Fandom Distorted Mirror [IC]

[Gus Gungus]

"You as well!" Pyrrha(??)replied, still smiling. "We should talk after-"



The rest of the sentence was cut off with the screech of metal and against metal as the balcony was shoved towards them once more, and Pyrrha frown and deftly leaped into the air as her spear transformed into its rifle form, only to grunt in surprise as her body decided to move on its own and sent her careening straight back into Nora. A flash of color at the side of her eyes had her twist her hand up towards the saber spinning towards her to give it a hard semblance shove in the other direction, but the one headed for Nora recieved no such defense; the girl could handle herself, she had to imagine, if she was anything like the Valkyrie she knew.

Instead, her other hand made a sweeping motion behind her, and the balcony the faunus had leaped in front of suddenly picked its momentum right back up, the derailed freight train aiming to run right over its previous conductor

Yeah. Talking later sounded good. And ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY because FREAKING HELL IT'S PYRRHA.

But yes, after this. There was an instant frown as she felt the weird sensation of telekinetic force pulling her away from her fellow fighter but that soon reversed course as he sought to smash them together. Nora grimaced but thought quickly, as she did her best to resist her body pulling in for a collision with Pyrrha, straining her arm to move and throwing her hammer in the opposite direction of the armored champion and using the strong pull of the gravity dust within to counter his annoying telekinetic crap. They still very nearly hit each other all the same but the resisting did give her enough time to bring her legs up and give her momentum a little more oomph by kicking off Pyrrha's shield. Her hand's grip rejoined her hammer in mid-air and she spun just in the nick of time for Magnhild to deal with the thing her aura wouldn't shut up about, the warhammer swinging into that saber's hilt to smack it away.

Her weapon shifted in a second after doing so and she unleashed a few grenades over the hateful prick's way in an attempt to explosively knock him into the balcony moving his way.

The noise that tore its way from the man's lips was a furious, hate-filled screech of exertion as the rending metal from behind caught his attention, and rather than leap, evade or dodge in any way he thrust his palms out to either side of him. In a staggeringly impressive display of semblance potency, the balcony tore itself into two pieces so they each ground and shrieked their way around him, shielding him from Nora's grenades, tearing up the wiring in the floor and allowing him to pass harmlessly through the gap in the middle. A similarly bitter roar saw him fling his palms out towards Pyrrha instead, using every drop of his latent rage and spite to fuel his power, and when he brought his hands together both chunks of debris previously identifiable as a spectator box were forced together again with the intent of crushing her between them.

Only this time he was anticipating resistance from the woman who appeared to manipulate some invisible force of his own, and presuming she used it to stave off the balcony pieces he seized the opportunity to land from an acrobatic vault in their midst, having snatched one of his deflected sabers and immediately transitioned into a whirlwind of dexterous swings and slices that were aggression incarnate. Somewhere amid the flurry his second saber spun back to his grip with equally perfect equilibrium, and about a half-dozen strikes after that he went from assailing and battering her guard with both in separate reverse grips to clicking them seamlessly together at the hilts amidst a twirl, each change in stance and configuration yielding a double in the tempo and ferocity of his attacks.

They knew practically nothing about this faunus, neither his name nor reason for being here nor even where he came from. Yet one thing was clear in abundance: whatever mysterious tribe he erupted from had evidently given birth to some kind of monster.​

 

[Gus Gungus]

Uneasy as she was, she couldn't let it visibly get to her. Not now, now wasn't the time or the place. It'd draw them upon her. Killing the Grimm wasn't why she was here. She needed to find someone with a keycard and she needed to do it now!

Running as far away as she could as fast as she could had proven a fortuitous choice for Ruby, something evident in the way the hairs standing up on her neck and cold feeling settling in the pit of her stomach didn't subside until she made it to an elevator and the doors slid all the way shut. The wisest decision was to put as many floors between her and that chilling presence as she could, so that was what she did, her path since mostly an uneventful one ever since she emerged to one among the large block of floors reserved for contender lodgings, her encounters since primarily limited to the endless legions of death androids.

That was until she rounded a corner, and against the back wall at the heart of a steel intersection there awaited a grisly sight.



The man's features were withered and grey, the fingers clutching at his chest gnarled, lips and eyelids shriveled up so it was with unblinking eyes and a peeled-back grin that his gaze lingered on the ceiling. He looked decomposed, like a mummy that had been semi-preserved beneath the ice for hundreds of years. Numerous playing cards, scorch marks, needle flechettes, and familiar empty shell casings marked the corridor, labeling the entire area as the site of a fierce skirmish in the not-so-distant past, though no other bodies were visible. Beyond that, only one thing was clear.

Between the bicep-baring attire, bright shade of dye still clinging to his wispy, malnourished hair, and the faint outline of cheek tattoos barely visible against his mottled skin, this man was almost definitely Prisma; the eerie, devil-may-care jester who had spent his time in the buildup trolling and cheerfully assigning point scores.​

 

[MidwayLives]

"Can't argue with that, but I don't think they're going to make it that easy for us." Robyn pointed out, cautiously watching as Satin unleashed another stream of blue flames over that way. As before, Roy stepped up to deal with it though this time they didn't counter with crimson lightning. Instead they utilized only their blade, spinning it swiftly enough that it kept the fire largely at bay, only small amounts of flame shot past before those flames faded out and died. The moment after the stream of fire let up, the armored threat charged again, slicing away with their large blade in a wild frenzy. The other one didn't move so much as an inch, standing utterly still. Her eyes were even closed, like she didn't deem any of them worthy of actually stepping into personal combat with, not like her partner eagerly was.

"Heh. I guess it's gotta be this way. It'd be way too dull if we beat em too easily right..?"

Whatever the odds were, he didn't care.

If they couldn't take out gravity chick sooner rather than later? The three of them were dead. There was no dancing around or sugarcoating it.

Reality had been the harshest instructor Satin ever had. His mangled visage was proof enough of that.

As Roy came charging in, Satin grimaced ever so slightly. The charred skin on his arms was starting to swell and bubble ever so slightly. Overusing his semblance had it's drawbacks and it was partially why he was left looking like this in the first place. Cold-blooded murders and executions were more his speed than drawn out knuckle to knuckle brawls. You didn't need to punch or stab what you could simply incinerate. But, try as he might, it didn't seem like 'Ol Roy was gonna let Satin cook him alive in that tin can anytime soon. Drawing 'A Burning Wind' out, the blades clashed and Satin was once again forced on the defensive, taking steps back, the heat radiating off from his body slowly melting the ice underfoot with each step.
​

With a frustrated scowl she spun, dashing over towards the ice guy. But rather than attack, she held her hands gesturing for peace as she muttered hurriedly:

"Stay.....Back...."

Radiant appeared as if he was floating a few inches off the ground. Careful analysis would show that he'd reverted some of the ice below him into water droplets to stand upon. The whole thing with Satin trying to grab him by the head and burn him alive getting him more than a bit alarmed. He'd been willing to kill the pyromaniac gangster and the huntress if he needed to. The rules allowed for such methods after all. Quite frankly though he'd been a bit spooked by that and the one woman bringing all three of them to their knees with a single move. As Robyn drew closer, spikes made of ice sprouted from the floor as Radiant stared dead ahead at her.

"...Scuse me....but stay away...."
​

"Hey, listen. Temporary truce, you up for that? Because frankly-" Robyn jerked her head past where Roy was throwing attack after attack at Satin and over towards the motionless woman.

Radiant looked past Robyn at the battle unfolding before his eyes.

It was clear that without aid in some manner, Satin would find himself in quite the unenviable position.

Maybe Robyn had noticed the damage Satin's semblance was doing to him, maybe she hadn't. It wasn't his place to lecture. Least of all when he still had his own plans on taking their cards.

He didn't say anything and let Robyn continue to speak.
​

"-if she does that trick again, we're screwed. What do you say?"

"...Agreed."

Even with the drawbacks inherent to his semblance and Satin's own weaknesses, the two of them plus Robyn had all been taken aback by Roy's partner.

Gravity was a powerful force and it was clear that if the three of them wanted to keep their cards and their lives, they'd need to work together. Even if semblances like his and Satin's went about as well together as cats and dogs.

'I have something in mind...We'll need to be quick...Your partner's semblance seems to be frying his flesh the more he uses it...'

Radiant pushed his mask off to the side slightly to reveal his face.

"Guessing you'll need to make a trickshot....Let's see if me and him can give you that opportunity..."

Satin for his part had been forced to cede more and more ground to Roy's relentless assault. Using 'Azure Nightmare' in close range like this might have seemed ideal but going by the damage he was seeing pop up on his skin grafts, he'd have to conserve the amount of 'shots' left and make them count. Trying to flashfry this asshole only for it to fail would have been a waste and one that'd get him injured or killed for it. His shoulders sagged as he stared down Roy. The stitches around his face came undone somewhat as he grinned.

"C'mon~"

As Roy presumably charged him, Satin raised 'A Burning Wind' and waited for whatever was going to happen. Either he'd get cut down or he'd pull something out of his ass....The latter didn't seem too likely but then a wall of ice erupted between the two as Roy's sword cleaved into it. Looking back and seeing Robyn standing with Radiant, Satin frowned.

"Guess the old saying's true...If you can't beat em..."

"Join em!"

He stretched out his other hand and fired out a burst of fire to destroy what was left of the ice wall and engulf Roy in the firestream. Before when Satin had simply fired a stream of fire and let it go at that, Roy took advantage and either forced his way through the fire or countered it with either his sword or his own elemental ability. Now that the ice guy was apparently on their side for the time being, Satin could only hope the guy could figure out some way to get this guy out of the picture-even if just for a moment-so they could focus their efforts on his partner. Tears appeared in the flesh of Satin's arm, blood running down the length of it as he kept on the pressure to try and force Roy back if even just a little as Radiant watched.

Once Roy was close enough to the wall, the fire died down and Satin winced in pain.

"Okay, ice boy...They're all yours." He growled aloud and Radiant provided him with his answer.

Part of the ice coating the hallway's floor reverted back to water and splashed Roy, covering the knight-looking figure in water. A nice reprieve from Satin's flame.

"....Now....freeze..."

Shifting the water back to ice, Radiant sought to freeze Roy against the wall. Everyone gathered, including Roy himself in all likelihood, knew this wasn't going to hold for any length of time. The second he used even the slightest bit of pressure, he'd send the ice flying away in chunks. Satin didn't mind though. While he'd have preferred to burn Roy alive, the image of the sword wielding berserker frozen up against the wall amused him. Raising the arm he'd used to blast Roy moments prior, he smashed it through the ice to reach the water underneath. The amount of water the sprinklers had managed to pour wasn't that much in the grand scheme of things but it still felt cool enough on Satin's ravaged skin. Pulling it free, he grabbed his blade and charged forward.

His plan rested on Roy being otherwise distracted/dealt with while Satin diverted/garnered the partner's attention. Which meant Satin was running straight into the figurative dragon's mouth. Moving his hands as though he were performing some kind of elaborate dance, the ice on the floor began to rumble and shake before chunks of it turned into puddles, the water coalaguating together to help make up Radiant's next attack. The soaked floor of the hallway was revealed once more only for the walls themselves to be the next target of Radiant's semblance. The water freezing over yet again and forming into spikes which popped up between where Roy had been 'put on ice' and Satin. Allowing the fire wielder to run with (hopefully) no fear of being barreled after by a sword wielding badass.

The downside to this of course was that once Roy got himself free, he'd likely be more furious with the one who froze him.

Close quarters wasn't Radiant or Satin's line of expertise. Both two men who cared to rely too much on their semblances, even if Radiant's required a bit more prep/work to get any mileage out of it. Still, if the idea of Roy coming after Robyn and him frightened him at all, his expression was hidden away as he shifted his mask back into place upon his face. While not taking his eyes off the frozen Roy, Radiant murmured softly to Robyn. Seemed like the guy had a strange of habit of speaking slowly and softly...

"....The spikes...also act as cover for us....You seem good with that crossbow...Think you can make a shot around the spikes to hit her while he's got her distracted...?"

Whatever Robyn's answer was, Satin could only hope it was yes as his jacket had been sheared off by the spikes rupturing from the ground. The length to which his arms had been burned a most graphic sight as he sheathed his blade and clutching onto his left arm, he jumped up and tried to fire a blast right at the motionless swordswoman. His festering skin was going to sting even worse after this but it'd be worth it and more if he managed to live through this fight.​

 

[MyrtenRose]

View attachment 741626

Until the fourth wasn't, and was instead punctuated by her wrist being snatched and held fast with digit scarcely a millimeter from jabbing him as he met her fierce gaze with one of his own that was as poised, cool and blase as was custom of him. His own raspy growl was entirely collected in the face of her challenging one, spiked with just the vaguest hint of the sarcasm he couldn't resist whenever loudmouthed tools got in his face.

"I wanted the news, not the weather. And you got some stuff backwards, lady. You ain't doing us a favor, and we didn't come lookin' for any. We ended up by you 'cause we needed a quick escape and apparently my sister thought your tacky ass was worth getting to know at some point. I told you the score, and you jumped at the chance to climb on board so fast it made me think maybe there's still a little huntress left in there, or at least more to you than just some sellout with a funny accent. Only you couldn't go two seconds without testing me, and now I'm questioning whether it's worth listening to you mouth off and drag your feet behind your attitude problems all night. So here's how it's gonna go. We're outta here either way. You can do one of two things: buzz off and keep wandering around aimlessly looking for a hunk of plastic until the Grimm make you their chewtoy, or do like I suggested and tell whoever's willing to play ball to group up in the arena." A deliberate choice; high ceilings and enough wide open space to disperse the grimm into something less than an unstoppable swarm. "Which means no matter how you slice it, this is where we part ways. And either you have a problem with that, or you don't."

He jerked his hand aside to throw her wrist down, and in the same movement swept his shoulder cloak aside to grip Harbinger's shaft on his hip.

"Your choice, grandma."​

I wish I had popcorn for this.

She ignored that voice ringing in her head, though, and kept her stare focused on the slim alcoholic bird in front of her. It only broke when she glanced down at his hand wrapping around the handle of his large blade. There was a moment when her harsh glare softened, as if she wished he could make good on that implied threat, that it could end any other way than either her beating him or the inevitable event of her coming back...but that shift came and went so swiftly it was easy to dismiss it as a trick of the light. With her wrist now free she took a step back, but rather than her own hand moving to grab hold of the swords she wielded, she just stood there. Those yellow eyes flickered, scrutinizing the man's face before her for...some reason. Not the look of a predator assessing prey but more like she was searching for something. Whatever the case, when her mouth opened, her words came out in a growl to match his.

"You don't fucking know me! I'm not a sellout, I'm not--ngh!" A pained grunt escaped her lips and she whirled around, her hunched over back now facing him as one hand pressed against her forehead. The other hand swiftly joined it and several more grunts escaped her. It was a few moments before her hands slowly lowered back to her sides and she straightened up somewhat into a more comfortable looking slouch. "You don't know me." She repeated, but it felt she was speaking to somebody else just as much as she was to Qrow.

And then she resumed her walking away without any more words, just as silent as the partner she'd been saddled with. Whether that was her moving off to find a last card and going back on her word to help or actually following through with Qrow's suggestion, that was unclear.

Raven's eyes remained on the faunus until she was out of sight, fleetingly shot over towards the masked man before she turned towards her brother. There was no judgment in her eyes and she made no comments on the situation that had just occurred. "Let's go then." She spoke instead, whatever she felt about that scene kept to herself as she began to move in the opposite direction Tock had went.​

 

[Gus Gungus]

Raven's eyes remained on the faunus until she was out of sight, fleetingly shot over towards the masked man before she turned towards her brother. There was no judgment in her eyes and she made no comments on the situation that had just occurred. "Let's go then." She spoke instead, whatever she felt about that scene kept to herself as she began to move in the opposite direction Tock had went.

Qrow's expression all throughout the display had been no less composed and unreadable than before, and only when Tock turned and strode away did he turn to Raven with one eyebrow arched and slouch his shoulders in a shrug.

"Yeah, someone definitely did a number on your pal there."

And then she resumed her walking away without any more words, just as silent as the partner she'd been saddled with. Whether that was her moving off to find a last card and going back on her word to help or actually following through with Qrow's suggestion, that was unclear.

Tock found her pace matched by the honed, quiet footstep of her mysterious partner, who gave her a 'there-there' pat on the shoulder and motioned to hold on while he showed her something like it'd make her feel better. The device he produced from his belt appeared to be a custom-built tracker of some kind, operating on a different basis entirely from the one the arena master had supplied every competitor on their scrolls, and a cluster of six blinking dots were depicted as a few floors down and several hundred yards away from their position.

The swordsman made one of his vague hand gestures and walked ahead, taking the lead as he started moving swiftly and silently to the nearest elevator.​

 

[MyrtenRose]

"...Agreed."

Even with the drawbacks inherent to his semblance and Satin's own weaknesses, the two of them plus Robyn had all been taken aback by Roy's partner.

Gravity was a powerful force and it was clear that if the three of them wanted to keep their cards and their lives, they'd need to work together. Even if semblances like his and Satin's went about as well together as cats and dogs.

'I have something in mind...We'll need to be quick...Your partner's semblance seems to be frying his flesh the more he uses it...'

Radiant pushed his mask off to the side slightly to reveal his face.

"Guessing you'll need to make a trickshot....Let's see if me and him can give you that opportunity..."

"Good. Glad that's settled." Robyn muttered, shooting a glance over Satin's way. The eagle-eyed huntress hadn't missed the fact that her partner in this, his semblance seemed to do a number on him, but she didn't allow herself to focus too much on that in the middle of a deadly brawl. They needed to handle the foes before them first.​

As Roy presumably charged him, Satin raised 'A Burning Wind' and waited for whatever was going to happen. Either he'd get cut down or he'd pull something out of his ass....The latter didn't seem too likely but then a wall of ice erupted between the two as Roy's sword cleaved into it. Looking back and seeing Robyn standing with Radiant, Satin frowned.

"WHAT?!" The surprised blink went unseen behind that helm and they let out a frustrated hiss as they ripped their sword back out of the ice...​

He stretched out his other hand and fired out a burst of fire to destroy what was left of the ice wall and engulf Roy in the firestream. Before when Satin had simply fired a stream of fire and let it go at that, Roy took advantage and either forced his way through the fire or countered it with either his sword or his own elemental ability. Now that the ice guy was apparently on their side for the time being, Satin could only hope the guy could figure out some way to get this guy out of the picture-even if just for a moment-so they could focus their efforts on his partner. Tears appeared in the flesh of Satin's arm, blood running down the length of it as he kept on the pressure to try and force Roy back if even just a little as Radiant watched.

Once Roy was close enough to the wall, the fire died down and Satin winced in pain.

...just in time to be forced back by the outburst of flame. This one burned even hotter and stronger from what Roy could tell and even the armored warrior gave way before it, being forced into stepping back under the burning onslaught. Reluctant boots stomped along backwards, the frustration building more and more with every step until it reached its peak when their back was nearly against the wall. "You hotheaded bastard! You're gonna make a nice grill--"​

Once Roy was close enough to the wall, the fire died down and Satin winced in pain.

"Okay, ice boy...They're all yours." He growled aloud and Radiant provided him with his answer.

Part of the ice coating the hallway's floor reverted back to water and splashed Roy, covering the knight-looking figure in water. A nice reprieve from Satin's flame.

"....Now....freeze..."

Shifting the water back to ice, Radiant sought to freeze Roy against the wall. Everyone gathered, including Roy himself in all likelihood, knew this wasn't going to hold for any length of time. The second he used even the slightest bit of pressure, he'd send the ice flying away in chunks. Satin didn't mind though. While he'd have preferred to burn Roy alive, the image of the sword wielding berserker frozen up against the wall amused him. Raising the arm he'd used to blast Roy moments prior, he smashed it through the ice to reach the water underneath. The amount of water the sprinklers had managed to pour wasn't that much in the grand scheme of things but it still felt cool enough on Satin's ravaged skin. Pulling it free, he grabbed his blade and charged forward.

"Nani?!!?"

At least for right now, the bloodthirsty fighter ended up a frozen armoredsicle. Even so nearly immediately there was a faint glow from within the icy prison that began to emerge...​

Still, if the idea of Roy coming after Robyn and him frightened him at all, his expression was hidden away as he shifted his mask back into place upon his face. While not taking his eyes off the frozen Roy, Radiant murmured softly to Robyn. Seemed like the guy had a strange of habit of speaking slowly and softly...

"....The spikes...also act as cover for us....You seem good with that crossbow...Think you can make a shot around the spikes to hit her while he's got her distracted...?"

Robyn nodded. She would be ready for the right opportunity.​

Whatever Robyn's answer was, Satin could only hope it was yes as his jacket had been sheared off by the spikes rupturing from the ground. The length to which his arms had been burned a most graphic sight as he sheathed his blade and clutching onto his left arm, he jumped up and tried to fire a blast right at the motionless swordswoman. His festering skin was going to sting even worse after this but it'd be worth it and more if he managed to live through this fight.

Her eyes had slid back open at this point and her head slowly raised to eye both the firewielder who'd jumped up and the fire blast he blasted down. She seemed unfazed by the sight. "So be it."

In an instant purple aura glowed about her, the force of her will and semblance unleashing a fierce wind around her and making her hair sway. Then she shot forth like a bullet straight up as she too leaped and gravity's effect on herself reversed. She neatly avoided the flames as she shot well above it. Ironically from her new position, she had to raise her head up to look downwards. Roy's partner now stood on the ceiling, upside down from the perspective of the three below. A new center of gravity allowed her to remaining standing in that way without falling, and if she was disoriented by that in the slightest, it didn't show in her solemn stare. Or her casually striding along the roof until she was nearly right above where Radiant stood. An arm reached out and pulled, reversing gravity for the ice manipulator in much the same way and aiming to bring him right up to her, her other hand readying her blade for an efficient slash...

Only for that slash to have to be redirected into batting away the sudden bolts Robyn shot her way and with a frown the warrior had to readjust after, not slicing away at Radiant but instead lashing out with a powerful kick intent to knock him back down to the crossbow wielder.​

 

[MidwayLives]

"Wait, so you guys are like a government where there are different branches and they're all secretly colluding against one another? That is so... stupid."

"Mmm...In some respects, I suppose that's true. You generally would only tend to see my teamates and I on a regular day to day basis more than you would members of the Narcotics and Hitman Teams. The Community Team's primary focus is helping to stabilize the area under our jurisdiction. With the unspoken rule that if we go poking around in areas that the other teams have carted off as their own areas of influence, things are fair game." Blanco didn't feel a need to clarify that those 'encounters' usually resulted in death. Like those of the Narcotics Team members who Blanco killed for murdering that one shopkeep's husband in cold blood. Murder was never his first choice if he could help it. Taking a life was not something to be taken lightly and it was why people like the murderer who'd kidnapped Tyrian's friend disgusted him so. But sometimes points needed to be made and others came first leaving him with no other choice but to end his opponent.

"...As of late, it seems I've not been doing as grand a job as I should be."

Members of other teams poking around was usually accepted if things stayed peaceful. But attacking Malachite's establishment in broad daylight without so much as even a headsup or some kind of explanation? It raised questions and ones Blanco wanted answers to just as badly as Cailie wanted to know why there were now holes in the walls and a backdoor that needed to be replaced and or fixed.
​

"Some crusty looking dude with a sword's laid out in the back... Yeeeeaaaahhh, I think I know what probably happened. This kid with stroke-inducing pink hair came in here today and got nosy, so Mercury played it hardball with him. Said he's with the Bound Ashes. Guess whoever he told didn't appreciate the change in management."

"That would be Aurora Beige. He's the under-leader of the Bound Ashes..." Blanco frowned and raised his hand up to his chin in thought. "...Which means he's the only one of us who's ever actually seen and met with the Boss. Tyrian informed me of his own encounter with him. That he'd also had one with you and your friends is somewhat concerning. I spoke to himself not that long ago and he'd made zero mention of speaking to a Mercury or anything of the sort. Given the trouble that's been occurring around here, I'd have hoped that if something was amiss he'd at least mention it before going directly to the Hitman Team..."

He took a step closer and looked over Blanche's form.

"We're not usually privvy to the goings-ons of other teams unless it's affecting the family's bottom line-financially that is. Think of the different teams as miniature gangs all their own and we directly report to either Aurora or other third parties. The one who runs our organization...I cannot tell you their name or even what they look like or sounds like. I joined when I was only a couple years younger than I am now(20)and the Boss's reclusive nature was just an accepted fact. Apparently due to cuts made for other ventures such as expanding in Atlas, the Hitman Team's salary was cut. So they attempted investigating the Boss and..."

Blanco paled slightly.

"...It didn't end well for them. I can only wonder for now if attacking your bar and causing this trouble was an attempt to lash out. To force the Boss to play his hand and have myself or perhaps even the Narcotics Team step in and dispose of them." Though given how beaten up Blanche appeared and that Char had been laid out going off Emerald's words... "...That said, it seems you handled these two remarkably well."
​

She eventually accepted that for now she was only going to be able to file that one under 'what the fuck?' and rolled her eyes to rest onto Blanco, a situation that was no less bizarre but far more within her wheelhouse to handle.

"'course ma'am. We're going to approach this by asking what the hell sending the hitman team into Miss Malachite's unprompted gots to do with needin' our help, and that there best damn well be reparations for more than just a few busted walls, Blanco. Seriously, what the hell? I know The Boss is the town's big fish, but I don't recall that means he's got permission to piss in the cheerios of a longstandin' establishment that's been nothin but cooperative for years all willy nilly."

"Rest assured, Cailie, the Bound Ashes appreciate the Spider's business just as we always have. I'm just as at a loss for an explanation as you are. Intimidation and destruction of property-more so when it belongs to a group that's been nothing but loyal and helpful in times of need-is not how my teammates and I wish to compose ourselves. That the Hitman Team has stepped beyond it's reach, perhaps out of some misplaced sense of vengeance or freed, I cannot say. But I will do whatever I can to help you get to the bottom of this-"

"You're....wrong..."

Blanche coughed from where Vernal had left him laying on the floor battered and bloodied.

"Ah, I see the traitor stirs." Blanco mused as he grabbed Blanche by the collar of his shirt. "I want a straight answer now that you're conscious, Blanche. What business did you and Char have in assaulting these people? Are you still so foolish after what your team did months ago and was punished for? The Boss will not let you off this time!"

"...It was the Boss...that ordered us...down here..."

"What?!"

Blanche weakly grabbed onto Blanco's hand and yanked it away from him. Grabbing onto the countertop, he pulled himself up.

"Blanco...You and the Community Team are all the same. You think you're so high and mighty....." Blanche spit on the ground near Blanco's shoes. "...The Hitman Team used to be what brought in the most cash for the family and we were left in the lurch. All we had left was to try and find out who the Boss was and why he felt that he could jip us. What we got was body parts of the detectives we hired shipped through the mail. This job was the first one we've had since then." A shudder ran through Blanche's body and his complexion turned pale as if he were going to throw up at being forced to recollect what'd happened. ".....We'd never seen the bastard but the influence, his reach, it scared the hell out of all of us. We joked, we laughed, I picked up babes and had some fun with what money we still had lying around. But we'd been taught a lesson: Do as you're told. Or else."

He gestured around the bar.

"....I got knocked out before I could even meet the damn kid but...Mercury. His old man used to work for the Ashes. Hell, he was one of the Boss's Elites. The Boss liked him so much that none of us knew his semblance, not even the other big wigs. Whatever Aurora said and did with these guys, he got tipped off that Black had a kid and he was apparently running Miss Malachite's joint now with his buddies. ...Guess the Boss was interested in having Marcus's kid take his place and so we got lumped with the job: Go find the kid and see how good he fights. If he's good enough we take him in, the Boss gets a new Elite. If he wasn't up to par..."

Blanche dragged his finger across his throat.

"....I dunno what Char thinks but we hated the kid's Old Man. Guy was a huge dick. Always acted like he was too good to hang with us. We were just hired killers and he was the top dog. Best of the best. Then one day he stops coming into work. The Boss questions everyone if they've seen him. I always thought he just took his money and ran."

Given what happened to Malachite though...

Blanche shrugged.

"Char might be able to tell you more but that's the long of it. I didn't really wanna wreck the place and I doubt Char did either but if we'd said no..."



"Chances are Char and I wouldn't be standing here talking to you. Or to anybody for that matter."

As Blanche finished his explanation, Blanco was at a loss for words. The Boss knew about this and had deliberately ordered members of the Hitman Team to interfere in what should have been Community Team business? Blanco didn't know Marcus Black having joined around the time that the guy was long since dead. But he must have been quite important if the Boss was willing to go so far as to have the home of a local informant group busted up in order to 'persuade' his son to join up and take his place in the gang. Guess no wasn't going to be an option if it turned out Mercury had the skills(he did!).

"...This is most alarming. I cannot say I've agreed with all the decisions that've been made by the Boss. Nothing is perfect and improvements can always be made but between this and Aurora acting rather strangely, I cannot help but believe there's something deeper going on than any of us are aware of. Tyrian?" He gestured for the scorpion to explain why the two of them had even stepped foot in here to begin with and Tyrian was all to happy to do so. Stepping up so he was standing alongside the gangster, Tyrian's tail unwrapped from around his waist and coiled up.

"The day after I met up with you guys, I started heading back to the motel I'd been staying with a friend. Same one who bult the prosthetic for my tail. I'd been traveling around Mistral with her for a while now. Was hoping to find a lead on Eve Taurus...We found a member of the Shadow Fang and they let us go." Tyrian hissed, still angered at having to admit that Fox had been his better that night. "We figured she'd stay back at the motel while I went out to find information. I end up bumping into you guys. I drink and fall asleep. I wake up and bump into Aurora." The encounter that got him shooed out of the bar by gunpoint. "...I find the motel we'd been staying at completely destroyed, the door to her room in splinters and a man dead."

Tyrian gestured to the scar that was forming from where he'd been stabbed by 'Jack' in their fight.

"I searched high and low for the killer. Didn't want to involve you guys. I found the killer and..."

His stinger drooped and Tyrian's arms fell to his side.

"He completely outclassed me. I didn't stand a chance. It was only thanks to Blanco finding me that I even made it out of there alive. Blanco's agreed to help me track down the murderer but I just don't think...." Tyrian gritted his teeth. Admitting he needed help to win a fight always pissed him off. More than he could stomach at times. "...That'll be enough. We need your help. Team MTEN's..."

Blanco propped a hand onto Tyrian's shoulder and smiled.

"I owe my life to the Ashes. But if the Boss wishes to use the Hitman Team as tools of intimidation on civilians while a murderer roams the streets,I cannot stand idly by. If the other members of the team continue to wage hostilities against you and your friends, you can count on my support. Aurora will be found and as a team leader, I WILL demand compensation. This is an affront to our goal and I'll not see it go without proper atonement being made." He stated firmly only for Blanche to laugh derisively.

"...What...? Are you going to take on the Boss....?"

Blanco paused

For a good minute or two.

"....If innocent lives are at risk and I have no choice, then yes."

"....Psh, good luck with that."
​

 

[MyrtenRose]

Qrow's expression all throughout the display had been no less composed and unreadable than before, and only when Tock turned and strode away did he turn to Raven with one eyebrow arched and slouch his shoulders in a shrug.

"Yeah, someone definitely did a number on your pal there."

"...Yeah." Raven agreed, more than a hint of sadness there. "She's been through and seen a lot of shit but she's never been like that. I still have no idea what could have...but I can't concern myself with that now. We have a deathtrap to survive." Her frown shifted into a more neutral look. "So should we try to find the others first or are we going to settle for any face that might be open to the plan?" ​

Tock found her pace matched by the honed, quiet footstep of her mysterious partner, who gave her a 'there-there' pat on the shoulder and motioned to hold on while he showed her something like it'd make her feel better. The device he produced from his belt appeared to be a custom-built tracker of some kind, operating on a different basis entirely from the one the arena master had supplied every competitor on their scrolls, and a cluster of six blinking dots were depicted as a few floors down and several hundred yards away from their position.

The swordsman made one of his vague hand gestures and walked ahead, taking the lead as he started moving swiftly and silently to the nearest elevator.

She didn't shrug off the hand on her shoulder and for a moment there it seemed she was hardly aware of it, but she did stop in her walk so it was apparent that she was paying attention. Her eyes dully flickered over to take a look at his device and she slowly nodded. "That works." She remarked without any enthusiasm and she adjusted her walk, striding lethargically to follow after her silent partner.​

 

[Gus Gungus]

"...Yeah." Raven agreed, more than a hint of sadness there. "She's been through and seen a lot of shit but she's never been like that. I still have no idea what could have...but I can't concern myself with that now. We have a deathtrap to survive." Her frown shifted into a more neutral look. "So should we try to find the others first or are we going to settle for any face that might be open to the plan?"

His own frown wasn't entirely unsympathetic, but he agreed on principle. He'd seen too much of what the Grimm could do if underestimated or left unchecked to have any intention of wasting more time, and he assumed any version of his sister who stuck to her huntress creed was the same. "Not that I think you should ever get your hopes riding too high on your boss—Trust me—" A scowl flickered across his features at that. "—But if there's anyone who could reverse whatever was done to her, I'm betting it's Ozpin. Er, Salem."

A hundred pages and all these months later, his brain still wasn't remotely okay with that. At her question he just gave a half-shrug and glanced over, pensive.



"Little of column A, little of column B. You're the ones who all came in here in some big group, so if any of Ironwood's let anything slip on where they were planning on hunkering down it's as good a place as any to start."

Thinking on it, they had; Winter had been entirely forthcoming about her intention to fortify the swimming pools, as Cobalt had been in their plans to stake out the labyrinthian library. Anyone else there on behalf of the resistance had likely shared their intent as well, unless they had a reason not to like Yang.

She didn't shrug off the hand on her shoulder and for a moment there it seemed she was hardly aware of it, but she did stop in her walk so it was apparent that she was paying attention. Her eyes dully flickered over to take a look at his device and she slowly nodded. "That works." She remarked without any enthusiasm and she adjusted her walk, striding lethargically to follow after her silent partner.

The man predictably held his silence for the rest of their trek, the elevator ride awkward and quiet as was to be expected at this point as it took them all the way back down to the bar level. A few lingering robots stood in their path, but were quickly cut down by the two straightforward warriors, the telltale signs of destroyed scrap and some fallen combatants strewn across the hallway leading from the elevators to the bar lounge proper indicating someone had already taken lengths to clear this entire floor.

When they reached the bar, it was to the sight of a warzone compared to the classy joint Tock had been flashed in just a day previously. Chairs and tables were upturned, the mirror behind the bar was shattered, and a whole lot of robot parts were piled up in a corner, a mountain that almost touched as high as the ceiling. Behind the counter stood a single man clad in a bodysuit just like Selleck's, leaning lazily against the wall with arms crossed and an eager grin that broke as soon as the duo came into view.



"Well well! Our elusive leader returns to us at last. Somehow we all figured you'd be last to show up, and the real kicker is we both know it woulda been the other way around if you gave half a crap. That's why we like you, boss. Always down to dick around and have a good time."

He flung himself forward, planting his palms flat against the table as he sized Tock up with a leer.

"Who's the new meat? Don't tell me the Sins are takin' in strays now."​

 

[MyrtenRose]

His own frown wasn't entirely unsympathetic, but he agreed on principle. He'd seen too much of what the Grimm could do if underestimated or left unchecked to have any intention of wasting more time, and he assumed any version of his sister who stuck to her huntress creed was the same. "Not that I think you should ever get your hopes riding too high on your boss—Trust me—" A scowl flickered across his features at that. "—But if there's anyone who could reverse whatever was done to her, I'm betting it's Ozpin. Er, Salem."

A hundred pages and all these months later, his brain still wasn't remotely okay with that. At her question he just gave a half-shrug and glanced over, pensive.

"Little of column A, little of column B. You're the ones who all came in here in some big group, so if any of Ironwood's let anything slip on where they were planning on hunkering down it's as good a place as any to start."

Thinking on it, they had; Winter had been entirely forthcoming about her intention to fortify the swimming pools, as Cobalt had been in their plans to stake out the labyrinthian library. Anyone else there on behalf of the resistance had likely shared their intent as well, unless they had a reason not to like Yang.

"Here's hoping." She left it at that, not minding the slip up in names. She felt confident if it had been the other way around, and she had ended up a stranger on his world...she'd be in the same boat no matter how much time passed. "Makes sense, was mainly asking your preference since it was your plan." Her frown finally disappeared and despite everything that was messed up about this situation, a small smirk emerged as she stepped into an elevator. "Hope you're in the mood for a swim." She deadpanned, figuring that was the best place to start.​

"Well well! Our elusive leader returns to us at last. Somehow we all figured you'd be last to show up, and the real kicker is we both know it woulda been the other way around if you gave half a crap. That's why we like you, boss. Always down to dick around and have a good time."

He flung himself forward, planting his palms flat against the table as he sized Tock up with a leer.

"Who's the new meat? Don't tell me the Sins are takin' in strays now."

She had checked through the bodies strewn about for a card on the off chance one of the corpses still had theirs, and when they got to the bar her eyes widened slightly as she took in the sight of all those demolished bots forming some kind of demented mountain, but it wasn't until the man she assumed responsible for that spoke up that she likewise used her voice, sounding like she got at least some of her enthusiasm back. "Who the 'ell are the Sins...no, don't answer that. It don't need to be answered." She bypassed any formal greetings and exchange of names, just getting right to the point. "The only thing that needs to be answered is this. All the grimm that were supposed to run wild on all of us, some freak has them under his influence and they're roaming about, killing at his whim. I got approached fer an alliance, to put this fightin' between us on pause for a while until we take care of the lot of 'em before they kill us all one by one. Ya in on that?"

There was a deliberate pause on her end, but not for the purpose of waiting for an answer.

"Don't ever call me new meat again."​

 

[Gus Gungus]

"Here's hoping." She left it at that, not minding the slip up in names. She felt confident if it had been the other way around, and she had ended up a stranger on his world...she'd be in the same boat no matter how much time passed. "Makes sense, was mainly asking your preference since it was your plan." Her frown finally disappeared and despite everything that was messed up about this situation, a small smirk emerged as she stepped into an elevator. "Hope you're in the mood for a swim." She deadpanned, figuring that was the best place to start.

"Not really." He answered with bemusement, having absolutely no idea what that remark could possibly mean or refer to.



About ten or so minutes later (give or take), any lingering questions were put to rest as the two stood at the entrance to one of the complex's pools, Qrow folding his arms with a decidedly unamused expression glowering at his twin.

"Seriously? Her?"

It was a disgruntlement born from vivid recollection of conflicts past, as Winter narrowed her eyes and stared down at them from atop a veritable mountain of makeshift barricades, azure eyes narrowed with focused scrutiny.

"Branwens." She greeted curtly, a respectful greeting if far from a warm one. "My designated partner and I have already gathered the requisite number of keycards. If you're seeking refuge for the rest of the night you're welcome to it, but if you came here looking for opponents I suggest you try a different floor."

She had checked through the bodies strewn about for a card on the off chance one of the corpses still had theirs, and when they got to the bar her eyes widened slightly as she took in the sight of all those demolished bots forming some kind of demented mountain, but it wasn't until the man she assumed responsible for that spoke up that she likewise used her voice, sounding like she got at least some of her enthusiasm back. "Who the 'ell are the Sins...no, don't answer that. It don't need to be answered." She bypassed any formal greetings and exchange of names, just getting right to the point. "The only thing that needs to be answered is this. All the grimm that were supposed to run wild on all of us, some freak has them under his influence and they're roaming about, killing at his whim. I got approached fer an alliance, to put this fightin' between us on pause for a while until we take care of the lot of 'em before they kill us all one by one. Ya in on that?"

There was a deliberate pause on her end, but not for the purpose of waiting for an answer.

"Don't ever call me new meat again."

The man just looked between her and his employer with flagrant levity in the face of her commanding tone, but when she was through he just put up his hands with a flippant burst of laughter rather than address anything she actually said. "Whoa, whoa! Skipped a couple of steps here or there, huh new meat? First off, the Seven Deadly Sins happen to be the best mercenary company still accepting jobs in all of Remnant, so put a little respect in that tone of yours before you lose too many teeth to speak clearly. Second, just 'cause you trail in here after the boss like some kinda lost puppy without a leash doesn't mean you can start laying out plays on the table like you're one of us. After all, we operate as a democracy."

His grin widened as his gaze flicked to the man he identified as leader, who simply shrugged and thumbed over to Tock like this was entirely her deal. He looked back, only instead of locking eyes with Tock again this time they roved to a spot behind her, from whence a sudden voice as smooth and buttery as velvet practically serenaded their ears.

"That's a big step for you, Greed. Actually obeying orders for a change."





The sight that awaited her if she turned was a confusing one. When her and her noiseless companion entered the bar it had been empty, save for the cocky figure standing behind the bar. Now there was a veritable freakshow all clustered around the one table in the center of the room, all of them staring at her; each wore attire similar to her partner and the man known as Greed, and all were intimidating in their own way. Perhaps the most attention-grabbing was the huge, lumbering sloth faunus who took up the rear, his jaw slack and eyes glazed over as he breathed heavily in and out of the mouth. A bald, rotund man with wide, gleaming eyes looked at her like she was a particularly appetizing snack, while an androgynous figure with dreadlocks barely kept in check by a crimson headband turned her over in their gaze as if she were a prey kill they had no intention of eating, simply something to occupy the mind. A few wisps of shadow curled around the edges of the group, but the last visible figure was the source of the caressing voice that had chimed in, a woman who bore a resemblance to the current Fall Maiden and sat elegantly with her knees jutting out over the table, expression shrewd as it was drenched in piqued curiosity.

It was the rotund figure who next spoke up, tongue lolling out between his rows of sparkling teeth as he cocked his head and licked his lips with a deranged twinkle in his eye. "Can I eat her?"



The woman who had spoken up quirked her lips in a faint smirk, idly stroking the short man's bald head. "Not just yet, my dear Gluttony. This is Wrath's honored guest, after all. Let's give her a chance to slow down and actually explain what it is she's proposing before we leap to any... unfortunate decisions."

They all looked at her expectantly, obviously awaiting more than the elevator pitch she'd just given.​

 

[MidwayLives]

The man's features were withered and grey, the fingers clutching at his chest gnarled, lips and eyelids shriveled up so it was with unblinking eyes and a frozen rictus that his gaze lingered on the ceiling. He looked like a mummy that had been semi-preserved beneath the ice for hundreds of years. Numerous playing cards, scorch marks, needle flechettes, and familiar empty shell casings marked the corridor, marking the entire area as the site of a fierce skirmish in the not-so-distant past, though no other bodies were visible. Beyond that, only one thing was clear.

Between the bicep-baring attire, bright shade of dye still clinging to his wispy, malnourished hair, and the faint outline of cheek tattoos barely visible against his mottled skin, this man was almost definitely Prisma, the eerie, devil-may-care clown who had spent his time in the buildup cheerfully assigning people point scores.

*gasp!*

Ruby nudged the body with the tip of her boot.

Between the shell casings which were all too familiar and the scorches, only one person stood out to Ruby.

"Yang..."

Why was it that Yang always seemed to pop up in her thoughts? This Yang wasn't even the one that didn't hate her!

If Yang had been here, she couldn't have gotten far right? Killing someone like Prisma had to be quite the undertaking.

More so when...

Ruby waved a hand infront of his face.

It looked like he'd been sucked dry....
​

 

[MyrtenRose]

"Not really." He answered with bemusement, having absolutely no idea what that remark could possibly mean or refer to.

About ten or so minutes later (give or take), any lingering questions were put to rest as the two stood at the entrance to one of the complex's pools, Qrow folding his arms with a decidedly unamused expression glowering at his twin.

"Seriously? Her?"

It was a disgruntlement born from vivid recollection of conflicts past, as Winter narrowed her eyes and stared down at them from atop a veritable mountain of makeshift barricades, azure eyes narrowed with focused scrutiny.

"Branwens." She greeted curtly, a respectful greeting if far from a warm one. "My designated partner and I have already gathered the requisite number of keycards. If you're seeking refuge for the rest of the night you're welcome to it, but if you came here looking for opponents I suggest you try a different floor."

"Yeah, why not? She's smart, skilled, has a good semblance for fighting against numbers..." She rattled off some of the pros as she looked over at him, not sure exactly why he'd have any objections in that regard. And though she didn't say as much out loud, if Qrow was right about there being someone on the inside feeding out info to Weiss, it felt obvious that Winter was high up on the list of likely suspects for personal and complicated reasons. Though she disbelieved it was actually Winter, it couldn't hurt to keep an eye on her. After a bit of just staring at Qrow with a curious raised eyebrow she moved her gaze over towards Winter up above them.

"No we haven't come in search of a fight!" She called out with a raised voice. "In fact we need you, and or your partner if they're willing, because, you see...the grimm that were supposed to come hunting all of us? They've fallen under the influence of some creep and he's going around on the hunt. If he has his way, he's gonna coast straight to the top, taking out fighters one by one while they're weak or distracted or tired. And believe me, these aren't no regular grimm. We were lucky to get away. If we don't unite who we can and take out this threat...I fear there won't be enough of us left standing to move on to what comes next." ​

The man just looked between her and his employer with flagrant levity in the face of her commanding tone, but when she was through he just put up his hands with a flippant burst of laughter rather than address anything she actually said. "Whoa, whoa! Skipped a couple of steps here or there, huh new meat? First off, the Seven Deadly Sins happen to be the best mercenary company still accepting jobs in all of Remnant, so put a little respect in that tone of yours before you lose too many teeth to speak clearly. Second, just 'cause you trail in here after the boss like some kinda lost puppy without a leash doesn't mean you can start laying out plays on the table like you're one of us. After all, we operate as a democracy."

"Never 'eard of ya." Whether that was true or a boldfaced lie only meant to mock them, who could say? "Second, what the 'ell did I just say and third, I don't care how you operate." Tock snapped back. "Fourth, well--"​

His grin widened as his gaze flicked to the man he identified as leader, who simply shrugged and thumbed over to Tock like this was entirely her deal. He looked back, only instead of locking eyes with Tock again this time they roved to a spot behind her, from whence a sudden voice as smooth and buttery as velvet practically serenaded their ears.

"--that. So are ya--" ​

"That's a big step for you, Greed. Actually obeying orders for a change."

"...'old that thought." She swiveled around to look at whoever was talking. That voice felt like...satin sliding across somebody's skin in soft candlelight...or as possible as it was for a voice to feel that way.​

The sight that awaited her if she turned was a confusing one. When her and her noiseless companion entered the bar it had been empty, save for the cocky figure standing behind the bar. Now there was a veritable freakshow all clustered around the one table in the center of the room, all of them staring at her; each wore attire similar to her partner and the man known as Greed, and all were intimidating in their own way. Perhaps the most attention-grabbing was the huge, lumbering sloth faunus who took up the rear, his jaw slack and eyes glazed over as he breathed heavily in and out of the mouth. A bald, rotund man with wide, gleaming eyes looked at her like she was a particularly appetizing snack, while an androgynous figure with dreadlocks barely kept in check by a crimson headband turned her over in their gaze as if she were a prey kill they had no intention of eating, simply something to occupy the mind. A few wisps of shadow curled around the edges of the group, but the last visible figure was the source of the caressing voice that had chimed in, a woman who bore a resemblance to the current Fall Maiden and sat elegantly with her knees jutting out over the table, expression shrewd as it was drenched in piqued curiosity.

"Oh fan-fuckin-tastic, there's a lot more of you." Tock deadpanned, her eyes staying on the big one for some time but lingered the most on the woman: "...Why the 'ell do ya look like that kid, except well...all grown up." The croc didn't look downward but it was obvious nevertheless what she meant.​

It was the rotund figure who next spoke up, tongue lolling out between his rows of sparkling teeth as he cocked his head and licked his lips with a deranged twinkle in his eye. "Can I eat her?"

At that she only flashed a dangerous looking grin, a smile that said try it and you'd regret it.

The woman who had spoken up quirked her lips in a faint smirk, idly stroking the short man's bald head. "Not just yet, my dear Gluttony. This is Wrath's honored guest, after all. Let's give her a chance to slow down and actually explain what it is she's proposing before we leap to any... unfortunate decisions."

They all looked at her expectantly, obviously awaiting more than the elevator pitch she'd just given.

"...Nah." Tock shook her head and shut down the idea of a lengthy explanation then and there. She was no great persuasive orator or anything like Salem or others. Blunt, direct, rough...that was her way. "That's the gist. A pack of wild grimm not to be taken lightly are taking orders from some punk who's looking to take advantage of all of us fighting each other and have his beasties kill us while we're doin' that. Prolly to get 'is rocks off. If enough of us don't fight together to combat that threat, then most of us are gonna die separately. That's it. That's the gist." She repeated. "So are ya in or do I gotta keep lookin' for someone who'll pull their 'eads out their asses long enough to recognize and deal with that problem?"​

 

[Gus Gungus]

*gasp!*

Ruby nudged the body with the tip of her boot.

Between the shell casings which were all too familiar and the scorches, only one person stood out to Ruby.

"Yang..."

Why was it that Yang always seemed to pop up in her thoughts? This Yang wasn't even the one that didn't hate her!

If Yang had been here, she couldn't have gotten far right? Killing someone like Prisma had to be quite the undertaking.

More so when...

Ruby waved a hand infront of his face.

It looked like he'd been sucked dry....

The body, perhaps unsurprisingly, gave no response. A more directed pattern of blood offered her only clue as to the perpetrator of the gruesome scene, no more than a few flecks of red setting into the metal floor here and there that formed a loose trail leading through the carnage, around the corner and out of sight. The choice to follow that trail and uncover more about what had happened was hers to make.

Presuming she did, she didn't have to wait very long.

Whether or not that was a good thing remained to be seen, but the sight that awaited her after a few more messily interlocked hallways and turns was somewhat of a visually disconcerting one. Long after the blood trail became too minor and sporadic to follow she was instead guided by the sound of unconcerned footsteps and something being dragged, which peaked when she semblance dashed around another corner and came face to face with... Yang.

Squared.



The one who drew her eye first was almost certainly the one on the ground. It was the Yang from the bar, the one she saw walk in like she owned the place with such vulgarity and flaunted confidence that assuming her to be anyone other than her own Remnant's dragon would've been nothing short of lunacy. She was also currently visible in a totally different light; unconscious, beaten, and bleeding from a cut above the swollen eye that was definitely gonna progress to an ugly shiner later on, the source of the trail Ruby followed before her aura stemmed it. Additional notes included her being trussed up and gagged like a turkey with ludicrous amounts of tape wrapped around her arms to the point of concealment, the rest of the roll apparently spent on her mouth like the culprit honestly wasn't sure which they wanted to keep more locked down.

The figure roughly dragging her by a fistful of her golden mane was, as mentioned, also Yang, though the look was one Ruby couldn't recall placing on her. Her own blonde hair fell to just over the shoulders, hewed off roughly at the ends in a way that while not entirely symmetrical actually kind of suited her, inviting one's gaze to the piercings on her right ear. She was dressed in the kind of outfit typical to both flavors of her sister, embellished with biker gloves, a scruffy orange bandana tied around her neck and full-length black sleeve coverings that kept her arms hidden from view under the tanned leather, and as she turned to stare at Ruby the former Masque could see the muscles on her face go slack with surprise.

She didn't miss a single beat though. Anything you can do I can do better or whatever, and with a sudden flourish she pulled away the goggles she was wearing with a perky smile to reveal lilac eyes that were warm, gentle and caring. Or in simpler terms, everything Ruby ever wanted in a sister.



"HeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeey, sis!" She practically sang, almost coughing and sputtering as her voice hit a note just an octave too high for a chronic smoker and all-around drug addict's vocal chords to sustain. She concealed it well enough, though, and dropped her lamer self unceremoniously to instead prop that hand on her hip with a chatty demeanor. "So you're in this crazy jam too, huh? Figures. Would it have killed you to show up a hot 20 minutes ago, though? We totally coulda partnered up! Can you believe that out of all these different crazies the one I ended up stuck with is the dumpster fire? Hahaha! What FUN!"

That last ring of cheer was drenched in sarcasm to imply she found it anything but, and she subtly repositioned her boot on the back of the fallen Yang's crown to grind her face further into the tiles.

"She got all freaky on these coupla creeps I ran into. You prolly saw. Wouldn't chill the heck out, so I had to get creative. She's almost kinda cute like that, dontcha think? Definitely a big improvement on attitude! I guess you could say she's, um, Iiiiiiiiiiii... showed her the ropes? Haha, 'cause, get it? Cuz I tied her up."

Yeah. That was probably the kind of dumb shit she'd say to get a laugh if she were a complete little bitch.​

 

[Gus Gungus]

"Oh fan-fuckin-tastic, there's a lot more of you." Tock deadpanned, her eyes staying on the big one for some time but lingered the most on the woman: "...Why the 'ell do ya look like that kid, except well...all grown up." The croc didn't look downward but it was obvious nevertheless what she meant.

The woman simply raised her eyebrows in droll amusement, and the way her shoulders leaned back ever-so-slightly to accentuate her form almost gave the sense she wanted her to look where she wasn't. "I'm afraid I have no idea who you mean," she purred. The familiar kind of purr that was highly likely to make someone like Tock tingle just a bit, given her own storied history with purring.

At that she only flashed a dangerous looking grin, a smile that said try it and you'd regret it.

His jaw opened wide and he just... let it hang there, mouth dripping with saliva. It was gross.

"...Nah." Tock shook her head and shut down the idea of a lengthy explanation then and there. She was no great persuasive orator or anything like Salem or others. Blunt, direct, rough...that was her way. "That's the gist. A pack of wild grimm not to be taken lightly are taking orders from some punk who's looking to take advantage of all of us fighting each other and have his beasties kill us while we're doin' that. Prolly to get 'is rocks off. If enough of us don't fight together to combat that threat, then most of us are gonna die separately. That's it. That's the gist." She repeated. "So are ya in or do I gotta keep lookin' for someone who'll pull their 'eads out their asses long enough to recognize and deal with that problem?"

Outside of those tidbits they all held their silence until she was through, and Tock found a sea of bemused eyes staring back at her with fairly consistent amounts of unconvinced. Only when Greed sauntered by her with hands in his coat pockets and a derisive snort, tilting his head back and jerking a thumb in the crocodile's direction.

"Well... We're all actually pretty confident about our chances doing our thing here, and you're pretty much a huge bitch, so. All in favor of icing this chick say aye?"

"AYE! AYE, AYE, AYE!" The fat dwarf exploded like he'd been waiting for the chance, actually quivering with excitement as he hopped from foot to foot.

"Aye." The huge, lumbering faunus said slowly as if forming the thought itself was a struggle, still breathing heavily in and out through the mouth.

"Aye," hissed a dark, malevolent voice that seemed to drift over from every shadow under a table, every patch of darkness in the most dimly lit corners of the room, rather than any one person.

"Yup. Sounds like a sucker's trap to me." The dreadlocked figure chimed in, a lethal, fiendish grin on their face to match Tock's as their eyes never left her own.

"It seems like a waste..." The woman sighed in so soft and soothing a voice it was almost like a moan, lower lip curling in apparent sympathy. She seemed to be the only one who wasn't convinced, however, and the rest all turned back to pin Tock with their varying degrees of unnerving stare. Just when it looked like Gluttony could no longer restrict his appetite and Greed was about to make good on his thought of taking a step towards her, a single hand at the front of the bar went up.

The single coy gesture had every pair of eyes in the room entranced, and upon seeing it Greed immediately slid his hands back in his coat again and gave a frustrated kick at nothing.

"Well, shit. We do it."

"You didn't come here with any kind of strategy or plan for me, darling? No direction from whoever it was who conscripted you?" The woman moved swiftly along, crossing one leg over the other in a manner that was once more just about slow and sensual enough to be suggestive without being overt about it. Had she been wearing any kind of a dress and not utilitarian mercenary attire there was every chance Tock would've been getting an eyeful. She pouted, clearly dissatisfied, never having once broken her eyeline from the crocodile's as her dark irises gleamed with something entrancing. "That's such a disappointment if so."

There was something about those eyes. The more she looked at them the more she couldn't look away, the huskier and more silky the deep, sultry voice serenading her sounded in her ears... Come to think of it, it was a voice she'd do anything not to disappoint. Wasn't it?​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"Mmm...In some respects, I suppose that's true. You generally would only tend to see my teamates and I on a regular day to day basis more than you would members of the Narcotics and Hitman Teams. The Community Team's primary focus is helping to stabilize the area under our jurisdiction. With the unspoken rule that if we go poking around in areas that the other teams have carted off as their own areas of influence, things are fair game." Blanco didn't feel a need to clarify that those 'encounters' usually resulted in death. Like those of the Narcotics Team members who Blanco killed for murdering that one shopkeep's husband in cold blood. Murder was never his first choice if he could help it. Taking a life was not something to be taken lightly and it was why people like the murderer who'd kidnapped Tyrian's friend disgusted him so. But sometimes points needed to be made and others came first leaving him with no other choice but to end his opponent.

"...As of late, it seems I've not been doing as grand a job as I should be."

Members of other teams poking around was usually accepted if things stayed peaceful. But attacking Malachite's establishment in broad daylight without so much as even a headsup or some kind of explanation? It raised questions and ones Blanco wanted answers to just as badly as Cailie wanted to know why there were now holes in the walls and a backdoor that needed to be replaced and or fixed.

"That would be Aurora Beige. He's the under-leader of the Bound Ashes..." Blanco frowned and raised his hand up to his chin in thought. "...Which means he's the only one of us who's ever actually seen and met with the Boss. Tyrian informed me of his own encounter with him. That he'd also had one with you and your friends is somewhat concerning. I spoke to himself not that long ago and he'd made zero mention of speaking to a Mercury or anything of the sort. Given the trouble that's been occurring around here, I'd have hoped that if something was amiss he'd at least mention it before going directly to the Hitman Team..."

He took a step closer and looked over Blanche's form.

"We're not usually privvy to the goings-ons of other teams unless it's affecting the family's bottom line-financially that is. Think of the different teams as miniature gangs all their own and we directly report to either Aurora or other third parties. The one who runs our organization...I cannot tell you their name or even what they look like or sounds like. I joined when I was only a couple years younger than I am now(20)and the Boss's reclusive nature was just an accepted fact. Apparently due to cuts made for other ventures such as expanding in Atlas, the Hitman Team's salary was cut. So they attempted investigating the Boss and..."

Blanco paled slightly.

"...It didn't end well for them. I can only wonder for now if attacking your bar and causing this trouble was an attempt to lash out. To force the Boss to play his hand and have myself or perhaps even the Narcotics Team step in and dispose of them." Though given how beaten up Blanche appeared and that Char had been laid out going off Emerald's words... "...That said, it seems you handled these two remarkably well."

"Rest assured, Cailie, the Bound Ashes appreciate the Spider's business just as we always have. I'm just as at a loss for an explanation as you are. Intimidation and destruction of property-more so when it belongs to a group that's been nothing but loyal and helpful in times of need-is not how my teammates and I wish to compose ourselves. That the Hitman Team has stepped beyond it's reach, perhaps out of some misplaced sense of vengeance or freed, I cannot say. But I will do whatever I can to help you get to the bottom of this-"

"You're....wrong..."

Blanche coughed from where Vernal had left him laying on the floor battered and bloodied.

"Ah, I see the traitor stirs." Blanco mused as he grabbed Blanche by the collar of his shirt. "I want a straight answer now that you're conscious, Blanche. What business did you and Char have in assaulting these people? Are you still so foolish after what your team did months ago and was punished for? The Boss will not let you off this time!"

"...It was the Boss...that ordered us...down here..."

"What?!"

Blanche weakly grabbed onto Blanco's hand and yanked it away from him. Grabbing onto the countertop, he pulled himself up.

"Blanco...You and the Community Team are all the same. You think you're so high and mighty....." Blanche spit on the ground near Blanco's shoes. "...The Hitman Team used to be what brought in the most cash for the family and we were left in the lurch. All we had left was to try and find out who the Boss was and why he felt that he could jip us. What we got was body parts of the detectives we hired shipped through the mail. This job was the first one we've had since then." A shudder ran through Blanche's body and his complexion turned pale as if he were going to throw up at being forced to recollect what'd happened. ".....We'd never seen the bastard but the influence, his reach, it scared the hell out of all of us. We joked, we laughed, I picked up babes and had some fun with what money we still had lying around. But we'd been taught a lesson: Do as you're told. Or else."

He gestured around the bar.

"....I got knocked out before I could even meet the damn kid but...Mercury. His old man used to work for the Ashes. Hell, he was one of the Boss's Elites. The Boss liked him so much that none of us knew his semblance, not even the other big wigs. Whatever Aurora said and did with these guys, he got tipped off that Black had a kid and he was apparently running Miss Malachite's joint now with his buddies. ...Guess the Boss was interested in having Marcus's kid take his place and so we got lumped with the job: Go find the kid and see how good he fights. If he's good enough we take him in, the Boss gets a new Elite. If he wasn't up to par..."

Blanche dragged his finger across his throat.

"....I dunno what Char thinks but we hated the kid's Old Man. Guy was a huge dick. Always acted like he was too good to hang with us. We were just hired killers and he was the top dog. Best of the best. Then one day he stops coming into work. The Boss questions everyone if they've seen him. I always thought he just took his money and ran."

Given what happened to Malachite though...

Blanche shrugged.

"Char might be able to tell you more but that's the long of it. I didn't really wanna wreck the place and I doubt Char did either but if we'd said no..."



"Chances are Char and I wouldn't be standing here talking to you. Or to anybody for that matter."

As Blanche finished his explanation, Blanco was at a loss for words. The Boss knew about this and had deliberately ordered members of the Hitman Team to interfere in what should have been Community Team business? Blanco didn't know Marcus Black having joined around the time that the guy was long since dead. But he must have been quite important if the Boss was willing to go so far as to have the home of a local informant group busted up in order to 'persuade' his son to join up and take his place in the gang. Guess no wasn't going to be an option if it turned out Mercury had the skills(he did!).

"...This is most alarming. I cannot say I've agreed with all the decisions that've been made by the Boss. Nothing is perfect and improvements can always be made but between this and Aurora acting rather strangely, I cannot help but believe there's something deeper going on than any of us are aware of. Tyrian?" He gestured for the scorpion to explain why the two of them had even stepped foot in here to begin with and Tyrian was all to happy to do so. Stepping up so he was standing alongside the gangster, Tyrian's tail unwrapped from around his waist and coiled up.

"The day after I met up with you guys, I started heading back to the motel I'd been staying with a friend. Same one who bult the prosthetic for my tail. I'd been traveling around Mistral with her for a while now. Was hoping to find a lead on Eve Taurus...We found a member of the Shadow Fang and they let us go." Tyrian hissed, still angered at having to admit that Fox had been his better that night. "We figured she'd stay back at the motel while I went out to find information. I end up bumping into you guys. I drink and fall asleep. I wake up and bump into Aurora." The encounter that got him shooed out of the bar by gunpoint. "...I find the motel we'd been staying at completely destroyed, the door to her room in splinters and a man dead."

Tyrian gestured to the scar that was forming from where he'd been stabbed by 'Jack' in their fight.

"I searched high and low for the killer. Didn't want to involve you guys. I found the killer and..."

His stinger drooped and Tyrian's arms fell to his side.

"He completely outclassed me. I didn't stand a chance. It was only thanks to Blanco finding me that I even made it out of there alive. Blanco's agreed to help me track down the murderer but I just don't think...." Tyrian gritted his teeth. Admitting he needed help to win a fight always pissed him off. More than he could stomach at times. "...That'll be enough. We need your help. Team MTEN's..."

Blanco propped a hand onto Tyrian's shoulder and smiled.

"I owe my life to the Ashes. But if the Boss wishes to use the Hitman Team as tools of intimidation on civilians while a murderer roams the streets,I cannot stand idly by. If the other members of the team continue to wage hostilities against you and your friends, you can count on my support. Aurora will be found and as a team leader, I WILL demand compensation. This is an affront to our goal and I'll not see it go without proper atonement being made." He stated firmly only for Blanche to laugh derisively.

"...What...? Are you going to take on the Boss....?"

Blanco paused

For a good minute or two.

"....If innocent lives are at risk and I have no choice, then yes."

"....Psh, good luck with that."
​

"


-hell are you talking about???"

Callie had gone from irritable and imposing to completely flabbergasted about halfway through White squared's conversation and Tyrian's interjection, and she was rubbing the side of her head with the barrel of her revolver as she stared them all down.

"Sir, I am unsure if you are confused as to what, exactly, Miss Malachite's is, but we ain't a militia, and we ain't vigilantes. This is the place of business of information brokers. Whatever god damn nonsense is going on up in your HQ is only valuable to us in the form of somethin we can sell to someone else or you'll pay us to shut up about. We ain't helpin with no rebellion against the boss of the bound ashes, nor are we gonna go trapeezin about for Jack, or I am assuming its Jack you're talkin 'bout bug boy, since that sounds much like his MO."

"And while I won't be speaking for my proprietors-" she added with a sideways glance at Emerald, "I would wholeheartedly suggest they not take the boss up on this offer to be one of them 'elites', as they are truly a bunch of murderous whackjobs who got less freedom than the Branwen tribe got up in Mistral Penitentary, just more money to toss around them cells."


Meanwhile, Neo was humming to herself as she finished tying Char to a chair in the kitchen, wholly unaware of the bevy of nonsense going on in the front of the store

 

[MyrtenRose]

The woman simply raised her eyebrows in droll amusement, and the way her shoulders leaned back ever-so-slightly to accentuate her form almost gave the sense she wanted her to look where she wasn't. "I'm afraid I have no idea who you mean," she purred. The familiar kind of purr that was highly likely to make someone like Tock tingle just a bit, given her own storied history with purring.

She would have explained further about the kid but there was just...something about the way that woman spoke that made even the long-lived experienced risky daredevil person that was Tock suddenly feel weak in the knees, and that sensation was more than enough to distract her away from continuing on about the kid as she shook her head and tried to refocus.​

His jaw opened wide and he just... let it hang there, mouth dripping with saliva. It was gross.

If only she had a grenade or explosive to toss in there...​

Outside of those tidbits they all held their silence until she was through, and Tock found a sea of bemused eyes staring back at her with fairly consistent amounts of unconvinced. Only when Greed sauntered by her with hands in his coat pockets and a derisive snort, tilting his head back and jerking a thumb in the crocodile's direction.

"Well... We're all actually pretty confident about our chances doing our thing here, and you're pretty much a huge bitch, so. All in favor of icing this chick say aye?"

"AYE! AYE, AYE, AYE!" The fat dwarf exploded like he'd been waiting for the chance, actually quivering with excitement as he hopped from foot to foot.

"Aye." The huge, lumbering faunus said slowly as if forming the thought itself was a struggle, still breathing heavily in and out through the mouth.

"Aye," hissed a dark, malevolent voice that seemed to drift over from every shadow under a table, every patch of darkness in the most dimly lit corners of the room, rather than any one person.

"Yup. Sounds like a sucker's trap to me." The dreadlocked figure chimed in, a lethal, fiendish grin on their face to match Tock's as their eyes never left her own.

With each aye she heard, the amusement on her face only grew and by the time the last one came in, she snickered but held her blades in her hands all the same.

"Alright, if ya want to play it that way, fine by me. Which of the freaky bunch wants to make a move first? Just try and remember as I tear ya apart...ya asked fer it."

But no assault was actually made, thanks to the mustachioed masked man putting that idea to rest and without a single said word, the rest fell in line. Had all that been more out of respect, or fear? The croc felt it was a healthy mix of both but didn't comment on it, stowing her swords in place on her back. Someone had just been saved a world of hurt.​

"You didn't come here with any kind of strategy or plan for me, darling? No direction from whoever it was who conscripted you?" The woman moved swiftly along, crossing one leg over the other in a manner that was once more just about slow and sensual enough to be suggestive without being overt about it. Had she been wearing any kind of a dress and not utilitarian mercenary attire there was every chance Tock would've been getting an eyeful. She pouted, clearly dissatisfied, never having once broken her eyeline from the crocodile's as her dark irises gleamed with something entrancing. "That's such a disappointment if so."

There was something about those eyes. The more she looked at them the more she couldn't look away, the huskier and more silky the deep, sultry voice serenading her sounded in her ears... Come to think of it, it was a voice she'd do anything not to disappoint. Wasn't it?

And in the absence of any overt targets that needed to be fought...there really was just...something strange about the lady among them that drew her eye. The longer her eyes stayed locked on, the less and less she felt inclined to break the stare off on her end. Tock didn't know if it was the fact that her head had been messed with and left...weaker, unstable, or that it was now a breeding ground for other voices that weren't her own to speak in, or if it was the frankly attractive lady doing something, probably with a semblance, ...but the more the woman spoke, the more strongly the words seemed to echo in her head. Sure, she'd seen her fair share of pretty looking women in the years since...the tiger, but she'd never made any actual moves on any of them after that.

Whether it was her clinging on to a memory of what was, or on a dream of what might have been...after Sienna she'd just never really tried for anything like that again.

But in this moment, with her mind as much of a mess as it currently was despite how strongly she forced herself to try and keep it together...there was simply something intoxicating about the woman that wormed its way in there and took hold. Tock, never one to beat around the bush, found her legs moving almost of their own accord as she approached the lady. She stopped before she crossed over into what could be described as intruding on the lady's personal space. She had that much control, at least. For now. "Say...didn't get yer name." ​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

The noise that tore its way from the man's lips was a furious, hate-filled screech of exertion as the rending metal from behind caught his attention, and rather than leap, evade or dodge in any way he thrust his palms out to either side of him. In a staggeringly impressive display of semblance potency, the balcony tore itself into two pieces so they each ground and shrieked their way around him, shielding him from Nora's grenades, tearing up the wiring in the floor and allowing him to pass harmlessly through the gap in the middle. A similarly bitter roar saw him fling his palms out towards Pyrrha instead, using every drop of his latent rage and spite to fuel his power, and when he brought his hands together both chunks of debris previously identifiable as a spectator box were forced together again with the intent of crushing her between them.

Only this time he was anticipating resistance from the woman who appeared to manipulate some invisible force of his own, and presuming she used it to stave off the balcony pieces he seized the opportunity to land from an acrobatic vault in their midst, having snatched one of his deflected sabers and immediately transitioned into a whirlwind of dexterous swings and slices that were aggression incarnate. Somewhere amid the flurry his second saber spun back to his grip with equally perfect equilibrium, and about a half-dozen strikes after that he went from assailing and battering her guard with both in separate reverse grips to clicking them seamlessly together at the hilts amidst a twirl, each change in stance and configuration yielding a double in the tempo and ferocity of his attacks.

They knew practically nothing about this faunus, neither his name nor reason for being here nor even where he came from. Yet one thing was clear in abundance: whatever mysterious tribe he erupted from had evidently given birth to some kind of monster.​

No. This was no monster.

That was the thought on Pyrrha's mind as the two halves of the balcony suddenly came crashing towards her, and she swung both her arms outwards to catch them in her semblance. She knew he was not a monster, because there was no joy in fighting a monster. When you did combat with a beast or an animal, there was never anything on the line except survival. Be it food, land, or simple anger, when animals and monsters fought, it was violence in its purest form, and its most utterly boring.

People were far more interesting. They fought for survival yes, but also for so many other things, and to so many other ends. They fought for honor, for love, for hatred and revenge. They aimed to kill, maim, defeat with as little harm, to arrest, to capture, to conquer in the most depraved sense. So many different emotions could be brought out in the scorching heat of combat against another person, against an equal, and she loved the taste of them all. And this person?

"You're delicious"



That was the quiet declaration she made to the monster as the first saber struck her across the chest guard and made her aura before she could react, even a peerless warrior only able to do so much at once, a far cry from the grunt of pain or anger the man probably hoped for. Milo and Akouo were in her hands a split second later, aura not to meet the hardlight head on but to force the faunus to dance with her instead of merely thrash against her defense, swipes and jabs accompanying every fluid dodge and every back step ever followed by an offensive advance, the mistralian champion's skill in single combat on full display as she somehow maintained such a dangerous offense without her weapons ever touching her opponents and only ever grazed by the foe's, brief flickers of aura scattering the room with light. Her semblance didn't come out however, and her hits were far fewer, the adrenaline fueled, teeth filled smile on her lips taut with a mixture of pain and focus as she studied her opponent's style and actions with an unblinking gaze.

Then, when his arm arms were as extended as they got, and when his grip as tightened as hard as it could to ensure a true warrior's blow against what seemed a brief true opening in the champion's defenses, she struck; there was no warning gesture, only the sudden force upon his weapon to make it twist violently in his grip, with the force of the evolved semblance that had turned the Pyrrha Nikos of Nora's world into the champion who could almost stand up to a maiden, that here could throw an entire tank with ease, intent on either horribly throwing him off balance as the device spun like a helicopter blade or simply mangling fingers as Pyrrha suddenly launched into a full offensive with Akouo lunging forward to slam against his chin before Milo in sword form went in for a follow-up flurry of slashes

 

[Gus Gungus]

But in this moment, with her mind as much of a mess as it currently was despite how strongly she forced herself to try and keep it together...there was simply something intoxicating about the woman that wormed its way in there and took hold. Tock, never one to beat around the bush, found her legs moving almost of their own accord as she approached the lady. She stopped before she crossed over into what could be described as intruding on the lady's personal space. She had that much control, at least. For now. "Say...didn't get yer name."

"Nor will you," the woman crooned, but appeared to have no such reservations about shortening the distance between their personal bubbles as she pivoted on her rear to put her knees together elegantly again and scooched forward, the back of her fingers alighting on Tock's cheek like the touch of a ghost and tracing small circles there. She smiled, a tight-lipped quirk of the lips that lacked any real mirth or joy to it. "Each newly minted Sin takes a codename both to reflect our true nature and protect our identities... You'd be surprised how many of us occupy the public eye in some way when we aren't moonlighting. The man who accompanied you is known as Wrath the Furious... The one you met upon arriving here is Greed the Avaricious. Pride the Arrogant dwells in the shadow around every corner, in the bottomless capacity for darkness in the human soul. The lovelies you see around me are Sloth the Indolent, Envy the Jealous, and Gluttony the Voracious."

She lightly stroked the round man's scalp, who Tock could notice at this range had started salivating again the moment she drew near.

"You may refer to me as Lust the Lascivious, but I'm happy to go by whatever it is you may desire." There was a suggestive lilt to her tone, intensified by the way she let her foot lightly grace up along her leg towards her inner thigh; stopping just short. "Provided you'll indulge me a small question first. What's your sin, dear?"

"Bet I can tell." Rasped the second Lust(??) who was suddenly rising up in a slow, languorous stretch from where the dreadlocked individual she referred to as Envy had just been standing, the grin on their face much more toying and sadistic as they wasted no time in slipping around behind Tock. The hands that encircled her hips and skirted up towards her more cuppable areas lacked in the subtlety and hypnotic bewitchment of the true Lust, who simply rolled her eyes. "First of many being that she's a dirty girl who's ashamed to admit she likes this sorta thing, huh?"

Despite the implications, it was impossible to mistake the words for anything other than a taunt born of pure spite, Envy apparently living up to their name regardless of shapeshifting capability.

"We're not usually privvy to the goings-ons of other teams unless it's affecting the family's bottom line-financially that is. Think of the different teams as miniature gangs all their own and we directly report to either Aurora or other third parties. The one who runs our organization...I cannot tell you their name or even what they look like or sounds like. I joined when I was only a couple years younger than I am now(20)and the Boss's reclusive nature was just an accepted fact. Apparently due to cuts made for other ventures such as expanding in Atlas, the Hitman Team's salary was cut. So they attempted investigating the Boss and..."

Emerald listened in silence as the words kept coming and they didn't stop coming, and the conclusion she rapidly came to was that there literally wasn't a single piece of this that had anything to do with her. When all was said and done and she was left looking up at the towering muscle man rocking the lady from the Incredibles' hair, she only really had one thing to say.



"Sorry, who's 20?"

Yeah freaking right. But she didn't stop there, propping a hand on her hip with a disrespectful slant to her figure and continued in the same cutthroat Mean Girls ringleader vibes that had set many a Beacon freshman, sophomore and senior alike crying in the bathroom.

"By the way, is exposition the main good your big bad criminal syndicate deals in? God, you know there's only so long I'm willing to stand here and listen to some guy I don't know ramble on about stuff, right? Bullet points only please. And Tyrian, dude, seriously. How many times are you gonna get stabbed?"

"HOW. MANY. INDEED."

Each exclamation was punctuated by a slow, melodramatic clap, Mercury emerging from behind the curtain to the back area having heard everything and with the slow, confident bearing of somebody who had something to add. He relegated chair-and-dude dragging duties to Neo behind him, instead focusing on his entrance and all the dope expositional buildup there was to him coming in now. His gaze roved to find Callie's, floating her an electric, heart-skipping wink that felt wrong yet so right. He stopped in their midst, now finding himself in the unenviable position of having made a dope entrance when in fact he had very little to actually add.



"Sup. Mercury Black. Literally could not give less of a crap about you guys and this whole internal politics and friction deal you got going on. Stop trying to get us involved in stuff," he stated firmly, leaving very little room for argument as he glared fiercely at Blanco, Blanche, and Char in turn. "I'm better than my dad was, you guys couldn't afford me, and for what it's worth I hated the son of a bitch so much I put him in the dirt myself. So tell your boss no thanks but no thanks, if he's got a problem with that he can come see me personally, and let's draw a line under pretty much all that bullcrap."

He crossed his arms, unbending as the steel in his legs.

"Next order of business. Since Tyrian keeps getting stabbed and can't seem to go 5 minutes without doing some crazy shit, I vote we actually do let him involve us in his thing. Which I'm still confused about what that even is or whether it connects to this or the Shadow Fang or any of it, but hey. Callie, besides being really cool and hot you're basically like a rumors NPC come to life, right? What do you know?"​

 

[MidwayLives]

Her eyes had slid back open at this point and her head slowly raised to eye both the firewielder who'd jumped up and the fire blast he blasted down. She seemed unfazed by the sight. "So be it."

"So be what??? Just DIE!"
​

In an instant purple aura glowed about her, the force of her will and semblance unleashing a fierce wind around her and making her hair sway. Then she shot forth like a bullet straight up as she too leaped and gravity's effect on herself reversed. She neatly avoided the flames as she shot well above it. Ironically from her new position, she had to raise her head up to look downwards.

The stream of fire eventually petered out as Satin skidded across the tiled floor.

"Fuck..."

The arm he'd just used felt as though it was burning from the inside out. The flesh bubbled and boiled and they still hadn't even so much as landed a hit upon this bitch yet. Glancing over in the direction of where Roy was still frozen, Satin's face was full of concern for the first time since this battle had started. If they had to split up their efforts between Roy and his partner then they'd be conquered and divided. Either Roy would end up overpowering him and getting a clean hit in with that sword or he'd just stab the three of them if they were held down long enough. It'd be cheap as hell but effective to get rid of trash.

Watching as Satin's manuever had failed to make much headway and the smoke trailing from his limb, a mildly concerned hum escaped Radiant's lips.

"...Not....Good..."
​

Roy's partner now stood on the ceiling, upside down from the perspective of the three below. A new center of gravity allowed her to remaining standing in that way without falling, and if she was disoriented by that in the slightest, it didn't show in her solemn stare. Or her casually striding along the roof until she was nearly right above where Radiant stood. An arm reached out and pulled, reversing gravity for the ice manipulator in much the same way and aiming to bring him right up to her, her other hand readying her blade for an efficient slash...

"Coming for us......"

This one's control over gravity was enough of a problem as is. They only had-likely seconds at best-to work with what they had before Roy freed himself. The second that happened, they'd be right back to where they'd started. Facing off two warriors who seemed to compliment the other perfectly. Feeling himself yanked from the ground, Radiant held out his own arm in the direction of the ice spikes he'd created to keep Roy from intervening/going after Satin. Given that Roy's partner was now attacking the two of them, all it'd do now is give Satin a bit of time to try and recover as best as he could. Try as he might, Radiant had never seen a semblance ravage one's own body as the fire wielder's seemed to do to him.

'...Must come with the territory of being a sinner....Sin and lose thy own flesh....' He mused in his head.

As the swordswoman prepared to strike him, Radiant closed his left hand.

The sounds of tiles being shattered and metal walls groaning under pressure filled the room. The spikes grew in length with some of them having 'branches' extending off the length of them. Some of which sought to smash straight into the chunk of wall that Roy had been stuck against. Given a healthy aura ontop of the armor he'd been wearing, Radiant would have been surprised if the spikes did any serious damage. But the more time they bought to keep the two from working together and dividing the three's own attention, the better. See how long it takes to get back up after being smashed straight through a wall.

The end result was an abomination of massive ice spikes crowding an entire section of the hallway splitting off Satin from Robyn/Radiant.

Truthfully, Radiant wished that alone would be enough to dispose of Roy but things could never be as simple at that. Not in a competition like this.
​

Only for that slash to have to be redirected into batting away the sudden bolts Robyn shot her way and with a frown the warrior had to readjust after, not slicing away at Radiant but instead lashing out with a powerful kick intent to knock him back down to the crossbow wielder.

Shifting his umbrella to protect himself, said kick still sent him flying back but the umbrella itself was still wet from Radiant's earlier dunk of it...

Twisting just enough so he ended up crashing into the wall beside Robyn, Radiant calmly picked himself up and stared up at his opponent.

So many stray water droplets displaced by that kick.

"So~rrry..."

The droplets on the descent were frozen and began the metamorphosis into Radiant's next attack.

All razor sharp ice spikes pointed at her from different angles.

Radiant lowered his hand.

Off they went.
​

 

[MidwayLives]

"Sir, I am unsure if you are confused as to what, exactly, Miss Malachite's is, but we ain't a militia, and we ain't vigilantes. This is the place of business of information brokers. Whatever god damn nonsense is going on up in your HQ is only valuable to us in the form of somethin we can sell to someone else or you'll pay us to shut up about. We ain't helpin with no rebellion against the boss of the bound ashes, nor are we gonna go trapeezin about for Jack, or I am assuming its Jack you're talkin 'bout bug boy, since that sounds much like his MO."

"I understand."

Friends of Tyrian or not, Callie(who's less a friend and more mildly tolerant acquaintance to the faunus) made it clear that defeating serial killers just wasn't in the agenda.

"I cannot speak for Blanche or Char. Whatever becomes of them is entirely free to you."

Tyrian however was less than amused by Callie's referral of him.

"Arachnid." He grumbled.
​

"I'm better than my dad was, you guys couldn't afford me, and for what it's worth I hated the son of a bitch so much I put him in the dirt myself. So tell your boss no thanks but no thanks, if he's got a problem with that he can come see me personally, and let's draw a line under pretty much all that bullcrap."

Now that Char had been dragged in with the others and Blanche was presumably restrained as well, the two hitmen looked at eachother.

Then they looked at Mercury.

"Hey, that's fine with us."

"Yeah, your dad was a major dick so no sweat off our nose. Just trying to to earn a check."

Blanche leaned in towards Char.

"Hey....you DID get knocked out by them right?"

"Oh yeah, the one they call Neo-the kid with pink hair-and Mercury tagteamed me. Got the better of me in a heartbeat. The hell happened to you?"

"Eh, got beat up by some bum."

"Aw, c'mon Blanche..."

"Just being honest....Proud of you by the by."

Speaking of their respective fights by the way, Char looked to wherever Neo was standing.



"Guess you proved me wrong, kid. Couldn't take you down in three minutes."
​

Bullet points only please. And Tyrian, dude, seriously. How many times are you gonna get stabbed?"

"...When you put it like that...."

Tyrian looked down at his chest. At this point it was more shocking that there were parts of his shirtless abdomen that wasn't covered in scar tissue.

"....Guess it does happen a lot. I never really noticed..."

You started to lose track of the injuries and scars after giving yourself a full on bladed gauntlet to the side after a mental break.

Or at least it was the case for Tyrian.
​

"Next order of business. Since Tyrian keeps getting stabbed and can't seem to go 5 minutes without doing some crazy shit,

Tyrian huffed and folded his arms across his chest.

Try to take on an entire terrorist organization out of some sense of revenge and save your (girl?)friend from a serial killer/mob boss and suddenly you're danger magnet.

Still...

"...I appreciate it."
​

but hey. Callie, besides being really cool and hot you're basically like a rumors NPC come to life, right? What do you know?"

"Having a name for the man we're looking for is a start..."

'Jack' was something of an open secret within certain parts of Mistral. A masked man who seemed to come and go with the wind leaving bodies in his wake. Yet, only Aurora and the Boss himself knew the killer's true identity: Just another facet of the demented pysche belonging to the man behind The Bound Ashes. Keeping that in mind, the Boss used his influence to quiet down stories about Jack getting too widespread. Blanco being genuinely surprised that Callie knew that much showed just how far the Boss tried to subdue those beneath him from digging into his life/why Aurora made such a stink about Blanco agreeing to help Tyrian.

"When I fought...'Jack', I got a good feel for his semblance....Wind manipulation. Guy moved faster than I could keep up with..." ​

 

[MidwayLives]

Whether or not that was a good thing remained to be seen, but the sight that awaited her after a few more messily interlocked hallways and turns was somewhat of a visually disconcerting one. Long after the blood trail became too minor and sporadic to follow she was instead guided by the sound of unconcerned footsteps and something being dragged, which peaked when she semblance dashed around another corner and came face to face with... Yang.

Squared.

Ah.

Maybe it was the universe giving her a right kick in the ass.

Or maybe the feeling that ungodly 'thing' had given her was foreshadowing.
​

The one who drew her eye first was almost certainly the one on the ground. It was the Yang from the bar, the one she saw walk in like she owned the place with such vulgarity and flaunted confidence that assuming her to be anyone other than her own Remnant's dragon would've been nothing short of lunacy. She was also currently visible in a totally different light; unconscious, beaten, and bleeding from a cut above the swollen eye that was definitely gonna progress to an ugly shiner later on, the source of the trail Ruby followed before her aura stemmed it. Additional notes included her being trussed up and gagged like a turkey with ludicrous amounts of tape wrapped around her arms to the point of concealment, the rest of the roll apparently spent on her mouth like the culprit honestly wasn't sure which they wanted to keep more locked down.

The figure roughly dragging her by a fistful of her golden mane was, as mentioned, also Yang, though the look was one Ruby couldn't recall placing on her. Her own blonde hair fell to just over the shoulders, hewed off roughly at the ends in a way that while not entirely symmetrical actually kind of suited her, inviting one's gaze to the piercings on her right ear. She was dressed in the kind of outfit typical to both flavors of her sister, embellished with biker gloves, a scruffy orange bandana tied around her neck and full-length black sleeve coverings that kept her arms hidden from view under the tanned leather, and as she turned to stare at Ruby the former Masque could see the muscles on her face go slack with surprise.

She didn't miss a single beat though. Anything you can do I can do better or whatever, and with a sudden flourish she pulled away the goggles she was wearing with a perky smile to reveal lilac eyes that were warm, gentle and caring. Or in simpler terms, everything Ruby ever wanted in a sister.

Seeing Yang restrained like that....

It drudged up feelings in Ruby that she couldn't-wouldn't vocalize.

Wasn't really the time nor place.

More so when this was a competition and one that both sisters knew meant that at some point it was likely they'd end up just like this.

Standing across from each other, one unsure of the other.

Ruby was feeling that right now.

Taking a step back, her flesh and blood hand immediately moved to grab Cinder's Blade, the gold blade glistening in the light as it was unsheathed.



"...Glad to see you, Yang."

It didn't matter what Yang this was. If she let her guard down for even a second, getting punched through a wall or getting dragged down in some mindless brawl would only end up pissing away time. Though as the fingers on her prosthetic hand clicked and clattered, she couldn't deny the chance to actually punch someone or something with her new arm was sorely tempting. But she couldn't let it distract from the main goal ahead of her. She needed keycards and she needed them soon.
​

"HeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeey, sis!" She practically sang, almost coughing and sputtering as her voice hit a note just an octave too high for a chronic smoker and all-around drug addict's vocal chords to sustain. She concealed it well enough, though, and dropped her lamer self unceremoniously to instead prop that hand on her hip with a chatty demeanor. "So you're in this crazy jam too, huh? Figures. Would it have killed you to show up a hot 20 minutes ago, though? We totally coulda partnered up! Can you believe that out of all these different crazies the one I ended up stuck with is the dumpster fire? Hahaha! What FUN!"

That last ring of cheer was drenched in sarcasm to imply she found it anything but, and she subtly repositioned her boot on the back of the fallen Yang's crown to grind her face further into the tiles.

Subtle it may have been but perhaps it was the recognition she'd been terrible to her Yang growing up or just her having something of a keener eye now that her time spent with Weiss had let her bottle up a bit of her usual crazy self. Still, she wouldn't comment on it. She was sure she'd put her own Yang through something similar when they were kids.

Which made her all the more uneasy.

The glare of suspicion never left Ruby's face.

"Yeah, that's preeeeeety funny."

She didn't laugh, not even once.
​

.

"She got all freaky on these coupla creeps I ran into. You prolly saw. Wouldn't chill the heck out, so I had to get creative. She's almost kinda cute like that, dontcha think? Definitely a big improvement on attitude! I guess you could say she's, um, Iiiiiiiiiiii... showed her the ropes? Haha, 'cause, get it? Cuz I tied her up."

Yeah. That was probably the kind of dumb shit she'd say to get a laugh if she were a complete little bitch.

A smile finally cracked Ruby's cold demeanor.

"Hahahahahahaha! I get it!"

The laughter stopped just as quickly as it came. She really did find that joke very funny. Her sense of humor was about at the same level as a child's. It was why she found Maria's nicknames for Weiss so incredibly amusing.

"...Color me at least a little bit curious, Yang. Since she offed this guy..." Ruby gestured back to where she'd found Prisma's body.

"He had to have had a partner and if she killed him too then that means you'd already have two keycards right? You'd just need one more and you'd be able to go up to the top."

Ruby tapped her foot on the ground.

"....I haven't even gotten a partner yet."
​

 

[MyrtenRose]

The noise that tore its way from the man's lips was a furious, hate-filled screech of exertion as the rending metal from behind caught his attention, and rather than leap, evade or dodge in any way he thrust his palms out to either side of him. In a staggeringly impressive display of semblance potency, the balcony tore itself into two pieces so they each ground and shrieked their way around him, shielding him from Nora's grenades, tearing up the wiring in the floor and allowing him to pass harmlessly through the gap in the middle. A similarly bitter roar saw him fling his palms out towards Pyrrha instead, using every drop of his latent rage and spite to fuel his power, and when he brought his hands together both chunks of debris previously identifiable as a spectator box were forced together again with the intent of crushing her between them.

Only this time he was anticipating resistance from the woman who appeared to manipulate some invisible force of his own, and presuming she used it to stave off the balcony pieces he seized the opportunity to land from an acrobatic vault in their midst, having snatched one of his deflected sabers and immediately transitioned into a whirlwind of dexterous swings and slices that were aggression incarnate. Somewhere amid the flurry his second saber spun back to his grip with equally perfect equilibrium, and about a half-dozen strikes after that he went from assailing and battering her guard with both in separate reverse grips to clicking them seamlessly together at the hilts amidst a twirl, each change in stance and configuration yielding a double in the tempo and ferocity of his attacks.

They knew practically nothing about this faunus, neither his name nor reason for being here nor even where he came from. Yet one thing was clear in abundance: whatever mysterious tribe he erupted from had evidently given birth to some kind of monster.​

No. This was no monster.

That was the thought on Pyrrha's mind as the two halves of the balcony suddenly came crashing towards her, and she swung both her arms outwards to catch them in her semblance. She knew he was not a monster, because there was no joy in fighting a monster. When you did combat with a beast or an animal, there was never anything on the line except survival. Be it food, land, or simple anger, when animals and monsters fought, it was violence in its purest form, and its most utterly boring.

People were far more interesting. They fought for survival yes, but also for so many other things, and to so many other ends. They fought for honor, for love, for hatred and revenge. They aimed to kill, maim, defeat with as little harm, to arrest, to capture, to conquer in the most depraved sense. So many different emotions could be brought out in the scorching heat of combat against another person, against an equal, and she loved the taste of them all. And this person?

"You're delicious"



That was the quiet declaration she made to the monster as the first saber struck her across the chest guard and made her aura before she could react, even a peerless warrior only able to do so much at once, a far cry from the grunt of pain or anger the man probably hoped for. Milo and Akouo were in her hands a split second later, aura not to meet the hardlight head on but to force the faunus to dance with her instead of merely thrash against her defense, swipes and jabs accompanying every fluid dodge and every back step ever followed by an offensive advance, the mistralian champion's skill in single combat on full display as she somehow maintained such a dangerous offense without her weapons ever touching her opponents and only ever grazed by the foe's, brief flickers of aura scattering the room with light. Her semblance didn't come out however, and her hits were far fewer, the adrenaline fueled, teeth filled smile on her lips taut with a mixture of pain and focus as she studied her opponent's style and actions with an unblinking gaze.

Then, when his arm arms were as extended as they got, and when his grip as tightened as hard as it could to ensure a true warrior's blow against what seemed a brief true opening in the champion's defenses, she struck; there was no warning gesture, only the sudden force upon his weapon to make it twist violently in his grip, with the force of the evolved semblance that had turned the Pyrrha Nikos of Nora's world into the champion who could almost stand up to a maiden, that here could throw an entire tank with ease, intent on either horribly throwing him off balance as the device spun like a helicopter blade or simply mangling fingers as Pyrrha suddenly launched into a full offensive with Akouo lunging forward to slam against his chin before Milo in sword form went in for a follow-up flurry of slashes

"..."

It had been such a long time since she'd seen Pyrrha in action. She wouldn't say she had forgotten how it looked, in fact the renowned champion she had known possessed such skill that practically any fight she'd been in back in those days were more or less unforgettable to Nora. Seeing some of that prowess in action again, even if from a different Pyrrha than the one that had been her beloved friend...it was such a cool sight to behold. There was a temptation to just sit back and watch, to let this unfold between them as she witnessed it with a wide smile plastered on her face. But she recognized that this fight was her fight too, and that this guy needed to be dealt with as soon as possible. Rather than solely observe, as the two went at it so fast and fiercely, the small bruiser did her best to discreetly sidestep around.

It was only when she was at his back that she dashed up, coming in swinging with a charged blow from the opposite direction where Pyrrha was attacking from.​

"Nor will you," the woman crooned, but appeared to have no such reservations about shortening the distance between their personal bubbles as she pivoted on her rear to put her knees together elegantly again and scooched forward, the back of her fingers alighting on Tock's cheek like the touch of a ghost and tracing small circles there. She smiled, a tight-lipped quirk of the lips that lacked any real mirth or joy to it. "Each newly minted Sin takes a codename both to reflect our true nature and protect our identities... You'd be surprised how many of us occupy the public eye in some way when we aren't moonlighting. The man who accompanied you is known as Wrath the Furious... The one you met upon arriving here is Greed the Avaricious. Pride the Arrogant dwells in the shadow around every corner, in the bottomless capacity for darkness in the human soul. The lovelies you see around me are Sloth the Indolent, Envy the Jealous, and Gluttony the Voracious."

She lightly stroked the round man's scalp, who Tock could notice at this range had started salivating again the moment she drew near.

"You may refer to me as Lust the Lascivious, but I'm happy to go by whatever it is you may desire." There was a suggestive lilt to her tone, intensified by the way she let her foot lightly grace up along her leg towards her inner thigh; stopping just short. "Provided you'll indulge me a small question first. What's your sin, dear?"

"Bet I can tell." Rasped the second Lust(??) who was suddenly rising up in a slow, languorous stretch from where the dreadlocked individual she referred to as Envy had just been standing, the grin on their face much more toying and sadistic as they wasted no time in slipping around behind Tock. The hands that encircled her hips and skirted up towards her more cuppable areas lacked in the subtlety and hypnotic bewitchment of the true Lust, who simply rolled her eyes. "First of many being that she's a dirty girl who's ashamed to admit she likes this sorta thing, huh?"

Despite the implications, it was impossible to mistake the words for anything other than a taunt born of pure spite, Envy apparently living up to their name regardless of shapeshifting capability.

The croc thought she was better than that, that she had long since grown past stuff like this, but there was no missing the shudder that coursed through her body in response to that touch. Nor the sharp intake of breath that followed. She didn't pull away but neither did she lean in closer to the touch. She only stood there as if petrified by some strange force. If any of the voices that populated her head in recent times had anything to say, they didn't reveal such. They were weirdly silent...not that she minded. The voice she was fixated on right now was far from silent. "That explains the name Sins. Hrmph." Her eyes flickered over to the round salivating man but beyond a brief frown she didn't react to that freak, her gaze returning back to the woman. "Lust the Lascivious...that suits ya." A soft, small smile emerged on her face, a look that stood in contrast to the generally tough and threatening image she went to great lengths to convey.

"Ya want to know my sin, eh?" Her eyes tilted upwards, temporarily deep in thought about it. When her stare lowered back to looking at the woman, she half-shrugged. "Depends on 'ow much time ya got to waste talkin' about stuff like that, I've lived a long time. I've sinned plenty in my life. Could be here all day if ya want specifics--" The faunus froze up even more and straightened to a degree as the second Lust went right for that kind of touch. They were every bit a physical duplicate of the attractive woman before her, but lacked...something that the real deal possessed in spades, that pushed the sight from merely attractive to downright intoxicating.

"I...I..." She sounded downright flustered for a moment there. It seemed like it had been decades since she'd experienced something like that. But in the next moment, enough of her usual self snapped up and she forcefully brushed off those hands and went for a sharp elbow strike to the shapeshifting Envy's nose. "Keep yer damn 'ands to yerself, faker." ​

 

[MyrtenRose]

The sounds of tiles being shattered and metal walls groaning under pressure filled the room. The spikes grew in length with some of them having 'branches' extending off the length of them. Some of which sought to smash straight into the chunk of wall that Roy had been stuck against. Given a healthy aura ontop of the armor he'd been wearing, Radiant would have been surprised if the spikes did any serious damage. But the more time they bought to keep the two from working together and dividing the three's own attention, the better. See how long it takes to get back up after being smashed straight through a wall.

The end result was an abomination of massive ice spikes crowding an entire section of the hallway splitting off Satin from Robyn/Radiant.

Truthfully, Radiant wished that alone would be enough to dispose of Roy but things could never be as simple at that. Not in a competition like this.

There was no telling how effective that had truly been against the frozen opponent just yet, but for the moment there was no hint of movement from that area and it was quiet over there after the loud sounds and bangs of all those spikes smashing them through the wall. That seemed promising.​

So many stray water droplets displaced by that kick.

"So~rrry..."

The droplets on the descent were frozen and began the metamorphosis into Radiant's next attack.

All razor sharp ice spikes pointed at her from different angles.

Radiant lowered his hand.

Off they went.

Initially she seemed unimpressed by the amount of icy shards hanging in the air, pointed her way. As the many spikes shot through the air towards her, she braced her boots against the roof below her feet...and burst in a blur of motion. She moved so swiftly it was hard to keep track of all of the slashes and slices and stabs she went for, shattering some of the shards and battering away others...but despite that speed, the unimpressed look vanished replaced by one of concern. There were too many for her, and several managed to slam into her, dark purple aura flickering with each that managed to hit her. That onslaught was joined by Robyn loosing a number of bolts among the spikes...and there was a loud BOOM as one of the explosive bolts went off right in the woman's face. The resulting smoke temporarily obscured her from sight.

She wasn't hidden for long though. There was a loud, raging, and nearly earsplitting howl that echoed through the area, a scream that promised painful death. Hardly a moment after that, the warrior came into view. She rushed through the smoke, having pushed off the roof and came down with a ferocious swing of her blade for the ice manipulator first.

 

[Gus Gungus]

No. This was no monster.

That was the thought on Pyrrha's mind as the two halves of the balcony suddenly came crashing towards her, and she swung both her arms outwards to catch them in her semblance. She knew he was not a monster, because there was no joy in fighting a monster. When you did combat with a beast or an animal, there was never anything on the line except survival. Be it food, land, or simple anger, when animals and monsters fought, it was violence in its purest form, and its most utterly boring.

People were far more interesting. They fought for survival yes, but also for so many other things, and to so many other ends. They fought for honor, for love, for hatred and revenge. They aimed to kill, maim, defeat with as little harm, to arrest, to capture, to conquer in the most depraved sense. So many different emotions could be brought out in the scorching heat of combat against another person, against an equal, and she loved the taste of them all. And this person?

"You're delicious"



That was the quiet declaration she made to the monster as the first saber struck her across the chest guard and made her aura before she could react, even a peerless warrior only able to do so much at once, a far cry from the grunt of pain or anger the man probably hoped for. Milo and Akouo were in her hands a split second later, aura not to meet the hardlight head on but to force the faunus to dance with her instead of merely thrash against her defense, swipes and jabs accompanying every fluid dodge and every back step ever followed by an offensive advance, the mistralian champion's skill in single combat on full display as she somehow maintained such a dangerous offense without her weapons ever touching her opponents and only ever grazed by the foe's, brief flickers of aura scattering the room with light. Her semblance didn't come out however, and her hits were far fewer, the adrenaline fueled, teeth filled smile on her lips taut with a mixture of pain and focus as she studied her opponent's style and actions with an unblinking gaze.

Then, when his arm arms were as extended as they got, and when his grip as tightened as hard as it could to ensure a true warrior's blow against what seemed a brief true opening in the champion's defenses, she struck; there was no warning gesture, only the sudden force upon his weapon to make it twist violently in his grip, with the force of the evolved semblance that had turned the Pyrrha Nikos of Nora's world into the champion who could almost stand up to a maiden, that here could throw an entire tank with ease, intent on either horribly throwing him off balance as the device spun like a helicopter blade or simply mangling fingers as Pyrrha suddenly launched into a full offensive with Akouo lunging forward to slam against his chin before Milo in sword form went in for a follow-up flurry of slashes

"..."

It had been such a long time since she'd seen Pyrrha in action. She wouldn't say she had forgotten how it looked, in fact the renowned champion she had known possessed such skill that practically any fight she'd been in back in those days were more or less unforgettable to Nora. Seeing some of that prowess in action again, even if from a different Pyrrha than the one that had been her beloved friend...it was such a cool sight to behold. There was a temptation to just sit back and watch, to let this unfold between them as she witnessed it with a wide smile plastered on her face. But she recognized that this fight was her fight too, and that this guy needed to be dealt with as soon as possible. Rather than solely observe, as the two went at it so fast and fiercely, the small bruiser did her best to discreetly sidestep around.

It was only when she was at his back that she dashed up, coming in swinging with a charged blow from the opposite direction where Pyrrha was attacking from.

The warrior was a whirlwind of ferocious grace and violence, but it was clear in the opening exchanges who the more technically adept of the two was. Thrashing was the correct word for it, though not in a derogatory sense as her every dodge, lean and evasion frustrated him and became fuel for an even more hateful follow-up burst, nary a flaw to be found in his own footwork even for as much as it lacked in complexity next to her own. He was a constant storm of movement, flip after flip, twirl after twirl, a more unorthodox fighting style than the widespread products of kingdom academies she was used to encountering in the arena she called home who all had somewhat of a leaning for the same conventions. They were both really into it by the time she wrenched his weapon around in his grip sharply, and such was his pure instinct that he was actually able to swing his body with the motion to avoid damage to his fingers or his own blades digging into his aura; which did nothing to prevent her from laying into him with her follow-up. Again and again she struck him, upwards of a half-dozen strikes landed without resistance, but even as his aura started to glow yellow in protest she could feel the pain from each swing start to fuel him even more potently than his fury had, giving him clarity of purpose and mind as with a snarl he thrust his hand out.

She was confident at this point that he wasn't capable of the same subtle, minute semblance adjustments in the heat of combat she was, but she felt her heels grind sparks across the flooring as she was forced back a distance of several feet and held there, finding it more difficult to resist the force pinning her limbs than Nora's mountainous brute strength had. Apparently he had no such desire to prove himself nor reservations when it came to being unsporting with his semblance. He spun the saberstaff back around in his grip and the look in his bloodshot eyes promised a vengeful continuation of their contest, which was right around the point where Nora fell on him like an act of god.

BOOOOOOM

When the dust cleared, the faunus was already extricating himself to his knees amid the pit in the arena floor the huntress had driven him into, hacking up a lung with mouth twisted in an incredulous sneer as he retained consciousness despite the ludicrous blow having audibly shattered his aura. He sighed, almost wistful.

"And so our contest is cut short. There can be no worthiness determined in the company of allies, miss Nikos. No superiority established. The only worthy ally..."



"Is fear."

In complete defiance of norms where semblances were concerned, even without aura the man's eyes started to glow, nigh-burn, and Nora started to choke and wheeze as if something was blocking her airways from the inside. The man neither lifted his arms nor took his eyes away from Nikos, seemingly awaiting what came next.

Ah.

Maybe it was the universe giving her a right kick in the ass.

Or maybe the feeling that ungodly 'thing' had given her was foreshadowing.


Seeing Yang restrained like that....

It drudged up feelings in Ruby that she couldn't-wouldn't vocalize.

Wasn't really the time nor place.

More so when this was a competition and one that both sisters knew meant that at some point it was likely they'd end up just like this.

Standing across from each other, one unsure of the other.

Ruby was feeling that right now.

Taking a step back, her flesh and blood hand immediately moved to grab Cinder's Blade, the gold blade glistening in the light as it was unsheathed.

View attachment 742261

"...Glad to see you, Yang."

It didn't matter what Yang this was. If she let her guard down for even a second, getting punched through a wall or getting dragged down in some mindless brawl would only end up pissing away time. Though as the fingers on her prosthetic hand clicked and clattered, she couldn't deny the chance to actually punch someone or something with her new arm was sorely tempting. But she couldn't let it distract from the main goal ahead of her. She needed keycards and she needed them soon.

Subtle it may have been but perhaps it was the recognition she'd been terrible to her Yang growing up or just her having something of a keener eye now that her time spent with Weiss had let her bottle up a bit of her usual crazy self. Still, she wouldn't comment on it. She was sure she'd put her own Yang through something similar when they were kids.

Which made her all the more uneasy.

The glare of suspicion never left Ruby's face.

"Yeah, that's preeeeeety funny."

She didn't laugh, not even once.


A smile finally cracked Ruby's cold demeanor.

"Hahahahahahaha! I get it!"

The laughter stopped just as quickly as it came. She really did find that joke very funny. Her sense of humor was about at the same level as a child's. It was why she found Maria's nicknames for Weiss so incredibly amusing.

"...Color me at least a little bit curious, Yang. Since she offed this guy..." Ruby gestured back to where she'd found Prisma's body.

"He had to have had a partner and if she killed him too then that means you'd already have two keycards right? You'd just need one more and you'd be able to go up to the top."

Ruby tapped her foot on the ground.

"....I haven't even gotten a partner yet."

The initial show of open hostility only seemed to make the shorter-haired Yang's features light up even more, the blonde pulling a face and giving an extremely pitched giggle as she curled a lock of hair around one finger in ditzy fashion. She flapped a hand in her sister's direction with affectionate dismissal when she drew the sword, turning to regard the nearest of the cameras that hovered around to capture the bloodshed with a coy smirk like they were on a sitcom. "Oh, Ruby! You and your classic Ruby shenanigans, just up and pulling a knife on me like that! Gotta love it!"

She beamed, scooped up a handful of her doppelganger's hair again and started forward, dragging her limp frame across the tiles and about as threatened as if it were a toddler holding the blade.

"C'mon. Five hands of Go Fish didn't put us past this whole 'kill for mother' shtick? Would it have helped if I let you win one?" Her pout seemed wholly genuine in its remorse as she stopped just a short distance away, once again tossing the beta at her feet. "Surely we can call bygones on that much on account of me turning a blind eye to your huge murder fetish, and whatnot. After all, I'm Yang! I love being alive, and if there's one thing I know it's that there's good deep down in everybody if ya just take the time to dig around and look for it a li'l bit! Everyone deserves a second chance. Oops! Except myself, I guess! Haha! How could anyone who screwed up having these looks deserve anything? Sucks to be this chick!"

There were a few extra teeth to the grin she bore as she almost seemed to relish the act of stepping on the wonder bitch. She quickly dismissed it, however, hopping down the other side and closing the last of the gap between her and Ruby in a confident strut, a bit of a sway to her hips and bounce in her step since she knew what this lunatic liked. When she was close enough, she completely ignored the smaller girl's queries in favor of lashing out quickly with both arms, ensnaring Ruby before she could do anything to stop what was about to happen.



"...Sooooo hey, before I shut her up the nobody let slip about how you'd been missing for the last while. Seems... weird. That's weird, right? I mean, the hell's that all about?"

Something was almost accusatory in that tone, though it was too intangible to really put a finger on as her fist balled up Ruby's hood and her right hand emitted a low, shuddering tremor when she ran it down the back of her head.

"Just... thought you'd end up finding me by now, is all."

"I...I..." She sounded downright flustered for a moment there. It seemed like it had been decades since she'd experienced something like that. But in the next moment, enough of her usual self snapped up and she forcefully brushed off those hands and went for a sharp elbow strike to the shapeshifting Envy's nose. "Keep yer damn 'ands to yerself, faker."

"...HA!"

It was Greed who guffawed first, harsh and booming. Envy reared back with a gurgled hiss, but a second later and all of them were laughing with the exception of Wrath, who sat quietly at the bar with his back to the others as he sipped a whiskey neat. Lust's own laugh was more the tinkle of a windchime than the unmitigated howls of the others, the back of her hand raised to cover it demurely as she sighed when it was true and gave Tock an affectionate, if pitying, pat on the cheek.

"Sounds like you need a therapist, dear. I'll let you figure out which sin that is."

Without further ado she stood up, breezing past Tock with movements that were as graceful as they were assured as she swept over to confer quietly with Wrath since Tock had forgotten to relay Qrow's instruction. :|​