Halo, it's time for the newest chapter. Enjoy the reading.
The fight in Haven wasn't over yet, Hazel had one goal relentlessly floating in front of his eyes, the destruction of Ozpin and Leo was helping him in this. While Ozpin took all his strength and attention to dodge Hazel's blows, Leo was able to shoot him from behind, making his job terribly difficult.
He was forced to stop and block Leo's shot with his cane but that gave Hazel the opportunity to send him to the floor with a punch.
- Hiding behind a child's face?! - Hazel showed no mercy, even if he took the life of a young boy like Oscar along with Ozpin's. - A monster like you must be stopped!
Suddenly, a strong shield wall attacked him from the side. It was Lance who regained consciousness, stood up and rushed to Ozpin's aid. He was able to push Hazel a few meters but as soon as he gathered himself he stopped Lance, his fist came down on the shield from above but at the last moment Lance transformed the shield into a large rectangle one, so that the bottom of it just dug into the floor.
Before he could react, three large spikes pierced towards Hazel from the shield embedded in the ground, which he only managed to dodge at the last moment, towards Lance's left side. Unfortunately, the shield that was strapped to Lance's arm was still embedded in the floor, so he couldn't move it and his left side, where Hazel attacked from, was left unprotected.
Hazel punched Lance in the face but thanks to the shield he was holding, he was able to stay on his feet but the next moment, Hazel tore the straps off his arm, punched him in the stomach with his right fist, grabbed his helmet with his left arm and sent electricity into it, which Lance's metal armor drove through his whole body and finally pushed him to the floor.
- How many more children have to die because of you?! - He demanded an answer from Ozpin while still running electricity into Lance's body, who cried out in pain as he did so.
The yelling stopped and Lance's body began to be surrounded by a dark red light, his body and muscles began to grow, he opened his eyes, which began to glow red. He grabbed Hazel's arm that channeling the lightning into him and sending him to the floor with one yank.
- Someone will! – That was all Lance answered before he roared angrily and growled at the standing Hazel under his helmet, who had grown larger in his Berserker form.
Both of them angrily cursed each other and wanted to finish the other with a single punch. Although Lance's mind was completely lost in anger, it was Hazel who was more surprised because the boy, in this new form, was much stronger than before and was able to punch him in the face with such force that he flew straight towards the exit gate, tearing through the wall and fell out into the courtyard where the White Fang soldiers were gathered.
- What's going on? – One of the soldiers asked, curiously looking at Adam.
- None of your business! - Hazel stood up angrily and dusted himself off.
- Shouldn't we help? - Mandy was interested but Hazel didn't even give her an answer, he just took out two Fire Dusts from his pockets and stuck them into his arms, which made his veins glow red instead of yellow and a little fire started to burn in addition to the sparks. - That doesn't seem healthy.
- Concentrate! - Adam ordered his men in order. - Our friends are about to finish!
- Adam! - A familiar voice called out to him as Adam and the others looked up at the top of one of Haven's towers.
- Blake?
- Who is she? - Hazel could clearly see that Adam knew the girl.
- None of your business! - Adam rudely threw it there.
- Stop! - Blake ordered them and the White Fang soldiers and Mandy pointed their weapons at her.
- Wait! - Adam stopped them, looked up at Blake and started laughing. - Considering how much trouble I went through to find you… you give up yourself like this?
- What you're doing, - Blake didn't say a word of praise to Adam. – it doesn't serve the interests of the faunus! Stop it, put down the guns and we can solve this peacefully!
- You're wrong, Blake. - Adam just confidently stepped forward. - And you can't stop us.
- No! - Blake backed up Adam's claim. - I'm sure I couldn't. At least, not alone!
- That's why she didn't come alone! - Someone else's voice could be heard from the entrance of Haven and Adam and the White Fang soldiers turned in the direction of the voice.
It was Sun and a whole army of armed faunus marched into the academy courtyard. Although they wore civilian clothes, their weapons and shields bore the old coat of arms of the White Fang, a white panther's head and a white circle.
- What?! - Adam didn't understand, he was convinced that all the faunus of Remnant supported him and another group of armed faunus came from the other entrance of the academy. - Who are you?! - He demanded the answer.
- Your brothers and sisters! – Ghira was at the head of the other team.
- Manta?! – One of the soldiers lowered his weapon as he recognized his friend in the ranks of the militia.
- Please, - The ram faunus boy didn't want to fight his friend. - stop.
The White Fang soldiers lowered their weapons, clearly not wanting to fight their own kind.
- Adam, - Mandy also lowered her bow. - maybe…
- Don't let them fool us! - Adam was the only one still looking for a fight. - They are our enemies and we can't let them destroy us...
A beep could be heard from behind the school, then spotlights appeared and the roar of a plane joined it.
- Adam Taurus, - A female voice spoke over the loudspeaker. – it's the Mistral police! Lay down your weapons and surrender peacefully! – Several planes appeared in the sky and surrounded the academy.
- They've already done it. - Mandy added sarcastically.
- How?! - Adam was angry and all the source of his anger was Blake, who jumped off the roof. - How did you do that?
- Adam, - Blake was only a few feet away from him but she didn't feel fear or anything. - it's over.
Adam looked around, seeing the academy courtyard completely filled with members of the White Fang militia and Mistral police. They lost the battle, they wouldn't have been able to fight their way out of this situation.
- Adam, - Mandy cocked her bow and looked for a target. - what's the plan?!
- Then, - Adam pulled the detonator from his pocket. - we're all done. - He pressed the button.
- Wait! - The rest of the soldiers, except for Mandy, were terrified and huddled together, hopelessly preparing for the explosion.
- What are you doing?! - One of the soldiers, after nothing happened, angrily questioned his leader. - You want to kill us? – Adam just grabbed the soldier's collar and started yelling at the top of his lungs.
- HUMANITY MUST PAY FOR WHAT THEY DID TO US!
- Drastic! - Mandy was also not happy that Adam would have sacrificed her so easily along with the others. - But at least we would have taken them with us! - She was the only one of the soldiers who was still with Adam.
- We had some of your former people with us, - Blake continued as Luna stepped forward, whom Adam already knew had switched sides and knew exactly what her plans were. - who knew that you had several explosives with which you wanted to blow up the academy. And as soon as we got here, one of them neutralized them.
Ilia emerged from the entrance of the CCT-tower, her skin turning dark purple but as soon as the crowd noticed her, she disengaged her disguise and lifted the wires of the defused bombs.
- We lost, Adam. - Mandy realized that it would be pointless to fight any longer. - We have to escape.
- Grrr, - Adam threw the detonator angrily and turned to Hazel. - what shall we do?!
- This, - Hazel just washed his hands and clearly stated that he wasn't going to help Adam and Mandy. - is your business and not mine. Fix it.
- I told you, Adam. - Blake said to him and Adam turned towards her angrily. - It's over.
Adam didn't take this insult, like an angry bull, he charged at Blake and wanted to kill her with Wilt by a single cut of his sword but Blake dodged the blow with her Semblance, appeared at his side, in a blink of an eye, she locked her hands in the over his head and thus hit Adam in the face, who fell to the ground from the blow.
- Kill them! - He gave the order after he regained consciousness.
The remaining White Fang soldiers opened fire, and the militia and police returned fire, leading to a serious firefight in the academy courtyard.
Hazel prepared to join the fight but suddenly a huge gust of ice sprayed his body, forming the end of a rope of ice, and then dragged him back to the academy. As soon as he regained consciousness, he saw that Weiss' massive ice Lancer was still active, making his and Emerald's day miserable.
Jaune and Ruby were still fighting Neo but by the time Nora and Ren regained consciousness, they were already 4 against one but Neo wasn't fazed at all. She was ready to fight all 4 of them but the police plane's searchlight filtered through the windows, which made it clear that they ran out of time.
Lance was about to go on a rampage inside the academy but luckily Qrow managed to pull himself together, took out the remote that Chad had given him back in Beacon and pressed the button on it, which activated the chip in Lance's head that emitted electrical radiation, thereby causing him pain that he couldn't bear even in berserker form, he fell to his knees, his body began to collapse and the red light that surrounded his body went out and his eyes turned back to blue before he could pass out.
Emerald, Mercury and Neo retreated from the battle to Hazel and realized that they were in serious danger of being overpowered.
Team RWBY was completely stunned when they saw their long-lost friend, Blake, in the broken doors of the academy.
- Yang? – The blonde girl was the most surprised and perhaps the happiest to see her feline faunus companion again.
- Yang, - There was no time to reunite because Ruby, seeing that Salem's people had left the entrance to the chamber unguarded, there was a chance that one of them, Yang, since she was the only one with enough strength to get down. - go!
Yang didn't hesitate and started running.
- No! – Emerald tried to catch her but she was trapped by a purple force field summoned by Mike and couldn't break through.
- That... - Mercury almost caught Yang's mechanical arm but suddenly, Roman shot out Melodic Cludgel's hook, caught in his arm and pulled him back.
Next to stand in her way was Neo, who remembered well how easily she had beaten her on the train and was glad to be able to do it again. She lunged forward at Hush but she heard a shot in the distance and was forced to use her Semblance to dodge Ruby's shot but she didn't give up yet as she appeared above Yang this time, only to be caught by Weiss' Lancer queen and pushed her to the side.
Yang had a clear path to the chamber and jumped down into the elevator tunnel, then Weiss closed the passage with a wall of ice.
Cinder felt both anger and admiration for Raven, who was perfectly capable of outsmarting her and her companions but because of this, she was unable to gain the power of the Spring Maiden after severely injuring Vernal with her Grimm arm but she just couldn't find the power in it.
- Vernal was just a decoy all along. - Cinder stated and turned her flaming yellow eyes on Raven. - The last Spring Maiden must have trusted you a lot before she died. - Her voice was filled with contempt and hatred. - Which I think was a mistake.
Raven pressed a button on her scabbard that fired the blade at Cinder, who jumped forward so fast that she caught up with it and charged at her opponent.
Cinder crouched down and launched herself into the air with her power but Raven leapt into the air to follow. Cinder summoned a black glass sword that she used to block Raven's katana but they still slammed into one of the protruding rocks, shattering into pieces with their force. Raven pushed Cinder against the wall with her katana, who tried to push her opponent back with her glass sword but managed to push Raven away with an explosion, who somersaulted to the ground and Cinder fell on her feet.
It didn't take long before they had an amazing sword duel, Raven's katana and Cinder's glass sword sparking every time they met but Raven dodged the next blow by somersaulting backwards, summoning a pillar of ice behind her, which she gained enough momentum to get behind Cinder and strike down at her but Cinder blocked her but Raven didn't stop, with a quick jump she got behind Cinder again and tried to land a jab but her opponent parried the attack again.
The sword duel continued but this time Cinder had to jump back and Raven kept her under pressure and the swordsmanship of the two Maiden proved to be so equal that the two blades broke into shards.
- Argh! - Cinder let out a pained scream when a glass shard of her own sword pierced the Grimm's arm.
- Your aura doesn't protect that arm of yours, - Raven stated and looked down at Cinder. – because it's Grimm. - Cinder just angrily pulled the fragment out of her arm and threw it away. - You turned yourself into a monster for power. – Cinder just summoned another sword and prepared to continue the fight.
- You're the one who speak?
Cinder attacked again but Raven placed a new yellow blade in the hilt of her sword and defended herself with it, then slipped past her opponent but Cinder followed and the two Maidens continued to fight harder and faster. Cinder's glass sword and Raven's katana collided at least two dozen times, sparking and simply neither of them could rise towards the other, so after the many blows, the two blades broke again and a ball of fire and ice energy was released, which crashed into the ceiling of the cave.
The two Maidens just glared at each other, trying to analyze the other, then Cinder summoned another glass sword and then another, so she attacked Raven with two swords. Raven put another red blade in the hilt and launched a counterattack.
At the first blow, a glass sword and a katana blade were broken but they were replaced at that moment and the fight continued as if nothing had happened. Another blow, another break and the fight rose to a new level, the two Maidens using their ability to fly, continued the fight in the air. More swords and blades broke but the strength and fighting spirit of the two sides didn't break at all.
At one point, the two weapons changed hands, because Raven dropped her katana, which Cinder immediately caught but because of that, she had to drop her glass sword, which Raven quickly picked up and the fight continued more and more intensely. Every time the two blades met, more magical power was released from the two Maidens, until a ring of ice appeared around Raven, while a ring of fire appeared around Cinder and it was no longer a matter of swordsmanship but of concentrating magical powers, because the many released energies met each other and, throwing sparks everywhere, tried to defeat each other.
Once it was proven that the two powers were equally powerful, Cinder summoned the forces released from her and concentrated them in her hand to create a huge black glass great-sword, twice the size of herself. Raven did the same with her own power and created a huge ice katana, twice her size, which she held in her hand.
The two swords collided, causing the entire cave to shake and maybe even the fighters in the academy felt it but as a side effect huge rocks fell down from the top of the cave, causing them to abandon the duel and move out of the way of the falling rocks.
Raven slid but landed on her feet and braced herself for Cinder to attempt another attack despite the falling rocks. It happened so fast and even though she expected it, Raven was caught off guard when Cinder's Grimm arm reached out from the dust created by the fallen rocks, grabbed her neck and pinned her against the door of the chamber's elevator.
Cinder summoned another glass sword and began draining the Maiden power from Raven and the red light began to flow into the Grimm's arm. Raven didn't give herself cheaply, she looked up and, driven by an idea, summoned ice power in her hand and shot at Cinder. Cinder saw this and defensively held her glass sword in front of her but Raven aimed not at her upper body but at her legs and froze her to the floor. At first Cinder didn't understand the point of freezing her legs when her arm was already around Raven's throat and she was seconds away from gaining her power but when she saw that Raven wasn't looking at her but at something else above their heads, she looked up too and her remained eye widened in shock and she understood why only her feet were frozen. She tried to stop her from running away from the huge rock that was falling towards her, which she did because the giant rock buried Cinder under it.
After breaking free, Raven used her strength to take a giant leap to find herself on top of another huge falling rock waiting for Cinder, she knew she needs more to die than that.
She didn't have to wait long, because Cinder flew towards her, concentrating fire in both hands, summoned another sword, with which she attacked Raven with a somersault, which she defended with her katana, then somersaulted from her back, onto the edge of the cliff but she attacked again and Raven he parried the blow again.
The two Maidens fought each other by jumping from rock to rock and their blades clashed a dozen times, sparking but Cinder gathered her magic and smashed the rock that Raven was standing on with an amazingly strong blow but she quickly jumped away and launched herself from another rock to attack Cinder, whose she broke two of her glass swords with a single slash but the blade of her katana also broke but she quickly replaced it with a yellow one.
Cinder retreated but Raven stayed in her tail and upon reaching the same rock, Cinder turned and started to back away but another rock crashed into the one they were standing on, knocking her off balance and forcing her to jump back onto another and shoot a fireball with her hand, which Raven dodged and managed to land a kick in Cinder's chest, causing Cinder to somersault backwards but another rock fell between the two of them, giving Cinder time to summon two more glass swords but she didn't have much time to prepare because Raven in the blink of an eye, she split the rock separating them and charged towards Cinder.
Raven inserted another blue blade into the hilt of her katana and flicked it to the side, summoning a narrow line of ice to Cinder's side, which she slid through and was behind Cinder in a flash, who only managed to dodge the blow at the last second, forcing her back with each attack. Her two glass swords broke again, causing her to run away again, she jumped onto another rock, Raven continued to chase her, she also jumped from rock to rock but eventually Cinder counterattacked, Raven jumped onto a rock that stood still and pretended to run away but she sheathed her katana, fired it to pierce the end of the rock and at the last second caught it and with one swing, she turned and counterattacked at Cinder and pushed her back with a strong kick to the chest, causing Cinder to bounce several times and fall onto another rock.
Eventually both rocks they were standing on fell to the ground and they both found themselves on the floor.
Cinder fell to her knees panting, an orange light flashing around her, indicating that her aura had drained.
Raven got down on one knee, she was also panting from exhaustion and a red light flashed around her, meaning her aura was also depleted but she confidently stood up and pulled herself out.
- Was that enough? - She asked mockingly, trying to look as confident as possible.
- Shut up! - Cinder just glared at her opponent.
- If only you were half as smart as strong, - Raven just smiled and put her hands on her hips. – maybe you didn't forget to watch your back.
Cinder heard a click and quickly looked back to see Vernal, who still had some life left in her, point her gun at her and shot. Cinder blocked the shot with a single swipe but this gave Raven the opportunity to get behind her and, summoning a blue, icy spell in her hand, she touched the metal plate covering Cinder's left eye, then with all her strength, pushed her backwards, down into the abyss.
Raven found the scratch on the sheet metal that Jaune had made earlier and based on that she had an easier time breaking the sheet metal into tiny shards, revealing the burn marks it covered on the left side of Cinder's face and the hole where her eye should have been. Raven still looked down at the falling Cinder, summoned a blue spell in her hand, which caused the yellow light in Cinder's right, remained eye went out and at that moment she was swallowed by the dark abyss like a frozen ice sculpture.
- Thank you, Vernal. – The red light also disappeared from Raven's eyes, and closing them, she sighed in relief.
She looked towards the dead girl to whom she owed her victory and noticed that her eyes were closed. She tried to avoid unnecessary casualties but without Vernal's help, she certainly wouldn't have been able to defeat Cinder. She lowered the girl's stuck up eyes sympathetically, then stepped over her and headed towards the flower-shaped gate, for which she had originally come.
As she walked through the stream of falling and glowing flower petals, she reached the gate and only realized how big it was when she stood right in front of it. Her eyes started to light up again and hesitating a bit, she touched it with her hand but nothing happened. She looked up curiously and suspiciously, then she heard a soft squeak and blue bush symbols appeared on the gate, covering the entire gate.
The lights went out of her eyes and she let go of the gate but it still wouldn't open. She leaned in curiously to see if she could find a button, a lever or something that could be used to open it but a flash startled her, she stepped back and reached for her sword, only to find out that she had to wait a bit, because the flower-shaped obstacles at the bottom of the gate, slowly, rising, but the gate itself was opened.
An amazing sight unfolded before her. She saw sunlight, miles underground and a searing heat hit her face in this cold, dark, and deep cave. A desert lay before her with endless sand and humps as far as the eye could see. The only thing that broke the view of the endless desert were three concrete circles, a large one located directly in front of her feet, a medium one after the large one and a little one with a yellow and blue pear-shaped object floating on a stone platform. A lantern. It was clearly the relic they were looking for so much and after a sigh she started towards it.
Suddenly, she heard a shot and a crash behind her.
It was her daughter, Yang, who had come all the way to stop her from giving the relic to Salem only to be met with her angry and contemptuous face.
Thank you for reading. Please sign it to follow and as favourite and don't forget to write reviews