Chapter Forty: Rose Thorns on Train Tracks.
The train was a rather distant speck of light in the distance when they finally laid their eyes upon it. Though it was travelling at speed, the five teenagers were convinced they could catch up to it with the aid of their Semblances. Ruby sped after it in a torrent of crimson petals, whilst Weiss and Thea created a trail of ice underfoot, which they used to slide forwards without resistance. Pyrrha tossed her shield like a bowling ball down the newly created alley, and hopped on it, propelling herself down the icy trail like a speeding bullet. Quickly catching up with the two icy women, she swept them up and tucked each of them under her arms. Oberon remained flying in the air as if he were some kind of pouty projectile but, honestly, he was kinda glad that he didn't have to give chase to that train with his own legs. With the trail extending out far ahead of them, the group began to catch up, when they noticed that the train was actually slowing down, as if to allow them to catch up with it. Ruby was first to touch base atop the carriage, only to find that this so-called act of mercy was, in fact, quite the opposite.
Problemo numero uno: A large horde of White Fang members staring down at them from atop the train, clearly knowing that they had been followed and boarded.
Problemo numero dos: Just as Oberon has surmised, there was a bomb in the central console of the carriage. Said bomb was blinking, indicating that it was ready to detonate any moment now.
Problemo numero tres: The train had not slowed down; it had simply decoupled this particular carriage.
Oh dear. This was, as a matter of fact, quite the pickle. As she turned to relay this information to the group, she was instead struck by a heavy, blunt and oddly soft projectile which sent her crashing to the floor.
"Oberon!? Get off of me!" Ruby exclaimed, shoving the lone boy of the doomed train parade off of her, and sending him flying backwards in disarray before landing next to the bomb. He shook his head rapidly as if to shake off his blunt-force trauma, before murmuring 'Oh crap,' to himself. His hands darted to the blinking device and were instantly in a blur as they raced across the exposed red and blue wiring with a pair of wire clippers and a screwdriver. In only a couple of split-second decisions, he breathed a sigh of relief as the bomb stopped beeping.
"That was way too close." He muttered, before standing up and dusting himself off, only to be met with a hail of gunfire from up ahead. Instantly, he defensively raised his hands, causing a pair of floating shields to crash together in front of him to deflect the oncoming bullets.
"No time to waste." He uttered to himself, as he hopped onto a third shield and propelled himself forwards, off the side of the first carriage, and onto the next. He then ducked down and began disarming the next bomb. In the meantime, Weiss, Thea, and Pyrrha had caught up and landed atop the first carriage. All four girls quickly leapt onto the next carriage, alongside the mad scientist, who was ducked behind his shields and casually firing back at the terrorists with his floating hands whilst he disarmed the bomb with his real ones.
"I know now isn't the best time for a strategy meeting, but…" he mumbled to himself, "I'll keep things brief. Neo's journal spoke about these events in detail. Each of these carriages has a bomb in the central console, designed to blow holes in the ceiling and draw in the Grimm. I'll stay up here and disarm these bombs. You four need to stop the train before it smashes into the tunnel's seal up ahead."
"Got it. Let's go." Pyrrha nodded. Though just before she jolted down, Oberon placed a hand upon her shoulder.
"I don't know who's running the train with Torchwick out of the picture. Be prepared for combat and, for the love of the Brothers, if you encounter a tough opponent, you should split into pairs, in order to defeat them quickly whilst allowing the other pair to drive forwards. Do. Not. Be. A. Hero."
His stare was serious, as if he knew a little more than he told, but Pyrrha had little time to inquire further. If anything, this was normal. She leapt over the barricade and into the newly made entranceway in the carriage below. Oberon's eyes rested dwindlingly on Ruby as she and the other two followed suit. Having disarmed the bomb, Oberon stood up calmly and rested his eyes on the oncoming horde of white and grey. He sighed to himself as he moved forwards and fired another few magazines of ammunition into the whitened surge of power-hungry revolutionists. And yet, his eyes lingered on the pair of Atlesian mechs which now began to make their way towards him. He sighed once more, as he reached for Limitless Potential. "…At least they don't have to fight her."
Metallic footsteps clanged loudly against the hull of the train as the four raced towards the front. The gunfire and swordplay were incredibly brief, as combat ended only a few moments after it had started. Thea's semblance allowed her to keep track of the enemy's movements and pick them apart with her rifle, whilst Pyrrha's shield in the forefront of the spearhead movement protected the girls behind her. Ruby and Weiss's co-ordination and teamwork was able to easily round up anyone who was lucky enough to have evaded the preliminary barrage of ice and shotgun blasts. In truth, it seemed there was very little that the armed terrorists could do against the four teenagers in the close quarters of the train. That was until they were approximately halfway through the train.
As soon as the door to the next carriage had opened, a missile was fired at their feet. Even with the knee-jerk reactions of the group, consisting of Weiss trying to encase the flying bomb in ice, and Pyrrha using her polarity to try and slow it down, they were unable to stop the rocket, and it detonated only a few inches away from them, causing the carriage to decouple and the four of them to be sent flying backwards from the blast. Pyrrha took the majority of the blow, only managing to keep a quarter of her aura due to her defensive stance.
"Everyone alright?" Ruby asked, rubbing their head after colliding with the side of the carriage.
"…I've had worse, but…" Pyrrha began, pausing only to cough and look up at the escaping train and the smirking brute of a White Fang member with his rocket launcher and crap-eating grin.
"Sorry girls, but this train's for adults." He smirked, gruffly as the train started making distance from the dumbstruck girls. "Tell your Schnee friend that she looks better in grey!" He then called out, as he turned and made his way into the next carriage. The door closed behind him, just as several jagged ice shards impaled the metallic hull.
Weiss dusted off the soot from her dress with a particularly frustrated pout as Thea reloaded her rifle. Ruby cocked Crescent Rose with a particularly riled-up look in her eyes, whilst Pyrrha shook herself off and made her way to the front.
"What's the plan?" Thea asked. "It'll be difficult to catch up now that the train's going at top speed and we're only slowing down."
"We're catching up and, unlike before, it'll be much easier." Pyrrha hissed as she held tightly to both sides of the doorway. "Especially with this oversized skateboard we're standing in. Mind giving me a hand, Weiss?"
"Oh, I think I understand what you mean." Weiss grinned as she stood next to her.
Ruby only had a figment of an idea as to what they were going to do, whilst Thea was completely lost. However, neither of them had to wait long as they found themselves suddenly gaining on the runaway train with seemingly no explanation. That was until Ruby noticed the sigils which had manifested across the carriages which they stood in, and the focus upon Pyrrha's face as she exercised her polarity once again in order to pull the carriage closer to the runaway train. With the boost from Weiss's accelerating sigils, it was only a matter of time before they bumped back into the runaway train and hopped inside.
"Let me handle that uncouth barbarian. I won't allow him to insult me and get away with it." Weiss frowned, rotating the barrel of Myrtenaster in frustration.
"You won't stand alone, Weiss." Ruby added. "Oberon did suggest we stay in pairs, after all."
"Then we'll forge a path ahead. Catch up as soon as you can." Pyrrha chimed, doing her best to smile, even though she was beginning to grow rather tired.
"We should get moving." Thea suggested, holding Lunova tightly as she kicked open the door ahead and let loose a volley of ice shards whilst sprinting in a crescent shape towards the door on the far side of the room, with Pyrrha following closely behind.
"How did you get here!?" The large man bellowed as he swatted away the frozen projectiles as if they were mosquitoes in the wind, before diving to the side of the room and seizing a chainsaw which he revved intimidatingly, before swinging it down at the approaching cloaked maiden, only for it to be intercepted by the appearance of a red scythe, which hooked the side of the device and wrenched it to one side as the horrible sound of metal-on-metal reverberated across the room. With rose petals falling to the ground, Ruby appeared in front of him with a smirk.
"We had a VIP pass." She smiled, "'Very Irritated Pyrrha.'" The man's eye simply twitched as he stepped forwards and swung down at her, only to slip on a newly frozen surface beneath his feet. Whilst he didn't fall flat on his face, his swing went wide and missed the grinning girl.
"I'm going to make you pay for dirtying my skirt, you heathen." Weiss frowned, pointing the sharpened edge of her blade at him.
"When I'm done, it'll be red, instead of grey, Schnee." He laughed, raising his villainous choice of weapon at the two girls, not seeming to care about the other two who had disappeared into the carriage behind him.
In the meantime, Oberon had only just shaken off the sudden decoupling and rapid acceleration as a result of the girls' actions down below. His shields remained stalwart against the incoming hailfire of lead but were starting to deteriorate. In fact, he simply could not repair and replace them as quickly as they were being shredded. Even with every shot he took taking down one member of the Fang, another was soon in its place, and those mechs were getting awfully close to being within firing range. Whilst he would have loved to return fire with heavy ordinance, he could not do so without risking setting off a catastrophic chain reaction of explosive devices which would kill just about everyone and then ring the dinner bell for the Grimm to feast on the unfortunate survivors. As if he didn't have his hands full already: needing to continually move forwards, disarm bombs, and return fire. In hindsight, he should have asked one of the girls to stay behind and give him a hand. Alas, his stubborn pride and fragile masculinity had gotten the better of him once more. The question lingered – how to destroy (or at least disable) an Atlesian mech without it blowing up and turning this abandoned train tunnel into the world's worst fireworks show.
It was a good thing that he'd been pocketing the more useful components of the bombs as he went, else he might not have had an answer for this. Tossing it all into Limitless Potential, an idea had sparked in his head. Just as he disarmed the bomb and moved onto the next carriage with a leap, he tossed out his newest creation – a repulsion grenade. With a little gravity dust and a salvaged explosive device, the grenade bounced forwards, before detonating, causing a mostly harmless push which cleared the way ahead, ensuring that all his problems were shoved unceremoniously into the sides of the tunnel and onto the tracks below. Well, except those mechs – they were far too heavy to be impacted by the ramshackle surprise tactic he'd just pulled. Even as the distant curses from the disjointed White Fang members began to die out behind him, he knew that it would only be a moment before they unleashed as many missiles as they had, directly targeting him. His hands clutched desperately to his final saving grace – and the remainder of the supplies he'd brought with him. He was banking everything into this idea working. Just as a hail of machine gunfire shattered his final aegis, he tossed a second grenade between the two approaching mechs. His heart stilled as it closed the distance, narrowly dodging between bullets, bounced once off the hull of the train, and then detonated in a blinding light. In that instant, everything began to slow down. The mechs slumped into a heap of metal, the remaining bombs deactivated, and the train began to slow down. His magnum opus had worked – an electromagnetic dust bomb. A device designed to temporarily overload electrical and dust-based circuits within the radius. As he had been unsure of its radius, he had planned to use it as close to the helm as possible. Turns out, it had worked better than anticipated. For better or worse, nothing would function as it was supposed to. For how long? Long enough, he hoped. He then sat down and clutched his shoulder, as the adrenaline slowly began to ebb. His hand came away with blood dripping down his palm.
"Damn. Guess my Aura was lower than I thought it was…" He mumbled, as the pain slowly began to set in.
Down below, Thea and Pyrrha had raced ahead, oblivious to Oberon's intentions. Combat was brief – if there was any – since most of their numbers had gone onto the roof to ensure the safety of their precious bombs. Within a few moments of racing down the derelict – but refurbished – corridors, they came to the helm of the train. The door was thrust open, only for a sudden surge of red light to race forward, almost claiming both girls' heads in an instant, were it not for Pyrrha shielding the pair from the sudden attack.
"I suppose I should have known that Roman wasn't entirely wrong about one thing…" The man at the helm spoke as he sheathed his red, glowing blade. His hair was aflame with crimson hues and a pair of infernal horns. A white mask sat delicately over his eyes, leaving only reddish hues which uncannily resembled the Grimm. His attire was an edgelord's dream of black and red but also featured a sprinkling of white which resembled flower petals, or a kindled inferno, which was ready to sprout at a moment's notice. "…Kids really are getting weirder. Who would have thought a group of teenagers would stand to oppose the inevitable? Then again, it would only make sense that sheep would follow crooks."
"Oh great, you're one of those." Thea mumbled to herself. "Always so self-righteous, that you can't see your own hypocrisy. You're no hero – you're a monster."
"I'm only being the monster which the arrogant masses take me for." He responded, without a hint of satisfaction, nor boredom in his tone. As if he were simply stating fact. And then, in that very moment, he had uncannily closed the distance and struck at Thea. Wilt crashed against Lunova. Again, and again. A rapid-fire series of strikes, all of which were quickly parried with lightning reflexes. With each countering attack, the blade glowed red upon impact, indicating a stored energy which continued to grow in magnitude with every subsequent attack. With a heavy vertical slash, Wilt slammed brutally into Thea's strong horizontal parry, allowing Adam the opportunity to backflip out of the way of a blast from Pyrrha. The red sabre then darted outwards, spinning like a buzzsaw against Pyrrha's shield, before returning back to its wielder.
Thea now closed the distance, just as a series of afterimages flew out around her and struck at her from all sides. Even with her ability to see all around her, it was difficult to see creatures which were illusionary in nature, causing her to take multiple hits from the shadows. In the meantime, Adam was now duking it out against Pyrrha. Each swing was carefully deflected, slightly interfered with via Polarity, or simply dodged. However, Pyrrha's own offensive seemed almost as ineffective, as the masked man parried her strikes with uncanny accuracy. Whilst Pyrrha's Aura continued to dwindle, Adam's power only seemed to grow, until Pyrrha's combat training finally allowed her to take advantage of a particularly overzealous swing, which she had manipulated with Polarity into giving her an opening, which she used to land a heavy roundhouse kick which sent him reeling backwards, giving him little time to react to Thea's presence behind him. He had narrowly dodged a swing from her blade, before having to turn around to face the onslaught from Pyrrha. He was steadily losing ground from the pair's flanking manoeuvres and rapid attacks. He had noticed Thea's inability to react to his afterimages and was also aware of Pyrrha's knack for manipulating his strikes. With every opportunity he had, he used his stored energy to slice at Thea, whilst using Blush to parry and fire at Pyrrha at any given opportunity. However, with his attention divided, Pyrrha was able to land several strong hits against his arms, legs, and shoulders, though it did not pierce his Aura. Not yet.
Both sides were running on fumes. It was a war of attrition which both sides seemed to be losing.
In the carriage prior, Ruby and Weiss were still engaging against the particularly hardy chainsaw wielder. He was able to move surprisingly quickly, in spite of his size, and was even holding that weapon one handed, ensuring that neither could reliably close the gap without threat of being grabbed and sawed in half. Every clash caused that awful sound of metal against metal, and the girls were regretting using so much of their energy in previous bouts. Were it not for being so exhausted and on the verge of Aura depletion, they'd have dealt with this Auraless brute handily. As such, it was essentially two Auraless, physically inept teenagers against a battle-hardened beast with a morbidly grotesque weapon of choice. Since their Aura was too low to make good use of their Semblances, they'd have to either use them when victory was assured or simply win with the power of friendship and overwhelming violence as they usually do.
He was targeting Weiss with fury, keeping her constantly on the defensive. Whilst she was doing her best to parry and avoid the whirling fury which threatened to give her a buzzcut with every swing, she couldn't always remain one step ahead. As such, Ruby would be forced to parry the swing, much to her chagrin. Her poor Crescent Rose! It was only when Weiss was able to hold her ground, that Ruby could attack from behind and divert that brute's attention, but she had already been too reckless and gotten grabbed twice. Both times, she had to use her Semblance to escape his grasp or risk getting pruned. She could not risk it a third time.
"I'm looking forward to mounting Schnee pelts to my mantle." He smirked as the horrifying screech of metal smashed against Myrtenaster once again. As Ruby came in for a slash, he lunged at her, narrowly missing as she slid between his legs and threatened to make the man a eunuch with the terrible edge of Crescent Rose. Unfortunately, the brute stomped on the shaft of the weapon, wrenching it free from Ruby's grip as she slid to safety. Weiss slashed diagonally across his turned back, causing a red stain to run down his slashed attire. He spun around with ferocity and struck both of the girls against the side of the train with a surprisingly powerful dynamic clothesliner. Ruby had struck her head against the glass, and Weiss watched in horror as her Aura faded and her eyes fluttered closed.
"Ruby, please wake up!" She pleaded, shaking her by the arm with one hand and gripping her rapier in the other with an icy, cold grip.
"Count your blessings, you pompous she-devil. Your little friend there won't have to see you die." He grinned as he bared down upon her, only for his chainsaw to suddenly run out of juice, causing the whirling blades to simply die in his hands. Weiss stood up, protectively, over her unconscious team leader, and pointed her weapon at the man once more.
"No. She just won't have to see me do this. I'd hate to make her think less of me for not doing this earlier."
And just like that, Weiss poured her remaining Aura into her semblance, manifesting a large sigil under the man's feet. Before he could react, he was encased in ice. Weiss sighed in relief for a moment, before sitting down next to Ruby. As much as she would have wanted to go on ahead and help out the rest of the team, she was in no position to fight onwards. Plus, from the feeling of things, the train was starting to slow down. Maybe they'd already achieved victory up ahead.
"…I really should have done that from the beginning." She groaned in frustration as she laid Ruby down on the seat properly. "So much for trying to conserve our strength. We'd have much more combined power and swiftness if we had just expended more resources. Live and learn, I suppose." She reached for her Scroll but found it unresponsive. Weird, considering she compulsively never let the battery go lower than 25%. Maybe it got damaged in the fight. Oh well. She'll just make sure Ruby stays safe and wait for the ahead team to return. The dolt will have to do her homework for once as a favour. The thought made the white-haired duellist smile.
Adam had his back to the train console, as it continued to go full speed ahead. He could see the seal up ahead in his peripheral vision. He swung another strong swing into Thea, only to be parried quickly. Even so, he kept his momentum to take a swing at the redhead. Blocked by the shield. A point-blank blast from Blush struck Thea in the shoulder, but he suffered a similar strike to the leg. His Aura was getting low, but he still had his trump card. With a grin, he struck both ways before darting forwards, out of the immediate reach of both opponents, who were still reeling from his strike.
"End of the line." He smirked, as the world grew dark around him and his red features glowed like a blood moon. He was a blur – a whistle in the wind. Wilt came down like thunder from the heavens, releasing a wave of energy which could break the seal ahead by itself. In the tight space of the helm, there was no room to dodge. A certain end for these two which he'd been cunningly tricking them into. By giving up space, he was pulling them into a funnel, which would surely be their doom.
"I think not." Thea responded, pulling down her bandage blindfold, and immediately engulfing the entire room with light. In that instant, the train began to slow, and the sonic wave which had been released now had turned to stone, only a metre away from the pair. They jolted to their newfound cover and pointed their rifles at where Adam had been standing, only to find that he had disappeared from sight, with the automatic door closing swiftly behind him.
"…He got away." Pyrrha lamented, cocking her scattergun in dissatisfaction, before turning to Thea. "…How did you turn his Semblance to stone?" She asked her.
"It worked on Neo's Semblance. I figured it would probably work on other Semblances which are capable of making things. Illusions, afterimages, energy waves… truthfully, it was a gamble."
"…And here I thought it only worked on the Grimm, and Neo was some kind of special exception… If it works on all Semblances… then what does that even mean?"
"…I couldn't tell you. I may be well versed in their ability, but I have no clue how it actually works behind the scenes. Maybe Oberon would know. Speaking of… we should go and reconvene."
Pyrrha nodded, as she stood tall and strode towards the doorway, just happy it was over with.
Writer's Note:
I did say I'd come back to give this story an ending. And so, here I am. I'm so sorry that this has taken so long. I'm still going through a rough patch and, even so, I could not shake the fact that I have left an audience deprived of an ending. After this chapter, I will write one more. A season finale of sorts. A little something to tie up loose ends so that hopefully, you will be satisfied. In the unlikely possibility that I return to this series, I will do so as a second season. My original plans did extend to the Fall of Beacon, but I don't have the drive to write that story. Not yet, anyway. In the future, perhaps. For now, I'll ask you to be content with the conclusion of this arc. When I get around to writing the finale, I'll briefly touch on my plans going forwards. For now, I just want to give my readers the satisfaction of a happy ending. I know I'd hate to be stuck on a cliffhanger for two years. After all, you deserve better than that. I hope you have enjoyed my story. Until next time. - ZoroEpsilon.