Fandom Distorted Mirror [IC]

[Indolent]

It was an ordeal that grew equally stranger and the more hectic the further the conflict went on. The shadow fang that had been ferried away found themselves sequestered within the expanse of a a room roughly the size of a shipping container. Only there was no door and what lighting available was an eminently dim bulb suffocated by the utter darkness, serving to allow for the natural dark vision of the faunus to navigate the room's breadth. It was furnished with the barest allowable, purposefully spartan in its design with more concern given towards available first aid kits and equipment in expectation of dire circumstances.

With the full knowledge of one of their own and his relationship with the proprietor of the warehouse, it would naturally click. It was a question of when, some arriving at the conclusion faster than others whether it was by remembrance from a passing footnote in their briefings or intuition.

This was where Panther had retreated to, the room naturally left off from the warehouse's schematics. His departing was as eerie as the coming of the ferryman of the dead, wordless without any clear indication of his next move. That was if they were oblivious to the sit rep emblazoned within their masks, or the absence of one ongoing such for Tiger. Her mask's destruction evoked subtle trepidation from Panther, who understood he'd have to start with where she had last been and find her, take her if she was still alive. He had no doubts whomever held her focus had to be a worthwhile opponent for the faunus and that prompted the question of whether they or she were dead. Or both.

The Hand would surely appreciate the initiative undertaken by her pupil, who navigated the warehouse's depths with impossible alacrity to find where the mask of the Tiger had last been. It was with caution he emerged from the metallic floor, akin to the askance groundhog, scrutinizing the immediate surroundings and noting just from the wanton damage the outcome of the fight. An unnatural twist that saw him swivel to take in the scenery further and--

Wait. Those round ears. The burnished brown hair. The sheer, absolute gall that radiated from her personage. It was rank with familiarity that provoked the Talon to emerge completely in bemusement despite the risk inherent to the act, coincidentally side by side the unconscious Tiger.

"You?" The reticent tone characteristic to the faunus was replaced with sheer incredulity, his posture bent out of place from his typically composed one. His right slowly ascended, terminating in his pointer leveraged for her in an accusatory fashion that was only possible in a particular kind of relationship.



"What are you doing here, sister?" The wolf growled toward the rambunctious raccoon, the proverbial hackles undermined by his guard borderline shattering on sight.

 

[Indolent]

It was then Gretchen dialed Nora's number.

 

[MyrtenRose]

It was then Gretchen dialed Nora's number.

Everyone present minus the unconscious got treated to this as the scroll rang:

𝅘𝅥𝅮 "Never knew a time, when you weren't by my side.
The one thing I could always count on.
Always there for me, you've been my family.
Even when all other hope was gone..." 𝅘𝅥𝅮 ​

 

[Indolent]

Everyone present minus the unconscious got treated to this as the scroll rang:

𝅘𝅥𝅮 "Never knew a time, when you weren't by my side.
The one thing I could always count on.
Always there for me, you've been my family.
Even when all other hope was gone..." 𝅘𝅥𝅮 ​

​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

There was no crying out at the sudden lance of pain that came with her arm getting twisted even more and stronger too, now personally gripped by one of Blake's hands. Not so much as a grunt. Either she was that disciplined or... "Hmm? Oh sorry! It seems I got so caught up in thinking up strategies that I almost forgot who the plans were for." She replied rather casually, even giving a slight grin. "And really? That sounds intriguing. Say, for the sake of knowledge, what torturous attacks are you implying there? Nevermind the fact that such talk of savage violence really doesn't help your cause in any meaningful way, I'm personally more curious about the techniques themselves, you see. Because, between you and me, I have my weapon but I've always believed the best arsenal anybody could ever bring to a battle is the power of their mind. Intelligence, force of will, that sort of thing, you know? So hey, while I have you here, maybe you could share some of those brutal ideas of yours? I'm kind of a glutton for knowledge." Gwen's mouth ran a little wild but she was as cordial as could be, given the situation.

And doing her best to distract from the fact that the armor along that wrenched arm held by Blake was subtly, nearly imperceptibly shifting. For what purpose? That remained to be seen.​

Whatever the purpose was, Blake either didn't sake the subtle motion was worth her attention or simply didn't notice, as her weight was unmoving atop of Gwen

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The general wasn't even giving Hound the dignity of a reply at this point, nor anything more than the sort of perfunctory sigh a man of his station typically reserved for paparazzi, homeless people and drunks. The only noise coming from Carnelian's advance was the quiet rap of his boots on the polished floor as their race-by-inches continued, his inhumanly technological glare still rooted on the defiant faunus before him rather than the more tantalizing foe nipping his heels. The crack of the whip drew from him a wry, indulgent sneer, lit by the glow of electricity as his easygoing pace finally came to a halt a short distance away, as if the old man were indeed cowed by the display. The next words to leave his mouth, regrettably, stood at odds with that comforting notion.

"That won't be necessary. Matter of fact, I don't much care what you do."

Several things happened at once in those next few seconds. Hound vanished, a detonation from one of the other skirmishes briefly shattered the gloom, and in whatever brief opening occurred when Ilia's more evolved eyesight had to adjust to the sudden light-to-dark differential Carnelian moved from the spot he was in, disappearing from her eyeline in a manner not altogether dissimilar from how her mentor vanished from Ector's.

Only instead of melding into the darkness around them he was very abruptly filling her vision, Lightning Lash's radius and the remaining gap between them closed with such haste the gloom hadn't even resettled when she felt a claw with more grip strength than most Grimm wrap around her throat. It was like a vice, the embrace of a boa constrictor that made her want to gag and heave in air at the same time as it wrung the air from her lungs, yet it was somehow the least potent of the sensations to assail Ilia in that moment, even if the others were of a differing nature entirely; mental as opposed to physical.

'Cause you made a good point just now. There's only one animal in this entire building young enough, angry enough and good enough that they might be the one to do it. Two if you squint, but your pack of ingrates let the bull go so feral I'm not convinced she's even worth the time anymore.

The voice was like booming thunder, yet its scratchy baritone and hard edge were unmistakable as belonging to anyone other than the owner of the hand on her neck. It sounded younger, though, both in pitch and manner of speaking, as if she were being addressed by the very same gleeful savage who once took such delight in her people's torture rather than the withered husk he aged into.

Too bad, really. She's been my most promising pet project ever since I first marked the bitch. You have any idea how boring old age gets? Just when I'm beginning to think I've engineered the perfect little savage, a warrior with enough bloodlust, enough hate, enough wrath to be the one who finally puts me out of my misery, I'm told she goes and breaks down over a woman. Couldn't wrap my head around it, at first. The things I did to her, and this lovesick puppy crap is what makes her spin out? Figured it must've been one hell of a lady. I'll admit, she has yet to disappoint. I know you know what I'm talking about.

It also wasn't a voice at all, and the sadistic general's lips were entirely still. If Ilia had ever harbored any concerns about the potential invasiveness of her own semblance, they seemed positively paltry now as Carnelian not only answered her private thoughts about Blake, but did so by projecting his own consciousness into her brain.

It was to be the least discomfiting thing beamed to her thoughts in that moment, one that stretched out over an eternity as her mind worked overtime to process several seconds' worth of speech in one.

But enough reminiscing. What do I want from you? Tell you the truth, toots, nothing. I just thought it might be funny if I gave you a preview of all the ways your precious little love triangle ends before I send them both to the s̷a̸m̷e̴ p̶i̴t̴ ̸ ̸y̷o̸u̵r̴ f̷o̸l̸k̷s̸ ̶a̸r̶e̶ ̵b̵u̷r̸n̸i̸n̵g̵ ̶i̴n̵

Spoiler

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The series of images that flashed through Ilia's head were seizure inducing, but they also felt more real than any nightmare she'd ever had, which was probably saying something. They ranged from the violent to the unspeakably brutal, and depicted every dark thought Ilia had ever had about the current trajectory of her love life. In the amount of time it took an electrical signal to reach the brain, she had perceived every horrible end, every dark outcome that had been gnawing at her ever since Eve reentered the picture, and a few she hadn't. Eve hurting Blake. Eve hurting Ilia. Blake hurting Eve, or Ilia herself hurting both. Every possible variant of a once-close trio ripping each other apart like animals, she saw; anxieties pulled from the depths of her mind married to the viciousness of the one assailing her.

Until gradually, the scenes shifted. A fourth figure became more prominent amid the depictions of violence, one with a shadowed face and a sinister crimson eye. He was always the aggressor. Always the winner. And when he was there, the brutality on display tripled, the level of unfeeling violence and bloodshed Ilia was subjected to dwarfing everything else by magnitudes. Though he never raised his voice and his face was never clear, somehow she knew innately that there was more rage and hate coursing through those old veins than any of them had ever felt in their lives.

He felt inevitable. More specter than man, a corpse held together by wires and metal plates. The death of the dream all three of his prophesized victims had at one point shared, only there was nothing dreamlike about the whirring digits of the hand wrapped around her throat so tightly it felt like her head was going to pop off, nor the tight, contemptuous sneer glaring down at her.

As Ilia recovered from the heartless violation of her thoughts, both lingered only for the second it took him to see the look on her face, and by the time she stopped living the nightmare of Carnelian mounting Blake's head on a pike he was nowhere to be seen.​

Undoubtedly, there was something of a fisticuffs to be had between the Panther and the Hound in the shadows that was quickly resolved as he was violently and unrepentantly ejected somewhere else. Something to the nonsensical beat of "I HAD HIM" was said interfused with appealing to his warrior's pride and the sense of obligation to vindicating one of the wrongs done to the faunus this night.

The Hand's order superseded all, even the dog's mewling whines but it bears to be said that his reluctance to have done so to his fellow faunus was wore plainly, an expression good as invisible in the shadows were it not for their eyes.



In the next instant, Ilia was no longer there, seemingly melding with the very ground before being carried off to the depths of the unknown as she suddenly dropped akin to a pebble sinking beneath the water's still surface with nary a ripple. Perhaps the sensation combined with being enveloped in the darkness would elicit a less than favorable reaction from the chameleon given her profoundly painful experience of the spiritual kind but, it needed doing.

And Panther was surprisingly gentle despite his hurried gait.

INSERT ILIA ANGST HERE (THIS IS A BIG THING TRIPPING ME UP IM SORRY I'll GET BACK TO IT)



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"Your bid to goad me into validating your colorful illustration of me to mesh with your narrative is absolutely dull and abyssal for the effort given." Ector retorted dryly, his annoyance at the elder faunus's disappearance manifesting in the somewhat loquacious words he uttered.

A jaunty extension of his left arm summoned a reverberating gust extending radially, the limb held for a few seconds before it was retracted with a final snap of the finger. Wisps of flame thrummed to life throughout the hangar, illuminating the area plainly as day as the Colonel cautiously cast about.

Ah, good, the General seemingly vanished as well.

"Rose, compose-- Right." He paused, remembering the artificial tinnitus that was the side effect of Bear's weapon, prompting the sharp change in his demeanor as he plainly illustrated to the bandit princess to recompose herself and to restrain the battered Greki. If she could.

"Bear's vanished, the same for Chameleon. Wolf is ko'd. Moving forward to assist the councilwoman."

It was an exercise in caution that was undermined by the lingering urgency of the circumstances, bidding the Colonel to move faster than he'd like in unknown territory.

Greki was out of it; her aura was long gone, and her breathing was ragged even in her unconscious state, tooth, claw, fist, and sound all having ravaged her inside and out. If Ruby wanted to restrain her, she wasn't going to have anything to say about it. Across the entire warehouse, there was a moment of genuine silence, every fight simultaneously coming to a halt.

"She's not the one who need's assistance."

The voice came from behind Ector. When he turned, or if he simply reacted without the need for sight and unleashed a fiery hell upon whatever was to his rear, the only thing he saw or torched was the Hand's mask, falling from the ceiling behind him without its owner.

Then a lightning bolt crashed down from the ceiling, a fist slamming into Ruby from on high with such force and speed that it reverberated back through Blake's own aura as she crushed the rose warrior into the floor, her body still coursing with electric aftershocks of the dust used before she gripped Ruby's shirt (or what was left of it at this point) pivoted, and semblanced dashed for the wall, only to reverse it for herself just before impact, leaving a stone Blake in her place that completed the bodyslam into the wall with a thunderous crash.

"Schnee wants to hamstring Lord Ozpin before the war begins in earnest? So be it. So we do the same. Silver eyes, generals, and monsters, all her favorite tools...."

She flicked Gambol shroud into her hand and leveled her gaze at Ector for a moment, though her voice echoed from somewhere else as the vision before him started to shimmer like a mirage.

"...Come on then. Do her bidding. Die for your queen."

 

[MyrtenRose]

Whatever the purpose was, Blake either didn't sake the subtle motion was worth her attention or simply didn't notice, as her weight was unmoving atop of Gwen

The lack of movement initially had the scientist and specialist hypothesize that the movement did go unnoticed, which proved correct...just not for the reasons Gwen imagined. When she shifted a little and hazarded a glance upwards, it was a facsimile of stone staring back. “...Unfortunate.” So much for part of that plan. There was no point in applying it to stone. Malware slid across the floor and under her semblance’s influence, the weapon shifted into a more turret esque form, which fired upon the stony shadow left behind, shattering it and allowing the specialist the freedom to get up.

She stood up, dusted herself off and considered whether to pursue for further combat or just...try to do what she’d intended right here, just in case. After a few moments she elected for the latter, doing her best to sneak off in the direction of the loudest battle sounds.

 

[MidwayLives]

Greki was out of it; her aura was long gone, and her breathing was ragged even in her unconscious state, tooth, claw, fist, and sound all having ravaged her inside and out. If Ruby wanted to restrain her, she wasn't going to have anything to say about it. Across the entire warehouse, there was a moment of genuine silence, every fight simultaneously coming to a halt.

As she tried her best to quell the ringing in her ears, Ruby strode over to where Greki lay. The girl's body was battered and bloodied and Ruby stared down at her with a look of impassivity.

*CRUNCH*

The sole of Ruby's boot came stomping down right on the faunus's chest.

Blood streaked down the bandit's face and over her lips. Her eyes had quickly shifted to ones filled with anger. Giving the fallen terrorist another sharp kick to the side to roll her over on her side, Ruby knelt down and moved to bind Greki's arms-
​

Then a lightning bolt crashed down from the ceiling, a fist slamming into Ruby from on high with such force and speed that it reverberated back through Blake's own aura as she crushed the rose warrior into the floor,

Too fast!

Ruby swung out with her mechanical arm but to no avail. Her head got a sudden and brutal reintroduction to the floor with a splotch of blood indicating where her head had banged off it. The punch hadn't managed to knock her out but it'd certainly knocked a tooth loose at the very least. It also didn't do any wonders for the headache Bear's previous attacks had left on her. With her top having been torn off after having been rendered apart by Bear's soundwaves, Blake got a good grip of one of Ruby's straps and it was then that Ruby finally laid eyes on her. She'd seen her back when the others had scattered originally but now their eyes had met.

"Blake-"

Ruby didn't get to do or say much else, at a loss for words, really.
​

Blake's own aura as she crushed the rose warrior into the floor, her body still coursing with electric aftershocks of the dust used before she gripped Ruby's shirt (or what was left of it at this point) pivoted, and semblanced dashed for the wall, only to reverse it for herself just before impact, leaving a stone Blake in her place that completed the bodyslam into the wall with a thunderous crash.

Ruby slumped down with her back against the wall after that.

Blood running down from her ears, her forehead, her scarred torso exposed and covered in soon to be welts/cuts and by the end of this fight? The side of her face would have been swollen like a grapefruit after the 'oomph' from that last punch from Blake. As she sat there however, seemingly lost in her thoughts, Ruby realized something.

'She never liked me.'

From when Ruby had first offered a handshake as a sign of friendly camaraderie, to the musings she'd heard about what Blake and the others really thought of her. That she was crazy and a loose cannon that couldn't relied on. No better than a feral guard dog. The tile that Ruby's artificial hand had been palming groaned as she bent the metal. She was nobody's mad dog. Her teeth painfully grinded against eachother, a red streak of red staining them, Ruby snarled and growled. This entire battle against the Shadow Fang had been an eye-opener. She could put on the fanciest suits and talk as though she were civilized and enjoyed the idea of living in 'fine society' with Weiss but it wasn't what her heart wanted. She wanted to be free and to be as wild as her soul desired.

'It's all the same with them. Weiss, Blake, they all thought I was just a mad dog. Point me at a target and I'd rip it to shreds..'

Her eyes narrowed and with a flick of the wrist, the spent dust canisters flew from Ruby's arm. Grabbing a replacement from her beltloop, she slid it in and smashed her palm against the floor. Spitting the tooth out that Blake's punch had knocked loose, she noticed Blake had seemed to move back to the shadows. Good. It'd make all the better when Ruby dragged her from them and tore out the flesh of her throat with her teeth. It wasn't about either side at this point in the addled woman's mind. It was about showing who she was.

"BLAKE!!"

Her arm began to glow and spreading outwardly from where Ruby had placed her hand, the floor was covered in a thick layer of ice, jagged curves and spikes erupting from the layer as it continued to spread. Ector's semblance was frighteningly powerful and the good thing about it was, he didn't really even need to move much to use it. Coat the floor in ice and let Blake move across it to come to him or her. If this ended with Ector burning the place to the ground, Ruby couldn't say she'd complain.

​

 

[Indolent]

"She's not the one who need's assistance."

It wasn't so much a thought as it were a trained reflex that burgeoned a gout of flames welling from the hangar's paneling, the Colonel's gaze still forward as his traversal momentum dissipated. His features eschewed any outward anxiety, the underlying musculature of his face knitting to that of a soldier ready for combat proper. A studious man in his own right with at least an iota of creativity to his credit, he understood the Hand's semblance and her proclivity to cloak and dagger tactics. To respond to an initial opening like that was to respond to a bait and present a chink in his guard. Though this rarely held true for every instance, a facet which made dealing with individuals the likes of Belladonna an exasperating task.

The clatter of the scorched mask served to assert his impression, his eyes roving towards to the sounds of where Rose had just suddenly been assaulted. A bait and switch. Ector lingered, listening intently for the telltale conclusion of the Hand's abrupt assault whilst keeping alert for the prior combatant he had engaged. It wouldn't be beneath them so as to cobble their numbers together to eliminate a valuable target like himself. After all, he'd do the same, though more in the apprehending fashion unlike a select few of his peers.

"Schnee wants to hamstring Lord Ozpin before the war begins in earnest? So be it. So we do the same. Silver eyes, generals, and monsters, all her favorite tools...."

A dry chuckle was the opener in his retort, "You wound me. I'm only a colonel." His actual reply was the subtle displacement of the air within the immediate vicinity and beyond, a clear and telltale sign of his claim to the domain around him constituting a solid swathe of the hangar. The Colonel paid the encroaching ice no mind, his considerations for the addendum made and interleaved into a contingency in mind as he placed an errant hand forward with the opposite resting across the small of his back. His extended appendage bore an incandescent will-o-the-wisp, illuminating himself quite well as if he were a candle in the dark drawing the creatures within toward.



"That isn't in the cards for seeing as I have a role to play after all this, in spite of the chaos your band of terrorists has wreaked. But feel free, Miss Belladonna. Come and have a go, if you think you're hard enough."

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"BLAKE!!"

Her arm began to glow and spreading outwardly from where Ruby had placed her hand, the floor was covered in a thick layer of ice, jagged curves and spikes erupting from the layer as it continued to spread. Ector's semblance was frighteningly powerful and the good thing about it was, he didn't really even need to move much to use it. Coat the floor in ice and let Blake move across it to come to him or her. If this ended with Ector burning the place to the ground, Ruby couldn't say she'd complain.

A dry chuckle was the opener in his retort, "You wound me. I'm only a colonel." His actual reply was the subtle displacement of the air within the immediate vicinity and beyond, a clear and telltale sign of his claim to the domain around him constituting a solid swathe of the hangar. The Colonel paid the encroaching ice no mind, his considerations for the addendum made and interleaved into a contingency in mind as he placed an errant hand forward with the opposite resting across the small of his back. His extended appendage bore an incandescent will-o-the-wisp, illuminating himself quite well as if he were a candle in the dark drawing the creatures within toward.

"That isn't in the cards for seeing as I have a role to play after all this, in spite of the chaos your band of terrorists has wreaked. But feel free, Miss Belladonna. Come and have a go, if you think you're hard enough."

"General, colonel, traitorous bitch. All just different words for puppet."

Ector wasn't the only who'd done his homework. The upper echelons of Atlas command had always been on the Shadow Fang's hit list, and someone as capable and dangerous as Ector was no exception. The destructive potential of his semblance bordered on absurd, completely negating the need for a standard hunter's weapon or mighty atlas firearms.

But the shadows were Blake's home. Before Sienna and later Ozpin had gotten their claws in her, even her noble parents knew the worth of darkness when it came to survival. If SIenna had gotten her way, Blake would've never needed to be the sword in the open field. Eve would've taken that role, and Blake would've been the ever present knife in the dark. Quiet steps, silent breaths, and barely a flicker of gold in the black that your eyes never felt comfortable assuming was real and not your senses working overdrive to see what was never really there.

Momentous destructive power against one of Remnant's most elusive targets, with the oldest of the talons and the feral wolf pup practically already chewed all the way through her leash both out for blood as well.

The first move was small and almost mocking in its simplicity; a faint breeze of air and a shot from the darkness, Gambol shroud's rarely touted form as a firearm cracking a shot for Ector's forehead with a standard round

 

[MidwayLives]

"General, colonel, traitorous bitch. All just different words for puppet."

Ruby raised her hand from where she'd slammed it down in a fit of feral rage.

But...she didn't seem any calmer. Quite the opposite actually. If there was any one word to describe the atmosphere ebbing off the former bandit's body, it'd be : Rage.

Her body streaked in blood and scars-some earned in battle, others self-inflicted, her lips pulled back and her teeth bared. A low growl escaped from her as her mechanical fingers clicked and whirred with each respective twitch she made. Her hair was a mess, a farcry from the prim and composed look she'd tried going for in preparation for this mission. She doubted anybody else would agree but she liked it more this way. Caked in the blood of those who'd fought her and a mixture of her own, she couldn't help but snort in slight derision. A traitor? Ruby guessed Blake was right about that. Ozpin had been the only one there for her after she struck out as the Red Masque.

But things had changed since then.

She'd spoken to Maria-uninhibited by the Grimm that had turned her into Ozpin's secret assassin. Weiss had made it clear to her that at this point, she'd only two options. Stay at Ozpin's side and have nothing and be thought of as little more than a useful minion or stay here and...

She frowned.
​

Momentous destructive power against one of Remnant's most elusive targets, with the oldest of the talons and the feral wolf pup practically already chewed all the way through her leash both out for blood as well.

The first move was small and almost mocking in its simplicity; a faint breeze of air and a shot from the darkness, Gambol shroud's rarely touted form as a firearm cracking a shot for Ector's forehead with a standard round

"...!"

The shot rang out and Ruby was on the move.

Her semblance juked and weaved past some of the ice spikes that Ruby had erected.

It sounded like the shot had come from around...

She came to a stop and thrust her hand out.

"HERE!"

Similar to what she'd done with Bear in an attempt to destroy his arm, Ruby focused on the hardlight beam feature of her arm to fire a blast. One big enough to hopefully force Blake out from whatever hiding spot she was laying low in. Ruby's eyes were widened and the urgency in her face made it clear just how badly she wanted this fight to be over.

'Come out and fight me, Blake. I'll take you to the ground and look you in the eyes...Before I sink my teeth into your neck and never let go! I'll make you suffer for looking down on me!!'​

 

[MyrtenRose]

The Shadow Fang, the one they called Dragon, the gladiatorial champion...these were not the only threats that had managed to find a way into the world's most technologically advanced and secure kingdom. She had done it before, albeit with assistance. This time, however, it was not on her behalf, nor of the Salem she knew back home. The Ozpin that had taken that Salem's place had tracked her down, a link that existed between the grimm lord and a part of her that meant she could never truly hide from him. And once he had caught up with her, he made clear his discontent with her previous actions. Though she was stronger than she had ever been before, thanks to the power she had stolen from both the Fall Maiden Amber and the Spring Maiden Vernal...he was all too eager to remind her of the gap of power and experience that still existed between them. A pummeling felt too weak of a word to describe it. And with that fresh in her mind, she was pressed back into line. There was no real trust to be had between the two, but that was fine with him.

Fear is the more reliable as far as he is concerned. Fear is always free...and he would be quite generous with it.

That is how she came to be here, by his whim. As with the Shadow Fang and the others, she was meant to do her part in weakening the kingdom before his arrival. Causing chaos was something he'd learned that she was accomplished in doing, and could there be a more fitting place to wreak chaos than in the kingdom that most represented order? He had an appreciation for that sort of thing. So it was that while the Shadow Fang were currently under siege, providing a great distraction for the focus of many of Atlas's top military officers as well as holding the attention of Weiss herself, it was in that opening that the other double maiden made her presence known. By launching her own one-woman assault upon the facility where James Ironwood and several notable others currently resided.

Just about everyone within felt it or heard it. The thunderous sound of the blast of fire, how it violently shook the whole place on impact. Any surprise was lost, along with the chance of possibly sneaking in, but...well, she knew Ruby Rose was among them. Not the twisted one that existed on this world, but the idiotic idealistic face that she had grown to hate with every fiber of her being. If she ran into that girl, in a confined space and limited room to escape...the risk was great. No, luring them out into the open was the better option by her judgement. Many blasts of fire followed the first, Cinder raining down continuous blasts of hellfire all to get their attention and provoke them into meeting her out here and give her a shot at taking out that accursed girl before her damnable eyes inflicted serious damage.

That very same girl stumbled upon the shaking of the place but in no time at all, she was back on her feet and sprinting, confused. There hadn't been an earthquake on the forecast, or...she thought. Yet as she got closer and more attentive, the sounds of the blasts became louder and louder and she realized it was an attack. As she dashed outside, her eyes locked onto the person responsible immediately, to her annoyance. Of course. She was here. Ruby's eyes narrowed as she glared up at Cinder. A glare that was returned by the dark maiden, so much anger and hate burning in her eye alongside the orange flares that flowed outward.

As she desired, Ruby's speed ensured that she was the first one out here. Wasting no time, more fireballs sprang to life in her hands and she threw one after another, dozens of them. A fiery volley that didn't let up, intending to both keep the young huntress at a distance and scorch the hell out of her. She only let up when the smoke from her blasts obscured the target and the immediate area around her. Cinder remained stationary after that, eye flitting all throughout the smoke for any sign. There was none immediate apparent. It took until the smoke cleared for her to catch sight of little Red again. The girl was not alone, and though Cinder didn't think it possible, the face of the other person now standing there provoked what felt like just as much fury as Ruby herself did. Her own face, younger and staring back at her with a pained frown.

The younger Cinder's eye roved over every inch of her counterpart, taking it all in...though her gaze lingered longest on the shadowy black arm. The teenager's frown shifted to a look of pure disdain.

The younger Cinder took a few steps forward, boots splish-splashing in the puddles of water around her, all that remained of the ice wall she had conjured to block those fireballs. "So...you're the me who chose...darkness." She muttered to herself. Despite the disdain expressed on her face, she was actually shaking with dread. An older, more powerful, more frightening version of herself...it chilled her to her core. She was glad her evil counterpart was too far away to notice the shaking. And it was more than just the power of the woman before her that terrified her. This woman's selfishness, her arrogance, her desire for power...all of it...signs that if a few things had gone differently, she might have ended up being just like her.

And even though the teenage Cinder never wanted to be just like the woman she was glaring at, she couldn't deny that they had things in common. It was her own desire, her need to get stronger that...that had her abandon her friends to chase after the bandit that had recently betrayed them. For all the good that did in the end. A little more than a month of learning and then they got attacked. An attack that would have no doubt ended with her being abducted...if not for some friends coming to her aid. Help that she knew she didn't deserve, after her just leaving them behind, but given nevertheless. There was more to strength than personal power. That she and this woman had anything in common was something that disgusted her...and got her to make a silent promise.

Guys...I'm really really sorry I ever left. That I turned my back. If...even if it takes me the rest of my life, I'll do everything I can to make it up to you.

For her part, the stronger Cinder likewise felt disgust. That there was a lesser version of herself that was so weak and foolish as to stand among that side...it was revolting. Insulting. Every breath that kid took was an insult. The sheer rage inside looking at that Cinder standing beside Ruby fucking Rose boiled over and she let out a roar more befit an animal before throwing more fireballs in an absolute frenzy. The more heroic of the lookalikes didn't make any defense this time, trusting that Ruby would get herself out of danger. Instead she shot up into the air, flying right for her counterpart and avoiding several of the blasts that came her way. The Cinder from the other world snarled in annoyance at her younger self, flames likewise shooting out of her heels as she soared over to collide with her double.

It was hard for Ruby to keep up with how fast they were in the sky above her. The two Cinders were moving as fast as hell, more fiery blurs than actual people in these moments.

Yet even so, it was clear which of the two were stronger. She was doing her best but...she just wasn't as powerful. The way kinder Cinder needed help but...at this range, with how quick the two were moving...Ruby wouldn't be able to get a clean sniper shot off. And the older one was doing all she could do to purposefully keep out of range of her silver eyes. Ruby gritted her teeth in frustration. She had to get up there to help but she couldn't fly in the same way as...Penny!

She dashed back to go find her other friend as soon as freaking possible.​

 

[Indolent]

"General, colonel, traitorous bitch. All just different words for puppet."

Ector wasn't the only who'd done his homework. The upper echelons of Atlas command had always been on the Shadow Fang's hit list, and someone as capable and dangerous as Ector was no exception. The destructive potential of his semblance bordered on absurd, completely negating the need for a standard hunter's weapon or mighty atlas firearms.

But the shadows were Blake's home. Before Sienna and later Ozpin had gotten their claws in her, even her noble parents knew the worth of darkness when it came to survival. If SIenna had gotten her way, Blake would've never needed to be the sword in the open field. Eve would've taken that role, and Blake would've been the ever present knife in the dark. Quiet steps, silent breaths, and barely a flicker of gold in the black that your eyes never felt comfortable assuming was real and not your senses working overdrive to see what was never really there.

Momentous destructive power against one of Remnant's most elusive targets, with the oldest of the talons and the feral wolf pup practically already chewed all the way through her leash both out for blood as well.

The first move was small and almost mocking in its simplicity; a faint breeze of air and a shot from the darkness, Gambol shroud's rarely touted form as a firearm cracking a shot for Ector's forehead with a standard round

"Et tu, Marionette?" Llewellyn remarked with an undulating nonchalance to his tone, his eyes almost glazing over with disinterest in the words shared between them. His pose was much the same still, the colonel content to let his senses direct his defense compounded by the inherent trait of his aura warning him to any dangers. It was something he came to rely on to a sharp degree, refining it whilst broadening the scope of his semblance to allow for a menagerie of contingencies.

A brief that saw the Colonel's forearm leveraged before the bullet arrived, a resounding impact as it ricocheted forth from his arm. That was not the only thing that transpired simultaneously. A veritable nova absolutely exploded along the ceiling in the general direction where the bullet had come from, inadvertently ruining the efforts of the bandit princess. In any case.

Ector knew it wasn't that Blake would remain there where she had fired from and the cacophonous eruption brought with it a luminosity that lit the hangar sufficiently enough for the Colonel to cavort about in his position in something of a fast scan for silhouettes resemblant of the Hand, a bear, or the wounded wolf.

Especially since it seemed Rose took her eye off the last one there.

In any case, it was obvious what his approach was here.

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

The shot rang out and Ruby was on the move.

Her semblance juked and weaved past some of the ice spikes that Ruby had erected.

It sounded like the shot had come from around...

She came to a stop and thrust her hand out.

"HERE!"

Similar to what she'd done with Bear in an attempt to destroy his arm, Ruby focused on the hardlight beam feature of her arm to fire a blast. One big enough to hopefully force Blake out from whatever hiding spot she was laying low in. Ruby's eyes were widened and the urgency in her face made it clear just how badly she wanted this fight to be over.

'Come out and fight me, Blake. I'll take you to the ground and look you in the eyes...Before I sink my teeth into your neck and never let go! I'll make you suffer for looking down on me!!'

"Et tu, Marionette?" Llewellyn remarked with an undulating nonchalance to his tone, his eyes almost glazing over with disinterest in the words shared between them. His pose was much the same still, the colonel content to let his senses direct his defense compounded by the inherent trait of his aura warning him to any dangers. It was something he came to rely on to a sharp degree, refining it whilst broadening the scope of his semblance to allow for a menagerie of contingencies.

A brief that saw the Colonel's forearm leveraged before the bullet arrived, a resounding impact as it ricocheted forth from his arm. That was not the only thing that transpired simultaneously. A veritable nova absolutely exploded along the ceiling in the general direction where the bullet had come from, inadvertently ruining the efforts of the bandit princess. In any case.

Ector knew it wasn't that Blake would remain there where she had fired from and the cacophonous eruption brought with it a luminosity that lit the hangar sufficiently enough for the Colonel to cavort about in his position in something of a fast scan for silhouettes resemblant of the Hand, a bear, or the wounded wolf.

Especially since it seemed Rose took her eye off the last one there.

In any case, it was obvious what his approach was here.

Beam and flame lit up the hangar in almost the same instant, washing the entire hangar in shadows and lights in a cacophany of heat and sound-

Even for her semblence, the speed at which Blake Belladonna appeared in a slide between Ector's legs was inhuman, a mystery perhaps solved by how she held a length of ribbon in her hand instead of Gambol itself, barely visible in the swiftly disappearing gout of flame as she rose from her slide to use her shoulder to heave Ector into the air, immediately following with a rising slash born of her semblance straight for the colonel's chin

 

[Indolent]

Beam and flame lit up the hangar in almost the same instant, washing the entire hangar in shadows and lights in a cacophany of heat and sound-

Even for her semblence, the speed at which Blake Belladonna appeared in a slide between Ector's legs was inhuman, a mystery perhaps solved by how she held a length of ribbon in her hand instead of Gambol itself, barely visible in the swiftly disappearing gout of flame as she rose from her slide to use her shoulder to heave Ector into the air, immediately following with a rising slash born of her semblance straight for the colonel's chin

Given how hard the faunus assassin pushed herself, one might surmise that she worked herself to the extreme respiratorily. The absurd display of acrobatic finesse of earlier and a fragment of it even now had to be taxing, though not out of the ordinary for Belladonna, enough to culminate in being short of breath. Or at the very least approaching the precipice thereof.

Blake might have noticed something of a heady rush, a minutely reinvigorating sensation surging outward from her lungs to her limbs. Assuming her intense focus on assaulting Ector did not impinge her faunus awareness, the cause for it would be plain in abundance.

The Colonel's vicinity was a pocket of oxygen, purest at the epicenter with it slowly radiating outwardly to fill a respectable radius. It wouldn't be a mistake to construe it as Llewellyn's domain though by many another's account, attempts to exact the breadth of that as to mean the limits of his semblance proved trying. The general rule of thumb was that it often wasn't going to be an accurate assessment.

So it was that the shoulder check certainly contacted the Colonel. And nothing more, a penetrating glint of the eyes insinuating vehemence towards the clone that moved to strike him before an incandescence snuffed his personage in an expanding explosion that rapidly outpaced the extent of his domain, the surrounding fringes of it simultaneously erupting into the selfsame. If one were to have a bird's eye view of the hangar, the colorful orchestra comprised of a sphere at the center with concentric rings expanding outwardly in a violent, cascading shock wave.

To call it devastating would've been apropos, though more for the reason of a concussive bomb detonating rather than a thermobaric one. The reason it was that stemmed from the man standing at the ground zero of it all, his attired battered by the absolutely ludicrous undertaking he'd made with a steeled expression upon his singed features.

 

[Gus Gungus]

"Start with the thumb."

KRK

"Grrrrr..."

Weiss's eyes were cold as she regarded the figure at her feet. The ones glaring back at her were wild, furious, defiant as could be with a boot keeping their head to the floor and one arm twisted back at an awkward angle so its fingers were splayed. So much rage. So much righteous venom and indignation. This had been the day she'd waited for ever since Eve Taurus first took all the pain and contempt the world met her with and christened it Schnee. And what had it wrought?

KRK

"Rrrrrrgh!"

More pain and contempt. And the level, dispassionate stare of her chosen oppressor looking down on her, without so much as a hint of remorse to crinkle the councilwoman's porcelain face while she watched Carnelian do his work.

Here it was. The glorious revolution they'd worked tirelessly for, encapsulated in a single moment of avoidable cruelty and pointless, self-destructive resistance. She hoped it had been worth it.

"General?"

Her gaze went to the vicious, sadistic enforcer she'd more or less pinned a medal to, an entirely different breed of sickness. Weiss hated him in that moment, a dull, existential loathing so deeply ingrained in her it never came anywhere close to skimming the surface of her thoughts for him to read. It was a loathing that came as natural to her as breathing, one she projected outward just as readily as she stabbed inward. Broken. All these people were were broken little creatures of emotion, of intemperance, products of the sin of feeling too much. They'd burn the rest of the world down to satisfy their own single-minded vendettas.

She hadn't come all this way to build a burning world. None of them could be allowed to continue. But only one of them was cooperating with her.

Carnelian's glare probed her, and she issued the command.



"The message I wish to relay is that I don't appreciate being kept waiting. You're being too gentle."

His hand moved before she was even finished speaking, seizing the remaining three fingers on Eve's right hand.

KRK-KRAK

Eve's pain threshold had always been remarkable, but so had Carnelian's ability to inflict pain on stubborn faunus. This time there was no stifling it, no masking it behind a terse growl or snarl. Phonetics wouldn't have done the noise that came next justice, and it could've been argued that no one word could truly capture the full range of agony and distress being expressed. Keen? Screech? Wail?

They all rang just a little hollow, but whatever it was it reached even the farthest corners of the building.​

 

[MyrtenRose]

KRK-KRAK

Eve's pain threshold had always been remarkable, but so had Carnelian's ability to inflict pain on stubborn faunus. This time there was no stifling it, no masking it behind a terse growl or snarl. Phonetics wouldn't have done the noise that came next justice, and it could've been argued that no one word could truly capture the full range of agony and distress being expressed. Keen? Screech? Wail?

They all rang just a little hollow, but whatever it was it reached even the farthest corners of the building.

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

Even at a distance, the sound of that echoed like crazy. So much so that it almost felt like it physically hurt to hear. It didn't, but it did mean that somebody was getting hurt like really really badly. She couldn't even tell who it was making that noise, whether it was a guy or a girl or what, it just...seemed...inhuman. Like straight up the screech of the damned or something. It was enough to make her briefly halt in her tracks with a chill running down her spine. This situation was already all bad and whatever could prompt something like that was terrible to imagine. But at the same time, if she were more a betting person...the sound was probably coming from the epicenter of all this. Or at the very least, something major. Her run resumed and she picked up the pace even, the chameleon faunus's hurried footsteps masked by the overwhelming noise as she did her best to follow it to the source. And when she got within sight, she was even more temporarily speechless than she had been just hearing it.

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

Witnessing it, standing in the shadows and seeing it firsthand...it felt like her blood was boiling. Seriously so. Like steam would literally come out of her as she stood there, fists clenching tight. Not just for watching it either but...knowing she couldn't interfere, doing her best to stay within the shadows and hidden. That was Weiss Schnee. AKA the most important person in the kingdom and the one who had decimated that crew down in that cellar that one time. Sure, Ilia had managed to catch her by surprise and briefly subdue her but...no telling if the same trick would work twice. That and she was standing over by...him. The General. As much as she wanted to charge at them, roaring and try to forcefully stop them, she had the gut feeling that wouldn't go her way. She knew how to fight, yeah, but that wasn't her strength. She couldn't fight, not as good as Blake or Eve or some of the Talons could.

Being forced to stand there as it happened was just as frustratingly infuriating as the fact that it was happening and it was taking all her self-control to not rush out of the shadows anyway to try and stop it...but that was her strength. Staying hidden, out of sight and out of mind. Being the stealthiest fucking person she could be. She had to wait. That scream undoubtedly drew more than just her. And when they came, and those two had their attention drawn away...only then could she do what she did best and silently get to the bull faunus and help.

She just had to wait. It was one of the hardest things she felt she'd ever had to do, hunkering down as she watched and listened. Someone would come.

They had to.​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

Given how hard the faunus assassin pushed herself, one might surmise that she worked herself to the extreme respiratorily. The absurd display of acrobatic finesse of earlier and a fragment of it even now had to be taxing, though not out of the ordinary for Belladonna, enough to culminate in being short of breath. Or at the very least approaching the precipice thereof.

Blake might have noticed something of a heady rush, a minutely reinvigorating sensation surging outward from her lungs to her limbs. Assuming her intense focus on assaulting Ector did not impinge her faunus awareness, the cause for it would be plain in abundance.

The Colonel's vicinity was a pocket of oxygen, purest at the epicenter with it slowly radiating outwardly to fill a respectable radius. It wouldn't be a mistake to construe it as Llewellyn's domain though by many another's account, attempts to exact the breadth of that as to mean the limits of his semblance proved trying. The general rule of thumb was that it often wasn't going to be an accurate assessment.

So it was that the shoulder check certainly contacted the Colonel. And nothing more, a penetrating glint of the eyes insinuating vehemence towards the clone that moved to strike him before an incandescence snuffed his personage in an expanding explosion that rapidly outpaced the extent of his domain, the surrounding fringes of it simultaneously erupting into the selfsame. If one were to have a bird's eye view of the hangar, the colorful orchestra comprised of a sphere at the center with concentric rings expanding outwardly in a violent, cascading shockwave.

To call it devastating would've been apropos, though more for the reason of a concussive bomb detonating rather than a thermobaric one. The reason it was that stemmed from the man standing at the ground zero of it all, his attired battered by the absolutely ludicrous undertaking he'd made with a steeled expression upon his singed features.

There was one, dangerously close to lethal misconception Llewellyn had with the situation; It wasn't a clone that was striking him. Blake herself had deigned to put herself within his zone of terror, and when she felt the faint shift in the air, tickling against the fur of her ears and the acrid scent of flame's beginnings tickling her nose, her hand lashed out to grasp the lapel of his jacket's uniform.

Her reward was the first shock wave caught her full force.

It was fair to say Blake had been honed into something far more monstrous than a simple warrior at this point, a beast a dangerous as any grimm Ozpin could conjure up. But she was still a faunus, one who'd been subjected to the full brunt of a maiden's ire not months minutes earlier. So it wasn't any surprise when her aura shattered around her and the sound of cracking bone could almost be heard over the roar of Ector's calm fury given form. A chunk of her mask was blown clear off her face, lacerating the skin along her forehead and cheek with shrapnel and gouging a cut straight through one of her ears.

The eye that Ector could now plainly see didn't even blink through the pain, and in the blink of a moment that existed between the first shockwave and the next, two fingers jammed straight into the colonel's nose.

The second blast hit as Blake let go and road the momentum to the floor with a roll that could almost be called graceful in spite of the telltale sound of another fracture as even her best efforts didn't fully disperse the momentum enough to prevent harm, and Ector had the briefest moment to contend with the fact that even without Blake's fingers his nose still felt stuffed before the two balls of fire dust exploded from as point blank range as physically possible.

As the smoke settled, Blake pushed herself back to her feet with a vicious snarl, not at all willing to accept that was enough to put down her quarry as she prepared herself to finish the task at hand-

Eve's pain threshold had always been remarkable, but so had Carnelian's ability to inflict pain on stubborn faunus. This time there was no stifling it, no masking it behind a terse growl or snarl. Phonetics wouldn't have done the noise that came next justice, and it could've been argued that no one word could truly capture the full range of agony and distress being expressed. Keen? Screech? Wail?

They all rang just a little hollow, but whatever it was it reached even the farthest corners of the building.

Ector and Ruby, if she hadn't been caught in the crossfire of the explosions, and if there was something aiding their eyesight of Blake in the dark as that sound pierced the hangar, saw the shift immediately. It wasn't right to say Blake fought without emotion. She'd weaponized hate and anger with as much enthusiasm and expertise as she did Gambol Shroud. But it wasn't a personal hate. She knew full well that for every Weiss and Carnelian, there was a Yang or a Cinder among humanity. Good enough people. It was the system she hated, the world that had been allowed to rot, the mold and fungus that the kingdoms had been since the beginning, feeding off the blood, sweat, tears, and corpses of the faunus they exploited and hated. Gwen, Ector, even Ruby, they were all just obstacles to be removed, a sacrifice she was willing to make, one more body for the pile she had across her shoulders as she trudged forward to a future she could finally accept.

They still were. The right choice would've been to ignore the noise. Weiss was an obstacle she couldn't destroy on her own, and this fight was already a lost one. The best thing she could do for the faunus was to make the other side bleed as much as she could, to drain every ounce of blood she could from the fuel tank of Atlas' war machine before Ozpin made his arrival. She was the weapon of the faunus. She couldn't afford to make decisions based on what was left of her own heart.

She made the wrong choice anyways

The dark of the hangar suddenly lit up with a brilliant light as she grasped all the remaining lightning dust shells she hand in her hand like they were candy, her semblance roaring to life with outside energy in favor of her pitiful aura, and then she was gone. It took a downright insane amount of mental math to make Gambol shroud anything more than the world's most dangerous yo-yo. keeping track of the rotation of the weapon in the air, the force of whichever dust round was next in the chamber, the environment around her, all of it had to be calculated on the fly in a fight. It was the same math Blake applied to herself as a chain of electricity traced a trail through the darkness of the warehouse. She was moving far to fast for her senses to be of any use to her; All she had was a mental map of the building and the destruction already wrought upon it.

The sound was only halfway though Eve's lungs before the ceiling of the warehouse room she and the pair that most personified what was wrong with Atlas was struck with Lightning gone in reverse, before the bolt crashed into Carnelian with all of the fury of Zeus himself.

And nothing else followed.

Blake didnt' have the aura to sheild herself from the impact, and far more, if any went the other way at all, was done to her than the general. the only reason she had gotten that far was because she didn't need to propel herself bodily to use her semblance; every floor and wall she'd 'landed' against in her trek to this strike had been done at the speed of lightning to an unshielded body. ravaged was too kind a word for the state she was in. The only part of her that wasn't broken was the hand that held Gambol's blade in a white knuckle grip, jammed against Carnelian's jugular and feebly pushing against his aura as her lungs sucked in a ragged breath, an absurdity of willpower keeping her eyes open and conscious as she pressed the weapon with all the might she could muster in her state.

Hatred was too soft a word for what was in those eyes, rage and fury too forgiving for what they carried from her soul, but none of it made the blade any sharper or her strength any more than that of a faunus girl who'd destroyed herself in fit of righteous anger.

 

[Gus Gungus]

There was one, dangerously close to lethal misconception Llewellyn had with the situation; It wasn't a clone that was striking him. Blake herself had deigned to put herself within his zone of terror, and when she felt the faint shift in the air, tickling against the fur of her ears and the acrid scent of flame's beginnings tickling her nose, her hand lashed out to grasp the lapel of his jacket's uniform.

Her reward was the first shock wave caught her full force.

It was fair to say Blake had been honed into something far more monstrous than a simple warrior at this point, a beast a dangerous as any grimm Ozpin could conjure up. But she was still a faunus, one who'd been subjected to the full brunt of a maiden's ire not months minutes earlier. So it wasn't any surprise when her aura shattered around her and the sound of cracking bone could almost be heard over the roar of Ector's calm fury given form. A chunk of her mask was blown clear off her face, lacerating the skin along her forehead and cheek with shrapnel and gouging a cut straight through one of her ears.

The eye that Ector could now plainly see didn't even blink through the pain, and in the blink of a moment that existed between the first shockwave and the next, two fingers jammed straight into the colonel's nose.

The second blast hit as Blake let go and road the momentum to the floor with a roll that could almost be called graceful in spite of the telltale sound of another fracture as even her best efforts didn't fully disperse the momentum enough to prevent harm, and Ector had the briefest moment to contend with the fact that even without Blake's fingers his nose still felt stuffed before the two balls of fire dust exploded from as point blank range as physically possible.

As the smoke settled, Blake pushed herself back to her feet with a vicious snarl, not at all willing to accept that was enough to put down her quarry as she prepared herself to finish the task at hand-





Ector and Ruby, if she hadn't been caught in the crossfire of the explosions, and if there was something aiding their eyesight of Blake in the dark as that sound pierced the hangar, saw the shift immediately. It wasn't right to say Blake fought without emotion. She'd weaponized hate and anger with as much enthusiasm and expertise as she did Gambol Shroud. But it wasn't a personal hate. She knew full well that for every Weiss and Carnelian, there was a Yang or a Cinder among humanity. Good enough people. It was the system she hated, the world that had been allowed to rot, the mold and fungus that the kingdoms had been since the beginning, feeding off the blood, sweat, tears, and corpses of the faunus they exploited and hated. Gwen, Ector, even Ruby, they were all just obstacles to be removed, a sacrifice she was willing to make, one more body for the pile she had across her shoulders as she trudged forward to a future she could finally accept.

They still were. The right choice would've been to ignore the noise. Weiss was an obstacle she couldn't destroy on her own, and this fight was already a lost one. The best thing she could do for the faunus was to make the other side bleed as much as she could, to drain every ounce of blood she could from the fuel tank of Atlas' war machine before Ozpin made his arrival. She was the weapon of the faunus. She couldn't afford to make decisions based on what was left of her own heart.

She made the wrong choice anyways

The dark of the hangar suddenly lit up with a brilliant light as she grasped all the remaining lightning dust shells she hand in her hand like they were candy, her semblance roaring to life with outside energy in favor of her pitiful aura, and then she was gone. It took a downright insane amount of mental math to make Gambol shroud anything more than the world's most dangerous yo-yo. keeping track of the rotation of the weapon in the air, the force of whichever dust round was next in the chamber, the environment around her, all of it had to be calculated on the fly in a fight. It was the same math Blake applied to herself as a chain of electricity traced a trail through the darkness of the warehouse. She was moving far to fast for her senses to be of any use to her; All she had was a mental map of the building and the destruction already wrought upon it.

The sound was only halfway though Eve's lungs before the ceiling of the warehouse room she and the pair that most personified what was wrong with Atlas was struck with Lightning gone in reverse, before the bolt crashed into Carnelian with all of the fury of Zeus himself.

And nothing else followed.

Blake didnt' have the aura to sheild herself from the impact, and far more, if any went the other way at all, was done to her than the general. the only reason she had gotten that far was because she didn't need to propel herself bodily to use her semblance; every floor and wall she'd 'landed' against in her trek to this strike had been done at the speed of lightning to an unshielded body. ravaged was too kind a word for the state she was in. The only part of her that wasn't broken was the hand that held Gambol's blade in a white knuckle grip, jammed against Carnelian's jugular and feebly pushing against his aura as her lungs sucked in a ragged breath, an absurdity of willpower keeping her eyes open and conscious as she pressed the weapon with all the might she could muster in her state.

Hatred was too soft a word for what was in those eyes, rage and fury too forgiving for what they carried from her soul, but none of it made the blade any sharper or her strength any more than that of a faunus girl who'd destroyed herself in fit of righteous anger.

"And this is why."

Blake's thunderous advent sparked two very different reactions from the pair accosting the bull. However uglier the faunus side of the collision may have been, Blake's mass impacting his was enough to dislodge the general's boot from Eve's head, and the slightly awkward teeter that ensued as he took an overbalanced step backward was more satisfying than such a minor perforation of his aura of untouchability had any right to be. There was unquestionably the elated sneer of the hunter on his face as his gaze whipped, slower-than-usual, to at last meet the young pup who'd once had the gall to threaten him, yet equally etched into that weathered visage was something else; a look of consternation or bewilderment, maybe, as he was struck without seeing it coming, any electrical signals that could've been interpreted as thoughts drowned out entirely in the crackling sea of energy that was the Hand prior to impact.

Then he pulled his head back, and Blake found her own forehead drilled by his with enough force to finally make her knees give from under her, leaving a faint metallic resonance echoing in her ears. And as the hand clutching Gambol gingerly, almost bemusedly found itself enclosed by his larger glove, the piston-like grip that easily shifted the blade back in the opposite direction was punctuated by his face falling to an entirely different emotion: Disappointment.

"That it? You mean to tell me generations of trauma and pain all culminate in you, now, this moment? Tch. You look like a gust of wind could knock you over."

Then there was Weiss, who'd had the privilege of being struck by Blake lightning just a few minutes prior. She hadn't liked it. She did, however, know now to expect it, and that meant her reaction was far more subdued than the general's: little more than a glassy, almost studious stare as her hair ruffled in the breeze, arms folded. It would've been hard to argue the point that there was something missing from that stare, some core component of humanity that induced the appropriate feeling when witnessing someone in as much pain as Eve was, or Blake.

So it was a good thing Weiss had no interest in arguing anymore. The words that came instead were calm, vacant and chiding, like a friend dispensing an I-told-you-so after some ignored advice.

"This is why you'll never change anything. You're too close to the situation, Blake; too compromised. The world is not a sympathetic place. It doesn't care about your plight. Things aren't going to magically go the way you want them to just because you feel you've earned it. I'm sorry. Believe me, I know—I, of all people, should not get to say this to you. It's an unfair truth, but, well. Most are." She hummed, then sighed, closing her eyes. "You aren't the solution to the system. Just another casualty of it. So while you may be more than entitled to your lack of faith in my kind to put things right—"

Her eyes fluttered open, a faintly apologetic huff the only disruption to what was otherwise an uncompromising, steely glare.

"—I am different. And with all due respect, I think I'll go ahead and take my shot anyway. So. Let's talk expectations. You seem to be expecting me to allow multiple Talon agents to escape into my kingdom, unaccounted for, at quite possibly the most crucial juncture in my entire life to this point. How adorable." She rolled her eyes, patronizing in her exasperation. "I'd really like to stress how much that just is not going to happen, Blake. I have eyes on this entire district; no, this entire city. Sewers, engineering, it doesn't matter where they run to. There is nowhere they can hide from me. I will hunt them down and root them out, just like I did today, and I won't be taking prisoners. So that can happen, and you can tell yourself you were able to get something by me while I make you watch everyone who ever mattered to you die. Starting with her."

She nodded to where Eve had gone deathly, eerily still, hunched over on her knees with face obscured by her long tresses of scarlet as she clutched her mangled hand. It was unclear whether she was listening, or even capable of doing so.

"Or."

She let the syllable hang in the air, a monument in its solitude as her frigid gaze softened.

"There doesn't have to be any more pain. For any of you. Call your associates back here and I'll even let them get on an airship and fly away. The Shadow Fang gets to cut its losses and go be some other kingdom's nuisance, a majority of its power structure intact. See? No more faunus have to suffer tonight. And the pain that's already been inflicted..."

She turned away from where Eve was prostrated, the flicker of disgust and regret crossing her features so potent it had Carnelian affixing her with a level, disapproving scowl rather than either of his prey.

"...can be taken care of."

Her breath was deep.

"And all it takes is-"

"LIKE HELL!"

Eve had been listening. To every word.

And the more she heard, the more something was coming unglued in her already-fragile psyche. Cracks that formed years ago were being pried open after a long, arduous process of erosion, scars that never healed. Pain that never went away. Every urge and impulse she had wanted to hurt these two humans, wanted to carve out the faunus's penance in their flesh. Blake's presence, the condition she was in, was like the powder keg to her lit fuse.

Her instincts were screaming at her, so instinct was what she acted on. She didn't think. She just did. There was nothing premeditated or planned about what she did next; it was just what every drop of blood in her body burned with the desire to do in that moment. That was why Carnelian didn't see it coming, didn't see Eve lunge for him head-first, didn't see the teeth of the mad dog he created sink deep into his cheek's leathery flesh before it was already happening.

Eve saw red.

Then, so did Blake, as every molar in the bull's mouth was suddenly awash with that murderous crimson glow.

SHRIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP



When their vision cleared, Carnelian was taking several rapid lurches away from the two auraless faunus, coppery aura flickering dimly as it tried and failed to process its abrupt and total decimation, from an almost full gauge right down to the negatives. That didn't seem to be where his immediate concern lay, though.

Both hands clutched at his face, futilely attempting to stem the gushing tide of blood erupting through his fingers. A low, guttural rattle was coming from the general's throat, like the bray of a dying wildebeest as its predator closed in.

Eve spat, and a significant portion of Carnelian's face splattered against the tiles at their feet as she rounded on a blanching Weiss with a frenzied roar, teeth bared and stained red.



"YOU THINK IT'S THAT EASY? YOU THINK THERE'S A SOLUTION TO EVERYTHING YOUR CANCER OF A SPECIES HAS DONE?! YOU'VE SHOWN US YOUR SOLUTION! TIME AND TIME AGAIN! I THINK ABOUT IT EVERY TIME I SEE THIS FACE, AND I'M GONNA THINK ABOUT IT EVERY TIME I TRY TO WRITE WITH THIS HAND! SO HERE'S HOW EASY IT IS FOR ME, HUMANS! HERE'S MY SOLUTION!"

Quivering, she jabbed one of her still-functional fingers for Weiss and took a step forward.

"A SCHNEE AND A SENILE OLD NOBODY DIE TONIGHT! THE SNOW COVERS THEIR BONES, THE WORLD FORGETS THEIR NAMES, AND SOON ENOUGH THE NEXT PAIR OF SELF-AGGRANDIZING MORONS GET TO COME ALONG AND TELL OUR PEOPLE THAT THEY KNOW BEST! AND THE DAMNEDEST PART OF IT ALL? THE PART THAT REALLY MAKES MY BLOOD BOIL? YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING! YOU DON'T HAVE A GODDAMN CLUE, 'CAUSE IF YOU DID YOU'D KNOW YOU CANNOT STOP THIS!"



She staggered towards the mystified councilwoman with arms outstretched, more specter than person as she ignored the protesting crackling of her joints. Weiss looked a bit smaller than usual, truth be told, but her response was nevertheless immediate, a hand shooting up to conjure a blue fireball in its palm as she pointed it steadily for the ragged Eve and simply raised an eyebrow in Blake's direction.

"So it would seem."​

 

[MyrtenRose]

The sound was only halfway though Eve's lungs before the ceiling of the warehouse room she and the pair that most personified what was wrong with Atlas was struck with Lightning gone in reverse, before the bolt crashed into Carnelian with all of the fury of Zeus himself.

And nothing else followed.

Blake didnt' have the aura to sheild herself from the impact, and far more, if any went the other way at all, was done to her than the general. the only reason she had gotten that far was because she didn't need to propel herself bodily to use her semblance; every floor and wall she'd 'landed' against in her trek to this strike had been done at the speed of lightning to an unshielded body. ravaged was too kind a word for the state she was in. The only part of her that wasn't broken was the hand that held Gambol's blade in a white knuckle grip, jammed against Carnelian's jugular and feebly pushing against his aura as her lungs sucked in a ragged breath, an absurdity of willpower keeping her eyes open and conscious as she pressed the weapon with all the might she could muster in her state.

Hatred was too soft a word for what was in those eyes, rage and fury too forgiving for what they carried from her soul, but none of it made the blade any sharper or her strength any more than that of a faunus girl who'd destroyed herself in fit of righteous anger.

Her instincts were screaming at her, so instinct was what she acted on. She didn't think. She just did. There was nothing premeditated or planned about what she did next; it was just what every drop of blood in her body burned with the desire to do in that moment. That was why Carnelian didn't see it coming, didn't see Eve lunge for him head-first, didn't see the teeth of the mad dog he created sink deep into his cheek's leathery flesh before it was already happening.

Eve saw red.

Then, so did Blake, as every molar in the bull's mouth was suddenly awash with that murderous crimson glow.

SHRIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP


When their vision cleared, Carnelian was taking several rapid lurches away from the two auraless faunus, coppery aura flickering dimly as it tried and failed to process its abrupt and total decimation, from an almost full gauge right down to the negatives. That didn't seem to be where his immediate concern lay, though.

Both hands clutched at his face, futilely attempting to stem the gushing tide of blood erupting through his fingers. A low, guttural rattle was coming from the general's throat, like the bray of a dying wildebeest as its predator closed in.

Eve spat, and a significant portion of Carnelian's face splattered against the tiles at their feet as she rounded on a blanching Weiss with a frenzied roar, teeth bared and stained red.

"..................................................................................................................................Holy shit."

It was hardly a whisper to herself as the chameleon witnessed all that, even stumbling a step back as she crouched in the darkness. Not only had Blake just come in like a rocket shot at mach 10 but Eve...she...that was so savage and so unexpected, it temporarily unbalanced the chameleon. More chills ran down her spine at the sight of part of somebody's face being torn apart like that. Not that it could have happened to a worse guy but...no. She rapidly shook her head and steeled her nerves. This was exactly the attention grabber she had been waiting for. The general preoccupied with major damage and the maiden focusing on somebody else. As Eve's rageful shouts captured Weiss's attention, Ilia snuck closer amidst the shadows, her skin just as dark as them and cranking her weapon up to max power. She just hoped that would be enough.​

"A SCHNEE AND A SENILE OLD NOBODY DIE TONIGHT! THE SNOW COVERS THEIR BONES, THE WORLD FORGETS THEIR NAMES, AND SOON ENOUGH THE NEXT PAIR OF SELF-AGGRANDIZING MORONS GET TO COME ALONG AND TELL OUR PEOPLE THAT THEY KNOW BEST! AND THE DAMNEDEST PART OF IT ALL? THE PART THAT REALLY MAKES MY BLOOD BOIL? YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING! YOU DON'T HAVE A GODDAMN CLUE, 'CAUSE IF YOU DID YOU'D KNOW YOU CANNOT STOP THIS!"

She staggered towards the mystified councilwoman with arms outstretched, more specter than person as she ignored the protesting crackling of her joints. Weiss looked a bit smaller than usual, truth be told, but her response was nevertheless immediate, a hand shooting up to conjure a blue fireball in its palm as she pointed it steadily for the ragged Eve and simply raised an eyebrow in Blake's direction.

"So it would seem."

With a soft click, it was at that moment her whip extended outward in the blink of an eye, aimed to wrap around the torso of the taken aback maiden and deliver enough shocks to...well, best case scenario was a knockout but Ilia would settle for painfully debilitate and temporarily stun. Not only that, but the chameleon faunus planted her feet and pulled on her lash, intent on also swinging Weiss over to slam hard into the auraless general and put him down for the count too. Whatever the case though, her eyes immediately shot over to Eve and then Blake. The latter would be going nowhere fast, and the former...well, same to be honest. Not in the best condition to get out quick, but she could at least walk. If given enough time...yeah. Or if one of the others among their number came to assist as well. Though she had promised to do what it took to stop the Shadow Fang from doing...all the wrong they were doing, at the same time...she'd given another promise too.

And just over there, Weiss Schnee, that was the bitch who'd caught her, imprisoned her and brought her to that dark castle and all that entailed. Wasn't much of a choice.

Her eyes shifted back over to said maiden and the general to assess their condition.​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"And this is why."

Blake's thunderous advent sparked two very different reactions from the pair accosting the bull. However uglier the faunus side of the collision may have been, Blake's mass impacting his was enough to dislodge the general's boot from Eve's head, and the slightly awkward teeter that ensued as he took an overbalanced step backward was more satisfying than such a minor perforation of his aura of untouchability had any right to be. There was unquestionably the elated sneer of the hunter on his face as his gaze whipped, slower-than-usual, to at last meet the young pup who'd once had the gall to threaten him, yet equally etched into that weathered visage was something else; a look of consternation or bewilderment, maybe, as he was struck without seeing it coming, any electrical signals that could've been interpreted as thoughts drowned out entirely in the crackling sea of energy that was the Hand prior to impact.

Then he pulled his head back, and Blake found her own forehead drilled by his with enough force to finally make her knees give from under her, leaving a faint metallic resonance echoing in her ears. And as the hand clutching Gambol gingerly, almost bemusedly found itself enclosed by his larger glove, the piston-like grip that easily shifted the blade back in the opposite direction was punctuated by his face falling to an entirely different emotion: Disappointment.

"That it? You mean to tell me generations of trauma and pain all culminate in you, now, this moment? Tch. You look like a gust of wind could knock you over."

Then there was Weiss, who'd had the privilege of being struck by Blake lightning just a few minutes prior. She hadn't liked it. She did, however, know now to expect it, and that meant her reaction was far more subdued than the general's: little more than a glassy, almost studious stare as her hair ruffled in the breeze, arms folded. It would've been hard to argue the point that there was something missing from that stare, some core component of humanity that induced the appropriate feeling when witnessing someone in as much pain as Eve was, or Blake.

So it was a good thing Weiss had no interest in arguing anymore. The words that came instead were calm, vacant and chiding, like a friend dispensing an I-told-you-so after some ignored advice.

"This is why you'll never change anything. You're too close to the situation, Blake; too compromised. The world is not a sympathetic place. It doesn't care about your plight. Things aren't going to magically go the way you want them to just because you feel you've earned it. I'm sorry. Believe me, I know—I, of all people, should not get to say this to you. It's an unfair truth, but, well. Most are." She hummed, then sighed, closing her eyes. "You aren't the solution to the system. Just another casualty of it. So while you may be more than entitled to your lack of faith in my kind to put things right—"

Her eyes fluttered open, a faintly apologetic huff the only disruption to what was otherwise an uncompromising, steely glare.

"—I am different. And with all due respect, I think I'll go ahead and take my shot anyway. So. Let's talk expectations. You seem to be expecting me to allow multiple Talon agents to escape into my kingdom, unaccounted for, at quite possibly the most crucial juncture in my entire life to this point. How adorable." She rolled her eyes, patronizing in her exasperation. "I'd really like to stress how much that just is not going to happen, Blake. I have eyes on this entire district; no, this entire city. Sewers, engineering, it doesn't matter where they run to. There is nowhere they can hide from me. I will hunt them down and root them out, just like I did today, and I won't be taking prisoners. So that can happen, and you can tell yourself you were able to get something by me while I make you watch everyone who ever mattered to you die. Starting with her."

She nodded to where Eve had gone deathly, eerily still, hunched over on her knees with face obscured by her long tresses of scarlet as she clutched her mangled hand. It was unclear whether she was listening, or even capable of doing so.

"Or."

She let the syllable hang in the air, a monument in its solitude as her frigid gaze softened.

"There doesn't have to be any more pain. For any of you. Call your associates back here and I'll even let them get on an airship and fly away. The Shadow Fang gets to cut its losses and go be some other kingdom's nuisance, a majority of its power structure intact. See? No more faunus have to suffer tonight. And the pain that's already been inflicted..."

She turned away from where Eve was prostrated, the flicker of disgust and regret crossing her features so potent it had Carnelian affixing her with a level, disapproving scowl rather than either of his prey.

"...can be taken care of."

Her breath was deep.

"And all it takes is-"

"LIKE HELL!"

Eve had been listening. To every word.

And the more she heard, the more something was coming unglued in her already-fragile psyche. Cracks that formed years ago were being pried open after a long, arduous process of erosion, scars that never healed. Pain that never went away. Every urge and impulse she had wanted to hurt these two humans, wanted to carve out the faunus's penance in their flesh. Blake's presence, the condition she was in, was like the powder keg to her lit fuse.

Her instincts were screaming at her, so instinct was what she acted on. She didn't think. She just did. There was nothing premeditated or planned about what she did next; it was just what every drop of blood in her body burned with the desire to do in that moment. That was why Carnelian didn't see it coming, didn't see Eve lunge for him head-first, didn't see the teeth of the mad dog he created sink deep into his cheek's leathery flesh before it was already happening.

Eve saw red.

Then, so did Blake, as every molar in the bull's mouth was suddenly awash with that murderous crimson glow.

SHRIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP



When their vision cleared, Carnelian was taking several rapid lurches away from the two auraless faunus, coppery aura flickering dimly as it tried and failed to process its abrupt and total decimation, from an almost full gauge right down to the negatives. That didn't seem to be where his immediate concern lay, though.

Both hands clutched at his face, futilely attempting to stem the gushing tide of blood erupting through his fingers. A low, guttural rattle was coming from the general's throat, like the bray of a dying wildebeest as its predator closed in.

Eve spat, and a significant portion of Carnelian's face splattered against the tiles at their feet as she rounded on a blanching Weiss with a frenzied roar, teeth bared and stained red.

View attachment 801030

"YOU THINK IT'S THAT EASY? YOU THINK THERE'S A SOLUTION TO EVERYTHING YOUR CANCER OF A SPECIES HAS DONE?! YOU'VE SHOWN US YOUR SOLUTION! TIME AND TIME AGAIN! I THINK ABOUT IT EVERY TIME I SEE THIS FACE, AND I'M GONNA THINK ABOUT IT EVERY TIME I TRY TO WRITE WITH THIS HAND! SO HERE'S HOW EASY IT IS FOR ME, HUMANS! HERE'S MY SOLUTION!"

Quivering, she jabbed one of her still-functional fingers for Weiss and took a step forward.

"A SCHNEE AND A SENILE OLD NOBODY DIE TONIGHT! THE SNOW COVERS THEIR BONES, THE WORLD FORGETS THEIR NAMES, AND SOON ENOUGH THE NEXT PAIR OF SELF-AGGRANDIZING MORONS GET TO COME ALONG AND TELL OUR PEOPLE THAT THEY KNOW BEST! AND THE DAMNEDEST PART OF IT ALL? THE PART THAT REALLY MAKES MY BLOOD BOIL? YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING! YOU DON'T HAVE A GODDAMN CLUE, 'CAUSE IF YOU DID YOU'D KNOW YOU CANNOT STOP THIS!"

View attachment 801042

She staggered towards the mystified councilwoman with arms outstretched, more specter than person as she ignored the protesting crackling of her joints. Weiss looked a bit smaller than usual, truth be told, but her response was nevertheless immediate, a hand shooting up to conjure a blue fireball in its palm as she pointed it steadily for the ragged Eve and simply raised an eyebrow in Blake's direction.

"So it would seem."​

At this point, the amount of conscious Blake actually was questionable. Regardless of however high her tolerance for pain actually was, or how high the limits of her willpower reached, her body simply didn't have the capability to meet Weiss' speech halfway this time, the ragged sound her breath made indicative of a punctured lung. One leg was too broken to stand on, and her vision was swimming after the strike Carnelian had planted onto her forehead as she nonetheless used her good leg to situate herself onto her knees, her form swaying as she took in the violence that suddenly exploded around them. A shaky hand switched Gambol to gun mode in her grip, and she levelled it at Schnee as Eve shouted at her.

Then Ilia struck, and she pivoted her aim for Carnelian instead and emptied the clip into the auraless monster. her thoughts were still a bloody haze of rage and fury, but even in that state she knew she was about as dangerous to Weiss Schnee as a kitten trying to bat away a storm cloud.

 

[Gus Gungus]

With a soft click, it was at that moment her whip extended outward in the blink of an eye, aimed to wrap around the torso of the taken aback maiden and deliver enough shocks to...well, best case scenario was a knockout but Ilia would settle for painfully debilitate and temporarily stun. Not only that, but the chameleon faunus planted her feet and pulled on her lash, intent on also swinging Weiss over to slam hard into the auraless general and put him down for the count too. Whatever the case though, her eyes immediately shot over to Eve and then Blake. The latter would be going nowhere fast, and the former...well, same to be honest. Not in the best condition to get out quick, but she could at least walk. If given enough time...yeah. Or if one of the others among their number came to assist as well. Though she had promised to do what it took to stop the Shadow Fang from doing...all the wrong they were doing, at the same time...she'd given another promise too.

And just over there, Weiss Schnee, that was the bitch who'd caught her, imprisoned her and brought her to that dark castle and all that entailed. Wasn't much of a choice.

Her eyes shifted back over to said maiden and the general to assess their condition.

It had to be serendipity that the moment Ilia made her play was also the moment Eve lunged for the Weiss with the bloodthirsty snarl of a woman possessed, because quite frankly the probability that the bull even was even registering her presence right now seemed low. Twin columns of glyphs were already awaiting her, of course, but the subsequent bombardment of projectiles was evaded with surprising deftness given her current mental state, the taste of blood on her lips and the second object of all her accumulated rage and loathing within her sights. There would be no compromise, no retreat. As far as she was concerned, at least one of five was leaving the room in a bodybag. Her front-facing offensive dodged and back still squarely facing Ilia, it seemed the heiress had nowhere to go.

Then, right as Ilia flicked her wrist and unfurled her whip, she spoke.

"Do you seriously think I'd allow myself to be ambushed in a warehouse full of ninjas?"

The whip was mid-crack when it was suddenly snagged, what felt like inches from making contact with Weiss's skin, and the gently revolving glyph holding it fast abruptly split into five as Lightning Lash's current made them spark and crackle. Those present felt the hairs on the back of their neck stand on end, their senses assailed by the faint taste of ozone.

KRAKOOM

Then, in a manner not dissimilar from Blake's turbulent entry, five bolts of premium grade lightning ejected from the glyphs like missiles, bent on striking Ilia into submission with equal parts her own weapon's charge and Myrtenaster's lightning canister.

The good(?) news was that aiming without turning took concentration, and while Ilia's whip had made it within inches Eve's clawing grip was now barely centimeters away from the councilwoman's throat.

At this point, the amount of conscious Blake actually was questionable. Regardless of however high her tolerance for pain actually was, or how high the limits of her willpower reached, her body simply didn't have the capability to meet Weiss' speech halfway this time, the ragged sound her breath made indicative of a punctured lung. One leg was too broken to stand on, and her vision was swimming after the strike Carnelian had planted onto her forehead as she nonetheless used her good leg to situate herself onto her knees, her form swaying as she took in the violence that suddenly exploded around them. A shaky hand switched Gambol to gun mode in her grip, and she levelled it at Schnee as Eve shouted at her.

Then Ilia struck, and she pivoted her aim for Carnelian instead and emptied the clip into the auraless monster. her thoughts were still a bloody haze of rage and fury, but even in that state she knew she was about as dangerous to Weiss Schnee as a kitten trying to bat away a storm cloud.

Far from a helpless old man even in his current state, the trail of blood spoke to the amount of distance Carnelian had managed to cover even in what appeared to be a dazed stagger—Perhaps less so than it spoke to the sheer amount of damage wrought upon his face. The indistinct strip of flesh Eve had spat out wasn't particularly telling, but the volume of blood being lost and the fact that Eve had been channeling the destructive lethality of her semblance through her teeth painted a picture.

Blurred as her vision was, she still felt two rounds wing his left shoulder even as he started to move before they were fired, and his movements were jerky rather than smooth and gliding per usual as he rounded a corner behind some crates. That was around when she heard an impact proceed the thunderstrike amid the sudden cacophony of violence, and any amount of attention paid to the other skirmish revealed one half of a pair of enormous metal greaves extending from a larger-than-average glyph projected above and in front of the maiden, its plated boot brought down on Eve's sternum as it slowly increased the pressure. Somehow the bull was still writhing, clawing, still reaching out towards her enemy as if unaware of any imminent threat to her wellness.

Crack.

Weiss hadn't even uncrossed her arms. She dropped them politely in front of her with hands clasped and continued to affix Blake with that same placid, expectant look, very much carrying herself as above the violence she was inflicting even as Eve continued to howl and buck and squirm and her bones continued to voice their objections.

Crack.



"You have my terms, Belladonna. Now you have to decide. Give the order and this stops now. Don't? And it doesn't."​

 

[MyrtenRose]

"Do you seriously think I'd allow myself to be ambushed in a warehouse full of ninjas?"

"In a perfect world, the answer would be y--" Her face changed in an instant as she cut herself off right on the last syllable.

Not this time, jerkface.

The split-second her aura forewarned her of incoming danger, Ilia threw down a vial of fire dust. A decent blast erupted outward, flames reaching up into the air and smoke billowing alongside, temporarily obscuring the chameleon faunus. She used that, the fact that the blasts had been fired without even turning to face her as well as her smaller stature to her advantage and as the blasts of lightning surged forward into the smoke, no screams of pain or even a single grunt echoed out from that area. It seemed they didn't strike their intended target after all. For a short time there were no sounds actually, at least not from Ilia. Not this time. I'm not bound up in your unfair glyphs and trapped on your turf. You're not going to get me like that again. She thought with distaste, recalling those meteor strikes. A plan of action on how to best proceed from here was--​

That was around when she heard an impact proceed the thunderstrike amid the sudden cacophony of violence, and any amount of attention paid to the other skirmish revealed one half of a pair of enormous metal greaves extending from a larger-than-average glyph projected above and in front of the maiden, its plated boot brought down on Eve's sternum as it slowly increased the pressure. Somehow the bull was still writhing, clawing, still reaching out towards her enemy as if unaware of any impediments.

Crack.

Weiss hadn't even uncrossed her arms. She dropped them politely in front of her with hands clasped and continued to affix Blake with that same placid, expectant look, very much carrying herself as above the violence she was inflicting even as Eve continued to howl and buck and squirm and her bones continued to voice their objections.

Crack.

--THROWN RIGHT OUT THE METAPHORICAL WINDOW AS THOSE SOUNDS REACHED HER EARS.

Any strategy or tactic was dropped just as the handle of her whip was. It wouldn't be much use caught in that glyph anyway. Ilia came into sight as she charged through what was left of the smoke, face ablaze with anger and any thought of her own personal safety not even remotely considered as the chameleon girl just tried to straight up tackle Weiss to the ground like this was a life or death game of football, Ilia's voice raising to as loud as she could possibly bring it as she demanded fiercely:

"LET HER GO!"​

 

[MidwayLives]

"BLAKE!!!"

Ruby's screams echoed throughout the room but they were soon silenced by Ector's next move.

The feral bandit had been close enough to the vicinity of ground zero that she was lifted off her feet. Flung across the warehouse and left rolling across the ground until she was left in little more than a bloodied and bruised heap. At this point given the multiude of injuries that lined her body, the easiest option would likely have been to stay down. Fresh wounds that would soon develop into gruesome scars and old ones-some self inflicted/others through her life as Ozpin's 'friend'-laid bare for the world to see. Crescent Rose lay on the ground beside her. Her head hurt and the ringing in her ears still hadn't ceased. If anything, she thought the noise coming from the explosion only made it worse.

It would have been nice to simply close her eyes and sleep? Would have felt like somethin right out of a dream.

But as a streak of blood slowly made it's way down her forehead and over the bridge of her nose, she grit her teeth and grimaced. Dreams and rest were for those who didn't have obligations, goals, things they needed to put before anything else. What would it say if Ruby had managed to let Blake wander away? Raising her flesh and blood arm to her mouth, Ruby opened her mouth and placed the side of her hand in her mouth.

Then she bit down.

It hurt. Not any worse than that faunus's teeth or claws. Or the soundwaves she'd been forced to endure. As the crimson trail ebbed down from her hand and over her teeth, she couldn't help but feel a sense of relief. The smell and taste of freshly spilt blood invigorated her and got her to keep moving even when by all accounts her body pleaded for her to stop. Reaching out to grasp the handle of her scythe with her prosthetic, Ruby released her other hand from her bite and let it fall to her side. Shifting herself into a seated position, she planted the bottom of Crescent Rose's handle against the ground as she stood up, a very noticeable bite mark on her hand and the rest of her looking just as bad.



Ruby's chest was wracked with heavy breaths. Her posture looked unsteady.

But her eyes were focused.

She closed her hand into a fist, squelching the blood as it ran down her arm and onto the floor.

"You think you can just....run away...Blake? No..."

Having been caught by the blast, Ruby doubted Blake was in much better shape than she was. Which meant she couldn't have gotten far.

An unhealthy stream of blood ran down the length of Ruby's arm and as the last droplet hit, she was gone. Rose petals descending to land delicately in the puddle left behind.

~~~
​

Weiss hadn't even uncrossed her arms. She dropped them politely in front of her with hands clasped and continued to affix Blake with that same placid, expectant look, very much carrying herself as above the violence she was inflicting even as Eve continued to howl and buck and squirm and her bones continued to voice their objections.

Crack.

"You have my terms, Belladonna. Now you have to decide. Give the order and this stops now. Don't? And it doesn't."

"I...I'd do as she says..."

Ruby was in two words: in tatters.

The nicely done suit she'd wore in an effort to try and 'fit in' more among Weiss's more sophisticated allies was nowhere to be seen. Her pitch black pants and matching boots the only thing that hadn't been torn to pieces or soaked in her own blood. Her previously well done hair was a ruffled mess covered in splotches of dried blood from having been tossed here and there against the walls and floors. Her nose looked slightly ajar and her nostrils flared. Crescent Rose stood at her side, her artificial fingers wrapped firmly around the handle.

She saw the situation and perhaps it was the severe amount of pain she was in, but it didn't seem to register all that much. The last time she'd seen Eve was when Ruby had been captured by her in what felt like months ago. The scene that greeted her made Ruby think back to what she'd told the faunus back then.

"You're not an animal. Don't act like one."

Though, given how feral Ruby had been acting, it felt more like looking into a mirror.

As her eyes scanned over to IIia, her breathing became more rapid. The one who'd gotten away.

--THROWN RIGHT OUT THE METAPHORICAL WINDOW AS THOSE SOUNDS REACHED HER EARS.

Any strategy or tactic was dropped just as the handle of her whip was. It wouldn't be much use caught in that glyph anyway. Ilia came into sight as she charged through what was left of the smoke, face ablaze with anger and any thought of her own personal safety not even remotely considered as the chameleon girl just tried to straight up tackle Weiss to the ground like this was a life or death game of football, Ilia's voice raising to as loud as she could possibly bring it as she demanded fiercely:

"LET HER GO!"

Ruby vanished once more.

Quickly closing whatever distance there might have been between herself and the faunus, Ruby lashed out to grab the girl by the neck with her prosthetic hand.

Lifted straight off the ground and all that.

Ruby's breaths seemed more and more tired and labored as they went on. Clearly, she was exhausted.

But if the twitch in her eye and the sheer ferocity laden within those silver eyes showed anything, it was a resilient determination to not give in despite her body and everything else telling her 'hey you're pretty messed up why not rest?'. The grip grew tighter as Ruby's eyes narrowed and she bared her teeth.

"...No...."
​

 

[MyrtenRose]

Ruby vanished once more.

Quickly closing whatever distance there might have been between herself and the faunus, Ruby lashed out to grab the girl by the neck with her prosthetic hand.

Lifted straight off the ground and all that.

Ruby's breaths seemed more and more tired and labored as they went on. Clearly, she was exhausted.

But if the twitch in her eye and the sheer ferocity laden within those silver eyes showed anything, it was a resilient determination to not give in despite her body and everything else telling her 'hey you're pretty messed up why not rest?'. The grip grew tighter as Ruby's eyes narrowed and she bared her teeth.

"...No...."

The second Ilia got snatched mid-air by the super quick Ruby Rose, the chameleon just redirected the momentum she already had and spun to slam her knee right into the feral wolf girl's nose with a ferocity that seemed way more characteristic of Eve Taurus or this Blake Belladonna but it came out of the tinier Ilia all the same, her teeth just as bared as Ruby's own.

"No? No?!? Screw you!" She shook wildly in Ruby's grip, both hands reaching up to pry her grip loose and at the same time struck out with another kick, angrily planting her boot right into the girl's stomach. The moment the heavily injured Rose's grip loosened, Ilia went to tackle her instead of Weiss and knock her to the ground, followed by Ilia straight up grabbing her by the hair and slamming the back of her head into the floor before going for a few punches across the face and then trying to grab Ruby herself by the remains of her outfit and fling her straight at Weiss, 110% willing to try and beat a motherfucker with another motherfucker.​

 

[Gus Gungus]

The second Ilia got snatched mid-air by the super quick Ruby Rose, the chameleon just redirected the momentum she already had and spun to slam her knee right into the feral wolf girl's nose with a ferocity that seemed way more characteristic of Eve Taurus or this Blake Belladonna but it came out of the tinier Ilia all the same, her teeth just as bared as Ruby's own.

"No? No?!? Screw you!" She shook wildly in Ruby's grip, both hands reaching up to pry her grip loose and at the same time struck out with another kick, angrily planting her boot right into the girl's stomach. The moment the heavily injured Rose's grip loosened, Ilia went to tackle her instead of Weiss and knock her to the ground, followed by Ilia straight up grabbing her by the hair and slamming the back of her head into the floor before going for a few punches across the face and then trying to grab Ruby herself by the remains of her outfit and fling her straight at Weiss, 110% willing to try and beat a motherfucker with another motherfucker.​

Which was when both of them were swallowed up by a blast that, while not 100% exactly like this, was sorta close to it.

"I have had enough distractions. One way or another, this is OVER."​