Late upload. The doctors really threw every single schoolwork they can this week because the vacation was nearing.

I do not own RWBY or AdventureQuest Worlds.

Qrow and Glynda arrived near one of the access areas to the underground systems along with Team CFVY. A bullhead full of Atlas soldiers also came with them. The VPD was activated and initiated an evacuation and perimeter around the general area of where they tracked Johnny's scroll at. Wasting no time, the combined force of the huntsmen and forces of the kingdoms descended into the sewers.

"How do the kids keep finding themselves in trouble?" Qrow groaned as he ran with the blond professor. "They seem to be involved in multiple incidents in the city during their stay at Beacon! How did they do that?!" He shouted with slight frustration. His nieces were troublemakers, sure, but he had hoped that having the sister of the ice queen and their quieter faunus friend in the team would make their more rambunctious tendencies to be tamed. Unfortunately for him, being haughty and quiet didn't excuse Weiss and Blake from having their own passions.

Glynda snorted. "I don't know Qrow. How does a first year team find themselves in so much trouble that they're in and out of detention on a nearly weekly basis?" She asked sarcastically. Qrow knew exactly what his old friend was getting at and had the decency to blush in embarrassment. Glynda ignored him and continued as they ran. "Can you enlighten me on that? All this reeks of…familial resemblance."

"How about also asking Winter that? Or Belladonna's parents?" Qrow spat pettily. "I'm not the only one that's close to Team RWBY."

"Never answered my question Qrow." Glynda said with a small smirk on her face. "Point is, you really can't blame the children if you can't answer my question. Luckily for them, I'm their disciplinary officer." She mentioned with a menacing tone, and, Qrow noted, no small amount of glee. "After this, they're going to be weeding the entire school grounds by hand. And after that, the edges of Emerald Forest…" Qrow winced at the deputy headmistress' future plans for her poor students.

]|[

How does one cut through the wind?

So far, Johnny had been relying on his spells to make Ella back off. Fire seemed to be where she was weak, surprisingly. In the same way that the wind user can snuff out stray Fire Bolts he shot her with, he easily could also ignite the oxygen rich wind Ella was surrounding herself with.

It worked, for a bit anyway. Ella did back off a bit, burned by the flames. In a brilliant move that Johnny really should have seen in the first place, the great armored being of wind Ella had conjured was now flaming, and now extremely hot wind blew across their arena.

"By Sepulchure's sake…!" Johnny gritted his teeth and charged on through the blazing gouts of wind that now Ella had covered herself with. Channeling the power of the Water Prime, Johnny unleashed crushing jets of water around Ella, seeking to tear her apart and snuff out the flames. The huntress then blasted everything around her apart with a quick burst of air, not letting the Torrents of water hit her.

It was a feint. Johnny was already in front of Ella, katana raised overhead, seeking to split her in half with Nukiuchi. Sensing mortal danger, the huntress brought her claymore up to guard, the great blade of wind stopping the katana.

Johnny felt his arms shake at the impact. He noticed the intense airstream flowing along the edge of the claymore; so fast it was glowing white and visible. His katana blew sparks everywhere as the blades kept locked to each other. "Is this…a chainsaw?!" He realized, and Ella smirked at him. Three other limbs of pressurized air slammed down at him, and the adventurer was forced to back off.

"Your weapon is a masterpiece then, if it could stand to lock blades with my Murakumo." She praised him, looking at her own claymore that almost looked like it was gathering clouds of dust. "You are correct; the vibration of winds generate tiny little edges along the claymore, making it feel like a serrated saw." She slammed the claymore down in front of her with a powerful strike, forcing Johnny to dodge to the side. The concrete floor of the open area and tunnels were split in two in a great fissure.

He can't pierce through her defenses conventionally. Ella was fast; probably from years of experience in combat. Every sneak attack he could do was parried away. Normal slashes from his sword would slide off the great armor of wind.

Fortunately, his earlier mistake proved a little bit of weakness he had suspected. The winds around Ella surrounded her completely. This proved to be a great boon to her defenses, but once he had applied something to the winds around her that could harm the person within…

He charged at the huntress, hands raised, sending a cone of Freezing Gale to his opponent as he danced around her attacks. Ella didn't feel the icy blast, the winds around her absorbing the cold. Johnny smirked, just as planned. Despite his attack apparently doing nothing, he continued to blast her with the icy winds.

Soon enough, the huntress did start feeling the cold. Bit by bit, temperature around her dropped. Her hands felt numb, and she felt her jaws chatter a bit. "You-!" Ella snarled. She spread her arms in front of her, letting the being of wind explode, blasting everything around her with the same super cooled winds Johnny had made for her. Thinking quickly, Johnny conjured a Burning Ward, defending himself from the sudden icy attack from Ella.

Well, not suddenly. Stupid! She already used the flames earlier! He thought, letting the ice around him melt from the burning shield surrounding him. Figure's Ella would also be able to use the ice. Well, that just leaves one more thing to spread with her wind… Johnny resolved to use his other scheme.

A dark Miasma creeped out from his left hand, dissolving into the air around them. "What-?!" Ella didn't have time to ponder. Johnny slashed into the familiar sequential strikes of the Tachi, each slash growing in power each time Ella tried to deflect it with her claymore. Her arms felt weaker. She blocked one hit by conjuring an armored arm around her left hand, and bent her right shoulder back, winding the claymore in a powerful stabbing attack, a spiraling lance of wind around it. Johnny conjured a Mana Shield, and he absorbed the strike by jumping backwards.

The Miasma did their work. "Aaaaagh!" Ella screamed in pain. The poison spread around her body, and her body felt heavier. The huntress kneeled down, trying to catch her breath and compose herself from the pain. She looked up, glaring at Johnny, who had begun to walk towards her, and most likely escape from fighting her.

"No…" Ella forced herself to stand. "We are finishing this fight…Whether you like it…" She took out something from her pocket. It was a vial of Red dust. "Or not!" She howled, the wind echoing her sentiment. Johnny grit his teeth as the activation of Burn Dust was propagated by the winds created by the huntress, enveloping both in massive explosion, shaking the runnels around them. The adventurer brought up his Mana Shield and Mirror Shield and weathered the hit, getting launched into the tunnels, propagated by the explosion of fire and wind, with the furious Ella following him.

]|[

"I can still fight! You have to let me come with you!" Nora insisted. Qrow eyed the orange haired girl warily. With her waving around a godsdamned hammer, he didn't want to mess around and annoy her too much.

Qrow, Glynda, and the other officers had already evacuated Weiss and Yang. Beatrice was currently being carted away, with two officers dragging the criminal away while she was unconscious.

"No, Miss Valkyrie." Glynda narrowed her eyes. "Your aura is not fully recovered yet. I appreciate your intention to help, but you won't get to help in the future if you get seriously injured here. Not to mention fighting someone like…"

"Miss Goodwitch, with all due respect," Jaune intervened. "We can't just leave our friends down there! You say it would kill us if we help, but it would kill us if they get harmed because we weren't there!"

"Save it, Glynda." Qrow said. "We do need the help. Just punish them when they get back to Beacon or something. Besides," He narrowed his eyes. "I'm feeling we're going to need all the help we can get." The blonde professor's eyes widened at his statement. Qrow didn't like to work with other people considering his semblance, but if he felt that the situation is worse enough that he was willing to work with others…

"How do you know?" Glynda had to ask.

"Because everything that's been happening in Vale has been one tragedy after another." He spat. Qrow looked up and observed the others with him. Each of them looked grave, letting the situation sink in. "Let them help. You can't keep them in the cradle forever." He told Glynda. "Our enemy won't wait for them to grow up."

As if to prove his words right, the area shook, and dust spilled from the stone ceiling above them. Cracks were forming along the walls. Distant roars of explosions filled their ears. The air just seemed a bit drier and hotter.

"We have to go now!" Jaune said resolutely with a frown on his face. "We literally do not have time to argue until this whole place crashes down on our heads." He moved to the tunnel where they had entered to face Ella. "C'mon Nora. To battle." His orange haired friend and teammate followed easily, passing by Glynda and Qrow.

"You heard him." Qrow said. He took out the Harbinger from its sheath. "As teachers, we should at least make sure they come out of this fight alive." He dashed after the two teens heading for battle.

Glynda didn't needed to be told that as their combat professor, she would one day have to send them off to their possible doom. Her job was to make sure that it wouldn't take them prematurely. Her knowing it didn't diminish the fact that it was still so, so painful. Her face scrunched into a frown, feeling the pain of being herself.

When a student graduates and they become a huntsman, and they die, Glynda worries if she didn't teach them enough to survive, didn't make them strong enough, didn't prepare them enough. Their deaths may not be by her own hand, but she felt the weight of responsibility on her shoulders. Even now as she walked following her students and Qrow, every step felt heavy. She wouldn't be able to keep them in the cradle; one day the students will fly off the coop. But she can still damn make sure to destroy every single one that would dare to hurt them.

]|[

Blake and Neo worked with surprising rhythm. Blake went high, Neo went low, and Adam was left to defend against both. Already missing some of his strength because of his recent injury, the normally powerful swordsman struggled to keep up. It didn't mean he was less skilled however. Blake shot at him with shots from her pistol and Adam deflected them all, all while dodging Neo barraging him with high kicks. The bull faunus countered the assassin with a kick of his own to her knee, catching Neo off-balance, and quickly slashed down. Neo had broken into another explosion of glass, and Adam growled in frustration.

He had no time to voice it, because Blake was already on him, attempting to cut him with her cleaver. Adam parried it while jumping backward, trying to keep Blake in front of him while searching for the disappeared Neo. Blake gave chase, and the two exchanged slashes. "How could you have fallen so far, Blake?!" Adam shouted in rage. "We were going to change the world! They were starting to see! They're seeing us right now!"

"Not with all the blood of innocents on our hands!" Blake shouted back. She brought down her cleaver and Adam caught it with his own horizontal slash. Blake kept at it, hammering her weapon down on Adam. "I wanted peace! I wanted for people to be able to live together without conflict! It's just that some of us had to stand up to those that oppressed us!"

"Weren't we doing that already?!"

"No!" Blake snarled. "No we haven't! You conspired to kill a train full of innocents! You actively encouraged Beatrice with her sick atrocities! You turned the White Fang into murderers!"

Both of them felt ragged; both had injured their hearts to their previous fights. They ignored the sharp pains in their chest and continued to rain down blows on each other. This was a mistake on Adam's part. Neo reappeared, slamming her heel down on Adam's head from above. The surprise attack made Adam kneel, and Neo continued on to kick the bull faunus across the face.

Adam was launched back and rolled on the floor. He slammed the sword down on the concrete, forcing himself to stop and stand. He glared at his two opponents. Neo smirked down on him, and Blake returned Adam's glare.

On the other side of the fight…

"Whoa." Torchwick said as he ducked under the lieutenant's chainsaw. "Massive drama they have there." He turned to look at his new ally. "Good thing we have none of that here, eh Red?" He told Ruby.

"Shut up Torchwick!" She yelled back. Ruby caught the masked faunus across the legs and tripped him, launching him into the air. Torchwick capitalized by slicing down on the lieutenant's midsection, slamming him back to the ground. He let out a pained grunt, and swept a feet across the floor, trying to strike at Torchwick while scrambling back on his feet. He let out a wide slice of his chainsaw as he did so, and the thief leaned his torso back to avoid it.

"Give up." Torchwick rolled his eyes while easily dodging out of the way of the wild strikes. "You won't win against two people." As he said it, a sniper round blasted the lieutenant in the back, making him stumble, and he struggled to bring up his weapon to guard against Torchwick trying to stab him in the chest.

"You won't get away." The man growled beneath his mask. "If I die here, I will drag you to hell with me."

"You sure about that, mutt?" Torchwick replied with a smirk. "You're the one that's getting beaten like a dog here." The lieutenant snarled but suddenly stopped. He looked away at Torchwick, looking beyond the tunnel beside them. The sudden change in his opponent's action confused him, and he was about to take advantage of it, until…

"What is that?" Ruby said. The place around them rumbled. Cracks had begun to form on the walls. Adam had looked alarmed.

"Did they blow it up prematurely?!" He panicked. He took a look at the walls. No other bombs were set off. The air felt hotter all of a sudden.

The answer came to them in a second. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGHHHH!" Johnny was hurtling through them, encased in a blue barrier and holding a shield in front of him, and a massive wave of fire blasted everyone off to the walls of the tunnel. Neo ran from her fight with Adam and dove for her partner, both of them disappearing in an explosion of glass shards. Ruby did the same for Blake, the little reaper bursting into a mass of rose petals and dragging her teammate with her before the blast incinerated them.

Adam and the lieutenant weren't so lucky to have semblances that could shield them. They dashed for the sides of the tunnel entrance, hiding behind the small ledges of the walls, trying to protect themselves from the sudden furious explosion.

Ella stepped through the tunnel, blazing red, and tongues of fire lashing out around her. She ignored everyone else on the tunnel and focused on Johnny. Adam collapsed to one knee, singed all over but still with aura intact. He looked at the woman whose flames were dangerously close to activating the dust bombs scattered on the walls.

"Shut that off!" Adam screamed at Ella. "You'll kill us all if you activate the bombs prematurely!" His screams forced more breaths than usual from his lungs, and he felt it harder to breath. Suddenly he was nearly hyperventilating.

Ella didn't hear him, but Johnny did. Looking around him, he saw bombs stuck to the wall nearby and beyond where they were standing. He gritted his teeth. He'd need to beat Ella now or they're all dead!

"Everyone take down the bombs! Torchwick, Neo, Ruby, Blake!" He shouted at his allies. "Leave the three to me!" Blake wanted to protest, but Ruby dragged her away. Torchwick and Neo wanted to run away, but even if they did, the blast would catch up to them before they could even exit the tunnel. Both criminals ran with the two students to help with taking out the bombs.

"You're not getting away!" Adam screamed, dashing to Blake, but a punch from Johnny sent him back, the bull faunus glared at him. Or rather, one of the Johnny clones. The adventurer had split himself into six Caricatures of himself, each wielding a katana. "Let's make this fight even." He said with a small excited smile.

]|[

Ella snarled. She charged at Johnny, flames licking at the claymore she was holding, and she smashed it into Johnny's defenses. Johnny parried away with his katana with Uke Negashi, deflecting each of the furious strikes. One of the Johnny's had slashed at Ella from behind, but the huntress had ignored it, focusing on the real Johnny entirely.

Adam and his lieutenant struggled against the two clones, each attack running their breaths ragged. Each swing of their weapons felt harder and harder to do, but they pushed on.

The flames Ella was generating was sparked by the Burn Dust, but how was she fueling it? Johnny himself felt it harder to breath and he was taking deeper and faster breaths than before. With this distraction, Ella slammed a foot into his chest, making him wince and stealing the air from his lungs. Immediately he heaved a breath, feeling the burning air hurt his lungs. He coughed.

"The air is burning…" He thought. Johnny swore inwardly. He was left with no choice. "Bow down before the Legion!" he chanted, and a Wicked Purgatory of black and bluish flames spread out in a cone before him. Ella screamed in pain. The two other faunus, seeing the otherworldly blaze spreading out towards them as well, cut their losses and ran.

"Get to the end of the tunnel!" Adam shouted at his underling. "Finish the operation! Leave both of them to die!" The two ran from the hellish landscape the adventurer and the huntress was creating with their fight.

Orange and blue flames clashed against one another. Ella pushed through the searing burns that was eating through her own flames and aura. She absorbed more and more of the air around them, intensifying her flames. Johnny breathed harder, trying to keep his own air in his lungs.

"The oxygen…! You're burning through the oxygen around us! You're going to kill us all!" Johnny yelled at Ella. The huntress snarled at Johnny and kept at him. The damage was such that even the Mana Shield was not enough to keep out the intense flames around him. Ella pressurized more wind into her claymore, returning it back to its great sword form; a flaming chainsaw-like sword of wind. It cut and melted through the stone and steel structures of the ceiling of the tunnel, and she slammed it down on Johnny from overhead.

It broke through the Mana Shield, but Johnny had brought up the Mirror Shield above him again. Again, Johnny was launched deeper further into the tunnel, coming towards the drain into the river fork.

"This is the end for you, Dragon!" Ella screamed in rage. Concentrating the wind under her feet, she shot out to Johnny, following closely behind, leaving a burning trail of orange and blue flames as she charged through her own inferno.

]|[

The more they saw of the areas they passed through, the grimmer their situation looked. Qrow, Glynda, and the two students passed through tunnels burned to slag; stone and steel both melted with extremely hot flames. The tunnels were cut apart with attacks, and some of the stone from the reinforcements of the tunnel above were falling apart. Glynda kept a violet shield above her group as they dashed through the tunnels.

They had passed through the old subway system and into the sewer system, tracking Johnny's position with their scroll. When they arrived, everything was burning, and the air was choked up with hot burning dust and smoke. The shield the blonde professor had conjured protected them, and thankfully, kept breathable air in.

"Brothers above…" Qrow muttered under his breath. "What the hell happened here?"

"That woman Ruby was fighting was terrifying…" Jaune said looking at the destroyed tunnels. "Maybe it was her?"

"Or the White Fang had already detonated their explosives." Nora added darkly. Normally she would be excited with big booms, but the situation was so dark that she didn't have it in her to cheer. Her grip on Magnhild tightened at the thought of her friends being caught up in such a cataclysm.

"Stop being distracted. Move." Glynda snapped harshly at the group. "Keep your eyes forward and for hostiles." With the command of their most senior member, the group charged on through the still burning tunnel.

The flames intensified as they neared the end of the tunnel drain. There, they saw Johnny and Ella locked in combat, Ruby, Blake, Torchwick and Neo trying to beat some White Fang and removing the bombs stuck on the walls and dug into holes, and Adam and the Lieutenant trying to kill the former group. The fighting had spilled onto the banks of the river fork. Ruby was slicing through groups of the White Fang trying to stop Torchwick and Neo from collecting some of the canister bombs, and Blake was holding back a weakened Adam and another White Fang from getting to the two criminals.

"Arc, Valkyrie! Support Miss Rose and Blake!" Glynda barked out her orders. "Qrow! Apprehend Adam Taurus, then assist me with Johnny after! I'll help him now! Go!"

Nora launched herself out of the tunnels with her grenade launcher, and smashed across the face one poor White Fang that had crept behind Ruby. "We're back!" She declared with a huge smile. She knocked another unlucky sap across the head with the hammer. "What's the haps?"

"Stop them!" Adam shouted desperately. The plan was crumbling before his eyes. They aren't going to be able to pull out with all the people around them trying to stop the White Fang. He didn't have time to shout out more orders. Jaune was in front of him, batting him away with his shield raised, and Blake jumped out from behind the blond, smashing into the bull faunus with her cleaver, taking advantage of Jaune's distraction. The lieutenant moved to assist his leader, but got quickly taken out by Qrow slicing from behind him with his broadsword. His aura broke, and Qrow beat him over the head with the flat edge of his weapon.

Ella grabbed one of the dust canister bombs in the walls of the tunnel and crushed it in her hands, fueling her winds further with elemental fire. Winds around all of them sucked into the huntress' form, and she let the mighty Fujin reform again, this time now enveloped in flames. "Hell take you all!" She roared, slamming the great burning Murakumo down on the ground, incinerating the concrete and the soft river soil beneath her.

From behind her shield, Glynda launched purple projectiles taken from the debris around her, pelting Ella from above. She was fighting from the backrow, and Johnny engaged the huntress from the front, crashing into Ella with Enraged fury. He slammed into her with a Strengthened Strike, a punch drilling through the burning, flaying winds surrounding her and into the huntress beneath.

Ella continued to absorbed more and more of the air around them, focusing the intense high pressure winds within her and lowering everything around her. Oxygen started to burn even faster with her now actively using the dust bombs to fuel her flames. Eventually, everyone felt the effects.

It was like the experience of hiking and climbing into a higher altitude mountain. The lungs start to take in more air, feeling the deprivation of life giving oxygen, and blood vessels of the lungs start to squeeze, trying to force more of whatever oxygen there is in the air into the lungs. Eventually, the blood vessels leak out, and blood drains into the lungs. The feeling of drowning even above water starts.

Johnny's breathing even quickened further. Glynda felt her concentration waver and she felt blood seep into her lungs, and she started coughing. Adam, already beaten and tired from the fight, heart still injured from the lightning from Johnny, and exposed to dangerously low oxygen levels, dropped to his knees in impending cardiac and respiratory arrest. He wasn't going to last long, so he made up his mind. "Godsdamn you all…!" He spat through his teeth. He reached to his pocket, and took out one thing that sent a shiver down Blake, Jaune, and Qrow's spine. A detonator. Better to go out in a blaze of glory, for his great revolution.

"No!" "Stop him!" Johnny noticed the disaster starting to happen. Better save as many of everyone as possible now.

"Glynda!" He shouted desperately. "I'll take down Ella with me! Protect everyone else and run!"

Glynda didn't hesitate, and so did Adam. As soon as he pulled the trigger, Glynda covered all of her allies with a purple shield, and telekinetically launched them towards the river.

"Haha…! Hahahahaha!" Adam laughed madly. And with that, everything turned white.

]|[

The explosion shook the entire district around them, the bombs that laid undiscovered by Johnny and his underlings exploding the stone and steel reinforcements of the tunnels. The larger bombs drilled into the stone and the soil of the river banks and the drains near the sea destroyed the natural barrier that kept the water out of the city, flooding the streets nearby. It did not end there.

The collapse of the tunnels sunk buildings into the ground. The worst was the effect of the large bombs drilled into the floors deep beneath the underground tunnels. It destroyed and loosened the bedrock, shaking the ground underneath the river fork, and letting everything fall into the deep cavernous abyss below. The White Fang's plan was in effect; a massive artificial sinkhole leading to the subterranean caverns below was created.

The tunnels, the sewers, the old rails of the subway, all of it fell with the blast from the bombs. It was not the same massive explosion as the Dust explosion in the industrial district, but just a few bombs focused near the weakest point in Vale caused destruction that was arguably worse.

The White Fang unlucky enough to not jump into the safety of the river in time was blasted high into the air by their own explosives. Those fortunate enough to escape into the waters scrambled to nearby shores and swam away. Those truly unlucky were swallowed up by the great collapse of the ground beneath them.

Adam Taurus, near the epicenter of the blast, got swept away into the tunnels deep below, burned all over. He wasn't conscious to experience his fate.

Thinking quickly, Johnny launched a sword on a chain into the side of the cavern. Ella Caeruleum glared at him from the other side of the fissure, still enveloped in the great armor of Fujin. Manipulating the wind around her, Ella jumped from debris to debris from the structures above falling to the abyss below, making her way to Johnny. Even after all this, she was still absorbing the air around her!

Johnny let go of the chain, dismissing it. He let out Astialo's Wings from behind him and met the furious huntress in the middle of the pit.

"Zeuster above lady!" Johnny yelled in frustration. "Why are you still fighting?!" He slashed at her from above, intending to slice her in half with Jigen Kogeki. It connected, and the katana ignored every defense Ella had, aura included. The huntress was made of sterner stuff than that, however. Letting out a pained grunt, Ella was cut from shoulder down to her torso, but held on to her life.

"This duel only ends in one way! With one of us dead!" Ella yelled. She knew her chances of winning now were low. Even her enormous amounts of aura were almost out. The winds down deep in the pit were much thinner, so she absorbed as much as she can and jumped up from debris to debris, trying to keep herself near surface level. She had to end this. With all of her Burn Dust left, and the rest she had stolen from the bombs, she fed all of it to her winds and desperately struck at Johnny below her.

The two of them fell into the abyss below. The flames from Ella illuminated the caverns deep below them. From below, thousands of pairs of red eyes stared at the sudden source of light, and hisses and growls filled the air. The debris crushed some of them, but some had took the opportunity to clamber up the walls of the cavern and fly up into the surface.

No! Johnny thought. The new sinkhole would let lose all the Grimm deep below into the city above! He had to do something. Putting up a Mana Shield with as much energy as he could spare, Johnny pulled away from the still burning Ella, kicking her off him with as much strength he could. He held up a hand towards the surface feeling his connection to the earth. Letting everything loose, he shook whatever loose ground was around the sinkhole with Magnitudes of shocks to the earth, creating a landslide.

The hole filled in, with debris, stone, steel and river water falling into the hole, sealing it off from the city, leaving Johnny and Ella into the darkness of the abyss below.

]|[

Hearing the explosions in the city. A black clad figure stood beneath the CCT tower. Cinder smiled. Everything was proceeding as planned.