to Zwei. Try as she and Team RNJR may, they couldn't land a single solid hit on this man! Every swing of Magnhild to knock his lights out, ever bullet from Crescent Rose to lower his aura, ever slash of Crocea Mors and StormFlower, he just dodged them all as though the young team of huntsmen and huntresses were moving in slow motion.

Is this how everyone else feels when they're fighting me with my semblance?

At the thought of her semblance, Ruby used it to just barely dodged before his twin hand-claws swiped her throat.

"HA HA HA! Come with me, little girl, and I can take you to a wonderful castle! It'll be like the knight and princess in storybooks, HOOOHOOOHOOO!"

"Try taking this to your castle, you creep!"

Nora tried to smash the man's face in, her powers having been amplified by an electrified Lightning Dust bullet, but her mighty hammer never even connected.

"He's a Faunus!" cried Jaune, shocked at the revelation of the insectoid tail that snuck out from the underside of the man's massive overcoat. "Watch for the tail!"

Wasting no time, Ruby fired another shot at him, hoping that the moment of distraction from Nora pinning him would be enough.

It wasn't.

Somehow, he not only managed to swat her shots midair with his curved wrist-blades but also open fire and catch Ruby in her own undefended stomach. The bullets shredded away her aura rapidly, breaking it and knocking her to the ground.

Jaune and Ren came in from high and low respectively, but the man matched their attacks with his own. This guy had them, and he knew it. His tail blocking Nora and one hand on each of the boys, it seemed like things were truly over for Team RNJR before they had even begun.

Then, out of nowhere, a dark gray flash of color bodyslammed the seemingly invincible Faunus, breaking past his defenses and sending him tumbling into a half-ruined building. The survivors of Team Juniper all fell back and regained their footing as Ruby's uncle twisted his scythe and converted it back into a sword.

"Uncle Qow! It's you!"

The man rubbed at his beard and smirked towards his niece. "Heya pipsqueak. This guy bothering you?"

Before Ruby could even think of some clever response, the baddie was up on his feet and rushing towards her uncle. She wanted to shout a warning to him, but the two collided before her lips could even open.

"Look out!" Ruby belatedly called as the huntsmen swirled together in a storm of sparking metal, glinting Dustfire, and wildly thrown fists.

"Ruby, who is that guy?" asked Jaune.

"It's my uncle!" she proudly declared. "He's here to save us!"

"He doesn't look like he's gonna save us!" cried Ren, as Harbinger, Uncle Qow's trust sword went flying out of the fray.

"He'll be fine," Ruby declared, picking herself up and rejoining the team. "He always has a trick up his sleeve."

When the dust cleared and the force of their own attacks separated them momentarily, however, only the villainous scorpion Faunus was still armed. Brandishing his twin blades dangerously, he rushed towards his enemy once more.

Ruby was transforming Crescent Rose into scythe mode within seconds. "We gotta help, you guys, we gotta –"

"No! Stay back, kiddos! Leave this to me!"

The Faunus leapt towards Uncle Qow, blades raised…

…only for him to suddenly be skewered through the stomach by a large bovine horn.

"MOOOO!"

"He…He can transform?" asked Nora. "Into a…cow?"

"That's my uncle for you," Ruby said, her faith restored. "He's just awesome like that."

Uncle Qow continued charging like the bull he had suddenly become, knocking down several walls as he dragged the Faunus, whose stomach had been pierced by his horn, along for the ride.

"MMMMOOOOOO!"

Snorting out breath from his cow snout, Uncle Qow began to shake his head back and forth, and the dying man was thrown off and onto the ground.

"O-Ozpin's tricks…*cough*…w-won't be enough to save you from Queen Sa–"

Whatever the Faunus had been about to say was permanently silenced by a cloven hoof stamping his face down once and for all.

"MOO!" Uncle Qow loudly grumbled, declaring his victory. "MMMMMMMMOOOOOOOOO!"

Meanwhile, some distance away on the very same continent of Mistral, the same magical powers of animal transformation were being discussed, but in an entirely different context.

"It's genius, I tell ya," said Vernal, elbowing her chieftain in the side.

"No." The red-eyed huntress shook her head. "Absolutely not."

"We shave you down, sell the wool, you turn human-mode, and it's regrown to be shorn again when you next switch back! It's pure profit, Chief Buffalaven!"

Author's Notes

The atrophy of my brain is finally complete. Eternity draws ever nearer.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!