Fandom Distorted Mirror [IC]

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

Raven was not in any mood for games. The statue of rock that her opponent had become in one instant, was severed in two with a clean slash from Omen the next instant. The two halves split apart, falling harmlessly to either side of the swordswoman rather than striking her in the chest. She was gone from sight before they hit the ground though, the sound of the flapping wings of a bird taking flight filling the room as she moved upwards to better narrow down where the murderous shadow fang operative actually was.

There were very few people walking the face of Remnant who would've been capable of getting up at that point, and of those fewer still would've been of any mind to. Their dismantling of her had been brutally efficient, she didn't think she was ever gonna get the taste of exploding Dust out of her mouth, and the auraless Grimm appendage dangling from her stump was only just starting to regain sensation, digits still flexing and twitching erratically as it shook off the electrical current. Judging from the state of things when she arrived, it would've been fair of Blake to expect the Dragon to be down and out of this fight; Even among the lethal upper echelon of the Shadow Fang (other than herself), she had known precious few with the capacity to endure punishment the way Ozpin's first enforcer of her generation did, whose formative years had already provided such a full breadth of what physical agony had to offer that the concept simply held little sway over them by this point. Who had a way of absorbing all the unjust, torturous pain the world had dealt their soul, and, rather than let it grind them down to dust the way most would, redirecting it right back at those who dared inflict it on them.

She could think of only one other who fit those exact parameters, actually. And that oblivious tenacity had been what killed her.

Pain was your body's way of trying to save itself, after all. The kind of warning siren that wasn't supposed to be ignored. It became perfectly apparent, not for the first time, that Dragon was either too much of a hothead or just too plum stupid to take heed of any such warnings as she pounded her human fist into the floor with a frustrated (though relieved) gasp the moment the thumbs left her eyes, the explosion echoing from the end of her gauntlet propelling her to her feet in a flurry of motion. She landed with enough spinning momentum to stomp her boot into the floor and shatter the ice immobilizing her leg all in one go, eyes still blinking rapidly in an effort to clear the blurry spots dominating them as she pivoted towards where she had seen the real Blake land. Thought she'd seen the real Blake land. It wasn't the easiest thing to determine at the best of times, and between Neo's efforts and the blood seeping into her eyes from the cut on her forehead as it mixed with her sweat it was still gonna be kind of hard to see anything for a few seconds.

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"F-fuckers caught me with my pants down!"

Her voice was slightly hoarse from all the screaming, but there was a far goofier, more flustered tone than the one she would've used to try and justify her failure had it been Ozpin who came to her rescue, as though she was more concerned with the embarrassment of looking weak in front of the indomitable Hand than anything. It was grateful, though, if slightly marred by how hard it was to look adorable with blood drenching half her face and matting her scruffy mop of hair, and more than a little unsure of how to react to anyone demonstrating even the vaguest shred of a protective instinct towards her without the sort of sinister expectations Masque used to have that made hers lean more towards the possessive end of the scale. She dropped her fists to cock both gauntlets and swiveled to face their lord's enemies, the way her hair still burned a furious gold along with her aura her method of showing she still had plenty left in the tank as she flexed her restored Grimm palm in satisfaction and raised it in Blake's direction, as if primed to catch something.

"I'm all juiced up, but the ol' vision's still kinda boned. Couldn't give a gal a swing in the right direction, couldja? I'll pretend you're the boss of me this one time. Oooor... all the time starting right now if that's your thing. Y'know, to say thanks."

Casually offering her own body in return for basic kindness like it was the only thing of value she had may have been new, but the Dragon still remembered the tactics they'd developed side by side before she changed, and she figured the kitty'd catch her meaning. This was assuming the Blake she was talking to wasn't a clone, or had been the real one but had already moved onto other things, in which case she'd just have to figure it out for herself. Can't have shit in Monstro.​

It was hard for anyone to pick out where Blake really was; the mist from the clones hadn't dissipated, and the Hand had barely made a sound since entering the room.

But Gambol still found the Dragon's outstretched hand in the mist and darkness, and with a leap from the brawler and a twist of both her arms, the Dragon was suddenly sent flying across the room in a vicious arc who's path tore straight for Neo and Nora, Blake turning her compatriot into a giant, angry, and semblance charged flail from where she'd finally planted her feet in the middle of the battleground.

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

things. Almost bored looking, even. Whether that was truth or simply an elaborate bluff, a nonchalant attitude meant to cover for her actually vulnerable state was unclear.

Yet in either case, Ozwen made no attempt to free herself from the pinned headlock Qrow had her in. The dark lord merely opened her mouth in a smile that was honestly not all that comforting, those familiar but also not familiar eyes flickering from Qrow to Yang to the fourth member of their family to emerge from the portal, the other world's Raven hanging back with arms crossed. "Hmm." Her eyes shifted back to the blonde after taking that all in.

"Well, hello to you too." She replied cordially enough, all things considered. "Tell me, what exactly is it you all think you will be accomplishing here?"

Of all the stupid, unbecoming reactions for a host vessel of his to dare have while he was in control, Ozma felt a stab of intense mortification well up from somewhere deep inside him at that particular choice of nickname, a multitude of other chemical responses including but not limited to incredulity, exasperation and sudden, overpowering concern threatening to tinge their shared cheeks red and have the voice her lips parted with far shriller than it was intended to be before he managed to reign it in.

"Well. Since you asked, we were hopin' to get an hour of your time to sit ya down, air our personal grievances and hash out our differences in a mature, sophisticated way like adults."

Qrow's grip was steadfast, his eyes shooting Yang and Raven an unseen signal where he stood behind the surprisingly tiny dark lord of the Grimm that was a clear cue to stay wary for as flippant a tone as he seemed to be brooking, and there was an indulgently contemplative tone to the rasp he came back with. His next words were much flatter, though.

"Oh, wait. Nah."

Harbinger's gears spun, it collapsed to its midway point between scythe and sword, and both its barrels were left sticking up flush under Ozwen's chin at an awkward angle, Qrow still leveraging her in a rough headlock as held them to her porcelain skin.

"We're pretty much just gonna whoop your ass."

BANG

Both barrels fired at point-blank range, and rather than waiting to see how that panned out Qrow spun her around roughly as Harbinger collapsed the rest of the way into its gunblade state, the veteran huntsman swinging low enough that its tip nearly dug a groove in the floor as he sought to sweep her legs and leave her open for another dose of Xiao Long percussive maintenance to the brainpan.

"Are you seriously gonna steal all the one liners? this is a family suicide mission!"

Yang's drawl was light and breezy, the same sort of casual, deadpan confidence in the face of danger she'd subjected her soon-to-be teammates to in their initiations. The sort that loosened people up, reminded them that life wasn't just the danger in front of them, and gave them a bit of extra hope that they'd come out the other side.

It wasn't for her sake, or even for the other Branwens in the room, but she kept the energy up even as she punctuated that sentence with a shotgun blast momentum boosted flying knee straight for the side of Ozwen's skull just as Qrow's combination was coming to a halt

 

[MyrtenRose]

Harbinger's gears spun, it collapsed to its midway point between scythe and sword, and both its barrels were left sticking up flush under Ozwen's chin at an awkward angle, Qrow still leveraging her in a rough headlock as held them to her porcelain skin.

"We're pretty much just gonna whoop your ass."

BANG

Both barrels fired at point-blank range, and rather than waiting to see how that panned out Qrow spun her around roughly as Harbinger collapsed the rest of the way into its gunblade state, the veteran huntsman swinging low enough that its tip nearly dug a groove in the floor as he sought to sweep her legs and leave her open for another dose of Xiao Long percussive maintenance to the brainpan.

"Are you seriously gonna steal all the one liners? this is a family suicide mission!"

Yang's drawl was light and breezy, the same sort of casual, deadpan confidence in the face of danger she'd subjected her soon-to-be teammates to in their initiations. The sort that loosened people up, reminded them that life wasn't just the danger in front of them, and gave them a bit of extra hope that they'd come out the other side.

It wasn't for her sake, or even for the other Branwens in the room, but she kept the energy up even as she punctuated that sentence with a shotgun blast momentum boosted flying knee straight for the side of Ozwen's skull just as Qrow's combination was coming to a halt

The force from Harbinger's point blank shot got her head to snap back in a manner that should have been elicited at least a grunt, but Ozwen didn't make a single sound of pain. The follow through sweep of the legs was neatly avoided with a simple hop up over them, and her head tilted back up with a small entertained smile. A single solitary portal, adorned with a design not too unlike Weiss's usual glyphs sprang to life by her feet, but this was not that. A handful of elongated grimm arms emerged from whatever hellish pit lay on the other side of it, a limited number compared to her favored amount, but she believed they would suffice. One hand rose up, intercepting the knee strike and stopping it completely cold before it could strike it's intended target. The grip tightened like a vise and the caught Yang was thrown like a bullet towards Qrow.

"Credit where credit is due, between the two of you? You're half right. This is a suicide mission, indeed." That smile widened, in spite of her weakened state. "A shame the rest of it is, sadly, untrue. You are in the heart of my army now, surrounded by my followers...and facing me." She let out a dark chuckle. Her head rose up and turned to the right slightly, the third among them making a move now. Raven lunged forward in the wake of Yang being flung aside, Omen lashing out in a powerful swing...to little effect. The blade pressed up against a field of light blue, a hard light projection as Ozwen held up Myrtenaster. This infernal weapon, the one that had killed him...but necessity demanded it be used. His own magic was limited, had to be conserved when necessary, but fortunately, this weapon had quite the capacity for storing dust.

Ozwen's head tilted, an experimental hum coming from her. "Not bad, wouldn't you agree?" The protective hardlight dropped and a wave of fire launched from the thin blade, knocking Raven back into one of the room's walls. "Forgive me-" She started in a clearly sardonic tone, not truly caring for their forgiveness. "-this body is rather...new. Most of the memories are there, but I haven't had the time to go through them in the depth I would like to. I am learning just as much as I am actually fighting you pathetic pawns. Say, shall we put summoning to the test? Find out together if I could do it even half as well as her yet? A quarter as well? There's quite a few in these memories...it could make this more enjoyable."
​

 

[MyrtenRose]

Even Nora's eyebrow raised at that. It seemed sort of counterproductive to discuss the next move they planned while she and the puny psycho were in earshot but hey, she couldn't exactly say she'd never done that before either. Jaune's little team huddle right in the middle of the tourney match...classic! More than that, Nora appreciated the help in being told exactly what to expect. That made her next move pretty obvious. If those two were going to use teamwork, then like it or not, so should they. While Dragon was going on about pretending to be the boss and thanking or whatever, Nora rushed forward in that window of opportunity, hurriedly whispering as fast as her motor mouth could right into Neo's ear for the woman to do their illusion crap on both of them, make it seem like they were a bit closer to Yang than they actually were.

She could only hope Neo would oblige. The Dragon was in motion now, arcing across for both of them. Even in this misty dark, the flames pouring off Yang shined bright and made a really convenient target. Nora braced herself, rooting her feet as solidly to the ground as possible. "Take me out to the ball game, swing batter batter, swing..." She whispered under her breath as her grip on Magnhild tightened. If the ice cream illusionist did as asked(there was hope but not exactly trust), the fake Nora swung her weapon just a tad too slowly, taking whatever attack Yang lashed out with on the chin and shattered into many many pieces...

And revealed the actual Nora not that far off, the hammer already in motion to smack full force into the Dragon a split second after the illusion broke apart. The smaller bruiser was banking on that surprise to strike before there was even a thought of trying to dodge with some shotgun assisted redirection. And that it would also lay the bitch out for the count.​

 

[Gus Gungus]

It was hard for anyone to pick out where Blake really was; the mist from the clones hadn't dissipated, and the Hand had barely made a sound since entering the room.

But Gambol still found the Dragon's outstretched hand in the mist and darkness, and with a leap from the brawler and a twist of both her arms, the Dragon was suddenly sent flying across the room in a vicious arc who's path tore straight for Neo and Nora, Blake turning her compatriot into a giant, angry, and semblance charged flail from where she'd finally planted her feet in the middle of the battleground.

Neo jumped back and tried to sidestep the incoming blade.

*SWISH*

Well, she'd managed to avoid being stuck like a pig.

But it hadn't been the graceful dodge Neo had been hoping for. Clutching at her side, her aura flared.

She threw a punch with her free hand only to hit nothing but smoke.

"...!!!"

Where the hell were you, Belladonna?!

Even Nora's eyebrow raised at that. It seemed sort of counterproductive to discuss the next move they planned while she and the puny psycho were in earshot but hey, she couldn't exactly say she'd never done that before either. Jaune's little team huddle right in the middle of the tourney match...classic! More than that, Nora appreciated the help in being told exactly what to expect. That made her next move pretty obvious. If those two were going to use teamwork, then like it or not, so should they. While Dragon was going on about pretending to be the boss and thanking or whatever, Nora rushed forward in that window of opportunity, hurriedly whispering as fast as her motor mouth could right into Neo's ear for the woman to do their illusion crap on both of them, make it seem like they were a bit closer to Yang than they actually were.

She could only hope Neo would oblige. The Dragon was in motion now, arcing across for both of them. Even in this misty dark, the flames pouring off Yang shined bright and made a really convenient target. Nora braced herself, rooting her feet as solidly to the ground as possible. "Take me out to the ball game, swing batter batter, swing..." She whispered under her breath as her grip on Magnhild tightened. If the ice cream illusionist did as asked(there was hope but not exactly trust), the fake Nora swung her weapon just a tad too slowly, taking whatever attack Yang lashed out with on the chin and shattered into many many pieces...

And revealed the actual Nora not that far off, the hammer already in motion to smack full force into the Dragon a split second after the illusion broke apart. The smaller bruiser was banking on that surprise to strike before there was even a thought of trying to dodge with some shotgun assisted redirection. And that it would also lay the bitch out for the count.

No amount of vision impairment stopped Dragon's catch being executed with practiced ease as she prepared for the spinnies and let the ribbon snare around her wrist a few times, her status as a crude wrecking machine with no regard for her own longevity ever the complimentary color to Blake's subterfuge.



"Good talk-"

This sure used to be a lot quieter, though.

KABLAM

The persons and objects in the room were little more than blurs to the Dragon's ailing eyes, but Blake's aim was true, and the beast on the other end of this ballroom dance was all instinct and reflexive violence as she came swinging through the mist for Nora with a noise of sheer brutality, punching her hard enough to shatter her into a million pieces.

Wait, what?

"...GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"

There was a case to make that the screech that was leaving Dragon's lips as she came plunging through the mist and passed Blake again in the opposite direction was one of the most hilariously dismayed, pitiable sounds any of them had ever heard, a justifiable reaction to the real Nora appearing in her peripheral vision at the very last second and belting her right back past the Hand with the force of a comet like she was attached to a paddle on the end of a string. Talk about a blueballing. But Blake, contrary to everything common sense dictated when it came to an ally being tossed directly into a hit of that magnitude, could feel the grip on the other end of Gambol's ribbon tighten, not go limp, and rather than her weight and momentum yanking the faunus off her feet by the time she reached the end of the slack some creative pivoting by the Dragon and another sharp explosion from her gauntlet saw her seamlessly hinge all that newly realigned momentum into a swing of opposite trajectory to the one they started, still using Blake as an axis and now moving at about three times the velocity she had been initially thanks to the force Nora had contributed. Admittedly, she was asking a lot of the kitty in terms of the sheer upper body strength to keep the swing going, balance to avoid losing her footing or tangling herself up in the ribbon, and an implicit comprehension of what she was doing and how to adjust for it with practically no verbal prompting on her end (who were they, Nora and Neo?), but hey, she trusted her! Also she kinda just didn't think about it.

Between the titanic hit she'd just taken and her own contributions to picking up speed with Ember Celica, the speed the Dragon was now soaring at was such that Nora was still on her own swing's follow-through when a face as terrifying as any Grimm's lunged for her through the mist with another burst of momentum from her gauntlets, teeth still bared in that red-stained grin and hollow eyes as puffy and bloodshot as they were burning, devilish red. That image of a Yang so utterly baying for her blood had scarcely finished imprinting itself in the Valkyrie's brain forever when a swipe of the Dragon's paw caught her flush across the cheek and buried her in a crater in the wall at the far end of the throne room, half as deep as she was tall. The fact that it was merely a swipe en route to her true destination and not a full retaliation for that blow was a blessing for the remainder of her aura, and the fact that she had only spared Nora a swipe should have been cause for abject concern on Neo's end had she been able to actually get a proper bead on the golden warrior as she continued swinging for her through the plumes of mist at a breakneck pace before it was too--



"Hiya!"

The visage that leered at the illusionist through the coils of vapor for a split-second was like that of a kid at the pound peering into the cage of the cutest, mangiest, most destined-for-euthanization puppy of the bunch. And that being funny for some reason.

Given past experiences with someone who looked a little something like Dragon, Neo's instinct may have been to shatter and scram in preparation for a punch. That wasn't what happened, though. Semblances like Neo's could be a little tricky for her, but that wasn't to say a girl couldn't adapt. Improvise. Or, you know, cheat. Came with the territory of growing up in the shoes of a weakling around a bunch of cutthroats; contrary to the likes of Nikos, Dragon didn't give a shit about the dominance she established being fair and equal, whether the pain she was inflicting was principled or not, sportsmanlike or otherwise. Honor was for courts and judges, not bloodletting. The way she saw herself was more in line with an executioner, culling the challengers who had misjudged their own ability, took a swing at her and proven too weak to survive the experience. Duplicity was just another form of strength. If they couldn't wrap their heads around that, who were they to live past her?

That much became evident as whatever direction Neo attempted to dash after raising her illusion, she promptly found herself garotted somewhere between the Grimm arm that had elongated and the ribbon Yang had allowed her grip to loosen around, giving her the extra slack she needed for what she had in mind; which, Neo came to realize just a hair too late, was giving the most slippery and irritating of their enemies a leash to keep her from pulling off her bullshit. The second shotgun blast had sent her spooling around the smaller killer once, twice, three times, Gambol's ribbon pulling taut against her jugular as Dragon dug her heels in behind her to halt herself, and the yank she gave the end of the fabric would've carried the threat of snapping her neck had it not been for a still mostly intact aura. Instead, the tensile force being applied saw Neo's feet actually leave the floor and the criminal dangle there as she drew her in close enough to tickle her ear with a scratchy, excited whisper.

"Y'know at first I thought you were just some poser pining for two different versions of the same dead weakling, but now? Gotta admit, I like your style, short stuff!" She crooned, a pitched shiver running through her voice at any sign of discomfort on Neo's end. "I was mostly fucking around about keeping you, but now I'm not so sure. Whaddaya think? Could be fun, no? I could lead you around on all fours like this, getcha to bark like a dog for me. Or, I dunno, gurgle. Whatever it is mute puppies like to do."

She giggled, a low, delirious sound, and used her positioning to lean forward and give Neo a playful nip on the ear, apparently genuinely enamored by the excruciating and near-permanent pain the assassin had put her through.

"But what I really wanna know is what it's gonna take to make you scream."

She had one or two ideas for how to start. Dragon knew full well she was kinda running out the timer on giving Blake the other half of her weapon back, but whatever she was doing on the other side of the smoke and mist she suddenly felt it snap back towards her location like an elastic; both from the sudden release of tension and the fact that the human it had ensnared got full on drilled in the back of the skull to send her right into the Hand's waiting embrace, her capacity for being a slippery little bitch now severely reduced thanks to the Anima necktie.​

 

[Gus Gungus]

"Are you seriously gonna steal all the one liners? this is a family suicide mission!"

Yang's drawl was light and breezy, the same sort of casual, deadpan confidence in the face of danger she'd subjected her soon-to-be teammates to in their initiations. The sort that loosened people up, reminded them that life wasn't just the danger in front of them, and gave them a bit of extra hope that they'd come out the other side.

It wasn't for her sake, or even for the other Branwens in the room, but she kept the energy up even as she punctuated that sentence with a shotgun blast momentum boosted flying knee straight for the side of Ozwen's skull just as Qrow's combination was coming to a halt

"Unresolved issues, kid. I need this." Qrow snarked back dryly at Yang's complaint, apparently just as versed in the age-old huntsman defense mechanism that was 'compartmentalization' as his doofus nieces were. Unfortunately, that proved to be the moment shit got real.

The force from Harbinger's point blank shot got her head to snap back in a manner that should have been elicited at least a grunt, but Ozwen didn't make a single sound of pain. The follow through sweep of the legs was neatly avoided with a simple hop up over them, and her head tilted back up with a small entertained smile. A single solitary portal, adorned with a design not too unlike Weiss's usual glyphs sprang to life by her feet, but this was not that. A handful of elongated grimm arms emerged from whatever hellish pit lay on the other side of it, a limited number compared to her favored amount, but she believed they would suffice. One hand rose up, intercepting the knee strike and stopping it completely cold before it could strike it's intended target. The grip tightened like a vise and the caught Yang was thrown like a bullet towards Qrow.

"Credit where credit is due, between the two of you? You're half right. This is a suicide mission, indeed." That smile widened, in spite of her weakened state. "A shame the rest of it is, sadly, untrue. You are in the heart of my army now, surrounded by my followers...and facing me." She let out a dark chuckle. Her head rose up and turned to the right slightly, the third among them making a move now. Raven lunged forward in the wake of Yang being flung aside, Omen lashing out in a powerful swing...to little effect. The blade pressed up against a field of light blue, a hard light projection as Ozwen held up Myrtenaster. This infernal weapon, the one that had killed him...but necessity demanded it be used. His own magic was limited, had to be conserved when necessary, but fortunately, this weapon had quite the capacity for storing dust.

Ozwen's head tilted, an experimental hum coming from her. "Not bad, wouldn't you agree?" The protective hardlight dropped and a wave of fire launched from the thin blade, knocking Raven back into one of the room's walls. "Forgive me-" She started in a clearly sardonic tone, not truly caring for their forgiveness. "-this body is rather...new. Most of the memories are there, but I haven't had the time to go through them in the depth I would like to. I am learning just as much as I am actually fighting you pathetic pawns. Say, shall we put summoning to the test? Find out together if I could do it even half as well as her yet? A quarter as well? There's quite a few in these memories...it could make this more enjoyable."

It was then that Oz heard a small, disdainful voice ring out at the back of her mind, chiming in as if in reply to the malevolent immortal's own words. Which was slightly disorienting, considering the two voices were one and the same.

Oh, yes, please do. I think we could all use a good laugh. If I might make a suggestion, perhaps you could even summon my weapon's instruction manual so you stop holding an experimental cutting-edge multi-action Dust rapier worth more money than you can even conceptualize the way a troglodyte holds a club.

Qrow's features set in a tense, wary grimace as their target started to push back, trepidation flashing in his eyes in equal parts with defiance as the moment of truth arrived as to whether they actually had any kind of a shot here (and whether he had more or less just killed his entire family) or not. Man, if they all died and proved that smug little geek right he didn't think his spirit was ever gonna find peace. He braced himself mentally in the same moment Harbinger sought to brace against Yang's boots physically, his own heels digging into the ground as they both went skidding back a handful of meters, fully prepared for his semblance to let them all down in the home stretch. His red eyes sharpened at Ozwen's words, and...

...Huh.

Weiss's semblance. Weiss's weapon. A few grabby grimm hands. It remained to be seen just how well Oz could wield the tools he did have, but...

"Smells like bluffing."

He kept his gruff retort limited this time, instead shifting his focus towards angling Harbinger's barrels just right so that when he swung and squeezed the trigger the gunblade belted the balancing Yang right back at the Grimm overlord for another attempt. Qrow himself followed shortly behind, keeping his eyes sharp for any Grimm running interference, and attempted to follow up whatever Yang's move was with a relentless, twirling offensive of flashy sword maneuvers as Harbinger danced all around his grip, chiefly intended to draw the bulk of Ozwen's attention and keep her off balance for one of his harder-hitting or dust-wielding blood relations.
​

 

[MidwayLives]

"So...that was a thing." Vernal awkwardly remarked

"...Yeah."

Making her way over to where Crescent had fallen, Masque picked it up and strapped onto her back.

Then her gaze returned back to the portal.

Whatever was going on over there...Blake, her Yang, they were all involved. Who was winning? Were they really hurting her Yang? Doing a number on her, maybe? The screams she'd heard just moments ago. They'd left a sly smirk upon the bandit turned ex-acolyte of darkness's face. But it only felt like love when she was the one making her Yang call out like that. A shameful secret that she hadn't wanted anybody to know. Feelings she wanted to work past. But try as she might, such desires weren't simply just willed away. To deal with those thoughts while sitting on the sidelines like this? It felt as though she were in prison again.

Oh!

Only this time she'd volunteered to do the sitting with a friend! Not just any friend either! One she'd grown up with. One who hadn't seen the fun that Yang and her had as kids. Maybe things would have been different if she had. Masque didn't know for sure.

Not breaking her gaze away from the portal leading into the room where Neo was currently getting throttled by Dragon, Masque winced again.

The feeling in her stump felt as though it were only getting worse. Had it been responding to the mixture of emotions swelling within her? The twisted compulsion that she could be the only one who'd make her Yang cry out like that? Or the shame from feeling the way she did towards both Yangs? Again, Masque didn't know for sure. But for better or for worse she'd find out.

She moved to semblance her way through the portal.​

 

[MidwayLives]

Between the titanic hit she'd just taken and her own contributions to picking up speed with Ember Celica, the speed the Dragon was now soaring at was such that Nora was still on her own swing's follow-through when a face as terrifying as any Grimm's lunged for her through the mist with another burst of momentum from her gauntlets, teeth still bared in that red-stained grin and hollow eyes as puffy and bloodshot as they were burning, devilish red. That image of a Yang so utterly baying for her blood had scarcely finished imprinting itself in the Valkyrie's brain forever when a swipe of the Dragon's paw caught her flush across the cheek and buried her in a crater in the wall at the far end of the throne room, half as deep as she was tall. The fact that it was merely a swipe en route to her true destination and not a full retaliation for that blow was a blessing for the remainder of her aura, and the fact that she had only spared Nora a swipe should have been cause for abject concern on Neo's end had she been able to actually get a proper bead on the golden warrior as she continued swinging for her through the plumes of mist at a breakneck pace before it was too--

If it hadn't been for all this damn vapor and smoke...!

Finding and finishing what she'd started was supposed to have been a cinch. The cat poking her nose in should have been expected. But it didn't mean that Neo detested it any less than when she'd gotten cracked right in the neck in the midst of her mutilation attempt. The impact of Nora crashing into the wall at the end of the room was...concerning. Not out of any bleeding heart affection for the ginger, no, Neo didn't have any use for that. But if she got stuck here fighting these two then...
​

"Hiya!"

The visage that leered at the illusionist through the coils of vapor for a split-second was like that of a kid at the pound peering into the cage of the cutest, mangiest, most destined-for-euthanization puppy of the bunch. And that being funny for some reason.

"...!"

Neo let out a small gasp and moved to jump back.

Shatter and then rethink her plan. So what if Belladonna was here? The blonde hadn't changed. Just a simple dumb brute-
​

That much became evident as whatever direction Neo attempted to dash after raising her illusion, she promptly found herself garotted somewhere between the Grimm arm that had elongated and the ribbon Yang had allowed her grip to loosen around, giving her the extra slack she needed for what she had in mind; which, Neo came to realize just a hair too late, was giving the most slippery and irritating of their enemies a leash to keep her from pulling off her bullshit. The second shotgun blast had sent her spooling around the smaller killer once, twice, three times, Gambol's ribbon pulling taut against her jugular as Dragon dug her heels in behind her to halt herself, and the yank she gave the end of the fabric would've carried the threat of snapping her neck had it not been for a still mostly intact aura. Instead, the tensile force being applied saw Neo's feet actually leave the floor and the criminal dangle there as she drew her in close enough to tickle her ear with a scratchy, excited whisper.

"Y'know at first I thought you were just some poser pining for two different versions of the same dead weakling, but now? Gotta admit, I like your style, short stuff!" She crooned, a pitched shiver running through her voice at any sign of discomfort on Neo's end. "I was mostly fucking around about keeping you, but now I'm not so sure. Whaddaya think? Could be fun, no? I could lead you around on all fours like this, getcha to bark like a dog for me. Or, I dunno, gurgle. Whatever it is mute puppies like to do."

*cough cough*

Neo's fingers scratched and pulled at the obstruction around her neck.

This wasn't any good at all. She'd been caught like a worm on a hook. Her feet kicked out in defiance. This was too tight around her throat. She couldn't get her concentration going to shatter-

As Dragon leaned in and began speaking her spiel, Neo in between sputters and coughs, grit her teeth and continued to kick her legs out. In the desperate hope that her flailing would have connected with the blonde. The way she referred to both versions of Roman...It made her blood boil. She wanted to do to this bitch what she'd done to Malachite but worse. Gouge out her eyes, cut out her tongue, stab her limbs to the floor and have her try begging for the end but it'd never come!

But for now all Neo could do was hiss.
​

She giggled, a low, delirious sound, and used her positioning to lean forward and give Neo a playful nip on the ear, apparently genuinely enamored by the excruciating and near-permanent pain the assassin had put her through.

"But what I really wanna know is what it's gonna take to make you scream."

She had one or two ideas for how to start. Dragon knew full well she was kinda running out the timer on giving Blake the other half of her weapon back, but whatever she was doing on the other side of the smoke and mist she suddenly felt it snap back towards her location like an elastic; both from the sudden release of tension and the fact that the human it had ensnared got full on drilled in the back of the skull to send her right into the Hand's waiting embrace, her capacity for being a slippery little bitch now severely reduced thanks to the Anima necktie.

An angry hiss, a croak, and a flashing of aura was all that greeted Blake as Neo was promptly whipped towards her.

For someone who'd missed the whole 'actually getting hit by Yang' memo, Neo came to a startling realization.

It actually REALLY hurt.

Think, Neo, think! Who would this chick never ever stab with the intent to kill?

As Neo closed in, she activated her semblance and she no longer looked like herself.

But rather someone Blake knew...

 

[Gus Gungus]

".........."

The relic getting flung out of reach and snatched out of sight by someone else, the first thief likewise disappearing over that same roof...it got a different response than might have been expected, given that one of the most important items in the world was getting taken away from them. The flames shooting out of her boots sputtered and died, and without them keeping her up, the flight ended with her and Arthur dropping and rolling across the sandy ground. Her grip faltered and both Arthur and his cute scooter thing slipped from her grasp. It wasn't exactly the most comfortable of stops(and she could taste the bits of sand that managed to get into her mouth) but right now that comfort was not what she thought about. It wasn't what dominated her mind.

A second thief. That graceful flip. Gunboots that blasted the first one up over the roof. How that shopkeeper had accosted them with gifts specifically tailored to them. Ridiculously so! The messages on the shirts, it was too uncanny how...and he'd called them Beacon students! Even used their initials...and then, the just...complete disappearance of it all. Like it had never been there in the first place. Cinder wasn't as smart as Arthur, that was true but now that the impulsive worry about the relic wasn't driving her into immediate pursuit, now that she just took a moment to think about it...it was so obvious. Too obvious! Frustratingly so. It made her feel like such an idiot, further justifying that choice of shirt.

There was no running after. There was no fiery glow signifying pursuit, or the sound of those flames surging behind them, or the heat warming up the cooler night that would have came with. The maiden just pushed herself up into a kneeling position and lifted her head up, looking with her one good eye at that rooftop, and there was just the sound of her voice.

"Mercury! Emerald! Come back!"

She had no idea if that would even work, if that would get them to do so...or if that would even get them to stop in their fleeing. But she made no move to stand up regardless. "Please...wait..."

Cinder received no reply.

Initially. Only the continued footfall of heavy iron-clad heels on the limestone rooftop, growing fainter and fainter as the tandem of thieves tore their way off into the night, prize in tow. One could only wonder what had possessed them to do it, if the culprits were indeed their former friends; whether they thought it could fetch a good price in the bazaar or were attracted by the limitless appeal of limitless knowledge. Or perhaps they simply wanted a keepsake to hang over their mantelpiece and remind them of all the good times their two teams had shared together before—

"It's just a prank." Came a sudden, stark voice from behind them, dry and bemused. "Bro."

Well, that checked out too.



No sooner than they turned did they notice a dumpster in the alley they were pretty sure hadn't been present before, along with the two figures sitting casually on top of it who definitely hadn't. Unbothered by the occasional fly buzzing around them, Emerald and Mercury both were and weren't the same duo they last saw all those months ago; Beacon's resident cool outsider kids clearly weren't putting quite as much emphasis on their material looks anymore, Emerald's complex hairstyle bunched back into a much more simple ponytail and Mercury's boyband locks evidently having been without whatever expensive conditioning product he used back then for quite some time, now just parted with gel, a little unkempt to match the peppering of stubble around his jaw. MTEN's former leader was sitting cross-legged with his back against the alley wall, wearing a look of careful ambivalence as he took the two in, feelings always guarded behind a metal shell; while his partner perched on the edge with legs crossed in a far more elegantly mysterious way, and appeared to have no qualms with letting an affable, if careful, smirk break the surface of her face, though it was almost as if she was wilfully moderating whatever reaction she wanted to be having.

She held up the relic, pulsating where it dangled gingerly from a pointer finger.

"Aaaaaaaand that's how easy it would've been to lift this from you guys. Didn't I always tell you? Can't take your eyes off your stuff for a second where I'm from."

The time since she'd left Vacuo behind her and decided huntressing was her new thing had been... weird. Long, surreal, and weird. Emerald was someone who had learned not to expect much from people; The ability to sever attachments, move on with her life and accept she just wasn't likely to see certain folks ever again was a skill the hand life dealt her had required her to cultivate as a defense mechanism, a necessity as vital to her wellbeing as water or air.

Her tone almost betrayed how happy she was that that wasn't the case this time, and as her eyes fell on Cinder she let her mask slip, just for a second, and the careful smirk on her face grow into a tiny, assuaging grin. For a second.

And then?

Well, then it was kinda awkward.

"Soooooooo..."

"Shitty ride, Art." Mercury's tone was still guarded and blunt as he cut in, staring at Watts's scooter with a critical squint. His eyes traveled upward, and though he had his mixed feelings on seeing the two pop up with the artifact that had derailed three of his team's lives (and ended the fourth), he hadn't left things with WTCH's leader feeling as conflicted as he did about Cinder. Honestly he couldn't stress enough how much he DID NOT LIKE THIS DUDE when they were all starting off; but he liked to think a mutual respect had built between the leaders of the year's most kickass team, MTEN, and its second most kickass team, WTCH, and from his end, at least, their constant sniping had grown into a language of endearment. He smirked.

"Very you."​

 

[MyrtenRose]

Cinder received no reply.

Initially. Only the continued footfall of heavy iron-clad heels on the limestone rooftop, growing fainter and fainter as the tandem of thieves tore their way off into the night, prize in tow. One could only wonder what had possessed them to do it, if the culprits were indeed their former friends; whether they thought it could fetch a good price in the bazaar or were attracted by the limitless appeal of limitless knowledge. Or perhaps they simply wanted a keepsake to hang over their mantelpiece and remind them of all the good times their two teams had shared together before—

"It's just a prank." Came a sudden, stark voice from behind them, dry and bemused. "Bro."

Well, that checked out too.

View attachment 853502View attachment 853501

No sooner than they turned did they notice a dumpster in the alley they were pretty sure hadn't been present before, along with the two figures sitting casually on top of it who definitely hadn't. Unbothered by the occasional fly buzzing around them, Emerald and Mercury both were and weren't the same duo they last saw all those months ago; Beacon's resident cool outsider kids clearly weren't putting quite as much emphasis on their material looks anymore, Emerald's complex hairstyle bunched back into a much more simple ponytail and Mercury's boyband locks evidently having been without whatever expensive conditioning product he used back then for quite some time, now just parted with gel, a little unkempt to match the peppering of stubble around his jaw. MTEN's former leader was sitting cross-legged with his back against the alley wall, wearing a look of careful ambivalence as he took the two in, feelings always guarded behind a metal shell; while his partner perched on the edge with legs crossed in a far more elegantly mysterious way, and appeared to have no qualms with letting an affable, if careful, smirk break the surface of her face, like she was willfully moderating whatever reaction she wanted to be having.

She held up the relic, pulsating where it dangled gingerly from a pointer finger.

"Aaaaaaaand that's how easy it would've been to lift this from you guys. Didn't I always tell you? Can't take your eyes off your stuff for a second where I'm from."

The time since she'd left Vacuo behind her and decided huntressing was her new thing had been... weird. Long, surreal, and weird. Emerald was someone who had learned not to expect much from people; The ability to sever attachments, move on with her life and accept she just wasn't likely to see certain folks ever again was a skill the hand life dealt her had required her to cultivate as a defense mechanism, a necessity as vital to her wellbeing as water or air.

Her tone almost betrayed how happy she was that that wasn't the case this time, and as her eyes fell on Cinder she let her mask slip, just for a second, and the careful smirk on her face grow into a tiny, assuaging grin. For a second.

And then?

Well, then it was kinda awkward.

"Soooooooo..."

"Shitty ride, Art." Mercury's tone was still guarded and blunt as he cut in, staring at Watts's scooter with a critical squint. His eyes traveled upward, and though he had his mixed feelings on seeing the two pop up with the artifact that had derailed three of his team's lives (and ended the fourth), he hadn't left things with WTCH's leader feeling as conflicted as he did about Cinder. Honestly he couldn't stress enough how much he DID NOT LIKE THIS DUDE when they were all starting off, but he liked to think a mutual respect had built between the leaders of the year's most kickass team, MTEN, and its second most kickass team, WTCH; and from his end, at least, their constant sniping had grown into a language of endearment. He smirked.

"Very you."​

In contrast to the more cautious and guarded looks the two had on their faces(understandably so), the expression on Cinder's face when she turned to the sound of that familiar voice was far more plain and open. She was glad her thoughts about who it was that was taking the relic proved correct, but she was far far far more happy to simply see those two again. Though after a few moments, that small appreciative smile did a 180 into a frown. Not for anything they had done, but for what she had. She'd left them all, and if there was any fault to be had for the possibility that she would never see their faces again, it was entirely hers.

She had so much she wanted to say about that, had more than once practiced a few things to herself but now that the moment was here and staring her in the face...she had no idea where to even start.

She swallowed nervously and rubbed at her hands, but she didn't broach that topic yet herself. Nor did she comment on how easily the relic had been taken, and if it hadn't been familiar people who had taken it in the first place, that could have been so very bad. Yet she didn't try to take it back either, she only stayed quiet. With that silence on her part, she felt the awkwardness all the more the strongly and when Emerald tried to break it with that "sooooooooo" and Mercury followed through in his characteristically snarky way, she took a deep breath before trying to say something cool back.

"I....um....I like your new hairstyles?"

Alright, even she recognized that did little to ease the awkwardness a second after she said it, but she just couldn't grab those words out of the air and shove them back into her mouth. It was true though, she did like them. Though they were simpler and more unkempt, she thought it suited them. Maybe that was a little lame, but well it was the truth as she saw it. She had never been as cool as these two back at Beacon, even though she tried to cultivate that image more. Her gaze lowered to the ground and she sighed. She steeled her nerves as best she could before she lifted her gaze back up. That golden-eyed look shifted between the two of them, and then she spoke again, trying to get what needed to be said out there. "Guys, I...I'm so sorry. For...for so many things. Too many. I wasn't there when..." Cinder couldn't bring herself to finish that sentence. She just moved on to the next.

"Um...I'm guessing Neo is with you two, right? You all stuck together?" ​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

The force from Harbinger's point blank shot got her head to snap back in a manner that should have been elicited at least a grunt, but Ozwen didn't make a single sound of pain. The follow through sweep of the legs was neatly avoided with a simple hop up over them, and her head tilted back up with a small entertained smile. A single solitary portal, adorned with a design not too unlike Weiss's usual glyphs sprang to life by her feet, but this was not that. A handful of elongated grimm arms emerged from whatever hellish pit lay on the other side of it, a limited number compared to her favored amount, but she believed they would suffice. One hand rose up, intercepting the knee strike and stopping it completely cold before it could strike it's intended target. The grip tightened like a vise and the caught Yang was thrown like a bullet towards Qrow.

"Credit where credit is due, between the two of you? You're half right. This is a suicide mission, indeed." That smile widened, in spite of her weakened state. "A shame the rest of it is, sadly, untrue. You are in the heart of my army now, surrounded by my followers...and facing me." She let out a dark chuckle. Her head rose up and turned to the right slightly, the third among them making a move now. Raven lunged forward in the wake of Yang being flung aside, Omen lashing out in a powerful swing...to little effect. The blade pressed up against a field of light blue, a hard light projection as Ozwen held up Myrtenaster. This infernal weapon, the one that had killed him...but necessity demanded it be used. His own magic was limited, had to be conserved when necessary, but fortunately, this weapon had quite the capacity for storing dust.

Ozwen's head tilted, an experimental hum coming from her. "Not bad, wouldn't you agree?" The protective hardlight dropped and a wave of fire launched from the thin blade, knocking Raven back into one of the room's walls. "Forgive me-" She started in a clearly sardonic tone, not truly caring for their forgiveness. "-this body is rather...new. Most of the memories are there, but I haven't had the time to go through them in the depth I would like to. I am learning just as much as I am actually fighting you pathetic pawns. Say, shall we put summoning to the test? Find out together if I could do it even half as well as her yet? A quarter as well? There's quite a few in these memories...it could make this more enjoyable."
​

"Unresolved issues, kid. I need this." Qrow snarked back dryly at Yang's complaint, apparently just as versed in the age-old huntsman defense mechanism that was 'compartmentalization' as his doofus nieces were. Unfortunately, that proved to be the moment shit got real.





It was then that Oz heard a small, disdainful voice ring out at the back of her mind, chiming in as if in reply to the malevolent immortal's own words. Which was slightly disorienting, considering the two voices were one and the same.

Oh, yes, please do. I think we could all use a good laugh. If I might make a suggestion, perhaps you could even summon my weapon's instruction manual so you stop holding an experimental cutting-edge multi-action Dust rapier worth more money than you can even conceptualize the way a troglodyte holds a club.

Qrow's features set in a tense, wary grimace as their target started to push back, trepidation flashing in his eyes in equal parts with defiance as the moment of truth arrived as to whether they actually had any kind of a shot here (and whether he had more or less just killed his entire family) or not. Man, if they all died and proved that smug little geek right he didn't think his spirit was ever gonna find peace. He braced himself mentally in the same moment Harbinger sought to brace against Yang's boots physically, his own heels digging into the ground as they both went skidding back a handful of meters, fully prepared for his semblance to let them all down in the home stretch. His red eyes sharpened at Ozwen's words, and...

...Huh.

Weiss's semblance. Weiss's weapon. A few grabby grimm hands. It remained to be seen just how well Oz could wield the tools he did have, but...

"Smells like bluffing."

He kept his gruff retort limited this time, instead shifting his focus towards angling Harbinger's barrels just right so that when he swung and squeezed the trigger the gunblade belted the balancing Yang right back at the Grimm overlord for another attempt. Qrow himself followed shortly behind, keeping his eyes sharp for any Grimm running interference, and attempted to follow up whatever Yang's move was with a relentless, twirling offensive of flashy sword maneuvers as Harbinger danced all around his grip, chiefly intended to draw the bulk of Ozwen's attention and keep her off balance for one of his harder-hitting or dust-wielding blood relations.
​

There was grunt of equal parts pain and surprise as Yang found herself suddenly snatched out of mid air and whipped back into the other direction, but she kept her bearings and twisted so that it was her feet that caught Harbinger as Qrow propped it up. She let out a determined growl as she felt the weapon begin to shift underneath her, and leaped off in time with Qrow's fastball special to turn that momentum into a rocket launch.

Except instead of weaponizing that momentum like expected, she swung her fists downward with a pair of shotgun blasts to suddenly pull her arc upwards, forcing Oz to either track her upwards and leave Qrow and opening or give her uncle her(his?) full focus as she flipped herself in the air so her boots slammed into the ceiling



"Hey big guy, if it wasn't obvious-"

She pushed back off to send herself slamming towards the ground, timing it so the back end of Qrow's last slash was simultaneous with a two fisted hammer blow from above.

"-You're not who I'm talking to, but since we're SHARING-"

the temperature suddenly shot up in a way that had nothing to do with Yang's semblance, and she hoped that was enough of a warning for her uncle to clear ground zero as, regardless of whether her first blow connected with Oz or put a crater in the ground, she rose from her strike with her real hand flexed in a claw-like shape, swinging straight for Ozpin's gut as she reached towards wherever this new power was inside of her and just let it out. No attempts at control or direction; She wasn't gonna pretend she was the best at that even if she had had this maiden stuff longer than like, an hour.

Sometimes control wasn't what you wanted though. Sometimes you wanted a clean, technical punch, and sometimes you wanted to throw the wildest haymaker in your arsenal. Thats what this was, and hopefully any grimm arms that wanted to interrupt got scorched to ash as a ferocious blast of however much fire the mantle of the maiden could unleash was swung across the half the room opposite the Branwens as Yang's eyes burned with lilac flames.

"-YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO'S LEARNING!"

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

Cinder received no reply.

Initially. Only the continued footfall of heavy iron-clad heels on the limestone rooftop, growing fainter and fainter as the tandem of thieves tore their way off into the night, prize in tow. One could only wonder what had possessed them to do it, if the culprits were indeed their former friends; whether they thought it could fetch a good price in the bazaar or were attracted by the limitless appeal of limitless knowledge. Or perhaps they simply wanted a keepsake to hang over their mantelpiece and remind them of all the good times their two teams had shared together before—

"It's just a prank." Came a sudden, stark voice from behind them, dry and bemused. "Bro."

Well, that checked out too.

View attachment 853502View attachment 853501

No sooner than they turned did they notice a dumpster in the alley they were pretty sure hadn't been present before, along with the two figures sitting casually on top of it who definitely hadn't. Unbothered by the occasional fly buzzing around them, Emerald and Mercury both were and weren't the same duo they last saw all those months ago; Beacon's resident cool outsider kids clearly weren't putting quite as much emphasis on their material looks anymore, Emerald's complex hairstyle bunched back into a much more simple ponytail and Mercury's boyband locks evidently having been without whatever expensive conditioning product he used back then for quite some time, now just parted with gel, a little unkempt to match the peppering of stubble around his jaw. MTEN's former leader was sitting cross-legged with his back against the alley wall, wearing a look of careful ambivalence as he took the two in, feelings always guarded behind a metal shell; while his partner perched on the edge with legs crossed in a far more elegantly mysterious way, and appeared to have no qualms with letting an affable, if careful, smirk break the surface of her face, though it was almost as if she was wilfully moderating whatever reaction she wanted to be having.

She held up the relic, pulsating where it dangled gingerly from a pointer finger.

"Aaaaaaaand that's how easy it would've been to lift this from you guys. Didn't I always tell you? Can't take your eyes off your stuff for a second where I'm from."

The time since she'd left Vacuo behind her and decided huntressing was her new thing had been... weird. Long, surreal, and weird. Emerald was someone who had learned not to expect much from people; The ability to sever attachments, move on with her life and accept she just wasn't likely to see certain folks ever again was a skill the hand life dealt her had required her to cultivate as a defense mechanism, a necessity as vital to her wellbeing as water or air.

Her tone almost betrayed how happy she was that that wasn't the case this time, and as her eyes fell on Cinder she let her mask slip, just for a second, and the careful smirk on her face grow into a tiny, assuaging grin. For a second.

And then?

Well, then it was kinda awkward.

"Soooooooo..."

"Shitty ride, Art." Mercury's tone was still guarded and blunt as he cut in, staring at Watts's scooter with a critical squint. His eyes traveled upward, and though he had his mixed feelings on seeing the two pop up with the artifact that had derailed three of his team's lives (and ended the fourth), he hadn't left things with WTCH's leader feeling as conflicted as he did about Cinder. Honestly he couldn't stress enough how much he DID NOT LIKE THIS DUDE when they were all starting off; but he liked to think a mutual respect had built between the leaders of the year's most kickass team, MTEN, and its second most kickass team, WTCH, and from his end, at least, their constant sniping had grown into a language of endearment. He smirked.

"Very you."​

In contrast to the more cautious and guarded looks the two had on their faces(understandably so), the expression on Cinder's face when she turned to the sound of that familiar voice was far more plain and open. She was glad her thoughts about who it was that was taking the relic proved correct, but she was far far far more happy to simply see those two again. Though after a few moments, that small appreciative smile did a 180 into a frown. Not for anything they had done, but for what she had. She'd left them all, and if there was any fault to be had for the possibility that she would never see their faces again, it was entirely hers.

She had so much she wanted to say about that, had more than once practiced a few things to herself but now that the moment was here and staring her in the face...she had no idea where to even start.

She swallowed nervously and rubbed at her hands, but she didn't broach that topic yet herself. Nor did she comment on how easily the relic had been taken, and if it hadn't been familiar people who had taken it in the first place, that could have been so very bad. Yet she didn't try to take it back either, she only stayed quiet. With that silence on her part, she felt the awkwardness all the more the strongly and when Emerald tried to break it with that "sooooooooo" and Mercury followed through in his characteristically snarky way, she took a deep breath before trying to say something cool back.

"I....um....I like your new hairstyles?"

Alright, even she recognized that did little to ease the awkwardness a second after she said it, but she just couldn't grab those words out of the air and shove them back into her mouth. It was true though, she did like them. Though they were simpler and more unkempt, she thought it suited them. Maybe that was a little lame, but well it was the truth as she saw it. She had never been as cool as these two back at Beacon, even though she tried to cultivate that image more. Her gaze lowered to the ground and she sighed. She steeled her nerves as best she could before she lifted her gaze back up. That golden-eyed look shifted between the two of them, and then she spoke again, trying to get what needed to be said out there. "Guys, I...I'm so sorry. For...for so many things. Too many. I wasn't there when..." Cinder couldn't bring herself to finish that sentence. She just moved on to the next.

"Um...I'm guessing Neo is with you two, right? You all stuck together?" ​

Arthur didn't match Cinder's contrite enthusiasm.

As the pair reappeared behind them, his gaze was as sharp as ever as he whirled with his revolver drawn in the same motion, pointing straight for Emerald's chest. Only after a few seconds, his eyes flicking across them both as well as the relic, did the weapon lower back into its holster.

"It has its uses" He answered cryptically, then far more dryly added "Unlike your sense of humor. You should be one of the few people alive who knows how stupid it is to play games with that thing. Not that we were in danger of completely losing it."

Arthur raised a hand and the rings on the matching fingers began to glow, and a tiny chunk of metal suddenly dislodged from one of the crannies in the lamps filigree and snapped into his waiting palm. He held it up along with his scroll, giving it a small waggle to show the map it was currently showing.

"This is the part where you say how annoying I am for acting like I have an answer to everything instead of assuming my basic ability to problem solve and plan ahead is still intact."

He tossed the tracker in the air up and down a few times, his foot tapping as he glanced to the sky and took a breath. "It is good to see you're not dead. I... Are-hrm."

He let out a vexed sigh as he pocketed both his hands and looked off to the side. This wasn't really his forte. As loathe as he'd was to admit, he was glad to see these two again, but while it might not have been the same sudden and violent emotional clusterfuck, his last memories with MTEN were...

Mercury didn't have much of an outward reaction when Watts made his implicit meaning clear. Inwardly was another story, and his grip tightened on the steering wheel as he gunned it down Mistral's winding roads, most of which happened to be adjacent to steep drops, in a stupid car with way too many people in it. It was absolutely terrifying.

His lack of response to Watts was not one shared by Emerald. The other team's leader felt her eyes tunneling into him with disdain from across the entirety of the backseat, and a particularly distinctive oak tree they passed by on their way down from the mountain held a much more distinctive sight for Watts and Watts alone in the form of himself, hanging from a noose off the tallest branch with Xes scratched out where his eyes should've been.

"Neo, I understand that you're hurting, but this is important."

"..."

"Listen!" He grabbed her by both shoulders and forced her to face him with a growl, startling her eyes into a bit of confused life that she had no desire to be experiencing as Watts whispered harshly to her. "Torchwick is gone, and if you just sit here and do nothing then my teammate is going to join him! He will die, it will be my fault, and it will be yours! Get your shit together for five minutes or put another death on your conscience; your choice!"

If the shocked hurt on her face moved him at all, it didn't show past his steady glare, and eventually she shoved his hands off her shoulders and turned away with glistening eyes.

But she did nod.

There was a warning growl in his tone as he caught sight of her and the look on her face, and he was quick to intercept her path for the young maiden and grab her shoulder. "Enough! I get it, I understand-"

That was the final straw. One more person saying they understood. Hazel, Yang, Watts, everyone with their glances of unspoken pity and judgement, all claiming they could relate, that they'd suffered losses just as bad or worse, that they knew the depths of Neopolitan's pain.


All. Wrong.

Neo's palm caught Arthur square in the nose, a knee to the gut while he was reeling made him keel over, and he felt Neo rolling across his back and his holster feeling a little lighter. Neo didn't even look back at him as she squeezed off a trio of shots that exploded into ice across his body, a cry of surprise and pain muffled by half of his head being encased as he stumbled to the ground. Through the whole exchange Neo barely broke her stride, her eyes flickering erratically from pink to brown and bits of harden light twirling in the air around her as her semblance continued to go haywire without direction.

....tense.

He really just didn't do apologies. He and Cinder hadn't even really discussed what this was anymore, with him being back here instead of in Atlas, and they'd been together for days now. Unfortunately, MTEN were among the four or five people on Remnant who'd decided at least some parts of him were worth dealing with the rest of the package, and that was something even he couldn't just write off as unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

"...How have you all held up?" he eventually settled on, still keen on making zero eye contact.

 

[MyrtenRose]

It was then that Oz heard a small, disdainful voice ring out at the back of her mind, chiming in as if in reply to the malevolent immortal's own words. Which was slightly disorienting, considering the two voices were one and the same.

Oh, yes, please do. I think we could all use a good laugh. If I might make a suggestion, perhaps you could even summon my weapon's instruction manual so you stop holding an experimental cutting-edge multi-action Dust rapier worth more money than you can even conceptualize the way a troglodyte holds a club.

Ah, councilwoman. Your running commentary is as refreshing(not really) as it is absolutely insufferable. That said, do not be too concerned. Though your weapon is inferior to my own, in time I will wield it as perfectly as you ever did. In fact, I dare say I will use it even better than you, and accomplish things you never could have dreamed of in even your most optimistic delusional fantasies. Until then, get as many laughs as you can. They won't last. ​

Qrow's features set in a tense, wary grimace as their target started to push back, trepidation flashing in his eyes in equal parts with defiance as the moment of truth arrived as to whether they actually had any kind of a shot here (and whether he had more or less just killed his entire family) or not. Man, if they all died and proved that smug little geek right he didn't think his spirit was ever gonna find peace. He braced himself mentally in the same moment Harbinger sought to brace against Yang's boots physically, his own heels digging into the ground as they both went skidding back a handful of meters, fully prepared for his semblance to let them all down in the home stretch. His red eyes sharpened at Ozwen's words, and...

...Huh.

Weiss's semblance. Weiss's weapon. A few grabby grimm hands. It remained to be seen just how well Oz could wield the tools he did have, but...

"Smells like bluffing."

He kept his gruff retort limited this time, instead shifting his focus towards angling Harbinger's barrels just right so that when he swung and squeezed the trigger the gunblade belted the balancing Yang right back at the Grimm overlord for another attempt. Qrow himself followed shortly behind, keeping his eyes sharp for any Grimm running interference, and attempted to follow up whatever Yang's move was with a relentless, twirling offensive of flashy sword maneuvers as Harbinger danced all around his grip, chiefly intended to draw the bulk of Ozwen's attention and keep her off balance for one of his harder-hitting or dust-wielding blood relations.

There was grunt of equal parts pain and surprise as Yang found herself suddenly snatched out of mid air and whipped back into the other direction, but she kept her bearings and twisted so that it was her feet that caught Harbinger as Qrow propped it up. She let out a determined growl as she felt the weapon begin to shift underneath her, and leaped off in time with Qrow's fastball special to turn that momentum into a rocket launch.

Except instead of weaponizing that momentum like expected, she swung her fists downward with a pair of shotgun blasts to suddenly pull her arc upwards, forcing Oz to either track her upwards and leave Qrow and opening or give her uncle her(his?) full focus as she flipped herself in the air so her boots slammed into the ceiling



"Hey big guy, if it wasn't obvious-"

She pushed back off to send herself slamming towards the ground, timing it so the back end of Qrow's last slash was simultaneous with a two fisted hammer blow from above.

"-You're not who I'm talking to, but since we're SHARING-"

the temperature suddenly shot up in a way that had nothing to do with Yang's semblance, and she hoped that was enough of a warning for her uncle to clear ground zero as, regardless of whether her first blow connected with Oz or put a crater in the ground, she rose from her strike with her real hand flexed in a claw-like shape, swinging straight for Ozpin's gut as she reached towards wherever this new power was inside of her and just let it out. No attempts at control or direction; She wasn't gonna pretend she was the best at that even if she had had this maiden stuff longer than like, an hour.

Sometimes control wasn't what you wanted though. Sometimes you wanted a clean, technical punch, and sometimes you wanted to throw the wildest haymaker in your arsenal. Thats what this was, and hopefully any grimm arms that wanted to interrupt got scorched to ash as a ferocious blast of however much fire the mantle of the maiden could unleash was swung across the half the room opposite the Branwens as Yang's eyes burned with lilac flames.

"-YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO'S LEARNING!"

Projections of hardlight fields and Myrtenaster's own blade kept Qrow's series of strikes at bay, deflecting and parrying the blows from striking her pretty efficiently. More the former than the latter as she adjusted, but it was sufficient nevertheless. The problem was that doing so was feeding right into what that Branwen wanted. Though she could hear Yang speaking in the background, her focus was firmly more centered on the professional huntsman in front of her, doing what she could against his assault. That left her open, and no sooner than she had parried Harbinger's latest attack did another attack land from above. A hammer blow spiked her downwards, but before she could hit the floor, the follow through blow reversed that direction and had Ozwen blasted back across the room by the tremendous blast of fire. A few of the dark appendages that tried to intercede were seared to an absolute crisp and melted away into nothing.

It took a moment or two for her to stand up again, but she did. And when she did, her body language seemed as unconcerned as before, but the look on her face was different. Strange. "Ah. So you are the one now." The magical strength of a maiden did not go unrecognized, and that did change things. Three challengers, two experienced and fully trained warriors and the last channeling the raw power of a maiden. This required adjustment. The dust rapier readied itself, a blast of fire dust unleashed...but not at any of the three opposing him. Rather, her own considerable scorching attack tore open a massive hole in the wall, exposing it to the outside. Her intent made clear almost immediately.

The young Rose was keeping any Grimm in the halls from interfering in this battle, and the woman in the back of this mind had done severe damage to many out there not so long ago...but not to all. Enough of them for this task remained. A number of the specks in the sky outside grew larger and larger the closer they got and in almost no time at all, they soared into the exceptionally large room, originally constructed for being suitable enough to let a maiden(and himself) use and train their power to its fullest extent. A dozen Grimm or so, a few Griffons, Lancers, Manticores, Teryx...nothing truly remarkable but enough of them to distract and give Ozwen room, if not win themselves. The creatures' roar echoed through the room and beyond before charging full on at the three while Ozwen hung back. Fire and ice dust from the rapier were used in tandem, obscuring her behind a fair amount of steamy grey mist.

Trusting that both gave her sufficient time, she did indeed try to summon. The glyph appeared, and an armored hand did begin to emerge...but it didn't last. Only the hand managed to get through, and even then it was only present for a few seconds before it broke apart and the glyph faded, to Oz's frustration. Any laughter deep inside from Weiss was ignored as Ozwen scowled. So be it! She would simply have to do without that. The grimm master lunged after her beasts had, making a direct beeline right for Yang, a blast of wind dust meant to separate her from the Branwen twins and blast her back into one of the other walls, whereupon the remaining grimm hands appeared again, doing all they could to restrain her.

Ozwen was upon her then, the dainty hand of Weiss Schnee gripping Yang by the chin far more roughly than any touch in the past, the other brandishing the rapier as if she meant to skewer the blonde's throat. "That actually hurt, you know. I give you credit. It burned, intense and powerful...I daresay I could make use of you among my followers as a maiden, but I imagine you would only vehemently reject that idea. Refuse it with steadfast stubbornness. A shame that you're not as...agreeable as your lookalike." Doubly a shame that she no longer had the semblance that could make that a reality.

"I suppose I shall just have to kill you, hmm?"​

 

[Gus Gungus]

She swallowed nervously and rubbed at her hands, but she didn't broach that topic yet herself. Nor did she comment on how easily the relic had been taken, and if it hadn't been familiar people who had taken it in the first place, that could have been so very bad. Yet she didn't try to take it back either, she only stayed quiet. With that silence on her part, she felt the awkwardness all the more the strongly and when Emerald tried to break it with that "sooooooooo" and Mercury followed through in his characteristically snarky way, she took a deep breath before trying to say something cool back.

"I....um....I like your new hairstyles?"

Alright, even she recognized that did little to ease the awkwardness a second after she said it, but she just couldn't grab those words out of the air and shove them back into her mouth. It was true though, she did like them. Though they were simpler and more unkempt, she thought it suited them. Maybe that was a little lame, but well it was the truth as she saw it. She had never been as cool as these two back at Beacon, even though she tried to cultivate that image more. Her gaze lowered to the ground and she sighed. She steeled her nerves as best she could before she lifted her gaze back up. That golden-eyed look shifted between the two of them, and then she spoke again, trying to get what needed to be said out there. "Guys, I...I'm so sorry. For...for so many things. Too many. I wasn't there when..." Cinder couldn't bring herself to finish that sentence. She just moved on to the next.

Emerald had always seemed to unironically get a kick out of Cinder's efforts to be one of the cool kids like them, and managed to offer up at least a faintly exasperated huff of air out through her nostrils to relieve some of the awkwardness as Cinder pointed out their hairstyles.

"Thanks, they're called 'giving up'. Yours is... pointy."

Different look or no, there was something painfully Emerald about how coy she played her return serve, tone so even and choice of word such a neutral statement of fact it was nigh impossible to discern whether it was supposed to be complimentary or otherwise. Whatever amusement she derived from that was quickly lost behind the raised eyebrow she offered as the apology started, but whatever her thoughts may have been on that never quite got to materialize as Mercury suddenly swung himself off the dumpster, cutting Cinder off in a tone that was harsh only in its bluntness yet nevertheless didn't seem particularly receptive towards hearing it.

"K."

Arthur didn't match Cinder's contrite enthusiasm.

As the pair reappeared behind them, his gaze was as sharp as ever as he whirled with his revolver drawn in the same motion, pointing straight for Emerald's chest. Only after a few seconds, his eyes flicking across them both as well as the relic, did the weapon lower back into its holster.

"It has its uses" He answered cryptically, then far more dryly added "Unlike your sense of humor. You should be one of the few people alive who knows how stupid it is to play games with that thing. Not that we were in danger of completely losing it."

Arthur raised a hand and the rings on the matching fingers began to glow, and a tiny chunk of metal suddenly dislodged from one of the crannies in the lamps filigree and snapped into his waiting palm. He held it up along with his scroll, giving it a small waggle to show the map it was currently showing.

"This is the part where you say how annoying I am for acting like I have an answer to everything instead of assuming my basic ability to problem solve and plan ahead is still intact."

Emerald's response to being stuck up with Watts's dinky little spud gun was nothing short of the most offensively lackadaisical gasp and raising of the hands anyone had ever given in response to anything, not at all surprised to learn the kid hadn't learned to be fun in their months apart. "Oh, Arthur. It's nothing you do that makes you annoying, you just came out that way. Like a bad soufflé."



Mercury seemed a bit more tolerant of the flex, giving a low-pitched whistle as he stretched out his legs. "Relax, Jimmy Neutron. Just thought we'd check out what kinda precautions you two geeks are taking if you're gonna be waltzing through the city of thieves like a couple of busted thumbs. Pro tip, Cindy; if you're looking to keep a low profile, you might wanna think about nixing the midnight flight tests. Bet every crook in the kingdom with a gun and nothing to do tonight could see your little lightshow."
​

"Um...I'm guessing Neo is with you two, right? You all stuck together?"

"...How have you all held up?" he eventually settled on, still keen on making zero eye contact.

"Bad."

Emerald had tried to swap a look with him as matters turned to gloomier affairs, but for once the duo didn't seem to be on the same page on that front as Mercury just tossed his shoulders up in a shrug and answered in the most blunt manner possible. She scoffed.

"Bad is such a... I mean... we've done some cool stuff."

"Was it cool, though? Was it really?"

"We basically ran a whole crime syndicate for a while!"

"A day."

"It had to have been longer than that."

"One day. It just felt like it went on forever and all we ended up doing was getting in a gang war with a buncha weirdos."

"Okay yea we're doing bad." She finally admitted with a huff, relenting. A more genuinely morose look fell over her face. "...Some of us more than others. We still know Neo. She..."

"She's not gonna wanna see you." Mercury threw at Cinder candidly, jaw setting in a more rigid scowl at that. He seemed content to leave the matter there. "But hey, speaking of resident emotionally fractured lunatics—" The son of a notorious assassin wasn't exactly one to lack for intensity when he wore his displeasure on his face, swinging the duffel bag off his shoulders and started rummaging through the contents, eventually bringing out a scroll far more battered and scratched than Arthur's was. It took a few tries to swipe through to the screen he wanted, but when he got to what had once been his team's aura gauge he checked to make sure everyone was still running high and gave a sigh of relief when it transpired that they were. He turned the screen towards the other two with a supremely unenthusiastic 'ta-dah' motion.

Of all people, where Torchwick's name had once been displayed Tyrian Callows' grinning face now leered back at them. Also, directly below him was some much older guy with a pencil stache they had never seen before in their lives.

"—We got your team's holing up with us too. He's obsessed with the Shadow Fang and spends all his time hanging out with some dom now, so take that however you want. But we kinda took it to mean team WTCH were officially about as bust as MTEN, so imagine our faces when we saw you two still pallin' around. With that thing." He made a noise somewhere between a chuckle and a scoff as he jerked his head towards the lamp, far more bitter than mirthful. "What happened to the big guy?"​

 

[MyrtenRose]

Emerald had always seemed to get a kick out of Cinder's efforts to be one of the cool kids like them, and managed to offer up at least a faintly exasperated huff of air out through her nostrils to relieve some of the awkwardness as Cinder pointed out their hairstyles.

"Thanks, they're called 'giving up'. Yours is... pointy."

Different look or no, there was something painfully Emerald about how coy she played her return serve, tone so even and choice of word such a neutral statement of fact it was nigh impossible to discern whether it was supposed to be complimentary or otherwise. Whatever amusement she derived from that was quickly lost behind the raised eyebrow she offered as the apology started, but whatever her thoughts may have been on that never quite got to materialize as Mercury suddenly swung himself off the dumpster, cutting Cinder off in a tone that was harsh only in its bluntness yet nevertheless didn't seem particularly receptive towards hearing it.

"K."

Both of those hurt to hear, though for different reasons. It being shared so openly that they had given up after all that happened, it...was saddening to hear, but the bluntness in Mercury's voice got to her more. It was something she'd expected, that he wouldn't care to hear about any apology and she couldn't blame him for that, but that didn't make it hurt any less. "...yes. Yes it is." She replied to the only thing she felt capable of replying to at that moment, that bit about her own hair. "I...well..." She trailed off, not really wanting to get into the Masque and how her words struck her deeply. Her eye peered towards Mercury. "...I based it off yours. Or what you used to have, and thinking back to what you said to me all those months ago, at the camp. I wanted to be more like you and less like...me. If that means anything to you anymore. Can't blame you if it does not." She looked away, falling quiet for a little while after that.​

Mercury seemed a bit more tolerant of the flex, giving a low-pitched whistle as he stretched out his legs. "Relax, Jimmy Neutron. Just thought we'd check out what kinda precautions you two geeks are taking if you're gonna be waltzing through the city of thieves like a couple of busted thumbs. Pro tip, Cindy; if you're looking to keep a low profile, you might wanna think about nixing the midnight flight tests. Bet every crook in the kingdom with a gun and nothing to do tonight could see your little lightshow."

"...Yeah." Cinder responded in a low and soft voice. She hadn't been anywhere close to discreet there, but she had just...been so angry.​

"Okay yea we're doing bad." She finally admitted with a huff, relenting. A more genuinely morose look fell over her face. "...Some of us more than others. We still know Neo. She..."

"She's not gonna wanna see you." Mercury threw at Cinder candidly, jaw setting in a more rigid scowl at that. He seemed content to leave the matter there.

She was tempted to chuckle by their story about the syndicate and the gang war with weirdos they'd gotten themselves into, but she restrained herself at the last second from actually doing so. Cinder's head had turned back to face them when Emerald also outright admitted they were doing bad, and the frown on the maiden's face only grew more hurt and sad at Mercury's straightforward contribution. That stung the worst yet. One of the very few friends she'd ever had, and she didn't want to see her. So that sucked. Cinder couldn't fault her for that any more than she could Mercury. More than that, it made her think of one of the old fairy tales she had read as a child, one of the few escapes from her terrible life that she had before Salem had given her an actual escape with an enrollment at Beacon. Just losing herself in those stories. 'She brushed off her bumps and bruises, for nothing hurt worse than the loneliness in her chest.'​

"But hey, speaking of emotionally fractured lunatics—" The son of a notorious assassin wasn't exactly one to lack for intensity when he wore his displeasure on his face, swinging the duffel bag off his shoulders and started rummaging through the contents, eventually bringing out a scroll far more battered and scratched than Arthur's was. It took a few tries to swipe through to the screen he wanted, but when he got to what had once been his team's aura gauge he checked to make sure everyone was still running high and gave a sigh of relief when it transpired that they were. He turned the screen towards the other two with a supremely unenthusiastic 'ta-dah' motion.

Of all people, where Torchwick's name had once been displayed Tyrian Callows' grinning face now leered back at them. Also, directly below him was some much older guy with a pencil stache they had never seen before in their lives.

"—We got your team's holing up with us too. He's obsessed with the Shadow Fang and spends all his time hanging out with some dom now, so take that however you want. But we kinda took it to mean team WTCH were officially about as bust as MTEN, so imagine our faces when we saw you two still pallin' around. With that thing." He made a noise somewhere between a chuckle and a scoff as he jerked his head towards the lamp, far more bitter than mirthful. "What happened to the big guy?"

Not only that, she was hit with the one two combo of emotional gut punches by the revelation about Tyrian and him being an emotionally fractured lunatic. He'd always been a bit...unstable, and the knowledge that he was alive was by itself a good thing but...Cinder couldn't help but feel responsible for him being in a more broken state too. That guilt hung over her enough that she couldn't even bring herself to smile about the fact that he was here too. Her face fell again. "I...excuse me." She commented quietly. She left Arthur to answer about Hazel if he wished to, turning on her heel and she just walked to the end of the alleyway they were in and once there took a quick sidestep to put her around the corner and out of sight so none could see her moment of weakness.

Right there she slid down to an uncomfortable seated position, leaning her back against the building and folding her arms together across her chest as she felt her eye water and tears fell freely, though she did her best to keep from audibly sobbing. It was all her fault. She had put greater importance in power and the magic than her friends and now the resentment that was there, it was all her...she'd broken her team and done a real number on MTEN too and...

All that thinking about it that she'd done in her head, every possibility she had imagined and scenario she had pictured...none of it left her prepared for the actual moment.​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

If it hadn't been for all this damn vapor and smoke...!

Finding and finishing what she'd started was supposed to have been a cinch. The cat poking her nose in should have been expected. But it didn't mean that Neo detested it any less than when she'd gotten cracked right in the neck in the midst of her mutilation attempt. The impact of Nora crashing into the wall at the end of the room was...concerning. Not out of any bleeding heart affection for the ginger, no, Neo didn't have any use for that. But if she got stuck here fighting these two then...


"...!"

Neo let out a small gasp and moved to jump back.

Shatter and then rethink her plan. So what if Belladonna was here? The blonde hadn't changed. Just a simple dumb brute-


*cough cough*

Neo's fingers scratched and pulled at the obstruction around her neck.

This wasn't any good at all. She'd been caught like a worm on a hook. Her feet kicked out in defiance. This was too tight around her throat. She couldn't get her concentration going to shatter-

As Dragon leaned in and began speaking her spiel, Neo in between sputters and coughs, grit her teeth and continued to kick her legs out. In the desperate hope that her flailing would have connected with the blonde. The way she referred to both versions of Roman...It made her blood boil. She wanted to do to this bitch what she'd done to Malachite but worse. Gouge out her eyes, cut out her tongue, stab her limbs to the floor and have her try begging for the end but it'd never come!

But for now all Neo could do was hiss.


An angry hiss, a croak, and a flashing of aura was all that greeted Blake as Neo was promptly whipped towards her.

For someone who'd missed the whole 'actually getting hit by Yang' memo, Neo came to a startling realization.

It actually REALLY hurt.

Think, Neo, think! Who would this chick never ever stab with the intent to kill?

As Neo closed in, she activated her semblance and she no longer looked like herself.

But rather someone Blake knew...

When Blake saw who was coming through the mist towards her, there was indeed a reaction. It just wasn’t the one Neo was hoping for.



“You piece of shit.”

So much untamed fury came out of that one syllable that it threatened more violence than even The Hand turned maiden herself was actually capable of. Another fucking human, trying to turn her few remaining connections against her like a weapon.

It hadn’t worked for Schnee. It wasn’t going to work here. It just upgraded Neopolitan from an obstacle to an enemy in Blake’s eyes, and she flipped her sheathe-blade around to catch Neo on the sharp end in the world’s bloodiest clothesline-

-The defensive retaliation from above pierced Blake straight through, one of Omen’s blades lodged straight through her neck as the elder Branwen descended from on high-

-Only to realize that the Blake she’d skewered was frigid to the touch, a leftover sculpture that had her weapon trapped and that Neo was about to crash into as the Hand reappeared behind her for an overhand slash straight across her back-

That hit nothing but air as Raven merely detached the caught blade and in one motion attached the new one from her sheathe and swung across Blake’s head, the Hand barely shifting her own sword to catch it on the flat end as the two weapons sparked against each other.

“...Hmph”

Then the next contender came through the portal in a storm of petals, and Blake’s eyes narrowed behind the mask before Raven had a brief second to contend with the fact that her opponent had turned into flames before the clone went up in a fiery explosion

 

[MyrtenRose]

That was not a sight she was ever likely to forget no matter how much time passed. Teeth drenched in blood, eyes as red as any grimm and alive with burning rage...and fast! So fast. She didn't even have time to pull her hammer back before the Dragon's lunge had her right there, practically on top of her. The blow struck before she could move a single muscle. It was more of a glancing blow than a full on one, but it was one from Yang Xiao Long. An older, more terrifying and arguably stronger one, even. The next couple seconds of Nora's life were spent as a cannonball, impacting the wall with such force she ended up stuck in a crater in that disgusting sludge stuff or whatever it was. And beyond that...though she still had aura left, the strength behind that swipe was absurd enough that she blacked out, falling limp in the nightmarish wall. Nora slowly careened forward, bits of the wall sticking to her as she plummeted face first onto the floor. She landed in a rough unconscious heap, her weapon clattering to the ground right after.

Dammit!

The thoughts of the bird watching above it all were not good. Between that and...

Raven's avian eyes peered towards the sheer torture Neo was being put through. This was bad. Really bad. As bad as she had warned them it could get--no, worse! She could only hope the others were doing better than this on their end. That would be the one thing that would make this all worth it. So long as they got him, this could be considered some kind of a victory. They only had to hold out long enough for that to be the case.

Which was why she had been so swift to intervene when Neo’s attempt to play mind games with Belladonna had the opposite effect than intended. There was plenty of rage and venom in her voice as she snarled at Neo...so much for that plan. Oh well. Raven’s eyes narrowed in turn, glaring intensely at Blake as their blades pressed against each other...but that gaze broke for just a moment when Masque entered. “What the hell are—“ Hardly a second but that was still a mistake, as that gave the Hand an opening to capitalize on. A fiery explosion engulfed her, the force sending her flying. She never hit the ground though, transforming in mid-air in a single instant, wings flapping to bring her right back, red eyes scouring for any sign of the true Blake to re-engage and give Neo any time needed to recover.

A few more seconds passed from there before Nora showed signs of stirring, only out for a rather short time. Roused back to consciousness, her head rose to see what was going on now. Turns out she hadn't missed much. This was still going to shit, and fast. The Dragon, she...Yang's semblance fed on damage, but...if she could just get stronger than the insane hedonist, push that semblance past its limit...yeah. That was the approach here. Take the bitch out before she took us out. The smaller bruiser still had some of what Ruby and Vernal had given her, but that was not enough. Not enough lightning fuel there by itself. But she had more than that with her. She concentrated, and at will her semblance High Voltage began self-producing some electrical energy and distributed it to her muscles. A rather miniscule amount compared to what she did next all things considered, but it was still something.

She continued to lie there, moving as slowly and discreetly as possible so as to not attract attention. Her hands slid into the pouches around her waist, withdrawing no less than four golden dust crystals...and wasted no time stabbing them into herself. The pain spiked like hell, thanks to both the physical pain of forcing crystals into her skin and the shocking feeling of that much raw lightning rushing through her and it was even worse with her weakened aura. She tried resisting the urge to scream with the pain to the best of her ability, but there was just no stopping it.

A agonized scream filled the room as Nora pushed herself up to her feet. Between the barrage of dust from Ruby and Vernal earlier, her own self-production of electricity, and most of all the sheer fuel from the lightning dust sticking out of her...she had never felt this powerful before. Or hurt this badly. Glowing, jagged cuts spread out from the crystals were jabbed in, running across much of her upper body, and the pain swelled with it but Nora forced herself to endure it. They were in the grimm master's flying fortress, facing off with several of his most dangerous servants. It was all or nothing. Turquoise eyes settled on one opponent in particular.

Either the Dragon would go down, or she would. She was going to give it all she could to make that first option a reality.

"HEY! GOLDEN BITCH!"

Nora spat with absolute disgust to get the blonde to look back her way. Nora's hair spiked up and stood on end as lightning sparked and zapped all around her, and her teeth were bared in a fierce snarl. Even her eyes glowed, and not just from the effects of the lightning dust. They were filled with rage that rivaled Yang even at her most furious. If looks could kill, this evil Yang and any other malevolent version that possibly existed in the multiverse would have all dropped dead on the spot.

"I'M NOT THROUGH WITH YOU YET! SO COME ON, YOU PUNK BITCH! GIVE ME ALL YOU GOT, IF YOU HAVE THE BALLS TO STEP UP AND SEE WHAT REAL POWER IS! I FUCKING DARE YOU!"

She charged regardless of whether or not the Dragon obliged, fully intent on giving her the biggest asskicking of her life.​

 

[Gus Gungus]

Then the next contender came through the portal in a storm of petals, and Blake’s eyes narrowed behind the mask before Raven had a brief second to contend with the fact that her opponent had turned into flames before the clone went up in a fiery explosion

“What the hell are—“ Hardly a second but that was still a mistake, as that gave the Hand an opening to capitalize on. A fiery explosion engulfed her, the force sending her flying. She never hit the ground though, transforming in mid-air in a single instant, wings flapping to bring her right back, red eyes scouring for any sign of the true Blake to re-engage and give Neo any time needed to recover.

Whatever it was about their particular combination of murderous PB&J, the Hand and the Dragon moved like a top percentile pairing of graduates from one of the huntress academies rather than the polar opposite killers from entirely separate walks of life that they were. Dragon wasn't the master of stealth Belladonna was, but her boots were still virtually inaudible beneath the din of combat as she pelted towards the clash, and Raven would have found herself face to face with her own red-eyed and blood-crazed daughter lunging through Blake's fiery outline with perfect synchronicity had one key arrival not had her skid to a halt, using the momentum from her sprint to pivot and lock eyes.

She moved to semblance her way through the portal.

Her.

Swapping her line of sight from her secondary source of trauma to her primary one was enough for a far duller, more muted scowl to fade into being over her berserk euphoria, as if in that brief moment and that moment only someone had hit a reset button. Dragon wasn't Dragon anymore; or at least, not in the sense of what that word had come to mean. Dragon was still Yang. The Yang who was a shell. The Yang who had never been loved, never been touched, in a way that wasn't wrong, that didn't leave her with some variation of pain, body or soul. The Yang who couldn't admit to herself that she liked that pain, that she deserved it, who still woke up in the middle of the night crying sometimes because she thought she could feel hands on her, whose only outlet for the things she felt had been violence; who had looked down at her own face from the battlements at Haven and felt nothing but loathing, and disgust, and shame, and jealousy.

And hate. So much hate.

The Yang who wasn't Yang's. Who was never going to be Yang's. Because she'd always be Ruby's.

Never again.

That Yang might've taken a step back. For a split-second, as she had every time she and her sister had come face-to-face since she changed, she almost did. And then she felt it.

H̴u̶s̸h̵ ̴n̸o̷w̴.̸

That... warmth. Spreading through her body from her arm. The voice, booming and infinite. It plied against the most ephemeral edges of her consciousness, its touch as soothing as the caress of a summer breeze.

T̵h̷e̴ ̵p̸a̶i̷n̷ ̸i̵s̶ ̷y̵o̵u̵r̴s̸.

To be silent. To be numb. To not have to feel the way she felt anymore.

̷Y̴o̷u̸ ̴h̷a̵v̷e̵ ̴m̸a̵d̴e̸ ̵i̵t̷ ̶y̷o̵u̷r̴s̶.̷

It felt so... So...

̸I̷t̷ ̵h̵a̸s̸ ̷m̴a̸d̷e̷ ̸y̶o̶u̷ ̷s̵t̶r̶o̴n̷g̶.̸​

̶I̶t̸ ̴h̵a̴s̷ ̴m̴a̷d̴e̸ ̵u̷s̵ ̵s̵t̴r̴o̶n̸g̴

̵F̵e̶e̸l̵ ̴i̶t̵​

F̵e̵e̴d̷ ̵u̸s̷​

̶I̷t̶ ̵w̷i̷l̷l̵ ̴n̶e̷v̸e̸r̸ ̸b̷e̶ ̷h̴e̴r̵s̸

̷S̴h̷e̸ ̸i̵s̷ ̶n̷o̵t̶h̵i̴n̸g̶.̶​

̷W̵e̵ ̸a̶r̴e̸ ̷o̶n̵e̴.̴​

̷Y̵o̴u̶ ̸a̸r̶e̴ ̵o̴u̷r̶s̵.̶

̵Y̴o̷u̵ ̸w̷i̴l̸l̵ ̶n̸e̸v̷e̵r̵ ̶b̶e̴ ̸a̵l̷o̵n̵e̵.̵

So nice.

Dragon grinned, curling her claws into a fist. And, stepping forward—

"HEY! GOLDEN BITCH!"

Nora spat with absolute disgust to get the blonde to look back her way. Nora's hair spiked up and stood on end as lightning sparked and zapped all around her, and her teeth were bared in a fierce snarl. Even her eyes glowed, and not just from the effects of the lightning dust. They were filled with rage that rivaled Yang even at her most furious. If looks could kill, this evil Yang and any other malevolent version that possibly existed in the multiverse would have all dropped dead on the spot.

"I'M NOT THROUGH WITH YOU YET! SO COME ON, YOU PUNK BITCH! GIVE ME ALL YOU GOT, IF YOU HAVE THE BALLS TO STEP UP AND SEE WHAT REAL POWER IS! I FUCKING DARE YOU!"

"...Fuckin' sorry???????" Dragon demanded, ripped from the zone she'd been in and honestly a little taken aback as she glanced over in Nora's direction. "Babe, look at who is in the room right now. Seriously. Look at all these chicks with a grudge against me or, y'know, personal history or whatever. Are you supposed to be like my big rival or something??? Why???? 'Strong bitches go brrrrrrrr'?????"

She threw her head back and guffawed, making kind of a dismissive little shooing motion with her Grimm hand intended to usher Nora away.

"Go find that big sweaty faunus lady or somethin', midget, she might still be around here. I literally don't give a fuck about you."​

 

[MidwayLives]

Her.

Swapping her line of sight from her secondary source of trauma to her primary one was enough for a far duller, more muted scowl to fade into being over her berserk euphoria, as if in that brief moment and that moment only someone had hit a reset button. Dragon wasn't Dragon anymore; or at least, not in the sense of what that word had come to mean. Dragon was still Yang. The Yang who was a shell. The Yang who had never been loved, never been touched, in a way that wasn't wrong, that didn't leave her with some variation of pain, body or soul. The Yang who couldn't admit to herself that she liked that pain, that she deserved it, who still woke up in the middle of the night crying sometimes because she thought she could feel hands on her, whose only outlet for the things she felt had been violence; who had looked down at her own face from the battlements at Haven and felt nothing but loathing, and disgust, and shame, and jealousy.

And hate. So much hate.

The Yang who wasn't Yang's. Who was never going to be Yang's. Because she'd always be Ruby's.

Never again.

That Yang might've taken a step back. For a split-second, as she had every time she and her sister had come face-to-face since she changed, she almost did. And then she felt it.

H̴u̶s̸h̵ ̴n̸o̷w̴.̸

That... warmth. Spreading through her body from her arm. The voice, booming and infinite. It plied against the most ephemeral edges of her consciousness, its touch as soothing as the caress of a summer breeze.

T̵h̷e̴ ̵p̸a̶i̷n̷ ̸i̵s̶ ̷y̵o̵u̵r̴s̸.

To be silent. To be numb. To not have to feel the way she felt anymore.

The last time they'd met hadn't been so long ago.

Masque had tried her best to stop her sister. It hadn't been enough in the slightest.

She'd been beaten down like a dog and even had her fancy prosthetic ripped off. It left Masque in a position she'd almost never been in before.

Crying out for anyone to come help her. Be it the other world's Yang or even her aunt.

Or even her mother....

It was in that moment that Masque had some idea of how Yang had felt over their years growing up. What with being pushed down and beaten up at a moment's notice. Or blamed for the slightest inconvenience and Masque getting away without so much as anything being said to her. To the degradation of being forced to carry the self-proclaimed 'bandit princess' around the camp like her noble steed. On a bad day, Masque in her youth might have chided 'steed? Hehehe, more like stupid donkey!' and slapped Yang on the back of the head for good measure.

As the two sisters stood staring eachother down, Masque's flesh and blood hand twitched. The feeling coming from her stump was indescribable. It'd seemed as though getting closer to Yang had only made the effects stronger and not weaker. Clouding her thoughts and causing unhealthy impulses to rise. Masque lifted her head slightly so her eyes met Yang's.

"We never did finish what I started back in that hotel..." Masque chirped.
​

She threw her head back and guffawed, making kind of a dismissive little shooing motion with her Grimm hand intended to usher Nora away.

"Go find that big sweaty faunus lady or somethin', midget, she might still be around here. I literally don't give a fuck about you."

Masque moved forward as Yang taunted Nora. Closing the distance between them in seconds.

Her hood fell back revealing the matted and unclean mess that her hair had become. The ragged look only furthering the seeming desire that Masque had to simply run away and live in the woods like a savage. Just forego society and all of it's attachments.

...Well, except for one.

"Oh? But you care about me don't you, Yang?.~" Masque held onto Yang's real arm, locking their hands together as Masque moved in closer. With those who had zero understanding of the kind of person Masque was and the dark urges she'd done her best to bury. In order to retain some semblance of willingness to fight the 'good fight', she held those urges under the figurative water, to drown them, to wash them away. But it could never be that easy. Which is why as she leaned in to kiss her Yang, the corners of her face turned upwards in the slightest inkling of a grin.

If Nora was still on her way, well, then that was fine! Masque knew that by getting this close to Yang, she wasn't going to walk away without a couple of...bruises~

Masque pulled her head back and laughed.

Whatever came next would probably hurt.

But that was okay.​

 

[MidwayLives]

“You piece of shit.”

That...

That really hadn't been the reaction Neo had been hoping she got.

​

It hadn’t worked for Schnee. It wasn’t going to work here. It just upgraded Neopolitan from an obstacle to an enemy in Blake’s eyes, and she flipped her sheathe-blade around to catch Neo on the sharp end in the world’s bloodiest clothesline-

Nonononononono!!!!

Neo still disguised as IIia clawed at the bit around her neck.

She refused to die here! To someone like Belladonna! Just a toadie for this world's version of the chick who bossed her Cinder around.

Neo wanted to be more than someone's grunt. She'd take on the world!

...It'd been what she'd been hoping to do with Emerald.
​

-The defensive retaliation from above pierced Blake straight through, one of Omen’s blades lodged straight through her neck as the elder Branwen descended from on high-

-Only to realize that the Blake she’d skewered was frigid to the touch, a leftover sculpture that had her weapon trapped and that Neo was about to crash into as the Hand reappeared behind her for an overhand slash straight across her back-

That hit nothing but air as Raven merely detached the caught blade and in one motion attached the new one from her sheathe and swung across Blake’s head, the Hand barely shifting her own sword to catch it on the flat end as the two weapons sparked against each other.

Okay!

Well, that'd been good and Neo definitely hadn't been scared for her life those last few seconds.

Scared of Belladonna, this kitty cat? Neo didn't think so.

Definitely not worrying about she'd almost gotten skewered.

But there wasn't any time to sit and relax. Moving to unbind her neck, Neo groaned and coughed. The teamwork that these two had...It felt about par for the course she supposed. The blonde and cat that she knew had worked together to take down the mech that Roman had commandeered.

...Well, if there was a bright side to this? She'd been harder to get rid of than a giant robot.
​

"I'M NOT THROUGH WITH YOU YET! SO COME ON, YOU PUNK BITCH! GIVE ME ALL YOU GOT, IF YOU HAVE THE BALLS TO STEP UP AND SEE WHAT REAL POWER IS! I FUCKING DARE YOU!"

She charged regardless of whether or not the Dragon obliged, fully intent on giving her the biggest asskicking of her life.

Shattering her disguise so the real Neo stood there rubbing at her throat, she glanced over at Nora.

Whoa.

For all the bad blood between them/Neo only caring that Nora lived long enough to see this fight through, Neo was taken aback at the raw power ebbing from the huntress. Well, Neo sure hoped that it'd take one of these two down. Neo had come here with the intention of severely injuring if not outright killing this world's Yang. But after the repeated assaults to her neck and throat, she gazed around for wherever Blake had ended up this time.​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

Ozwen was upon her then, the dainty hand of Weiss Schnee gripping Yang by the chin far more roughly than any touch in the past

Okay, first off?

Then her arm shattered.

Without her aura flowing through it it was little more than the finest in Atlesian steel. Impressive, no doubt, but completely insignificant next to the power she now wielded. Yang felt the cold spreading outward from the points Weiss's hands made contact all the way up at her shoulder, and even with its intensity reduced by distance it was cold, colder than anything she'd ever touched. It only took seconds for the arm to freeze over completely below the elbow, metal made as brittle as the fractals icing it over, like it had been dipped in liquid nitrogen. Her eyes flared up again when she pulverized it, dusting off her hands in the aftermath as if disposing of something unpleasant.

A violent gust of wind swirled through the mist, battering Yang into the wall before the mist formed and solidified into restraints that pinned Yang to the floor, flat on her back. There was something unbelievably self-celebratory about the way Weiss picked herself up, patted herself down, and approached, but she didn't stop to deliver any grandiose speech to Yang or admire her hair. Instead she closed the distance between them until she stood directly over the huntress, looking down on her with a haughty, superior smile.

Then she slowly put one foot forward and stepped down, letting the heel press against Yang's throat just firmly enough so her airflow was restricted but it'd still take about a half minute for her to pass out. She made sure Yang spent every second of it looking into her eyes, glowing and faintly lidded, smirk never fading as she watched whatever shape the brawler's struggles took right up until she felt her go slack.

Totally not true.

As much as Yang hated being predictable, the initial glare she shot back into Ozwen's eyes was exactly the sort of blunt, angry defiance the ancient being expected, even if it was with a smirk. But after a second, it faltered.

"...What happened to you, Oz? I may not have liked the person you ended up as in mine world, but he still tried; Were you the one that lived here? Is this all a hissy fit cuz Salem died?"

For a ludicrous moment, it almost felt like Yang was falling into the same habits she had with the rest of the doubles, and and she gave a mournful sigh, lowering her head even if it pressed the tip of Myrtenaster against her neck.

"That's... so..."

There was another spike of temperature, and Yang's surroundings were suddenly engulfed in flames as she let loose with both her hands and her mouth, tapping into the same anger that almost had her set the room on fire in her shouting match with Raven as she let Ozwen have some of the same medicine.

"STUPID!!!"

There was enough force that Ozwen was either gonna have to step back or get blasted back as the explosion scorched the walls and floors around her, Letting Yang fall into a crouch as the arms were burned away again.

She couldn't help but let out a confident smirk. It was so weird that the winter maiden stuff let her do fire. She had to be the hottest winter maiden yet-

-Oh holy shit she was doing so much damage to her own aura, a realization that hit her like a truck when she finally decided to focus on it for a second instead of the elemental storm that was screaming to be let out of her veins every second of every minute, and she quickly turned the fire off.

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

Which was why she had been so swift to intervene when Neo’s attempt to play mind games with Belladonna had the opposite effect than intended. There was plenty of rage and venom in her voice as she snarled at Neo...so much for that plan. Oh well. Raven’s eyes narrowed in turn, glaring intensely at Blake as their blades pressed against each other...but that gaze broke for just a moment when Masque entered. “What the hell are—“ Hardly a second but that was still a mistake, as that gave the Hand an opening to capitalize on. A fiery explosion engulfed her, the force sending her flying. She never hit the ground though, transforming in mid-air in a single instant, wings flapping to bring her right back, red eyes scouring for any sign of the true Blake to re-engage and give Neo any time needed to recover.

The room was dark, the smoke from multiple explosions had little ventilation to escape from, and Blake was a silent as a still breeze, wherever she'd gone. Such a place of shadows and violence was where the Hand was most at home, and she could melt into it and out of sight as easily as she could breath. Raven, too, was a difficult target; a black bird hidden in dark shadows, a small and quick target that could scan from the sky above.

Yet she took the actual form of a crow; she wasn't a faunus.

Her eyes couldn't pierce the shadows the same as Blake.

Which was why it was so easy for the Hand's weapon to come cutting through the mist, Gambol whirling like a silent buzzsaw through the air to slash across one of Raven's wings in a test of whether those little bird forms the twins were so fond of kept their auras in that form.

Blake was far from happy to see the Masque's return; but she also knew better than to get in between the dragon and that target, and besides; If the Raven fell, they were all going to be stranded here.

They could take their time after that. Do this right. Make sure they all met the fate they deserved.

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

View attachment 853991

Emerald had always seemed to unironically get a kick out of Cinder's efforts to be one of the cool kids like them, and managed to offer up at least a faintly exasperated huff of air out through her nostrils to relieve some of the awkwardness as Cinder pointed out their hairstyles.

"Thanks, they're called 'giving up'. Yours is... pointy."

Different look or no, there was something painfully Emerald about how coy she played her return serve, tone so even and choice of word such a neutral statement of fact it was nigh impossible to discern whether it was supposed to be complimentary or otherwise. Whatever amusement she derived from that was quickly lost behind the raised eyebrow she offered as the apology started, but whatever her thoughts may have been on that never quite got to materialize as Mercury suddenly swung himself off the dumpster, cutting Cinder off in a tone that was harsh only in its bluntness yet nevertheless didn't seem particularly receptive towards hearing it.

"K."




Emerald's response to being stuck up with Watts's dinky little spud gun was nothing short of the most offensively lackadaisical gasp and raising of the hands anyone had ever given in response to anything, not at all surprised to learn the kid hadn't learned to be fun in their months apart. "Oh, Arthur. It's nothing you do that makes you annoying, you just came out that way. Like a bad soufflé."

View attachment 854009

Mercury seemed a bit more tolerant of the flex, giving a low-pitched whistle as he stretched out his legs. "Relax, Jimmy Neutron. Just thought we'd check out what kinda precautions you two geeks are taking if you're gonna be waltzing through the city of thieves like a couple of busted thumbs. Pro tip, Cindy; if you're looking to keep a low profile, you might wanna think about nixing the midnight flight tests. Bet every crook in the kingdom with a gun and nothing to do tonight could see your little lightshow."





View attachment 854011

"Bad."

Emerald had tried to swap a look with him as matters turned to gloomier affairs, but for once the duo didn't seem to be on the same page on that front as Mercury just tossed his shoulders up in a shrug and answered in the most blunt manner possible. She scoffed.

"Bad is such a... I mean... we've done some cool stuff."

"Was it cool, though? Was it really?"

"We basically ran a whole crime syndicate for a while!"

"A day."

"It had to have been longer than that."

"One day. It just felt like it went on forever and all we ended up doing was getting in a gang war with a buncha weirdos."

"Okay yea we're doing bad." She finally admitted with a huff, relenting. A more genuinely morose look fell over her face. "...Some of us more than others. We still know Neo. She..."

"She's not gonna wanna see you." Mercury threw at Cinder candidly, jaw setting in a more rigid scowl at that. He seemed content to leave the matter there. "But hey, speaking of resident emotionally fractured lunatics—" The son of a notorious assassin wasn't exactly one to lack for intensity when he wore his displeasure on his face, swinging the duffel bag off his shoulders and started rummaging through the contents, eventually bringing out a scroll far more battered and scratched than Arthur's was. It took a few tries to swipe through to the screen he wanted, but when he got to what had once been his team's aura gauge he checked to make sure everyone was still running high and gave a sigh of relief when it transpired that they were. He turned the screen towards the other two with a supremely unenthusiastic 'ta-dah' motion.

Of all people, where Torchwick's name had once been displayed Tyrian Callows' grinning face now leered back at them. Also, directly below him was some much older guy with a pencil stache they had never seen before in their lives.

"—We got your team's holing up with us too. He's obsessed with the Shadow Fang and spends all his time hanging out with some dom now, so take that however you want. But we kinda took it to mean team WTCH were officially about as bust as MTEN, so imagine our faces when we saw you two still pallin' around. With that thing." He made a noise somewhere between a chuckle and a scoff as he jerked his head towards the lamp, far more bitter than mirthful. "What happened to the big guy?"​

....

"What."

He... well he was glad Tyrian was alright, for certain, but...

No. Sure. Why not? One didn't look gift horses in the mouth, and looking good aligned yet manically violent friends making sudden reappearances in the mouth seemed like an even better way of getting bit.

As the subject of Hazel was brought up, he let out a quiet sigh and turned to watch Cinder as she shuffled away.

"...He's fine. Along with his sister. They-"

He proceeded to tell them what happened to them, which was both respectful to their characters but also didn't give any particular hope of them ever coming back.

"...Anyway" he finished with a cough as he finally deigned to return to making eye contact with the pair. "...Why are you all here? Certainly you had to know this mess was going to make its way to Vacuo eventually; Mistral's already a mess and Vale's too fortified as of now. Regardless of what happened in Atlas, this was going to be the next stop in our roulette show of- hrmm. Perhaps we should move this conversation to... not in the middle of the street" he suddenly cut himself off with a frown.

 

[Gus Gungus]

Totally not true.

And totally out of context!

She had to be the hottest winter maiden yet-

She must be the single worst Winter Maiden I've ever seen. Wouldn't you say?

Whatever vague, transient impressions of consciousness kept bubbling distractingly to the surface of Ozwen's mind didn't appear to linger long enough to keep a sustained back-and-forth with Ozma going, however much their originator may have wanted to. Truth be told, whatever deep, dark pit she had been foisted to was like the bottom of a pitch-black well, occasional light leaking down in the form of the events her body's eyes were witnessing that proved strong enough to stir a force of will and presence like the Schnee matriarch's from— Wait.

Yang was the Winter Maiden?

That was so... so... embarrassing. And...

And she was here?!



Ozma felt a wave of sheer, undiluted indignation so powerful it actually carried Weiss all the way to the surface of their odd, juxtaposed cognizance, and for at least a fleeting second before he managed to beat her back into the recesses of her mind the eyes that glared back up at Yang wherever her body landed were crystal blue instead of blood red.

"YOU BROUGHT IT BACK?!!??!?!"




Also, Qrow was fighting Grimm. :|​

 

[MyrtenRose]

"...Fuckin' sorry???????" Dragon demanded, ripped from the zone she'd been in and honestly a little taken aback as she glanced over in Nora's direction. "Babe, look at who is in the room right now. Seriously. Look at all these chicks with a grudge against me or, y'know, personal history or whatever. Are you supposed to be like my big rival or something??? Why???? 'Strong bitches go brrrrrrrr'?????"

She threw her head back and guffawed, making kind of a dismissive little shooing motion with her Grimm hand intended to usher Nora away.

"Go find that big sweaty faunus lady or somethin', midget, she might still be around here. I literally don't give a fuck about you."

If Nora was still on her way, well, then that was fine! Masque knew that by getting this close to Yang, she wasn't going to walk away without a couple of...bruises~

She most definitely was still charging at the Dragon. She didn't care about who else was in the room, who had more of a grudge or complicated personal history or any of that. This wasn't about having a big rival or anything like that, and the Dragon would have been like number five on the potential rivalry list at best, even if she wanted a big rival. This Yang was just somebody in sore need of an asskicking, and Nora was more than willing to oblige. That laughter at her expense was ignored, and the insulting shooing motion was even more ignored as Nora rapidly closed the distance with each stomp of her boots. Masque jumping into the path did at least get the thought of stopping to pop into Nora's head but...​

"Oh? But you care about me don't you, Yang?.~" Masque held onto Yang's real arm, locking their hands together as Masque moved in closer. With those who had zero understanding of the kind of person Masque was and the dark urges she'd done her best to bury. In order to retain some semblance of willingness to fight the 'good fight', she held those urges under the figurative water, to drown them, to wash them away. But it could never be that easy. Which is why as she leaned in to kiss her Yang, the corners of her face turned upwards in the slightest inkling of a grin.

That solved that problematic concern. She had just...ew. It was up to the weirdo Masque to decide whether to get out of harm’s way or not.

She skidded to a halt at the last possible second while the Dragon was distracted by the Masque. All her strength was put into a mighty swing of Magnhild that curved slightly upwards intent on sending the bitch soaring up, and then if it managed to do so, she pulled the trigger on her hammer to launch her explosively into the air after her and followed through with an overhead swing to smash her right back down like she was going for a spike and Yang was her volleyball. If that too went her way, her hammer transformed while she was still in the air, firing off the remainder of her grenades(save one) at wherever she landed. Yet she still didn't stop there. That last grenade was used to recoil blast herself straight down at the monster as well, and another overhead swing of the transformed back hammer came down meant to shove the Dragon even further down into the crater she'd just made.
​

The room was dark, the smoke from multiple explosions had little ventilation to escape from, and Blake was a silent as a still breeze, wherever she'd gone. Such a place of shadows and violence was where the Hand was most at home, and she could melt into it and out of sight as easily as she could breath. Raven, too, was a difficult target; a black bird hidden in dark shadows, a small and quick target that could scan from the sky above.

Yet she took the actual form of a crow; she wasn't a faunus.

Her eyes couldn't pierce the shadows the same as Blake.

Which was why it was so easy for the Hand's weapon to come cutting through the mist, Gambol whirling like a silent buzzsaw through the air to slash across one of Raven's wings in a test of whether those little bird forms the twins were so fond of kept their auras in that form.

Blake was far from happy to see the Masque's return; but she also knew better than to get in between the dragon and that target, and besides; If the Raven fell, they were all going to be stranded here.

They could take their time after that. Do this right. Make sure they all met the fate they deserved.

Test results came back. She still did have her aura in bird form, that slash raking across her wing doing minimal damage compared to what might have been if she did not possess it...but annoying all the same. This darkness was a complication that only made it harder. The Dragon burning like a volcanic signal fire and Nora sparking like a thunderstorm unto herself definitely illuminated the areas around themselves but...the rest made it too easy for the faunus to hide in. That needed a fix.

She shifted out of bird form then, landing on the ground in a casual stance, Omen popping forth from its scabbard with a red blade now, and Raven stabbed it straight into the ground. A large wave of fire cascaded outward in all directions to light the room ablaze to rob the Hand of her ability to hide. Raven straightened up afterward, head turning on a swivel to locate the murderous faunus and resume the fight.​