Disclaimer: RWBY belongs to Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth and Bleach belongs to Tite Kubo. I own nothing of either of them and make no profit from them. I am only playing in the worlds they gave us.
A Chance Encounter
Chapter 24
Beacon Cafeteria
"Well isn't this a pleasant surprise," Adam said, his voice dripping with smarmy sarcasm. He pulled his sword from his victim, slashing it to the side to shed the blood from its blade. The body of the unfortunate student slumped lifeless to the floor. "A random encounter with the heiress of the SDC. This must be my lucky day."
"Crap," Weiss hissed to herself. She turned to make her escape back out through the empty window when Adam raised his sheath and fired a shot that slammed into the window frame and less than a foot from her head, causing her to veer and retreat the other way.
"Looking to run huh?" he said as much as asked. He was circling toward her, making sure he was between her and her only avenue of escape. "I guess being on a team with Blake must have rubbed off on you since running seems to be all that she knows how to do too."
"She had sense enough to run from you," Weiss countered. "I would count that as a positive."
"I would hardly call leaving her own kind to end up on a team with a Schnee to be sensible or positive," he returned. "Weak minded, just like her father. They both think talking will solve years of hate and repression."
"Talking did wonders for my relationship with Blake," she said. "Trying to make change through fear just brings more hate."
He laughed. "That's rich coming out of the mouth of a Schnee. Your father uses fear as a weapon just as much."
"Well I'm not my father," she said. "And I am fully aware of how he uses fear, his own family is not exempt from it."
"You'll have to pardon me for not having any sympathy for you," he mocked.
"Good thing then that I wasn't looking for any."
What she was looking for was a way that she could get around him and get away. She had no illusions about her chances if she had to fight him but it was looking like she might not have any choice in the matter. She knew that Ichigo and Yoruichi were on the lookout for him and Cinder. Maybe if she could last long enough and make Adam expend some of his Aura it would be enough to act like a signal flare for them. She didn't like the idea but if she couldn't find a way past him then that might be her only chance.
"Maybe I should send you back to him in pieces," he suggested. "Or carve you up on a live stream and see how much he'd be willing to give up to stop it."
"You'd be sorely disappointed," she said, suppressing a shiver. Her father would be unlikely to give up a single Lien for her and even if he did and she survived he'd make sure that she was reminded of it and suffered for it for the rest of her days. "And I would think that you would have had enough of live streaming and internet videos."
His smirking demeanour was suddenly replaced by something much harder and colder and she could see him shaking in rage. "I bet you enjoyed that didn't you, you little bitch!"
This was her opportunity and she took it. No longer in an easy, combat ready stance, he was stationary and rigid and she cast a quick gravity glyph to pin his feet to the floor and she began to run to her left, well outside of the arc of his sword. She was about to throw down a series of glyphs that she could use to skate away from him and to freedom when she heard a bang and something slammed into her lower back on her right side.
She stumbled and went down, her already somewhat weakened Aura taking the hit. A glance back showed her that he had reached across his body with Blush and fired under his right arm. As she tried to scramble forward again toward her goal, he fired again, taking out the corner of a table only inches from her face, then fired again as she lunged and rolled away and was once again effectively blocked from getting out.
A downward slash of Wilt destroyed her glyph and the Aura contained within it was taken in by the blood red blade. He sheathed it but his hand never left the hilt.
"That was a clever attempt Schnee, but not good enough," he growled. "You have no hope of defeating me."
"Thank you for stating the obvious," she drawled, expressing more bravado than she was really feeling. "I'm not an idiot, why do you think I was trying to get away?"
She couldn't control the tremors that began to radiate through her body. She doubted she had any attacks strong enough to break through his defence and his Semblance would just feed on them anyway. Speed and surprise, doing something unexpected was her only option and that had already failed once and if she got another chance it would likely only be one.
He didn't give her much of a chance to think as he was upon her in an instant, catching her flat footed. His sword swept towards her in a blur and it was all she could do to get Myrtenaster between them. The force of the blow sent shock waves up her arms and sent her stumbling back, her lower back painfully slamming into the edge of one of the heavy tables.
In her mind she could almost hear her father mocking her. One of his ways to dissuade her from becoming a Huntress was to allow her to train, but to tell her instructors to spare her no mercy, prove to her that she didn't have the size, strength, stamina, or skill to make it. She was small and being battered around would knock the desire right out of her.
He had been wrong. Yes, she had gotten knocked around and battered, spent a lot of her time bruised and sore, but all that did was make her want it more, to prove him wrong and to get away from that stark white prison that was the Schnee mansion. To get away from him and to start finding her own way and her own direction. Even so, yeah, getting bounced around hadn't been anymore fun then than it was now and she hated it and she hated that her size made it so easy to happen.
He came after her and she ducked, letting gravity do its thing. The blade just missed her head and may have taken a piece of her ponytail. She hit the floor and rolled under the table, trying to use it as a barrier between them.
As she was getting to her feet, Adam roared and flipped the table towards her, slamming it into her and sending her into the next table over. Her head slammed hard into one of the benches, taking a chunk out of her Aura and made her vision dim out for a second. She knew she didn't have more than a second or two before he was right on her. Just as long as it would take for him to grab the leg of the table and heave it aside so he had a clear shot at her.
When that couple of seconds passed and he loomed over her, she tossed an Aura ball in his face. His mask protected his eyes, but not the left side of his face and neck where it impacted. At worst, it might give him a little frostbite but it was a distraction that allowed her to plant the tip of Myrtenaster, now sheathed in the flames of fire dust, into his foot and push herself off and away. It probably wouldn't penetrate his Aura, but it didn't have to. He'd feel the heat either way.
"Bitch!" he snarled. She could hear the sound of him reflexively slapping at the flames that had erupted and billowed up and around his Aura protected shoe and pant leg.
She made a beeline for the exit and for a brief second she thought she might make it until she heard a bang and something slammed into her left knee, sending her sprawling. She tried to keep going, scrambling and scrabbling to regain her feet and keep moving when there was another bang and she was slammed in the middle of the back and face first to the floor. Another shot hit her in the back of the left shoulder and broke her Aura. What little that remained before the shot had slowed the bullet down but didn't stop it and she felt it go into her shoulder. She cried out with the excruciating pain.
She kept trying though, she could hear his stomping footsteps getting closer. The world suddenly exploded as his boot met her face and she was violently flipped backwards and further from her goal. Her head swam and she could taste blood, it was flowing out of her nose and down over her lips and chin.
She was going to die. The thought hit her like a hammer but instead of bringing despair, it brought clarity. If this was her end she wasn't going to go out begging in tears and crying in pain, she wasn't going to curl up into a ball on the floor. She was not going to die on her knees. She had worked too hard to give in like that and she was not going to give this murdering bastard the satisfaction of killing her that way.
She grabbed onto a table with her good arm and pulled herself up. Her back and shoulder hurt, her knee didn't really want to hold her weight, and her head was spinning, but she kept going until she had herself back on her feet. The look on his face was murderous, he saw this as an act of defiance against him. A hated Schnee refusing to kneel and grovel for their life before him even when they were at his mercy.
Her biggest regret was that she wouldn't get to spend anymore time with the people who had come to mean so much to her. The ones who were helping her discover who she was and who made her a better person. The ones who made her life better. Most of all, she admitted to herself, she was really going to miss that little red dork.
"I'm going to enjoy this," Adam sneered as he reached across his body to grasp the hilt of his sword. She said nothing, just stared back at him in silent defiance and holding back her tears which only made him angrier.
The sword left the sheath in a flash and she felt it bite into her flesh.
Mercury's foot was coming down hard, a barrage of rounds from Talaria's right boot primed to go off on the shock of contact and turn the groggy blonde's head into a bloody smashed pumpkin. At least, that's what was mere milliseconds from happening when something whooshed through the air and slammed into his side, sending him tumbling away from his target.
He quickly regained his bearings and saw what hit him, an ornately carved bronze shield that was being caught by Pyrrha Nikos as the disk flew back to her. Standing between him and his slowly recovering opponent, who was being tended to by her partner, she held it at the ready in her left hand and held a short spear in her right.
"Don't you know it's rude to step into another person's fight like that?" he snarked.
"Killing a helpless opponent isn't a fight, it's murder," she said coldly.
"So rather than finishing them off you'd leave a live enemy at your back?" he asked her. "That's pretty stupid. Might as well kill yourself now because you won't last long otherwise."
"You assume that I'm naive," she said. "But I fully understand what I may have to do as a Huntress, as distasteful as it might be."
He laughed. "Do what? Kill me? You can't even say the word so how do you expect to do it? Me on the other hand? I have no problem with killing you." He eyed her up and down lecherously. "It would be a damn shame to have to wreck that body, but you won't be my first and you sure as hell won't be my last."
She tried, unsuccessfully, to fight down the shiver of revulsion as he eyed her. "What Neo told our teachers was right, you are a pig."
"When I'm done with you it'll be her turn," he snarled. "Traitorous little shit."
He snap kicked his leg forward and fired off the rounds that were meant for Yang. The shot clanged off of her shield and she surprised him by immediately moving forward. She punched her shield out toward him and then followed up with a spear thrust. He was forced to backpedal and create space rather than being able to fire another attack right away like he wanted to. Another surprise, she kept coming, forcing him to give more ground.
On one of his back steps he quickly got a shot off at her feet that made her break stride. It gave him a second to switch to the offensive and as he was about to take it he found himself being hit from all sides by some kind of small projectiles, singly, one after the other. His Aura deflected them but it had disrupted his plan of attack again.
'What the hell?' he thought. There was no one else that he could see taking shots at him, and they had all come from different angles.
He didn't get more than a second or two to contemplate it as the redhead resumed pressing the attack. He started back tracking again, but then suddenly blasted a shot at her then spun to his left as she moved her shield to block the shot. He fired another, the angle allowing him to fire around the edge of the shield with a back kick.
He missed. How the hell did he miss? The shot should have caught her in the side of the head and either knocked her down or at least staggered her. His distraction cost him and he took a backhanded shield bash that left him stumbling off balance, but before he recovered he was hit by another barrage of small projectiles, again hitting him from all sides and sending him on a headlong stumble that took several steps to halt.
He was really starting to get pissed.
"Yang, are you okay?" Jaune questioned as he knelt beside the blonde and helped her sit up.
She groaned. "Damn, he really rang my bell." She tried to get up but he applied just enough force to keep her from doing so.
"Give yourself a minute," he said as his hand began to glow where it was in contact with her shoulder. "Pyrrha's taking care of Mercury."
She huffed. "She shouldn't have to." She noticed what he was doing. "Hey, don't go draining your own Aura on my account," she said.
"It's fine," he said. "I've got plenty and I saw yours break so you could use a boost. I wouldn't be much of a friend or of much use if I couldn't do at least this much." He still didn't know what his Semblance was yet but practising with his Aura as much as he did had made it easy for him to transfer some of it to someone else, and since he seemed to have a lot of it, he could afford to part with some.
She laid her hand over his and gave him a smile. "Well I appreciate both, the boost and the friendship." The smile faded a bit. "Have you seen Ruby or Weiss?"
He shook his head. "Not since we started trying to herd the crowd away from the crash." he answered.
"Damn," she swore, obviously worried. "I hope they're together at least so they can watch each other's back."
"Speaking of watching your back," he said, his voice taking on a tense tone as his hand left her shoulder and he stood. "We've got company."
A pair of Beowolves were bearing down on them. One was ahead of the other and he met it head on, swinging his shield at it as it launched itself at him in a low leap. If this had been even just a month and a half ago he wouldn't have been able to swing the shield the way that he did or be able to hold his ground on impact with only a little stumble. His strength, footwork, and technique had improved so much that he could hardly believe it.
With the Grimm off balance he wasted no time bringing Crocea Mors around and loping off its head. Problem was, the second one was bearing down on him and was closer than he thought. Suddenly right beside him a barrage of shots went off as Yang hammered the beast with Ember Celica, blasting chunks out of its head. The Grimm slammed into the ground before them, dead and already vaporizing.
"Got your back too Vomit Boy," she cracked, offering her fist which he bumped. He then had to grab her shoulder as she wobbled a bit.
"I think you could use a little more Aura," he said.
Mercury was getting more frustrated by the minute. He had ramped up his attacks, firing both high and low figuring that she couldn't defend against every shot he sent at her, but she did just that. If it wasn't blocked by her shield, it missed even when there was no possible way it should have. Shots seemed to go around her or on a couple of occasions it felt like his leg moved ever so slightly and the shot would skim by her. And he kept getting pelted by those small projectiles.
'It's got to be her Semblance,' he thought. He happened to look down after getting peppered yet again and went wide eyed at what he saw lying on the ground around him. They were his own expended bullets.
'She's hurling my own bullets back at me.' He frowned. 'And when she throws her shield she draws it back to her. It changes angles in mid flight even though it's just a round disk. She was nudging my aim off by moving my legs. They're metal and so are parts of Talaria and the eyelets on my boots... is she using magnetism?'
He went all out in his attacks now, firing at her feet and kicking hard, keeping her at least busy enough defending that she couldn't slowly whittle away his Aura anymore with his expended bullets. He had her backpedalling. He turned and dropped down to his hands and kicked out hard with both feet, sending out multiple shots at once. The high shot made her stumble and unfortunately for her, her right heel came down and sunk into a blast hole and she lost her footing and fell.
He took advantage and came down on her with a hard stomp that pinned her shield against her chest and trapped her left arm. Her Aura might not be depleted yet, but a couple of shots with his left foot to her head should take care of that... until he realized that something was wrong.
As she was falling she had been transforming Akuo from its spear form to its rifle form and it was currently pointed up at him... at his crotch specifically.
"Sorry," she said, the sentiment of her words not really reaching her eyes. He turned ghostly white and she pulled the trigger.
His Aura held, but it still felt like he had been kicked by a mule. He stumbled back and fell, crying out in pain and clutching his abused manhood, groaning and swearing as he rolled around. It was a toss up which was greater, his pain or his seething anger. He was going to butcher that redhead like a hog and he was going to enjoy it!
He knew he couldn't stay down and worked his way back up to his feet. Straightening up was a bit of a chore and when he did it was not the soon to be not so invincible girl that was before him, but a red eyed, flaming haired blonde and her fist was rocketing straight towards him.
"Shi...!"
Her fist hit him square in the chest and shattered what was left of his Aura, lifting him off the ground and sending him flying at least a good fifty feet, where he landed hard and tumbled until he came to a sudden stop against a lamp post.
Emerald had to flinch back to avoid being hit by a bronze blur as it whizzed by her. Downrange, Mercury wasn't so lucky and got blindsided by it and sent tumbling. The tall redhead and her blonde dork of a partner went running by and she was about to open fire on them when someone opened fire on her, nailing her in the back with several rounds. Her Aura took the hit but the impacts drove her off balance for a moment. She turned to spot her attacker and her eyes went wide. She had to dodge to her left to avoid the large hammer that was coming down at her, and which left a small crater in the ground where she had been standing.
"Darn!" Nora huffed. "I was hoping to make this short and sweet."
"Oh this will be short," Emerald taunted. "But it won't be so sweet when you're lying on the ground bleeding. Not for you anyway."
"Bring it on then Greenie!' Nora challenged.
Emerald fired a couple of shots that the orangette tanked with her Aura, but they were meant more to keep her momentarily distracted while she switched her weapons to sickle mode and came at her in a flurry of slashing blades. Much to her surprise Nora was able to dodge or parry and block with the shaft of her hammer.
The little bit of combat they had seen the hammer wielder partake in during class had been short lived by her and her team moving to the advanced class. But that small sample along with observing the girl's personality outside of class told them that she was a wrecking ball that just swung around a big hammer and that she was rash and impatient. That's not what she was seeing here right now.
She was handling the weapon more like one would wield a staff. She wasn't smooth and refined and it was obvious that she was only just learning to fight like this, but for the short time she had been learning it she had done well. She was also being patient, looking for openings rather than trying to bull her way through, though for a newbie at that type of fighting she was willing to bet that the patience wouldn't last long.
There were obvious holes in her defence that only an amateur would miss, but for the moment she was content to let the girl think that she hadn't seen them and she was willing to leave a hole or two open herself to let her try and exploit it and let her push the offence a little bit. She made sure though not to give enough ground for her to be able to swing the head of that hammer around with much force. The patience she was showing would wear thin soon enough and she would make a rash move that would leave her wide open.
Blake had managed to sit up by the time Ren reached her. She held her left arm tight to her side, if she moved it at all she would probably scream and the pain would make her black out. It hurt like hell as it was.
"It's a clean slice but it's bleeding quite a bit," Ren told her. "We need to cover and bind it."
"You can cut a piece off the tail of my shirt," she said. With the big gash in the shoulder it was already ruined. "And you can wrap it with the ribbon on my arm."
Using one of Stormflower's blades he cut off a piece of material and fashioned it into a compress then unwound the ribbon from her arm. "I'm afraid this isn't going to feel very good," he said apologetically.
"It doesn't feel very good now," she groaned. "Do what you have to."
He nodded. He slid the makeshift compress into the slice in her shirt, the material holding it loosely in place. He was as careful as he could be to not cause anymore discomfort than necessary. Wrapping the ribbon around her chest and shoulder in a way that would push the compress down and in place to put needed pressure on the wound was another story. She groaned through gritted teeth as he did his work, crying out in pain when he had to move her arm and when he tightened the ribbon down over the compress. She was gasping and sweating by the time he was done.
"I'm sorry," he apologized.
She shook her head. "It's okay. Short of knocking me out there's no way that it wasn't going to hurt."
A screech and a thud behind them brought their attention to a Griffon that had just landed a short distance away. Ren picked up her pistol and handed it to her and prepared to take the beast on. He could have used his Semblance to shield their presence but it would then likely have gone after Nora instead and he doubted that Emerald would help her kill it. Even if she did, she would probably turn on her at the first opportunity.
The Griffon reared up on its hind legs, showing its front claws and screeching, trying to intimidate them. That's when he rushed in with a spinning sweep, raking it across the chest with both of Stormflower's blades in succession. It screeched in pain and tried to pin him under its front feet but he was already out of the way and raking it along its side at the root of its left wing as he went. He ducked into a roll and came up with both pistols ready as the Grimm turned and snapped at him with its beak.
When it reared back its head to snap again, he opened fire. Several rounds went into its open mouth and a couple blew out its left eye. It went into a frenzy and lunged, snapping furiously at him. He rolled out of the way and was hard pressed to stay out of its reach when he heard another pistol firing, the rounds smacking into the beast causing it to turn to the source. Blake was methodically pounding round after round at it to draw its attention and he didn't waste the distraction.
When it turned to go after her he sprinted toward it and jumped, slamming the blade of his left hand pistol into the Griffon's empty eye socket. He used it as a lever to pull himself up onto the Grimm's back. It reared up and tried to shake him off but he clamped his legs around its neck and drove his other blade into its remaining eye. He held on for dear life as the beast thrashed and shook, trying to throw him off. Finally it lurched and staggered, stumbled, and fell to the ground and stopped moving entirely. A moment later it began to disintegrate.
Winded, he stumbled over to Blake and sat down, nodding his thanks. "Next time, I think I'll leave the Grimm riding to Nora."
An overhand strike caused the orange haired girl to raise her weapon in a cross block to stop it with the hammer's shaft. Emerald followed up with a left to right slash that if it wasn't for her Aura, the Huntress in training would have been left with her guts spilling out onto the ground around her feet. She had started exploiting a few of the holes in her defence, getting in a significant hit here or there that bit chunks out of her Aura. The ginger wasn't looking quite as confident now as she had at first and she was going to enjoy taking her down piece by piece.
When the Griffon attacked and the girl heard her partner's guns firing, she took a quick look and Emerald made her pay for it with a series of quick slashes that sent her reeling. She also had an idea that should leave her wide open. Using her Semblance she showed the girl an image of her partner standing before her, torn and bloody and missing an arm.
"Ren!" the girl screamed.
Through the image Emerald hurled both of her kusarigama and wrapped them around the shaft of the war hammer. With the girl horror stricken and distracted it should be easy to disarm her. Or at least it should have been. When she yanked back on her kusarigama, nothing happened. Instead of Nora's grip loosening, it had tightened, mirroring her horror. Emerald observed that her opponent had a white knuckled grip on her weapon. A grip so tight that it looked like all of her knuckles were about to pop and split. She kept pulling but it wouldn't budge.
"It's an illusion Nora!" Blake called out. They had seen and heard her sudden reaction and it seemed pretty obvious to them that Emerald must have used her Semblance on her.
"Whatever you're seeing isn't real!" Ren called out.
Hearing his voice from behind her while he was standing hurt in front of her confused Nora. She looked back and saw him standing next to Blake, whole and healthy if not a little dirty and tired looking. She turned back to her foe and the look on her face was pure murder and it actually startled Emerald, making her drop the illusion.
"How dare you show me something like that!" Nora roared. She pulled back hard on Magnhild and Emerald discovered just how strong she was as she was yanked off of her feet and pulled through the air. Nora lunged and slammed her head into Emerald's face, their Aura's flashing and frizzing against each other. They both stumbled back, head's spinning and momentarily disoriented but it was Nora that recovered first and she punched Emerald hard in the face with a straight right that sent her stumbling back and onto her ass.
"I'll kill you!" she snarled as she got back to her feet.
No one heard her because at the same moment Nora roared as she swung Magnhild as hard as she could with both hands, connecting with the intruder's chest, shattering her Aura and sending her flying. She eventually bounced and rolled to a stop near Mercury.
"Nora!" Ren called out and rushed to her as she staggered and went down to one knee.
"Owie, I think I head butted her too hard," she said as she rubbed her head. "Either that or she's got a really hard head."
"Kind of like someone else I know," he kidded her lightly.
She suddenly gave him a good looking over. "Are you really okay Ren?"
"I'm really okay Nora," he assured her. "Whatever she made you see wasn't real."
A great weight seemed to leave her and she pushed herself to her feet using Magnhild to steady herself. Her eyes went wide when she saw Blake and the blood that was soaking her shirt.
"Oh my gosh are you alright?" she gasped with obvious concern.
"I've been better," the Faunus answered. "Thanks to Ren's handiwork though I think the bleeding might have stopped."
"Hey guys!" Jaune called out as he, Pyrrha and Yang slowly walked up. Yang was in the middle and looking a little wobbly.
"Aren't we all a good looking bunch," she said. They were all dirty and dishevelled, some hurt, some out of Aura or very low on it and they were all very much in need of a breather.
"Yoruichi and Ichigo were right," Pyrrha said. "Those two were not easy to deal with."
"We should get these three some medical help," Jaune suggested. "It's going to be a bit of a hike though since the medical clinic is at the end of the school near the air docks."
They looked around and they could see and hear many battles still in progress with both the Grimm and the White Fang, although it didn't seem quite as bad as when the attack first started.
"We won't have much choice but to fight our way there," Ren observed.
"Not much we can do about it," Jaune said grimly. "Except maybe try and find a route with the least trouble. I don't think we really want to stay here."
Further discussion was interrupted by a distant boom and the ground shaking for a moment.
"What the heck was that?" Nora asked.
It happened again and they looked all around to try and figure out where the sound was coming from as it happened a third and then a fourth time.
"I think it's coming from that direction," Blake said pointing towards the mountains on the other side of the city.
The next boom and tremor was accompanied by a loud, sharp crack and they saw a large fissure open in the side of the mountain. They were speechless and they all felt fear creeping through them. Another boom and crack and the entire face of the mountain crumbled and fell away to reveal something out of a nightmare.
A huge, pitch black shape unfolded itself from the now exposed cavity in the mountain. A large bone covered skull tilted upward and a long neck unfolded to stretch towards the sky. Large leathery looking wings unfurled and stretched out to the sides, revealing a torso sheathed in external rib bones. The creature shrieked, the sound cutting through them like a knife and expanding their fear tenfold. It leaned forward and pushed itself out of the mountain, swooping down until its wings caught the air and it soared up, flapping those wings and heading towards Beacon.
Ruby hated feeling helpless but that was exactly how she felt as she had been swept away by the surging crowd and pulled away from her friends. The attempt at crowd control had quickly turned into an exercise in crowd survival and it only got worse when the Grimm warning siren went off. Weiss had been the closest one to her and she had tried to reach her, spotting her distinctive white hair through the crowd every so often but she kept getting further away.
She did her best to keep moving in the same direction but it was almost impossible. She couldn't get enough of an opening to use her speed to get through the crowd and there was too much risk of running over or into someone and hurting them. Same for trying to muscle her way through. She wasn't very big and not as strong as many of her peers, but she was a Huntress in training with an unlocked Aura and was a lot stronger than the average member of the public.
As it was she almost needed that Aura to protect herself from the crowd. At one point shortly after the alarms went off, she caught sight of a cascade of blue crescents soaring across the sky and into the approaching Grimm flyers. She knew it had to be Ichigo's doing and she really wished she could have been there to see him fire it. Her distraction very nearly got her knocked down and she would have been trampled if she hadn't been able to somehow maintain her balance and footing.
When the crowd had finally thinned enough that she could make her way out of it, she found herself confronted seconds later by an Ursa, which she made short work of. It was quickly followed by a trio of Creeps that gave her a little more trouble as she had to try and keep any of them from getting around her and going after the fleeing people. She got butted through a souvenir stand by one but getting in its way had kept it from getting to anyone else and she blasted it with a round through the head.
She got a moment to catch her breath and looked around but she still couldn't seen any of her friends. She could hear a number of weapons being used all around her, one of the most distinct being Coco Adell's mini gun, but she didn't hear or see the effects of any that would belong to her team or JNPR.
She couldn't help but feel disheartened by what was going on around her. For as long as she had known that she wanted to be a Huntress, she had dreamed of coming to Beacon to do so and that dream had even come true for her two years early. But now the campus was a battleground and was filled with the sounds of Grimm and numerous types of weapons being used. The sounds of panicked screaming and the sounds of the wounded and dying.
And for what? For someone to upset the peace between kingdoms? For some terrorist to butcher innocent people? Everyone, whether they were human or Faunus, no matter what their views on the world were, all had one common enemy that they should have been concerning themselves with and that was the Grimm. Yet, they chose to do things that would only attract the Grimm and cause more death and destruction and suffering. She couldn't understand it.
The characteristic growling, barking, and yipping of Beowolves pulled her attention out of her thoughts. A small pack of six or seven was heading straight for her, she being the closest target for them. Not much to worry about as far as she was concerned. She had fought a much bigger pack than this with little trouble back on Patch before she had made it to Beacon and she was better now than she was then. She and Crescent Rose performed their lethal dance among the Grimm, sending severed limbs and heads flying and leaving nothing behind but a cloud of black vapour that quickly dissipated.
She decided to continue on in the direction where she had last seen Weiss, hoping she could catch up to her partner and that she hadn't run into anything that she couldn't handle. It wasn't long though before she encountered more Grimm, a pair of Creeps this time. Good name for them because they really were kind of creepy.
They came at her more or less head on, just off to a bit of an angle to either side of her. When they got close enough to make a lunge at her she used a little burst of speed to zip between them. Before she could turn to take a broad slash at them from behind, she had to jump up to avoid the sweep of the tail from the Creep on her right. She couldn't avoid the tail lash from the one on her left though and she got nailed in the back and sent flying right at the same moment she realized she was wide open for it.
She took the hit right below the shoulder blades and the air left her lungs in a rush. She was pretty sure that she did at least one complete flip before she hit the ground and tumbled gracelessly for several feet. Despite the discomfort and lack of air she kept her head and got into a defensive posture as fast as she could, which was good since the first Creep had turned and was lunging for her. She fired a shot that tore through its throat and sent it smashing face first into the ground where it thrashed for a few seconds before going still and beginning to vaporize.
The second one snarled at her and moved. She darted to her left, using the smokey haze of the first one as a smoke screen but the Creep just came through it and right at her. She spun and swiped Crescent Rose at it but it ducked its head and she missed. She had to use her speed to dodge out of the way and give herself some much needed space.
When she stopped several feet away she nearly fell down and her head was spinning. She made a mental note to never try using using her Semblance again when she'd had the wind knocked out of her and was still trying to catch her breath. She nearly passed out. But, with the Creep charging her again she would have to use it if she wanted to kill it before it killed her.
Aiming Crescent Rose behind her, she fired as she activated her Semblance, giving her a boost and allowing her to slice through the Grimm as she shot past it. She ended up nearly blacking out and did fall this time but she now had the building literally at her back. She didn't see any more Grimm nearby and took the opportunity to finally catch her breath, gratefully sucking in air as fast as she could.
Once she could breath again and her heart rate had slowed to normal, she resumed her search. She wasn't far from the cafeteria building so she might as well try there. She knew Weiss could take care of herself but she was still worried for her partner and friend. She smiled. Ever since they started the advanced training she had gotten to see new aspects of Weiss, of everyone really. She had seen Weiss become more comfortable with everyone in the group and interact more freely and she had opened up a bit. She could still be 'Icy Weiss', but she was also 'Nice Weiss' just a little more often whether she realized it or not. It felt more like they were really friends now than it had before.
That cheerful thought was still going through her head when she arrived at the cafeteria and what she saw through the blown out windows made her heart clench and her blood run cold. A bloodied Weiss was at the mercy of Adam Taurus. Everything slowed down for her in that moment. Blake had told them how Adam fought and with his hand on his sword Ruby knew that in a flash the blade would be drawn and Weiss would be dead.
On pure instinct alone she fired and the heavy calibre shot hit him dead centre in the right side, staggering him and making his Aura flash around him. In a split second she worked the bolt and chambered another round, firing and hitting him again, making him give more ground and getting him away from Weiss. She zipped into the room and got between them, shielding her partner from him. Her eyes widened. Besides the blood at her shoulder and on her face, Weiss had her hand pressed against the right side of her abdomen and blood was seeping around and through her fingers as she slumped against the heavy table next to her.
"Weiss!" Ruby called out in near panic.
"So you're the little runt that caused Roman so much trouble," Adam said as he sheathed his blade, but didn't release his grip on it. "Pathetic."
Ruby swallowed hard. This was not good. She needed to get Weiss out of here and she knew that she couldn't fight Adam. She wouldn't stand a chance and she doubted that she could even hold him off long enough to let Weiss escape, and it was a given that he wasn't about to let them go. Maybe she could grab Weiss and use her Semblance to get them out of there. That tactic hadn't worked out too well with Penny, but then again Penny was a robot and weighed way more than Weiss. Heck, Weiss might not even weigh as much as she did herself.
The question was, could she actually take the few steps to Weiss and grab her then go before Adam was able to attack them? She would have to try because it was the only option she had since there was no way that she was going to leave her behind. If it didn't work... then she'd have to fight for all that she was worth and hope for the best.
"But Roman isn't the only one to have a beef with you," Adam continued. "You and your little group of Huntress wannabes left a lot of my brothers and sisters dead behind you in that train tunnel from Mountain Glenn. That's a hefty tab that needs to be paid and since you're supposed to be their leader, you get to pay it. Or at least, you get to make the down payment."
It was now or never, but before she could make her move, he did. In a flash he had drawn his sword and a streak of crimson was headed right at her. His Semblance, Moonslice Blake had called it. The release of all of the energy he had collected with his sword. She was going to die.
On instinct she did two things. The first was to get Crescent Rose up in defence. The second was to focus all of her Aura to the front of her body. Moving one's Aura was a technique they had been trying to learn and it took a lot of work to get the hang of. The first step had been the exercise of bringing up one's Aura while meditating and then following that energy back into its source. You wouldn't be able to effectively manipulate and move it around your body until you could do that. The more familiar you were with how it felt and flowed, the easier and better you would be able to move it around.
She hadn't had a lot of success with it as of yet, but the survival instinct at times could make up for a lot of things. She felt her Aura respond to her split second, panicked call and it moved to her front and in the path of the attack. Even if it didn't stop the attack it might prove to be the difference between life and death. It was all she had.
The wave of energy came at her on a left to right slant, tearing up the floor with its bottom edge. It cut through the shaft of Crescent Rose just ahead of the trigger and magazine and slammed against her Aura, making it flash and spark. It held just long enough for a spark of hope to manifest within her before it shattered and the wave hit her.
It hit her from the top of her right thigh, up across her hip and abdomen, across her chest and left shoulder. It shredded a path through her clothes and the skin beneath the strike was burned and blistered. She screamed and was thrown back several feet until she slammed into the heavy doors of the cafeteria entrance.
She remained upright but was about to pitch forward to the floor when suddenly he was there and pressing the flat of his blade hard up under her chin with the tip digging into the skin on the right side of her neck just enough to draw blood. It was only an inch away from the carotid artery. Her legs began to sag and the tip bit deeper and even through the haze of pain from the burn she realized that if she didn't somehow keep standing, she'd end up cutting her own neck.
"Ruby!" Weiss screamed, tears streaming down her face.
Staggering forward, she shakily raised Myrtenaster. Maybe if she reached deep enough, pushed hard enough, she could find some last threads of Aura. Enough to make a glyph or activate some dust to use against him, attack him, distract him, throw up a freaking distress signal... she had to do something, anything to help Ruby.
"I wouldn't try anything if I were you," Adam warned, pointing Blush in her direction. He smirked. "What a sight, a Schnee actually shedding tears of concern for someone else. I never thought I'd see the day." He turned back to Ruby. "You're a lucky one Little Red," he taunted her. "Wilt only had a third to a quarter of a charge or less and you were able to keep it from cutting you in half. The question is, what do I do with you now?"
He thought for a moment, enjoying the look of anguish on the girl's face and the sound of her sobbing in pain. He chuckled and it was not a mirthful sound. "How about this? I'll leave your ultimate fate in the hands of the Schnee, after all, they like playing God with other people's lives." He looked to Weiss. "I'm going to let you decide how she dies, because no matter what I am going to kill her and enjoy watching you suffer for it. I'll even let you live so that you can suffer for the rest of your life. I flick my blade to the left and she bleeds to death." He rotated his hand so that the edge was pointing towards Ruby's windpipe, making her squirm and drawing more blood that trickled down her neck. "Flick it to the right and she suffocates." He rotated it back. "And if you don't choose one of those options, I'll kill you both."
Weiss thought she was going to be sick. "You're a monster!"
He laughed bitterly. "I'm glad you think so. After all, it's people like you and your family that made it necessary for me to become one and your kind have done far worse to my kind than what I'm going to do to her and to you. So tell me, daughter of Jacques Schnee, for you to live, how do you want your friend to die?"
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