Prologue: Black
In the midst of a blood-red forest, a masked girl wearing a white and red outfit sat on a barren rock, looking into the twilit distance. She had two sleek cat ears poking out of her onyx-black hair, marking her as a faunus: a person with animal traits. Her left cat ear twitched at the sound of someone approaching.
"Blake," a voice called to the girl, who turned to see a man in a black coat. He had two reddish-brown horns protruding from similarly colored hair, and wore a thin white and red mask to cover his eyes.
"Adam," Blake said, apprehension returning to her form. "Is it time?"
Adam nodded, offering her a hand. She took it, hopping off the rock. The pair began running through the forest, hand in hand. Blake felt Adam's conviction radiate around her, their pace quickening as they came to a stop before a cliff. Below them, a train approached, its whistle sounding as it came through a turn.
Wordlessly, Adam jumped off the cliff, skidding down the near-vertical incline. Blake followed suit, the pair of them making a final jump to land on the train. They each drew a sword, planting the blades into the train to slow their momentum: Adam's bright red Wilt and the dark gray cleaver of Blake's Gamble Shroud.
Once safely on board, they stowed their weapons and darted toward an access hatch. Adam knelt beside it, flourishing Wilt with blurring speed to slice the lock open. He lifted the hatch and dropped in without hesitation. Blake followed.
In the dark train car, a human would have been completely blinded, but the faunus were not so handicapped. Remaining crouched, hands on their weapons, the couple noticed they were surrounded by numerous humanoid shapes; where their faces should have been, only a large red light clicked on.
Lasers flashed through the room, passing over the faunus and alerting the guards to their presence. The heads of the bots transformed into crude helmets as they craned to look at Adam and Blake.
"Looks like we're gonna be doing this the hard way," Adam noted as the metal men sprang to life.
"Don't be so dramatic," Blake quipped, wrapping the ribbon of Gamble Shroud around her sword hand.
"Intruders," a metallic voice emanated from the robots that now surrounded them. "Identify yourselves."
Adam smiled coldly, then hit a trigger on Blush, his sword's scabbard. The sheathe fired his weapon out hilt first, impacting a robot in its chin. Adam darted forward, snatching Wilt by its hilt. With a spin, he slashed the metal figure through its chestplate, cutting it down.
Bright red blades extended from the other figure's arms as they charged Adam and Blake.
Two formed up behind Blake, ready to corner her. With a grunt, she leapt backward and over her opponents, gaining height while leaving a fading image of herself to distract the robots. She slashed both through the waist with her cleaver while flipping through the air, leaving a pile of sparking scrap in their place as she landed.
Blake ran back toward Adam, ducking under his wide blade swing as he took on another two opponents. She skewered another that would have flanked Adam as he shot down more robots with fiery blasts from his scabbard. The cat-girl cartwheeled away from a trio of enemies as the bull-man spun, cutting down the machines that were closing in on them.
Blake cut through a guard that had been readying a charge while Adam reset his stance, sheathing Wilt. Blake met another robot trying to flank Adam, severing one of its bladed arms while Adam flourished his sword, removing the head of the robot in front of him.
Blake struck her opponent again, cleaving through its torso, as Adam shot another opponent down with a point-blank round from Blush.
The two steadied themselves, back to back, taking stock of their remaining opponents and readying their weapons. Another bot stepped up from the front of the car, leveling two gatling gun arms at the couple.
As it began unloading bullets, Adam spun and stepped in front of Blake, deflecting a great deal of fire with his sword, the blade beginning to glow with the blood-red power of his semblance.
As he was holding its attention, Blake ran past the shower of bullets, deflecting the few that strayed her way.
She met the gunner bot first, slashing its arms off at the elbows and then smacking it to the ground. A robot with arm blades was next, getting bisected as Blake whirled through their ranks.
She spun, slashing through another bot's legs before lifting the blade of her cleaver by a side handle, revealing a sleek black sword underneath. She brought her untouched weapon across the chestplate of the next bot, then jumped up and slammed its face into the floor with a flip kick.
She landed, barely winded, as another bot rushed her. She backhanded it with her cleaver and cut it down with her sword.
Leaving behind a motionless clone of herself, Blake slashed the next bot with her sword before swiftly following it up with her cleaver. The metal man faltered through the air, its arms falling from its body.
Another bot engaged her, only to get impaled beneath the chestplate by Blake's sword. Using her semblance, she left another shadow behind while pushing forward to rapidly slash two more guards with her weapons. They fell to the ground, the lights of their helms flickering with a dull spark before going out.
The last robot on her side of the car held a defensive stance, readying two arm blades as Blake spun to meet it. Whirling under its guard, she slashed with her sword, meeting its weapon with a spark.
Blake stabbed at the bot with her cleaver, disabling its free arm. Electricity numbed her fingers as she yanked the gray blade free. As it lifted its remaining arm, the faunus girl slipped her sword past its weapon and into its helmet, lifting the thing off the ground.
With a heave, she tossed it behind her, letting Adam run forward and kick the metal corpse through the train car's door. It tumbled out onto a flatbed, the loose door creaking from the jostle.
The couple jumped outside, meeting the rushing air. A small platoon of guards jumped onto the flat bed from the other side of the train, readying bladed arms.
"Let's do this!" Adam shouted over the wind. He smiled, face forward, as Blake glanced at the red trees passing them with a frown.
They both dashed into the fray, ready to dispatch their enemies.
Adam sped ahead of Blake and drew Wilt, throwing two robots up into the air with a smooth strike. Blake jumped up, slashing at the hapless bots as they tumbled back to Adam, who flourished his sword with blinding speed, leaving the guards nothing more than ribbons of metal.
Standing from her landing crouch, Blake noticed a contingent of metal figures gathering around them. Gritting her teeth, she flipped her grip on her sword, stowing Shroud, her cleaver, on a magnetic strap that ran across her back and shoulder. Pushing down a button under the guard, she flicked Gamble, her sword, causing it to collapse into a sickle.
With a howl, she pulled a larger trigger, firing a shot from the hilt's built-in pistol while hurling the weapon out. Gamble flew forward, zipping past several bots. As the attached ribbon went taught, the pistol fired again.
The force of the recoil spun it, which helped Blake swing it freely. She jumped and twirled, letting her weapon meet the charging bots as it swirled around the cat-girl.
Seeing this, Adam ran forward, jumping past the flying gun as Blake continued to spin it about her. Each shot allowed her to cut through another guard, dicing up more as they tried to close in on her. Blake landed and pulled the sickle in a full circle, planting it into the final guard. Adam sliced the machine in half as Blake pulled on her ribbon, firing the gun again.
It dislodged, falling into Blake's hand as the pair moved onward.
Ahead, the final group of robots guarded the door to the next train car. Adam dashed past the six closest to him, slashing them with his sword and leaving all but one to explode from exposed circuitry. Blake decapitated the last one, then started destroying another robot with her cleaver and pistol. Adam pushed forward to engage three bots, slashing the one on his left with a fatal blow.
Blake crossed Adam's right flank to fire her gun into that guard's chin, following up with a slash of her cleaver that knocked the machine into the air. As Adam finished the middle opponent with a shot from his rifle-scabbard, he sheathed Wilt and spun. He began flourishing his sword in an arc to keep Blake's falling robot suspended.
Blake tossed the final two opponents towards Adam's attacks, the first with a twin-sword flourish and the second with a backflip kick, allowing Adam to juggle all three guards with quick, timely slashes.
After several of Adam's strikes, Blake pushed off another shadow, spinning with both her weapons. She caught the three bots in her twirl, tearing them to pieces.
As she landed, Blake turned to Adam, her disinterest hidden by her mask. The man nodded to her, and the two of them made for the next train car.
Upon entering it, they saw several crates and suitcases stacked within. Adam knelt down, opening a rectangular box marked with a snowflake design.
"Perfect. Move up to the next car," Adam instructed Blake with a grin. "I'll set the charges."
Blake hesitated. "What about the crew members?"
Adam tilted his head to her. "What about them?"
Blake looked away from him, conflict rising in her mind.
Before she could speak, loud clicks sounded behind them as a massive, tetrapodal robot dropped from the ceiling, blocking the way they came in. It pointed four large cannons at the couple.
"Adam," Blake said worriedly, but he started moving, preparing to engage the hostile device.
The robot unleashed a barrage of white plasma shots, forcing Adam to roll to the side. Blake managed to clear the distance to the machine, clambering onto it with expert dexterity. She attempted to slash it with her cleaver, but its head thrust forward, throwing her to the ground.
As Blake was recovering, the robot marched over, its crab-like legs clanking across the train. Before it could attack, Adam appeared, holding himself in midair by rapidly slashing at the monster.
He met the thing's leg as he was landing, getting kicked away into a pile of boxes. Adam stood quickly, but had to go on the defensive as another volley of energy came for him, disrupting more cargo.
The robot lifted a leg and crushed Blake's form, finding nothing but an image left. The real Blake, and Adam, appeared at the far train car door. The machine started to reconfigure its canons, turning four large guns into a massive turret.
"We need to get out of here!" Blake said as the turret glowed with white light.
Just as the laser fired, Adam unsheathed Wilt. The blast hit the sword, deflecting upward and crashing into the car's wall, sending the couple rolling out onto another flatbed.
The crab robot crawled out to meet them, its legs leaving dents in the train.
"Buy me some time!" Adam shouted, flashing his sword against the metal they stood on.
"Are you sure?" Blake shouted back.
"Trust me!" he said harshly.
Blake hesitated only a moment before charging to meet the robot.
The thing shot its plasma bursts at Blake as she closed the distance, forcing her to change her momentum with her shadow copies to avoid the attacks. As she drew closer, she lifted her sword out of her cleaver, folded it into its sickle form, and readied the ribbon that tied Gamble to her arm. Leaving behind a duplicate of herself once more, she pounced past the robot, dodging another plasma blast.
Blake jumped above the metal beast, pushing off its arms. As she became backlit by the emerging shattered moon, she unleashed a flurry of slashes from her sickle, using gunfire to maneuver the blade in and out of the chinks of the machine's armor. With each tear, the creature became noticeably slower, its joints straining to remain intact.
When she landed, she pulled the sickle back to her, returning it to its sword form. Dashing in, she danced around the crab's legs, slashing with her sword and cleaver while using her shadows to redirect her movements, her blades humming with electricity as they found exposed wires. She jumped over a plasma shot that its right arm let off, meeting the head at its center.
The thing's face sprung out, hitting a shadow Blake as the real Blake flipped and landed on the ground. She pounced again, jamming her sword through the robot's exposed chin and releasing a volley of gunshots from Gamble Shroud's hilt straight into the mechanism beneath its head. Whatever delicate machinery existed before was left warped beyond repair.
As her weapon's magazine went dry, Blake withdrew, flipping away to stand by Adam. The machine reconfigured into its turret form, crushing the front of its head to ready a shot at the couple.
"MOVE!" Adam roared, now straining to hold his sword in its scabbard. Blake jumped backward, getting as far from Adam as she could.
As the machine released its attack, Adam unsheathed Wilt part way, catching the blast in the crimson blade. As the energy dissipated, he quickly sheathed the weapon again, laughing. His hair and the designs on his mask and jacket glowed a menacing red.
Badly damaged and nearly out of power, the machine charged, leaning forward to crush the intruder with its bulk. As it fell at him, Adam struck with Wilt, splitting everything in an arc around himself. A few crates collapsed; loose boxes were thrown to the wind, and the massive robot turned to dust from the force of his Moonslice.
Adam quickly stowed his weapon and turned away, running off to find Blake.
He found her on the next train car over, cleaving the coupler apart with a single slash. Blake stowed her weapon, and, throwing her mask to the wind, looked at Adam with resolute yellow eyes.
"Goodbye," she said, turning away. Adam stood on the slowing train baffled, watching the girl he loved leave his life forever.
As the train came to a stop, Adam was standing in the same spot, looking down the tracks. More masked faunus caught up to the cars, beginning to strip the train of all it was worth. Some spared him a glance, but most minded their business.
"Adam," a gruff voice called to him. A large faunus man with a white and red helmet stepped up to his right side. "Is everything ok? You've been standing here for hours."
"I'm fine," Adam said, snapping back to reality. "Was there any more resistance?"
"No sir," the man said. "You and Blake cleared the place. Guess the only guards were those robots."
Adam hummed, turning to view the operation as the helmed man asked, "Where is Blake?"
Adam tensed, considering his words. After a long pause, he said, "She left."
"What do you mean?"
"It's alright, lieutenant," Adam assured the man. "We'll be just fine without her."