Chapter Text
Pyrrha rolled out of the way, the blast ruffling her hair as it crashed against the wall behind her. A flare of her aura, and she caught the general shape of a Grimm charging. Her sword became a spear, and she impaled the Boarbatusk under the neck, killing its momentum. Her spear retracted and became a gun as the Grimm dissolved in white particles.
Winter was too slow to stand, and Pyrrha wasted no time in taking advantage, running toward the woman at full speed. A black glyph appeared behind her, pulling her toward it as she struggled to keep her momentum. When it didn’t work, she let it carry her backward as she shot once, twice, thrice at Winter, each bullet finding its mark despite the woman making herself a smaller target as she ran for her rapier. With a wave of her hand, Pyrrha moved the weapon to hersef and gripped it, nodding appreciatively at the craftsmanship, before stabbing it into the ground.
“Flourish,” Winter panted.
Pyrrha winced. “Sorry.” She was barely winded herself; just as she’d proved over and over, fighting an opponent who couldn’t use their weapon was a lot easier than letting them close and personal.
The older woman took a deep breath and stood, her arms clasped behind her back. She was disheveled, her long white hair sticking out of her strict bun. Despite that, her severe expression didn’t waver.
“Leaving my weapon accessible could have worked if you had a plan in mind, an ambush of some sort. However, you did not need one.” She shook her head. “Throwing my weapon out of the arena and waiting for me to exhaust myself would have been much more efficient, and more importantly, safer.”
Pyrrha nodded, a small blush of shame growing on her cheeks. She hadn’t been admonished by a trainer in a very long time; even Miss Goodwitch was too busy dissecting the less capable students to spare time for her, who was already perfect. In that regard, Winter was the perfect teacher. No flaw escaped her.
Winter nodded. “Again.”
Pyrrha nodded back, levitating Winter’s weapon back to its owner. Winter grabbed it, saluted, and immediately summoned a flock of small Nevermore. Pyrrha, her weapon in rifle form, ignored the birds for the annoyances they were and sniped the summoning circle, each bullet close enough for the fourth one to finally break it. When it did, it released a cloud of green, acrid smoke, pushing out toward her much faster than any natural cloud. Pyrrha jumped back, her left hand pointed toward herself so that her semblance could affect her armor, pulling her upward, far above the cloud.
Not a second later, a blue rune appeared behind her, soon followed by a yellow one. Pyrrha dropped, but not fast enough; a torrent of water erupted from the rune, the roar of the flow blotting out everything else, but not loud enough to mask the follow-up crack of the thunder rune erupting. The current traversed the water and hit her, making her muscles contract and spasm. She fought to keep her mouth closed and used her hand’s twitch to affect her armor once more, pushing herself out of the water before she even hit the ground.
In the air once more, she didn’t give Winter any more chance to play. She grabbed the woman’s rapier with her semblance and pulled up. Winter struggled for a second before letting go.
That second was enough. During that second, Miló changed from a sword to a rifle, and in the following second, she shot Winter in the knees, making her stumble. With her left hand, she moved again, one finger keeping the sword in the air, the others acting on her armor, slowly flying around the arena, careful of any trick. Winter wasn’t idle either; a wall of stone erupted from thin air, the barrier of Rock Dust buying her precious seconds.
Pyrrha used the sword and flicked it away, out of bounds. It wouldn’t do to not follow the advice given to her.
A new rune appeared on the floor, bigger than any of the others so far. From it slowly rose a Grimm, huge, a horse made of white fire, its blue, icy eyes flickering through the storm-
“Flourish. Or distraction.”
Pyrrha suppressed a curse. Shit.
Winter walked away from the wall. “If it was the second, learn to assess a new threat while disrupting it.”
Winter was still standing straight, but a brief glance at the aura meter showed that she was closer to the red than yellow. Pyrrha, meanwhile, was barely close to the yellow.
“It was a bit of both.” She laughed nervously. “Interrupting the opponent when you already have the upper hand is seen as being a poor sport in the usual tournaments.”
Winter didn’t blink. “Yes, I am familiar with arena customs.”
Pyrrha shifted her weight from one foot to the other, the silence stretching for a long, uncomfortable moment. Winter’s eyes didn’t leave hers, her serious expression so still it might as well have been an ice statue.
Pyrrha was about to do something drastic when, thankfully, the door to the training room opened.
“There she is! The woman of the hour!”
Yang strolled through the room, Blake following behind her. Weiss was absent, but she was seldom seen out of her room ever since the last dance. Pyrrha wondered if she should say something, but as she often concluded, this debate was not one she could solve. Fighting Weiss, she could do, but helping her…
“Winter!” Yang said. Well, yelled.
“Xiao Long.” Winter turned her head to look at her. “What can I do for you?”
“I want you to watch something.” Without waiting for an answer, Yang walked to Pyrrha and put her hands on the slightly sweaty Invincible Girl’s shoulders. “Pyrrha!”
“Yang?”
“I want you to fight Weiss!”
Pyrrha had the intuition her day would only get longer from here.
——
Waiting for her aura to heal her sunburn was a pain. Ruby had ended up slathering cream on her arms and torso when the itches had become too irritating, the old skin tearing up to give way to the rosy new one, but it didn’t help that much.
It itched really, really badly. In fact, it might have been worse than a sunburn without her soul to heal it, because damn it all it itched. If not for her aura, she would have scratched herself raw already, but because of the damn thing, all she could do was distract herself with one more inspection of Crescent Rose’s inner workings which confirmed that everything was in working order and the sand hadn’t managed to get in yet.
And god damn it all it itched. She groaned and stood up from the couch, her skin glistening from all the cream. She was also finally wearing a shirt, a light, almost transparent one made of gauzy fabric. It was barely better than wearing nothing, but she didn’t like wearing just her swimsuit when she wasn’t swimming.
Someone knocked. Ruby tilted her head and frowned. Who knocked? Roman certainly wouldn’t knock, and neither would Neo. Daliah was still doing whatever in the basement, so that couldn’t be her. A door to door salesman? Who would even walk so far? One of Roman’s associates?
She took Crescent Rose and walked to the door. “Roman, if it’s one of your old enemies coming back for revenge I am so getting mad at you,” she muttered.
She opened the door a crack. “Hello?”
“We’re here for a noise complaint!” Said a somewhat familiar voice.
“What-“
The door blew up. The bullet flew through it, hit Ruby square in the stomach and threw her against the wall, cracking it. She blinked stars out of her vision. That… who used bullets in a surprise attack? Nobody came to mind, everyone knew it was a poor choice unless your opponent’s aura was down, and even then, bullets were only good to take away aura and distract, not break it. The caliber was big. Mercury? But why? Wasn’t he at Beacon? She hadn’t even seen him at the end of Atlas, and Emerald didn’t talk about him, so-
She stood, unsteady. Deal with the door-breakers first, figure out how they managed to follow her through time and space after.
She heard voices coming from the entrance.
“She’s not coming back, think we got her?” Came a boy’s voice.
“Let’s give it two more minutes, then we’ll check.” Again, the strangely familiar girl.
“You said that two minutes ago! Just admit you don’t want to go in already.” A different boy, his voice deeper, sounding bored.
“Oh fuck off!”
Automatically, Ruby said, “Language.”
All discussion stopped.
The door was badly damaged, with a hole the size of a fist under the handle. Whatever hit her, it packed a punch. Ruby grabbed the door and threw the door open.
On the other side were eight kids, four familiar. Gauntlet, Saif girl, Axe girl and Slowpoke, the four squatters.
Now that she was seeing them in the light, they seemed a bit older. Gauntlet was tall, wearing an open jacket and his two gauntlets, while Axe and Saif girl had a matching motif, two snakes, going from one top to the other. Slowpoke was wearing rather light clothes, and his head was strangely shaved, bald except for two stripes of hair at the top. They were all much more tanned than she was, something she was not jealous about.
“You?” Ruby blinked. “I thought Neo broke your wrist.”
“She did…” muttered Axe girl, her face suddenly lacking color.
“And you came back? Willingly?” Maybe they did have guts after all. Her team would have chased Roman to the end of the earth too.
“We’re not letting that insult pass,” spat Gauntlet.
“Yeah!” One of the four other students took a step forward. “You attack one of us, you attack all of us!”
He looked like a leader. In fact, he really looked like he wanted to - badly - emulate Sun’s look, with the jacked abs, the open shirt and short combo. But where Sun carried himself with ease, as if he had forgot to button up his shirt instead of showing off, this guy had dyed black hair and… Was that a black choker? With an arrow pointing down, toward the abs? Urgh.
Choker had a six-chamber revolver with a long bayonet in his hand, too, which looked really weird and impractical, but Blake also had a dagger with a pistol and a ribbon and still beat most people she came across, so Ruby wasn’t judging.
Behind Choker was a tall skinny woman with a small scar on her pinky finger, carrying an overly large mace. Ruby immediately noticed the small hints of mechashift, and given the size of the hole in the door, this one was the weapon responsible for her temporary levitation.
The last two looked tough, two men, one bald, shirtless, with a metal staff doubling as a railgun and the other small, smaller than Weiss even, with an even smaller bow. They both had Faunus ears, but of what kind she had no idea. Roman would, in his peculiar racist way, so she didn’t know if it was more racist to think all faunuses looked the same or to be able to differentiate them based on the shape of the ear. She resolved to ask Blake at a future date.
Ruby looked at them in turn. Choker, Mace, Bow and Rail, accompanying Gauntlet, Axe, Saif and Slowpoke. What a team.
“You know, you’re lucky Neo isn’t here. I don’t think I could stop her from killing you this time.”
The squatters looked between themselves nervously. The new arrivals grinned and laughed.
“See, that’s what you think. I think we’re lucky because you’re alone, so we can make an example out of you, or use you as bait to get the others.” Choker grinned. “Come peacefully, and we won’t hurt you that much. Maybe we’ll just break your wrist to get even.”
Come get her? Ruby smiled and shook her head. What kind of world did they live in where Neo - or Roman! - would save her if she was captured?
The wind blew, carrying sand through the open doorway. Ruby stepped forward and closed the door behind her.
The squatters were already in combat stance. The new arrivals were still looking at her and smiling.
“Just a question, before we start.” Ruby deployed Crescent Rose behind her, and the blade sunk in the sand. “You do understand that you could die here. Today.”
More laughter from the ignorant. The embers of the anger she’d felt in their last encounter ignited.
“I’ll ask you later.”
——
“I’m not sure about this.”
“Trust me, it’s a great plan!” Yang grinned, her smile bright as the sun. “And you know it’s not a bad idea because it’s Blake’s.”
Pyrrha pondered as they walked. Yang’s last idea fractured her team. On the other hand, Blake had a poor track record, since her ideas usually involved fighting the White Fang.
“Sun helped.” Blake added begrudgingly.
“I see.” Pyrrha nodded. “How long should I distract her, then?”
“Wow. Sun is more credible than us.”
Pyrrha smiled awkwardly. “Sorry, I just…”
“We’re very irresponsible,” nodded Yang, speaking with the serene tone of a sage imparting great wisdom. “We get it.”
Blake frowned, her ears flattening against her head, so she didn’t seem to agree. Blake smiled apologetically, and Blake smiled back and rolled her eyes in response. Right.
Winter spoke, a step behind them. “I don’t understand why you want me to be hidden.”
“Don’t worry, Winty!” Yang didn’t look at her. “Trust in the plan. You know how to follow orders, right?”
Blake elbowed her without putting much strength into it. Yang’s cheerful expression didn’t waver. Pyrrha wasn’t an expert, but she could tell Winter wasn’t well liked by the two, something the older woman seemed to either ignore or be unaware of.
They arrived in front of the dorm’s room, the closed door looming ominously over them. Yang didn’t seem to care, knocked on the door then threw it open. “Weiss! I brought guests!”
Blake hurried and pulled Winter’s shoulder, walking her out of sight before letting go of the woman’s shoulder and wiping her hand on her pants. Pyrrha suppressed a flicker of annoyance; she’d talk to Blake about her behavior later.
On the other side, Weiss was sitting at her desk, her head in her arms. The moment Yang opened the door, she startled and stood straight. “Yang! What did I tell you about-“
“Sorry, sorry, I have great news!” Yang walked through the room as if she owned it and took out Myrtenaster from Weiss’s bed. “I just got training perms from the Invincible Girl herself!”
“I- what?”
“You know, Pyrrha? Red hair? Invincible? Girl? Pyrrha the Invincible Girl?” Yang didn’t even look at Weiss as she busied herself, collecting small dust cartridges strewn across the room. “Since you absolutely want to do schoolwork, I figured hey, let’s have a practical lesson with the best fighter we have. What do you think?”
“Well, that is-“
“Great!” Yang pulled Weiss to her feet and steered her to the door. “Let’s get to it!”
——
Ruby used her semblance and immediately targeted Choker. His weapon wasn’t drawn, he wasn’t ready, was an unknown quantity and the nearest. The only way he could have been a better target was with a sign that said “hit me”, and even then, it wouldn’t worsen his look all that much. She propelled herself, Crescent Rose at her side, and simply hit him hard in the stomach, with enough momentum to make him fly backward. The moment she was near the group, she spun Crescent Rose in a wild arc, buying herself space and separating the fighters.
They were already spreading, doing their best to avoid the blade. Mace tried to block with her oversized weapon, but quickly changed her tune when Ruby almost tore it from her hands.
First, analyze. From what she remembered, Gauntlet, Axe, Saif and Slowpoke didn’t seem to have a semblance. Axe had used poison last time, but in a real fight, the odds she could actually use it were slim. Slim, but not impossible. Out of the known quantities, she was the highest priority takedown. As she spun, Ruby fired three times to give herself momentum, each bullet going straight for Axe, who blocked one, then realized some calibers are better dodged and fell out of the way.
Space and time. Ruby flew forward, between Bow and Rail, forcing them to reorganize their formation. They were both ranged fighters, who would do their utmost to avoid melee, while their more robust frontline would do their best to put themselves between them and the enemy. As long as she exploited that weakness in formation, she’d win.
Small caliber fire forced her to take steps back and lazily spin Crescent Rose in front of her, using her superior speed to catch most of the annoying little things. Under her, the sand; behind her, the desert; in front of her, eight people. As long as she kept the space around her open, she had all the options in the world.
She jumped as a giant hand made of sand began to form under her feet. On her left, Gauntlet was on his knees, both hands buried to the wrist. A second hand emerged from the first, closing around her and bringing her down, the oversized digits clamping her arms against her torso.
It bought her some time to think. Sure of their victory, they all stood around, doing nothing.
Eight against one. Put any normal human in those odds, chances were, the eight would win by sheer numbers, immobilizing the arms and legs of their opponents until they could get cheap shots in.
Between Huntsmen? Ruby was confident. She was faster, stronger, more experienced. They were students, and not the good kind, but the ones who couldn’t even qualify for the Vytal Festival and stayed behind. All she had to do was turn their numbers against themselves or, if they were somewhat skilled, hit and run, divide and conquer.
Gauntlet walked forward with an imaginary swagger and a sneer. “Not so cocky now, eh, brat?”
Ruby looked at him with wide silver eyes, tilted her head… And used Petal Burst. The hand crumbled and turned to rose petals as she walked forward, unimpeded. She put Crescent Rose’s blade against his throat, unblinking. “You’re slow.”
“I-“
“Leaders are the most important people of a team. Without a leader, the team crumble.” She walked forward and he had no choice but to step back. Psychological reaction, not used to aura. Training obtained before aura. Didn’t use his invincible armor as he should have. “If I take you out, right now, half the team is out. If I use you as a shield,” she nodded to his friends behind him, “they can’t do anything.”
She jumped forward and kicked him in the side of the knee - Ozpin’s move, one he had used against her many times. Gauntlet crumbled in the sand. Before he could get his bearings, she dashed away, a blast blowing a cloud of sand up in the air following suit. Railgun; he had waited until his friend was out of the way to shoot.
She briefly erupted out of Petal Burst to shoot his weapon out of his hand as he reloaded. “Reload out of the way!” She called before jumping back in her semblance. In the blink of an eye, she moved toward Axe girl.
With surprising speed, Saif intercepted, her curved sword catching Crescent Rose’s blade. Ruby took a step back, then a second, as the girl did her best to get inside her guard. The rest of her friends were already moving; Gauntlet was forming new hands, Railgun had retrieved his weapon and Bow was notching another arrow, this one glowing faintly blue.
After Cinder, this was child’s play. Ruby let a glancing blow break her grip on Crescent Rose’s pommel, only holding it with her left hand. With her right, she gripped Saif’s wrist; Crescent Rose, she put back in rifle form and fired in the team’s general direction. They scattered, interrupting their attack and forcing Axe back. Saif girl tried to break her grip, but Ruby used her superior strength to force the girl down to her knees, putting pressure on her wrists.
Heavy footsteps alerted her of Mace’s return, the girl seemingly building mass with each step, each sinking her deeper in sand. She raised her weapon high above her head and jumped; the moment she did, Ruby extended Crescent Rose, catching her gently in the blade’s curve, and, with a yell of exertion, pulled her to Saif girl. She jumped back, letting Petal Burst carry her far and away from the disaster.
Mace fell on top of Saif, crushing the smaller girl beneath her, only managing to roll out of the way after Saif’s aura broke under the weight. Even then, she didn't look good either; she had fallen stomach-first on Saif’s sword and was already puking up her lunch, her hand on her stomach.
Two threats neutralized. Now where was- she stepped to the side, letting an arrow pass by her. It smelled like ozone, telltale sign of lightning dust. Small caliber hit her, and- ouch! Sensitive skin! She aimed Crescent Rose and shot at Slowpoke, who apparently had managed to recover his own weapon, a small tommy gun doubling as a chainsaw. Most of the bullets went wide, but the few that didn’t were painful enough.
An invisible force gripped her neck. Without missing a step, she spun Crescent Rose in a wide arc around her, soon hitting her assailant. Choker flickered into sight, then vanished again. Ruby ignored him and focused on Slowpoke and Bow instead. Railgun was also getting to his feet, his apparently now functional weapon back with a vengeance.
She ran to them, moving in zigzag, throwing sand behind her. Railgun fired, the heavy projectile flying to her left. Slowpoke opted for a spread of ignorable bullets and Bow… took his arrows out of their quiver and threw them all in the air. Instead of aiming at her, Railgun aimed upward and fired another shot.
The arrows detonated, an explosion of electrical, ice and fire dust, each element amplifying the other. Ruby couldn’t dodge all of it, electricity raced against her skin, fire washed over her-
She ran through it. Bow didn’t expect her, and expected Crescent Rose to hit him between the legs even less. He winced but stayed upright, trying to use his bow to deflect another blow, but Crescent Rose sliced through it, leaving him with two wooden sticks and a string. Without letting him recover, Ruby hit him in the neck, then the arms, not letting up the pressure, using Petal Burst to dash behind him and attack more. Cinder could still use her maiden’s power, breaking her weapon would do nothing, especially if she had any more of these explosions available- Bow’s aura broke as he fell, and Ruby remembered where she was. Railgun was running away, but two shots to the back sent him stumbling on the ground face first.
Two hands made of sand tried to squish her between them, but she let them wash over her, mixing them with the rose petals until she emerged on the other side, unscathed.
A footstep on the sand. Ruby lazily spun Crescent Rose in a wide circle around her, dancing with the momentum, dodging a bullet coming out of nowhere and letting the imprecise stream of Slowpoke’s bullets wash over her. She soon felt resistance and didn’t wait; Two hits to the chest to cut breath, one to the temple to hit aura, repeat as necessary. The standard Emerald takedown, not letting her use her semblance to get away. At the sixth hit, Choker fell to his knees, finally visible, his aura broken. She didn’t spare him a glance before flying to finish Railgun. Axe girl had managed to reach them - finally, she was so slow - and tried to put a defense, but the conclusion was foretold. Ruby hit her in the legs, forcing her down, then in her freshly-healed wrist until she dropped her weapon.
Railgun turned around, his weapon raised. She tried to jump to the side, but before she could, Axe girl had jumped to her legs, holding them with both arms. She brought Crescent Rose to deflect, but a hand made of sand blocked her way.
This was going to suck.
The projectile hit her straight in the chest. Some kind of semblance must have been involved, because she felt the impact resonate from head to toe, some kind of energy coursing through her, chewing against her aura. The sheer momentum threw her on her back, breaking Axe girl’s grip.
Ruby coughed and used Petal Burst, narrowly avoiding a second hand made of sand trying to bury her. She emerged and kicked Axe girl in the head, then shot her in the back over and over until her aura broke, barely reminding herself to stop. Railgun tried to go for another shot, but she ran to him, dodged it, and tore his weapon out of his hand. She threw it to the ground, grabbed him by the arm and jumped behind him, using him as a human shield against Slowpoke’s pepper spray of bullets - did he ever run out of those? Was he even aware he was doing nothing more than annoy her? - and ran forward, letting Crescent Rose rest on his shoulder as she fired. Slowpoke understood what she was doing way too slowly, barely breaking into a run by the time she’d caught up. She pushed Railgun forward, and the two men fell, one taking the other with him. By the time they began to stand, she kicked and shot them, dancing around sand-hands as she did.
Just the leader left. She walked calmly toward him, wincing a bit as the pain radiated through her sternum, Crescent Rose swaying, right and left, left and right. Hands emerged, but she didn’t even break her momentum as she used Petal Burst to walk through them.
He gave up his semblance and put himself in a combat stance. “Really?” Ruby tilted her head. “Your friends are on the ground. You couldn’t even touch Roman. Just give up.”
He spat at her. Ruby stepped right, letting it fly by. “Fine.”
Two hits to the knees. Avoided two retaliatory strikes, used his momentum to trip him. Once on his knees, she put Crescent Rose’s blade to his neck, and shot.
His aura broke, and he fell.
“As I was saying,” she said, putting Crescent Rose back in rifle form. “Do you understand you could die here.” She turned the safety on and aimed at his head. “Today.”