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A commission done for me by ggftl for my RWBY fanfic, Big Issues.
To read the events of what was happening, here's the chapter. Big Issues Chapter 8Big IssuesInvestigations Part ThreeHei Xiong couldn’t believe what had happened to the girl who had dragged him back to the bar, where once reaching the counter had released his arm to allow him to go behind the bar itself. The blue-haired boy followed Blondie slowly, looking at her with some amount of respect, wonder, and possibly a little fear that she might turn her strength and attitude on him.The much taller man immediately poured himself a drink from under the counter and knocking it back in one go. “I’m guessing you’re here for information again?” He asks, getting a curt nod from the blonde who wore an expression that she wasn’t going to be taking any crap. He sighs, “Fine, but before you ask your questions, I need a few answered myself. Consider it a trade. Deal?”The girl leaned back and crossed her arms under her considerable bust. “Just questions and answers for questions and answers?” She clarifies.“Yeah, still pissed at what you did last time you were here but there’s only so much I can do about that.” He noticed her eyes flick down to his cup and lock on his own once more. “Strawberry sunrise?” He asked, recalling what she had ordered but never received. Besides, if a simple drink was going to keep her from causing damage again, he’d get her them all day… so long as she paid.“No ice, please.” At least she was using some manners. A minute later and Blondie was sipping at her glass, not commenting on the fact that he’d given her less alcohol than standard, she was underage most likely. “So, what do you want to know?” She relents.“Been hearing that the students at Beacon are getting fattened up and the cops don’t know why. I’m kinda hoping that you could enlighten me.” Junior asks, pouring himself another drink but leaving it to sit on the counter for now.She quirked an eyebrow at him before gesturing at her own body. “This enough proof for ya?”“Not really sure if you’ve been partying too much or if you are one of the students up on those cliffs.” Was the gruff and blunt response. Junior did notice that the boy took half a step away from Blondie.She sighs as she leans on the counter, her stomach pressing against the counter as her chest rested on her arms. “Yeah, it’s hitting everyone. Not just Beacon, but Haven, Shade, and Atlas too. Students and the teachers and anyone else who were there for a while.” Yang looks up at the man who towered over both her and her partner for the night.“It’s not going to spread into the city, is it?” “Not as far as I know. They say it’s some kind of chemical that was put into the schools’ water supplies that makes us get fat fast.” Yang swings her arm to right to catch Neptune’s middle, hard enough to show the paunch he’d developed but managed to hide under his jacket.“As you can see, it hits girls a lot harder than it does the guys.”“Is it fixed? How’d it start?” Xiong pressed.“They got doctors running tests on us every week trying to find a way to stop this, but no such luck yet. As for how it started,” she shrugs. “No idea. The best we heard so far was that it started around the beginning of the second semester, no one noticed at first but it didn’t take long before girls started blowing up like balloons.” She emphasized the last part with a pat to the stomach, causing the soft flesh to jiggle.“Alright, I get it Butterball. Maybe I can get some of my sources to look into things.” Junior says before downing his drink and pouring another right away and refilled Yang’s sunrise while he was at it. He also made sure to write down the tally for the price of her drinks on a napkin in plain sight for her.While Yang initially fumed about the name, she had to admit that Butterball was a rather apt description of her figure now.“Fine, now how about answering my questions.” She states as she leans against the bar once more. “Tell me what you know about Roman Torchwick.”Irritation crossed Junior’s face. “So, you’re trying to track him down too?” The big man asks, receiving a nod of confirmation from the shorter girl. “You, me, and every cop and Huntsman in the kingdom. Bastards always been slippery to catch and strong enough when forced to fight that almost nobody’s been able to hold him for long.”“Seemed that way when some friends of mine ran into him working with the White Fang a couple months ago.” Yang admits.“Heard he was working with them, still find it hard to believe. He’s never been one for dealing with Faunus for anything more than business and even then, he’d take his chances with a human over them when possible.” That raised plenty of questions about the flamboyant criminals’ actions.“When was the last time you saw him?”“Last time I saw him was the night you first came here, looking for some extra muscle. Lent him a few boys and never saw any of them again. I did hear that he was at the docks a while back and failed at stealing a big shipment of Dust from Atlas. Other than that, he’s been hitting any place that sells or stores Dust- warehouses, refiners, shops, you name it. Hardly a merchant in the trade who hasn’t lost some of their merchandise to Roman at some point over the past year.”Neptune was doing a poor job of being back up in any sense of the word, seemingly content to stand back and let Yang do all of the talking while he watched them both, occasionally looking around at the few patrons that were around and the staff that were watching him. The only part of intimidation that he carried was the knowledge among the security and the owner that he was a Huntsman in training… not exactly someone that should be taken lightly and the grunts would stand as much of a chance against him as they did to Yang during her last visit. Plus, the fact that he was with her would mean that there were two Huntsmen to deal with rather than a single girl who’d yet to attend Beacon’s orientation.“Anything else that you’re not telling me? You know what I could do to you.” Yang stood in by the bar as Junior got rid of her glass once she finished, a signal that she was being cut off.Hei slammed his own glass to the counter after draining it and slumped down to rest his elbows on the surface, putting him at eye level with his interrogator. “I don’t know.” He growls.“How can you not know?” Yang crosses her arms once more, annoyed that an information dealer had such little information to deal with.“I haven’t talked to him. I haven’t even seen him since the night that you first came in here.” Junior waved his arms to accent his words. “He paid up front, I lent him my men, and none of them ever came back.” He stood up to his full height and leaned over the bar to indicate how serious he was about this. Even in his hunched over position, he was still head and shoulders taller than the blonde woman who didn’t so much as flinch at his attempt to intimidate. Even pointing at Yang’s face didn’t help.Then Neptune decided to try playing ‘Bad Cop’… badly. “So where did they go?” He asks, slamming his hand on the counter with enough force to knock the glass over to roll along the polished black surface.Junior slowly looked over at the boy, incredulous at the gall he had. “What kind of stupid question is that? They never came back!” He waved a hand in the air in frustration. He turns back to Yang and pointing a thumb back at the boy. “Who is this guy?”Yang uncrosses her arms to smack Neptune in the face hard enough to get the taller teen to back off and stand at attention. “Don’t worry about him, worry about me if I don’t find what I want!” This was the first time today that she was beginning to get angry and she was letting it show a bit.Junior stood a little straighter with both hands on the bar. “I already told you everything! Torchwick hired my boys and I guess he wasn’t happy with them!” He turns away to face the rest of the club and raised his voice. “Which is something I can relate to!” A few of the suited grunts stopped in their tracks to look back at their boss, one of the men was sitting around by the entrance taking offense to the accusation- despite demonstrating why his boss was pissed off at him and his coworkers.Yang hangs her head in resigned acceptance that this was the best that she was going to get before turning around and walking away. “C’mon Neptune.”The taller boy made sure to follow the plump blonde closely, keeping his hands in his jacket pockets. “We get everything we need?”“Well, we got everything we can. Hopefully the rest of the team is having better luck.”Junior was left at the bar alone. He picks up the fallen glass cup and the napkin he was using to tally her tab for drinks… eventually using it to clean out the container. “If she gives Torchwick an ass-whooping, skipping her tab will be fine… tonight.”BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBack with Blake and Sun… things weren’t going so well. The crowd of new recruits still moved around them as they stood still but the herd was thinning and while the chanting of the White Fang members was still going strong, Roman was getting used to it and looking around.“What are we gonna do?” Sun leans closer to whisper.“I’m thinking.” Blake was still looking around, trying to find a way out without giving them too much trouble. Yet while she was looking for an escape route, Sun was watching their quarry.“He sees us.” He watches as the criminal mastermind recognizes him and tosses away his cigar in frustration.But the comment from her blonde friend gave Blake an idea, along with spotting a power junction box on the wall. “He can’t see in the dark.” He tone was almost playful as she looked her partner in the eyes… as best she could through the slits in their masks.A moment later, Blake had drawn the sword/gun half of Gambol Shroud from her back and transformed it to gun mode. Already aiming at the junction box by the time the weapon finished its conversion, she pulled the trigger as soon as it was ready. Her bullet struck true in the box, punching holes into the panels and showering sensitive spaces with the debris- immediately plunging the warehouse into darkness.“Don’t let them get away!” Roman could be heard yelling over the shocked crowd, some of whom had already begun panicking and scrambling. Several shots were fired by Blake at the guards on the catwalks to take them out or at the very least provide a distraction while the Fang guards scrambled for cover.“Sun! The window!”“Stop them!” Roman cried out before the sounds of whirring motors and electronics powered up.Blake was the first to leap for the windows, so dirty that very little light actually made it through them, just enough for a cat faunus like herself to see where the panels of glass were at but not enough for much else. Her arms smashed through the chosen glass, crossed to protect her face and brace against the impact. Fresh air caught her nose as her head emerged outside of the dark and dingy warehouse. Then the air was driven from her lungs when she came to a sudden stop.She didn’t need her eyes to realize why. Her arms felt how strong the glass was as they smashed through and that strength likely cost her a lot of momentum. That didn’t make for a good excuse when her stomach caught the window sill, driving the breath out of her and her forward motion halted as her hips and butt found the surprisingly strong bars that held the glass sheets. Adrenaline enhanced her reflexes and numbed her to any pain she was in at the moment as she used her hands to immediately start trying to push her way through by bracing her hands on the wall.Sun was right behind his partner… and had noticed her predicament. As much as he wanted to help her, he was in no position to do so. He was already in midair following Blake’s trajectory. His years of training to be a Huntsman along with more tree climbing than most would believe had honed his ability to judge distance and such almost instinctually. Thus, he found himself in flight to crash into Blake’s rear head first.If Blake was feeling embarrassed about getting herself stuck in the window because her ass had grown so much, it was easily doubled when she heard “Oh sh-!” right before a face rammed itself into her right cheek. On one hand, she was now free as that was enough force to get her soft posterior through. On the other, Sun was suddenly being filled with weird thoughts and feelings as the pair tumbled to the ground, having the ability to land on their feet and run away from the sounds of angry Faunus, gunfire, and a massive machine coming to life.It didn’t take long for the Paladin to smash its way through the brick wall of the warehouse and begin chasing to duo, who opted for trying to shake Torchwick by taking to the roofs of the warehouse district, even using a few parked cars on occasion. The latter suffered a bit whenever Blake landed on them, she was well over two hundred pounds standing still let alone the increase of force that would be applied to the chassis of the vehicles as she lands on them from a two story drop or using them a step before leaping to higher landings. Sun was still relatively light on his feet as his gains were minimal in comparison, still more than enough to dent a few roofs with his landings.At the speeds that the three of them were moving, it didn’t take them long to move from the commercial district to skirting the residential, Sun and Blake opting to keep to the roofs of buildings and veered away from the houses. Torchwick continued to follow them on the roads, not caring that the mech he piloted kicked or stepped on a parked car, the mech was powerful and heavy enough that the other vehicles were barely considered obstacles at all.“So, you wouldn’t happen to have…” Sun had to pause his speech as he landed on another building. His physically larger partner keeping up with him but having some trouble on the landings now. “I don’t know…” Another landing and his sarcasm were still intact as he was being serious. “Some form of back up?”“On it!” Blake was getting slightly winded from the long run and constant jumping. She pulled out her scroll and was never so glad to have a speed dial function on the device as she had no time to slow down and do things manually. Nearly instantly, her message was sent out to her three teammates.Weiss was leaving the elevator after spending some time reviewing the data she’d received when the call came through on speaker, something that Ruby had insisted they have just in case set up. “Everyone! If you can hear this, we need back- ““Help!” Blake was speaking first but Sun was close and loud enough that he drowned her out. Weiss rolled her eyes before running out of the CCT.Ruby was still in the alley where Penny had left her, though the dumpster still held the rat and the lid was weighed down by anything she could find nearby, a couple large planks, a few loose bricks, and a steel trashcan. Maybe it was a little excessive for dealing with a single rodent… that she knew of… but it did cause her to panic and flop around in garbage. Perhaps now they were even.“They got a robot, and it’s big, really big!” Ruby was listening to her scroll as Sun gave his ‘report’.Her face broke into a smile, “Oh! I am not missing this!” With that, the rotund reaper ran off following the tracking signal that the call also broadcasted. It actually gave her joy to see that it was moving fast and not too far away.Yang and Neptune had mounted Bumblebee but had yet to start the engine, Yang wearing her yellow helmet and aviator glasses as she was ready to drive when the call came through.“The Torchwick guy is in it! But not like, it didn’t eat him- “Clearly Sun was panicking a bit, but the exhaustion from running so much was clear enough to those listening. Even Blake’s labored breathing could be heard. “He’s like, controlling it or something!”“Where are you guys?” Yang asks, having yet to switch to the tracker.That was when Blake and Sun ran past the end of the alley that they were in with the Paladin stomping on their heels. “Hurry!” The pair on the bike didn’t need the scroll to hear Sun yelling as they watched the chase go by.“I think that was them.” Neptune stated the obvious.“Yeah, I got it.” Yang was all business now as she put away her scroll and started her bike. Moments later she gunned the engine to spin the rear tire to whip Bumblebee around and peel off in pursuit of her friends and the mech.Sun and Blake leapt to the freeway from some nearby buildings, landing on the hoods of a pair of cars. For Blake, the ride was a relief to her legs as they burned from all of the running, she had done tonight. Looking back, she found herself having to jump away once more as the Paladin jumped onto the road and nearly crushing a car under its massive feet. Yes, the cars that the faunus had landed on did honk their horns at them but that was nothing in comparison to the horns directed at Torchwick as he directed the war machine to chase after them, even kicking a few out of his way.“Woah!” Sun yells as one car nearly goes over the edge from his place on the back of another car, having leapt there to gain some distance from the criminal, Blake was watching from the other lane.At that point, it was all the Faunus could do as the Paladin ran faster than the flow of traffic, Sun and Blake jumping from car to car and crossing paths as needed to make their landings and not allow Torchwick to focus on either one of them. More cars were kicked as the metal beast raced on the freeway. It was at this point that a yellow motorcycle caught up after weaving through the disrupted traffic.“We gotta slow it down!” Yang calls over the noise of her engine, the rushing wind, the horns of the other motorists, and the crushing footfalls of the Paladin.“Got it!” Neptune answers, having had pulled his goggles down to deal with the wind. He began to reach for the collapsed rifle on his back.Inside the Paladin, Torchwick heard the beeping of an alarm and the accompanying red, flashing light, his sensors showing him the pair on the bike just behind him. Needless to say, he wasn’t happy about that and took it out in a dramatic way. He purposely ran into a clump of cars, causing them to veer out of control, even using the mechs arms to smack the vehicles into the air to careen behind him.Yang saw the hazards as she already had to drift back to avoid the cars that Torchwick hadn’t hit. “Hold on!”“Uh-oh! Woah!” Was all that Neptune could say as the blonde gunned her engine and weaved through the drifting and falling cars, throwing her considerable weight to help tip the bike into seemingly impossible maneuvers as her passenger flailed in an attempt to keep his seat.Finally, they broke free and hit open road, most of the other drivers having pulled to the sides to avoid the pileup and what had caused it in the first place. That was when Neptune was able to pull his weapon, Tri-Hard, from his back and open it up into its rifle mode. Several shots of lightning Dust rounds impacted the back of the mech, causing it to stumble slightly before the systems auto-corrected.Neptune stood up on the back of the bike and transformed his weapon into its guandao form with a spinning flourish before leaping into the air for the Paladin, Tri-Hard changing from guandao to trident as he flew and pierced the armor.Blake landed on the roof of a van, having to roll to her feet as her tired legs gave out from under her briefly. Sun landed on a nearby truck and trailer. “Neptune! Hang on!” The monkey boy yells even as his friend was being bucked around by the mech, that had even begun spinning its body around as its legs kept it moving as if everything was normal.Sun stood tall, took a breath and clasped his hands as if in prayer. His blonde hair and tail glowed gold as two golden clones of himself appeared by his side, one of which had drawn its own copy of his staff weapon before they leapt towards the mech. Neither of which were able to land any sort of attack beyond exploding against the armor. Sun finally was able to move now that he wasn’t using his semblance and jumped to assist his friend and teammate, pulling his weapon out in the process. Unfortunately, it was at this time that the Paladin spun its body again and Tri-Hard was dislodged, throwing Neptune off as a by-product and into the path of the incoming Faunus. The boys collided and fell over the edge of the freeway with yells.“Blake! I’m in position!” Came Weiss’ voice over Blake’s scroll. Blake looked over her shoulder to see the bottom-heavy heiress dropping down from an overpass to the road she was currently traveling, Myrtenaster at the ready half a mile ahead. Weiss ignored the cars passing her by, including the one carrying her teammate as she waited for Torchwick to come to her. At the speeds that they were traveling at, it didn’t take long for the girl to judge that the mech was close enough and spun herself before stabbing her rapier into the blacktop and coating the surface with a smooth sheet of ice.As expected, the feet couldn’t handle the slick surface and caused the to-heavy machine to fall over itself, even bouncing over the kneeling heiress on its way to the edge of the freeway where it crashed through the holographic walls to plunge to an open area below where Ruby was waiting with Crescent Rose in hand.It was unexpected however, that the mech was able to correct its fall in time in order to land on its feet, it’s legs and the crumbling ground beneath them absorbing most of the impact.Moments later, Yang had parked Bumblebee and jumped down to her sisters’ side. Weiss landed nearby as daintily as she could manage. Blake dropped to her knees the second her feet touched the ground and stayed in that position as she tried to get her burning muscles even a moments rest. That didn’t stop her or the rest of the girls from readying their weapons.The mech began stomping its way forward, Torchwick laughing inside the cockpit. “Freezerburn!” Ruby shouts, leading to Blake leaning back and jumping in that direction as Ruby swung her scythe around to use the recoil to help her move faster. Weiss spun once again before creating another sheet of ice around herself as Yang jumped straight up into the air and come back down with a fire Dust laden punch that turned the ice into a fog instantly, shrouding the entire area in white mists that slowly drifted around in the still air.Torchwick activated more sensors in response, multiple lasers meant for tracking motion and other obstacles came to life and began swiveling around in odd patterns. The lasers swept through the fog, illuminating the white mist red wherever they pointed, though the fog hindered their accuracy and range. Blurs of motion skirted the edges of his sight and sensors and so he began firing at them, knowing that he’d get lucky sometime.Yang ran as fast as she could, a pair of shots from the arm mounted Dust cannons nipping at her heels. Blake ran past her before they circled around, this time Torchwick was lucky as he shot the ground just behind Blake, who was able to jump away in relative safety. Yang took the brunt of the blast at her feet and was tossed away by the explosion. Ruby shot through the blast with her scythe to swing at the mech’s body, only to barely scratch the surface.“Checkmate!” The leader calls out as she lands and cocks another bullet. On cue, Weiss and Blake leapt out of the mists on either side of her and towards the hulking machine.Together the monochrome pair hacked and slashed at the joints of the legs several times before Blake turned a stumble into an attack on an ankle while Weiss jumped up to use a glyph as a platform so she could stab her rapier into one of the larger laser sensors and disrupting the systems a good bit as it also held one of the main cameras to the outside world. Having done that, Weiss jumped away a fair distance but upon landing she saw that Blake had yet to move, barely having risen to her feet. As Torchwick tried to stomp on the cat girl, Weiss created a glyph that pulled her back out of the way, the pieces of broken concrete were evidence of the fate she’d been spared of.Roman growled in annoyance as he’d yet been able to get any good hits in yet on the hefty women. He flicked another switch and pressed a button on the consol. “Let’s see how you like this!”Missile pods opened at the top of the Paladin to reveal two banks of ten tubes from which their missiles were launched. Weiss immediately created another glyph to push herself and her partner out of the way as the first missile struck where they had just been. A few more blew up the ground as the pair did their best to continue their momentum by flipping backwards and performing some handsprings.Weiss jumped a little too high and Roman took advantage of that with a shot from his Dust cannon. The girl managed to take the brunt of the blast with the flat of Myrtenaster’s blade but it still sent her flying back a fair distance. That didn’t stop Weiss from creating one last glyph before she hit the ground hard. That glyph spawned under Blake’s feet, glowing yellow and taking the shape of a clock with its hands spinning rapidly- Blake being infused with a golden glow as its effects took hold.Another set of missiles were launched at the Faunus with the hope that at least one of them would take her out. But Blake used the time dilation effects of the glyph to counter with her own ranged attack, focusing her purple aura into her blades and releasing it to cut at a distance. And cut those blades of aura did, cleanly slicing the explosives in half and causing them to prematurely detonate. Twenty of the rockets were destroyed in the span of mere seconds before they could even reach halfway to their target.Blake felt the glyph wear off as she finished, listening to the numerous explosions behind her as she once again took a knee to rest. That was short lived as Ruby ran by yelling “Ladybug!” The young girl used her scythe to catch the crotch of the mech to flip her self around and land safely behind the machine, causing a distraction from the recovering Faunus. Ruby fired a shot behind herself to propel her charge through the mechs legs once again, this time crossing paths with Blake who struck at the joints of the opposite leg as she passed. They repeated the cycle a few more times as Roman spun the body in an attempt to get a bead on either of them, firing his cannons with no luck of hitting the girlsThe next thing he knew, the pair were dropping from the sky and swinging their heavy blades with their own substantial weights behind them, managing to cut off the left arm cannon at the elbow.Yang had spent most of the fight recovering her bearings after being blasted and waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike back at the mech suit. And now was the best time as it was off balance and lost a good chunk of its firepower. She ran at a full sprint before leaping into the air, with an assisting blast from Ember Celica to get her pudgy body high enough to land on its back. Grabbing hold of the armor, it wasn’t too hard to find the holes that Neptune had made with his trident blades. She began discharging as many rounds of fire Dust shotgun shells as she could point blank into those holes as fast as she could with her right arm, with the force of her surprisingly great strength behind her punches helping to dent the metal.Inside the cockpit however, Torchwick was being tossed around in his seat by the force of the attacks and the constant alarms and flashing lights didn’t help him much. But the display showing his surroundings did give him an idea.The mech suddenly leapt backwards into the support columns for the freeway bridge overhead, smashing its way through one, then two of them, with Yang’s soft body being the only padding between the steel and concrete before she was slammed into a third hard enough to pin her there long enough for the mech to stand upright and turn around, exchanging the cannon for the manipulating hand on its remaining arm in the process. Yang started to fall limply before the fist reared back and drove forwards, shattering the pillar with her in front of the fist.Yang tumbled briefly before coming to a stop on her well-padded stomach. “Yang!” calls out in worry of her friend.Ruby glances at the faunus with confidence in her sister. “Don’t worry.” She says as she watches Yang slowly climb to her feet. “With each hit she get’s stronger, and she uses that energy to fight back! That’s what makes her special!” The rose ends with a smile as Yang stood up and clenched her fists.Torchwick couldn’t understand what it would take to take this girl down. He’d been shot with the cannon, smashed through reinforced concrete pillars and still stood up to fight him and the Paladin he was inside of. Maybe it was all of that fat absorbing the impacts. So why not go for a spot without the padding? The mech pulled its arm back once more and punched, aiming for the blondes exposed and bowed head. But the blow never reached her hair as she snapped her right arm out and caught his fist with her own, the force sent shockwaves that could be easily seen racing across her skin like jelly before they reached the ground through her solid bones and muscles where the force shattered the ground under her feet. But Yang stood strong and finally looked up at the mech with burning red eyes as her hair began to glow bright gold.Her left fist was cocked back and with a yell smashed the remaining arm of the mech into hundreds of pieces. Roman stumbled back, still safe within the cockpit but that punch had been strong enough to unbalance more than twenty tons of war machine and destroy part of it with ease. Still, he managed to regain control quickly enough to take the step needed to kick the girl in the stomach and send her flying past her teammates.“Bumblebee!” Ruby yells as Yang goes by, followed by Blake throwing the pistol half of Gambol Shroud to the blonde who manages to catch the hilt as she goes by Weiss who was just managing to stand up.Blake pulled the ribbon tight with a slight application of her aura and Yang’s momentum was changed, helped along with Yang landing on her feet to run and keep the tension. A boosting blast from her right gauntlet gave her enough speed combined with Blake’s tug to get the heavy girl air born long enough to attempt a dropkick on the mech, which took a step back to dodge.That was where problems began to set in for the team, despite Blake’s significant counterweight in her posterior, Yang was much heavier than that and her feet began to slide and her legs buckle under the strain. Weiss assisted with a gravity glyph that gave Blake the anchor she needed to maintain their impromptu physics lesson on force and balance.“We have to slow it down!” Ruby yells as Weiss stops next to her.“And how do you propose we do that?” The heiress asks as she maintains some focus on the black glyph behind her as the black and yellow pair continue to spin.“Ice Flower!” Ruby declares as she slams the bladed tip of Crescent Rose into the ground and taking aim at the mech as a trio of white glyphs float in front of the barrel of her rifle. Moments later, several rounds were fired from the snipier rifle, each of them passing through the glyphs and causing them to have a blue streaking tail like a comet until they impacted the mech. First one hit the shoulder that Ruby and Blake had cut the arm off of. The second hit the other shoulder. Three more rounds hit the hip, right knee, and left ankle. And with every impact, the bullet burst into a chunk of ice that froze onto the steel and into the gaps and joints.Once more Blake gave a tug on her ribbon, putting every ounce of strength into it that she had left as the gravity under her returned to normal. Yang at the same time took another running leap with a blast from Ember Celica to swing her way to the partially frozen machine, her hair bursting into golden flames that trailed behind her.Roman only had a moment to look at his sensors warning of the incoming danger before Yang’s fist impacted with the cockpit housing, the steel folding under her immense strength as if it were paper before the force sent the machine tumbling away from the seething blonde brawler, the multiple impacts and earlier damages proving to be too much and it fell apart around him. The criminal mastermind casually climbed out of the remains of the cockpit and brushed off his with jacket.“I just got this thing cleaned.” He complains, as it he wasn’t in the middle of a fight or that he’d been forced out of a military weapon.That casualness didn’t go over too well with Yang, who was the closest and Burn was still active fired an explosive round at the master thief. Only for an extremely short girl with pink and brown hair in a white coat and black pants to block the round with a pink umbrella, the flames harmlessly deflected away from the pair, even as Roman flinched on instinct.The new girl had no worries as she slowly rested the umbrella over her shoulder as the taller man stepped forward. “Ladies. Ice Queen.” He taunts.“Hey!” Weiss couldn’t stop her indignant shout from being singled out like that.“Always a pleasure. Just what are they feeding you kids at that fancy school of yours? Looks like plenty of cookies to me.” He’d moved from taunting them with pleasantries to insulting their weight and stoking their anger. “Neo, if you would.”The short girl simply offers a bow with a smile, never making a sound. Yang’s anger at the situation was already at the boiling point and the acts crossed the final line. She cocked a fresh round into the chambers of her gauntlets and charged forward with a yell, throwing a massive haymaker that likely would have broken yet another Paladin. Something did break when she punched the girl, both the girl and Roman shattered as if they were made of glass, leaving the furious blonde looking around trying to find them.The sound of turbine engines taking off was the big clue as team RWBY were forced to watch as Roman and Neo flew away in a Bullhead, smugly waving at them from the bay door until it closed and they were well out of range of their weapons to do any actual damage.Yang’s semblance deactivated now that the fight was over, her eyes returned to lilac and her hair stopped glowing. “So, I guess he got a new henchman.” She states, remembering her conversation with Junior.“Yeah, I guess she really made our plans… fall apart?” Weiss makes an attempt at a joke with an expectant grin on her face. Ruby snorted a few giggles at the unexpected humor from the local Ice Queen of Beacon.“No. Just, no.” Yang says as Blake walks away to sit on a large piece of rubble to rest her legs. She still found some amazement at how well her rump molded to surfaces to make her feel comfortable.“What? But you do it.” Weiss was once again indignant, this time at her blonde friend. Even going so far as to place her fists on her own wide hips.“There’s a time and a place for jokes.” Yang says as she begins to walk away for her bike.“Was this not it?” Weiss questions.“No, it just wasn’t very good.” The brawler dismisses.Weiss stuck her nose in the air. “Well at least I’m trying.” She admits as she walks over to rest with her faunus teammate.Ruby left alone, suddenly comes to a realization that she had missed for the duration of the fight. “Hey, where are Sun and Neptune?”A few minutes away by car, the boys of team SSSN sat at a noodle stand being served a meal. It was bad enough that they had been thrown from the bridge as it was, and Sun was exhausted from the chase. But the real kicker that was preventing them from trying to find the girls… was that they were lost in a city that they don’t know much about. Neither of them wanted to be the one to call someone from RWBY and potentially distract them during their fight. So, it was probably best that they sit and wait.“They’re probably fine, right?” Neptune asks his leader.“Probably.” Was the simple answer he was given as the boy was slumped over the counter, holding himself up on his elbows.Fifteen minutes later as they finished their bowls, an Atlesian Manta gunship landed nearby and a pair of soldiers demanded that they come with them. The boys shrugged and carried their weapons to the ship where they found Team RWBY waiting for them, somewhat cramped due to Bumblebee being loaded into the passenger cabin on Yang’s insistence. They were on their way back to Beacon as Atlas gathered the pieces of their prototype robot.DAIT DAIT DAIT DAIT DAIT DAIT DAIT DAITThe northern forest of Vale was full of activity today, a large pack of assorted Grimm were in battle with a team of four from Vacuo. A young Beowolf was decapitated without hesitation by the blonde in green, shortly followed by an older Beowolf trying to take advantage of the distraction by its younger kin to attack and only received the blunt end of the shaft swiftly rising into the bottom of its jaw for its trouble. The blade slicing it from crotch to shoulder ended its existence in a single smooth motion from the initial hit. Raijin struck fast.Anya was a being of brutal efficiency, her bladed gauntlets matched the claws of the Grimm and exceeded them, cutting into their flesh with ease. On occasion she’d fire a pistol round from the inner barrel of her gauntlets, the outer ones along with the strange slot behind it remaining empty. She lunged backwards to drive the blades the protruded past her elbows into the guts of another Beowolf before turning on her heels to rip them through and plunging the blade over her right hand into its neck. Another one approached from the left, it lost the claws and entire right paw to the serrated blades that ran down the outer side of her weapon. Sinners Punishment destroyed the Grimm with ease, as was their purpose to destroy the evil in the world.Nearby, the only Faunus was keeping on the move as she fired shotgun rounds into the heads and torsos of any Grimm within range. When their numbers coming at her were too much to handle in that fashion, a press of a button on the stock of her weapon split it in two, allowing her to target more than one of the creatures at once. Another button and a blade unfolded from the underside of each barrel to create a kama in each hand. The lesser Grimm didn’t stand a chance as she danced around their wild lunges and claws, hooking her blades around any extremity and lopping it off or blasting her guns into the creatures. The Foxes Fury were unleashed.Talon was a blur of motion, always twisting and turning out of the reach of the Grimm, only to duck into their guard and split their flesh with her twin scimitars, Karakaze and Sirocco. Many of the weaker Grimm fell to the whirlwind of blades wielded by the short, stout girl. Yet she continued to dance through the horde, as impossible to catch as the wind itself.While Team DAIT seemed to not be working as a team to take on their foes, it was a mindset from Shade that each of them should be individually strong and self-reliant. Depending on your teammates would only make the individual fighter weaker. That didn’t mean DAIT didn’t have its own combinations, they just weren’t used for weaklings like these.The Ursa didn’t stand any better chance than the Beowolves, and the Boarbatusk’s were simply treated as a nuisance and quickly dispatched. The Alpha Beowolf that started the fight had been killed in the opening moments of the skirmish but there was another one standing back and watching. The same was true for an Ursa Major… it didn’t help that the Ursa was probably the largest of its kind in the entire kingdom territory.But it was the Beringals that had the team worried. Not only was there the Silverback, but there were two more slightly smaller and less experiences of its kind flanking it. They simply stood there and watched as the pack they ruled over was destroyed with apparent ease. Their red, glowing eyes following the movements of the mortals, tracking every step, observing them for any perceived weakness.Within five minutes, nearly the entire pack besides the leaders were dissolved into ashes that blew away in the wind. The Silverback grunted a few times and the other four began to spread out around the team, the Silverback never leaving its place.“I dunno what’s going on but these Grimm are too smart to be good for Vale.” Talon comments as she does a brief look at her blades.“They’ve been around for a long time. They’ve learned to learn.” Denko replies, as much as he was enjoying the fight so far, he knew the worst was yet to come.Itazura took the opportunity to reload her guns. “Smart Grimm are just what you need, bro.”“Like a punch to the face by Yang.” Was his witty retort. He’d been on the receiving end of her punch before… back when they attended Signal together. He was not tempted to repeat the experience now that she was older and stronger.“Let’s just get this over with.” Anya states as she rushes her target, the Alpha Beowolf. It was fully aware of the reach of her blades and used its far taller stature and long limbs to keep her at a distance. Shooting the beast did little to deter it or even hurt it.It truly had been watching her and how she fought. Anya had to raise her gauntlets to block the claws from gouging out her eyes. But that had been a distraction as the other hand swept her legs out from under her. Anya hit the ground hard and immediately rolled away as a clawed foot crashed where her head was. A flick of her arm upwards and a pull of the trigger put a round through its ear, causing the beast to roar in pain before plunging its claws at her body. It missed as she rolled away and rose to her feet, lunging while it was open with its hands buried into the forest floor.Anya unloaded the rest of the clip of her left gauntlet into the Beowolf her right held low in preparation for a strike. The bullets did little more than irritate the larger combatant but proved to be enough of a distraction for her to get in close and plunge her bladed fist into its chin. The sharp blade in its mouth wasn’t enough to kill the creature but apparently the fur and hide in the area were much thinner here and she unloaded bullets into the underside of its mouth until she ran empty. That was fine as the Alpha fell to the ground, dead and dissolving into smoke.One down and four to go.Talon had to deal with the Ursa and the size difference was painfully obvious as the girl barely reached its hip when it stood on two legs. The strength difference was just as bad, she found when she had to dodge the massive paws that took a large chunk out of the tree that was behind her. The trunk was as thick as the limb that struck it and the wood creaked, the tree barely able to stay upright after the sudden loss.But Talon was far faster and struck, her blades biting into the Grimm’s thick hide along the ribs but doing little at the moment. The Ursa swept the other front paw at her, forcing her to jump back out of reach. Once again, she capitalized on the opening and stabbed at the shoulder. She didn’t have much better luck than when she struck at the ribs.The pair descended into a deadly dance, the Grimm making powerful sweeping attacks that took down trees and carved trenches into the soil. Talon was forced into a pattern of dodge and counter attack, trying to kill the Grimm with papercuts before it got lucky and hit her.“Damn it. Let’s see how you handle this.” She taunts the Grimm as she thumbs a small trigger on each blade causing them to begin glowing red and blue.Sirocco swept out in front of the chubby girl, releasing a wave of fire that scorched the Ursa’s fur and blackened the bony armor. Karakaze swung after, a small hailstorm flew at the Grimm like bullets, some managing to pierce the skin and lodge themselves there, the cold of the ice slowly starting to freeze the flesh around them.The Ursa Major roared in defiance and charged its smaller target. It missed as she dove to the side and when the beast turned its head to track her, it received a blast of flames to the face. The fire wasn’t enough to kill the Grimm but it did blind the left eye… and piss it off royally. The large Grimm swung with all of its strength repeatedly at the human, now without any of the timing it had previously shown. It was trusting that its durability would fend off her blades and she’d make a mistake and be crushed by its strength- just like so many others who had fought it over the years.A searing blade cut into the hide like a hot knife through butter along its flank. Shortly after that, the other blade bit into the fur, leaving a trail of frost behind it. Several similar cuts scored its hide before the large Grimm backed off to create some distance, showing that despite its earlier rage that there was still plenty of intelligence born of experience within it. It stood on its rear legs and roared, challenging the girl to come to it.Talon smiled at the large target that presented itself. Quickly she thrust Karakaze at the Ursa’s chest with a small application of the Ice Dust within combined with her semblance, five large icicles were launched at high speeds to lodge themselves in its flesh before it could react to the attack. She lowered her cold blade in favor of her hot one, Sirocco, repeating her previous action but with the Fire Dust this time, creating a fireball that struck the icicles, causing them to evaporate in a flash- the resulting steam explosion tore open the Grimm’s chest along with the flames searing it from the outside. The explosion also had the effect of knocking the hulking Grimm onto it’s back, not that it really mattered as it began to fade from existence.Itazura was having a much harder time dealing with the Beringal that had targeted her. Not only was it just as strong as an Ursa, it was nearly as fast as a Beowolf, tough as a Boarbatusk, and smarter than all three combined… making for a very dangerous Grimm. That didn’t include the fact that it had actual hands rather than claws- making it no less dangerous, you weren’t as likely to be disemboweled as you were to have your limbs ripped off.The Fox Faunus darted around the larger opponent as best she could but her blades could barely cut into its skin, her bullets weren’t much better beyond forcing the Grimm to raise its arms to defend its face. A small pause in the fight as the pair watched each other for openings allowed Itazura to reload quickly, this time with a special clip in each.They charged at each other, this time Itazura fired a round at its right foot, creating a block of ice that trapped the limb and caused the Grimm to trip and fall on its face from the unexpected hinderance. Another blast from her shotgun created a large rock that formed around the bullet during its flight to strike the Beringal in the head. Another shot and the standard buckshot struck its back. A jump and twist allowed for the faunus to land on the Grimm’s broad back and use the force to dig her blades into the back of its shoulders. The act made the gorilla-like Grimm roar in pain and frustration, its own anger forcing it to rise and smash the ice that held its foot, taking the small girl along for the ride. The Beringal thrashed, trying to dislodge the Huntress and the blades but neither would relent. It didn’t help as the blades prevented its shoulders from rotating enough to reach back for the pest. So, it did the next best thing, roll.Itazura was crushed under the weight of the Grimm and against the ground, thankful that her aura prevented her from actually being crushed but she still had all of the pain associated with it. When the pressure was relieved, she was able to refill her lungs just in time for another round, though the way the Beringal hit the ground it dug the blades further into its flesh. It rolled off, leaving Itazura to lay on the ground and trying to breathe again.The Beringal huffed in approval now that it looked at the Huntress on the ground, one of the pests had been dealt with. Now it just had to finish the job. It lumbered over and raised its massive fists as high as it could manage, fighting through the pain and using it to fuel its finishing blow. The fists crashed down to the ground onto the Huntress, creating a small crater in the forest floor due to the force behind them with the Faunus in the center of it all. The Beringal huffed and roared in victory, then it heard laughing. It turned back to the body, only to find it laughing.It grunts in confusion before raising a fist and bringing it down on her chest, crushing the girls’ ribs. Yet when the fist was pulled back, the girl was still laughing, almost hysterically, tauntingly. The Grimm roared in frustration and punched the prone body repeatedly, trying to stop the laughing. Not even crushing her head seemed to work as it simply seemed to return to normal once the pressure was released.Suddenly, the Beringal felt something sharp sliding across its throat, causing it to gurgle as black smoke poured from the wound. It stopped its attacks on the girl at its feet in favor of clutching its neck out of self-preservation. It stumbled out of the crater and saw that the girl it had crushed burst into blue flames and disappear. Then somehow, those same flames seemed to come from itself before fading away and pain registered in its mind, the blades in its back had been removed but now there was pair of guns pressed against the back of its head while the girl stood on its broad shoulder.The Beringal barely had the time to grunt its confusion before Itazura pulled the triggers, twin rounds of Explosive Dust blasted the head clean off its shoulders and the body fell before beginning to fade, leaving the Fox girl to stand victorious.Denko was having better luck with his Beringal than his sister, he had raw strength and durability that she lacked, though she made up for it with her cleverness.He spun his weapon rapidly to prevent the Beringal from attacking recklessly while occasionally lashing out and scoring a few hits. Already, the Grimm’s arms were covered in small cuts that oozed black smoke from the heavy double-edged blade. The figure eights stopped as they separated, judging one another. They locked eyes, the Beringal seemingly giving a grunt of approval to the human.Denko readied his weapon, and the Grimm charged. It struck out with a straight punch at the blonde who ducked to the side then had to scramble back as the Grimm turned the punch into a backhanded slap, catching the boy in the shoulder and spinning him from the force applied. That isn’t to say that he didn’t retaliate, Raijin lashed out like a whip to score an angry gash across the shoulder of his attacker.Both hissed in pain as they gathered their feet beneath them once more and charged, Denko spinning his short polearm in his hand as he ran. The Beringal reared up during its rush and slammed its hands together to trap the young Huntsman between them but he’d seen the sweeping strike coming and ducked under the massive arms, ignored the thunder-like clap the hands produced and Raijin was thrust under the chin, the thick blade piercing whatever parts of the bony armor and mask were in the way on its path to the Grimm’s ‘brain’ if it had one.Their battle came to a sudden end as Denko ripped the slightly hooked blade from the skull to ensure the beast was dead before glancing at his team and noting that they had finished at roughly the same time. All that was left was the Silverback who was still watching.Denko readied Raijin, as did Anya with Sinners Punishment, Itazura with Foxes Fury, and Talon with Karakaze and Sirocco. Yet the Grimm stood still, like a judge on their bench, watching them all carefully, evaluating them. It had seen their fights against the lesser Grimm from that vantage point, saw how easily the pack was destroyed. Even the older Grimm that served as its lieutenants fared little better against the warriors, only able to cause them minor injuries. Now it was alone.With a huff, it turned and walked away, leaving four confused Huntsmen in training behind.“We gotta get after it.” Itazura yells as Talon rockets up to the ledge where the Beringal had been, only to find that it had disappeared into the thick forest already.“It’s gone!” She calls back down to her team as they scrambled up the small cliffside. None of them had the ability to make such large distances irrelevant like Talon does.Reaching the top, they gathered together. Denko lets out a sigh of frustration as he ran his hands through his normally messy hair. “Fine, we’ll just have to report back to Vale with what we have now. They should be able to keep an eye out for the Silverback gathering forces again.” He looks around at the once pristine clearing at the destruction the battle had caused, the fallen and soon to fall trees, the small crater, the gouges in the soil. “But I’m willing to bet that a Grimm that smart will move away from the region for a while. Target somewhere else.”“Like some village along the coast?” Anya says as she collapses her weapons before resting her hands on her hips.“I don’t think so, that thing had a plan. It was testing the defenses of Vale, sticking to the edges of the controlled territory… I don’t like the thought of that but we got rid of its little army so if it tries again it’ll have to start from scratch.”“So, it’s time to go back to Beacon?” Itazura asks, ready for a hot shower to get the dirt out of her hair and wash her clothes. She was the one who looked to have taken the worst punishment of the team.“And get some food in us! Hopefully Oz will let us eat whatever we want from the kitchens tonight!” Talon’s mind was back to food already, nothing unusual.Denko smirked, “I like the sound of that.” He agrees as he leads the girls back towards the nearest outpost tower where they had parked the Scarab.

Description
A commission done for me by ggftl for my RWBY fanfic, Big Issues.
To read the events of what was happening, here's the chapter. Big Issues Chapter 8Big IssuesInvestigations Part ThreeHei Xiong couldn’t believe what had happened to the girl who had dragged him back to the bar, where once reaching the counter had released his arm to allow him to go behind the bar itself. The blue-haired boy followed Blondie slowly, looking at her with some amount of respect, wonder, and possibly a little fear that she might turn her strength and attitude on him.The much taller man immediately poured himself a drink from under the counter and knocking it back in one go. “I’m guessing you’re here for information again?” He asks, getting a curt nod from the blonde who wore an expression that she wasn’t going to be taking any crap. He sighs, “Fine, but before you ask your questions, I need a few answered myself. Consider it a trade. Deal?”The girl leaned back and crossed her arms under her considerable bust. “Just questions and answers for questions and answers?” She clarifies.“Yeah, still pissed at what you did last time you were here but there’s only so much I can do about that.” He noticed her eyes flick down to his cup and lock on his own once more. “Strawberry sunrise?” He asked, recalling what she had ordered but never received. Besides, if a simple drink was going to keep her from causing damage again, he’d get her them all day… so long as she paid.“No ice, please.” At least she was using some manners. A minute later and Blondie was sipping at her glass, not commenting on the fact that he’d given her less alcohol than standard, she was underage most likely. “So, what do you want to know?” She relents.“Been hearing that the students at Beacon are getting fattened up and the cops don’t know why. I’m kinda hoping that you could enlighten me.” Junior asks, pouring himself another drink but leaving it to sit on the counter for now.She quirked an eyebrow at him before gesturing at her own body. “This enough proof for ya?”“Not really sure if you’ve been partying too much or if you are one of the students up on those cliffs.” Was the gruff and blunt response. Junior did notice that the boy took half a step away from Blondie.She sighs as she leans on the counter, her stomach pressing against the counter as her chest rested on her arms. “Yeah, it’s hitting everyone. Not just Beacon, but Haven, Shade, and Atlas too. Students and the teachers and anyone else who were there for a while.” Yang looks up at the man who towered over both her and her partner for the night.“It’s not going to spread into the city, is it?” “Not as far as I know. They say it’s some kind of chemical that was put into the schools’ water supplies that makes us get fat fast.” Yang swings her arm to right to catch Neptune’s middle, hard enough to show the paunch he’d developed but managed to hide under his jacket.“As you can see, it hits girls a lot harder than it does the guys.”“Is it fixed? How’d it start?” Xiong pressed.“They got doctors running tests on us every week trying to find a way to stop this, but no such luck yet. As for how it started,” she shrugs. “No idea. The best we heard so far was that it started around the beginning of the second semester, no one noticed at first but it didn’t take long before girls started blowing up like balloons.” She emphasized the last part with a pat to the stomach, causing the soft flesh to jiggle.“Alright, I get it Butterball. Maybe I can get some of my sources to look into things.” Junior says before downing his drink and pouring another right away and refilled Yang’s sunrise while he was at it. He also made sure to write down the tally for the price of her drinks on a napkin in plain sight for her.While Yang initially fumed about the name, she had to admit that Butterball was a rather apt description of her figure now.“Fine, now how about answering my questions.” She states as she leans against the bar once more. “Tell me what you know about Roman Torchwick.”Irritation crossed Junior’s face. “So, you’re trying to track him down too?” The big man asks, receiving a nod of confirmation from the shorter girl. “You, me, and every cop and Huntsman in the kingdom. Bastards always been slippery to catch and strong enough when forced to fight that almost nobody’s been able to hold him for long.”“Seemed that way when some friends of mine ran into him working with the White Fang a couple months ago.” Yang admits.“Heard he was working with them, still find it hard to believe. He’s never been one for dealing with Faunus for anything more than business and even then, he’d take his chances with a human over them when possible.” That raised plenty of questions about the flamboyant criminals’ actions.“When was the last time you saw him?”“Last time I saw him was the night you first came here, looking for some extra muscle. Lent him a few boys and never saw any of them again. I did hear that he was at the docks a while back and failed at stealing a big shipment of Dust from Atlas. Other than that, he’s been hitting any place that sells or stores Dust- warehouses, refiners, shops, you name it. Hardly a merchant in the trade who hasn’t lost some of their merchandise to Roman at some point over the past year.”Neptune was doing a poor job of being back up in any sense of the word, seemingly content to stand back and let Yang do all of the talking while he watched them both, occasionally looking around at the few patrons that were around and the staff that were watching him. The only part of intimidation that he carried was the knowledge among the security and the owner that he was a Huntsman in training… not exactly someone that should be taken lightly and the grunts would stand as much of a chance against him as they did to Yang during her last visit. Plus, the fact that he was with her would mean that there were two Huntsmen to deal with rather than a single girl who’d yet to attend Beacon’s orientation.“Anything else that you’re not telling me? You know what I could do to you.” Yang stood in by the bar as Junior got rid of her glass once she finished, a signal that she was being cut off.Hei slammed his own glass to the counter after draining it and slumped down to rest his elbows on the surface, putting him at eye level with his interrogator. “I don’t know.” He growls.“How can you not know?” Yang crosses her arms once more, annoyed that an information dealer had such little information to deal with.“I haven’t talked to him. I haven’t even seen him since the night that you first came in here.” Junior waved his arms to accent his words. “He paid up front, I lent him my men, and none of them ever came back.” He stood up to his full height and leaned over the bar to indicate how serious he was about this. Even in his hunched over position, he was still head and shoulders taller than the blonde woman who didn’t so much as flinch at his attempt to intimidate. Even pointing at Yang’s face didn’t help.Then Neptune decided to try playing ‘Bad Cop’… badly. “So where did they go?” He asks, slamming his hand on the counter with enough force to knock the glass over to roll along the polished black surface.Junior slowly looked over at the boy, incredulous at the gall he had. “What kind of stupid question is that? They never came back!” He waved a hand in the air in frustration. He turns back to Yang and pointing a thumb back at the boy. “Who is this guy?”Yang uncrosses her arms to smack Neptune in the face hard enough to get the taller teen to back off and stand at attention. “Don’t worry about him, worry about me if I don’t find what I want!” This was the first time today that she was beginning to get angry and she was letting it show a bit.Junior stood a little straighter with both hands on the bar. “I already told you everything! Torchwick hired my boys and I guess he wasn’t happy with them!” He turns away to face the rest of the club and raised his voice. “Which is something I can relate to!” A few of the suited grunts stopped in their tracks to look back at their boss, one of the men was sitting around by the entrance taking offense to the accusation- despite demonstrating why his boss was pissed off at him and his coworkers.Yang hangs her head in resigned acceptance that this was the best that she was going to get before turning around and walking away. “C’mon Neptune.”The taller boy made sure to follow the plump blonde closely, keeping his hands in his jacket pockets. “We get everything we need?”“Well, we got everything we can. Hopefully the rest of the team is having better luck.”Junior was left at the bar alone. He picks up the fallen glass cup and the napkin he was using to tally her tab for drinks… eventually using it to clean out the container. “If she gives Torchwick an ass-whooping, skipping her tab will be fine… tonight.”BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBack with Blake and Sun… things weren’t going so well. The crowd of new recruits still moved around them as they stood still but the herd was thinning and while the chanting of the White Fang members was still going strong, Roman was getting used to it and looking around.“What are we gonna do?” Sun leans closer to whisper.“I’m thinking.” Blake was still looking around, trying to find a way out without giving them too much trouble. Yet while she was looking for an escape route, Sun was watching their quarry.“He sees us.” He watches as the criminal mastermind recognizes him and tosses away his cigar in frustration.But the comment from her blonde friend gave Blake an idea, along with spotting a power junction box on the wall. “He can’t see in the dark.” He tone was almost playful as she looked her partner in the eyes… as best she could through the slits in their masks.A moment later, Blake had drawn the sword/gun half of Gambol Shroud from her back and transformed it to gun mode. Already aiming at the junction box by the time the weapon finished its conversion, she pulled the trigger as soon as it was ready. Her bullet struck true in the box, punching holes into the panels and showering sensitive spaces with the debris- immediately plunging the warehouse into darkness.“Don’t let them get away!” Roman could be heard yelling over the shocked crowd, some of whom had already begun panicking and scrambling. Several shots were fired by Blake at the guards on the catwalks to take them out or at the very least provide a distraction while the Fang guards scrambled for cover.“Sun! The window!”“Stop them!” Roman cried out before the sounds of whirring motors and electronics powered up.Blake was the first to leap for the windows, so dirty that very little light actually made it through them, just enough for a cat faunus like herself to see where the panels of glass were at but not enough for much else. Her arms smashed through the chosen glass, crossed to protect her face and brace against the impact. Fresh air caught her nose as her head emerged outside of the dark and dingy warehouse. Then the air was driven from her lungs when she came to a sudden stop.She didn’t need her eyes to realize why. Her arms felt how strong the glass was as they smashed through and that strength likely cost her a lot of momentum. That didn’t make for a good excuse when her stomach caught the window sill, driving the breath out of her and her forward motion halted as her hips and butt found the surprisingly strong bars that held the glass sheets. Adrenaline enhanced her reflexes and numbed her to any pain she was in at the moment as she used her hands to immediately start trying to push her way through by bracing her hands on the wall.Sun was right behind his partner… and had noticed her predicament. As much as he wanted to help her, he was in no position to do so. He was already in midair following Blake’s trajectory. His years of training to be a Huntsman along with more tree climbing than most would believe had honed his ability to judge distance and such almost instinctually. Thus, he found himself in flight to crash into Blake’s rear head first.If Blake was feeling embarrassed about getting herself stuck in the window because her ass had grown so much, it was easily doubled when she heard “Oh sh-!” right before a face rammed itself into her right cheek. On one hand, she was now free as that was enough force to get her soft posterior through. On the other, Sun was suddenly being filled with weird thoughts and feelings as the pair tumbled to the ground, having the ability to land on their feet and run away from the sounds of angry Faunus, gunfire, and a massive machine coming to life.It didn’t take long for the Paladin to smash its way through the brick wall of the warehouse and begin chasing to duo, who opted for trying to shake Torchwick by taking to the roofs of the warehouse district, even using a few parked cars on occasion. The latter suffered a bit whenever Blake landed on them, she was well over two hundred pounds standing still let alone the increase of force that would be applied to the chassis of the vehicles as she lands on them from a two story drop or using them a step before leaping to higher landings. Sun was still relatively light on his feet as his gains were minimal in comparison, still more than enough to dent a few roofs with his landings.At the speeds that the three of them were moving, it didn’t take them long to move from the commercial district to skirting the residential, Sun and Blake opting to keep to the roofs of buildings and veered away from the houses. Torchwick continued to follow them on the roads, not caring that the mech he piloted kicked or stepped on a parked car, the mech was powerful and heavy enough that the other vehicles were barely considered obstacles at all.“So, you wouldn’t happen to have…” Sun had to pause his speech as he landed on another building. His physically larger partner keeping up with him but having some trouble on the landings now. “I don’t know…” Another landing and his sarcasm were still intact as he was being serious. “Some form of back up?”“On it!” Blake was getting slightly winded from the long run and constant jumping. She pulled out her scroll and was never so glad to have a speed dial function on the device as she had no time to slow down and do things manually. Nearly instantly, her message was sent out to her three teammates.Weiss was leaving the elevator after spending some time reviewing the data she’d received when the call came through on speaker, something that Ruby had insisted they have just in case set up. “Everyone! If you can hear this, we need back- ““Help!” Blake was speaking first but Sun was close and loud enough that he drowned her out. Weiss rolled her eyes before running out of the CCT.Ruby was still in the alley where Penny had left her, though the dumpster still held the rat and the lid was weighed down by anything she could find nearby, a couple large planks, a few loose bricks, and a steel trashcan. Maybe it was a little excessive for dealing with a single rodent… that she knew of… but it did cause her to panic and flop around in garbage. Perhaps now they were even.“They got a robot, and it’s big, really big!” Ruby was listening to her scroll as Sun gave his ‘report’.Her face broke into a smile, “Oh! I am not missing this!” With that, the rotund reaper ran off following the tracking signal that the call also broadcasted. It actually gave her joy to see that it was moving fast and not too far away.Yang and Neptune had mounted Bumblebee but had yet to start the engine, Yang wearing her yellow helmet and aviator glasses as she was ready to drive when the call came through.“The Torchwick guy is in it! But not like, it didn’t eat him- “Clearly Sun was panicking a bit, but the exhaustion from running so much was clear enough to those listening. Even Blake’s labored breathing could be heard. “He’s like, controlling it or something!”“Where are you guys?” Yang asks, having yet to switch to the tracker.That was when Blake and Sun ran past the end of the alley that they were in with the Paladin stomping on their heels. “Hurry!” The pair on the bike didn’t need the scroll to hear Sun yelling as they watched the chase go by.“I think that was them.” Neptune stated the obvious.“Yeah, I got it.” Yang was all business now as she put away her scroll and started her bike. Moments later she gunned the engine to spin the rear tire to whip Bumblebee around and peel off in pursuit of her friends and the mech.Sun and Blake leapt to the freeway from some nearby buildings, landing on the hoods of a pair of cars. For Blake, the ride was a relief to her legs as they burned from all of the running, she had done tonight. Looking back, she found herself having to jump away once more as the Paladin jumped onto the road and nearly crushing a car under its massive feet. Yes, the cars that the faunus had landed on did honk their horns at them but that was nothing in comparison to the horns directed at Torchwick as he directed the war machine to chase after them, even kicking a few out of his way.“Woah!” Sun yells as one car nearly goes over the edge from his place on the back of another car, having leapt there to gain some distance from the criminal, Blake was watching from the other lane.At that point, it was all the Faunus could do as the Paladin ran faster than the flow of traffic, Sun and Blake jumping from car to car and crossing paths as needed to make their landings and not allow Torchwick to focus on either one of them. More cars were kicked as the metal beast raced on the freeway. It was at this point that a yellow motorcycle caught up after weaving through the disrupted traffic.“We gotta slow it down!” Yang calls over the noise of her engine, the rushing wind, the horns of the other motorists, and the crushing footfalls of the Paladin.“Got it!” Neptune answers, having had pulled his goggles down to deal with the wind. He began to reach for the collapsed rifle on his back.Inside the Paladin, Torchwick heard the beeping of an alarm and the accompanying red, flashing light, his sensors showing him the pair on the bike just behind him. Needless to say, he wasn’t happy about that and took it out in a dramatic way. He purposely ran into a clump of cars, causing them to veer out of control, even using the mechs arms to smack the vehicles into the air to careen behind him.Yang saw the hazards as she already had to drift back to avoid the cars that Torchwick hadn’t hit. “Hold on!”“Uh-oh! Woah!” Was all that Neptune could say as the blonde gunned her engine and weaved through the drifting and falling cars, throwing her considerable weight to help tip the bike into seemingly impossible maneuvers as her passenger flailed in an attempt to keep his seat.Finally, they broke free and hit open road, most of the other drivers having pulled to the sides to avoid the pileup and what had caused it in the first place. That was when Neptune was able to pull his weapon, Tri-Hard, from his back and open it up into its rifle mode. Several shots of lightning Dust rounds impacted the back of the mech, causing it to stumble slightly before the systems auto-corrected.Neptune stood up on the back of the bike and transformed his weapon into its guandao form with a spinning flourish before leaping into the air for the Paladin, Tri-Hard changing from guandao to trident as he flew and pierced the armor.Blake landed on the roof of a van, having to roll to her feet as her tired legs gave out from under her briefly. Sun landed on a nearby truck and trailer. “Neptune! Hang on!” The monkey boy yells even as his friend was being bucked around by the mech, that had even begun spinning its body around as its legs kept it moving as if everything was normal.Sun stood tall, took a breath and clasped his hands as if in prayer. His blonde hair and tail glowed gold as two golden clones of himself appeared by his side, one of which had drawn its own copy of his staff weapon before they leapt towards the mech. Neither of which were able to land any sort of attack beyond exploding against the armor. Sun finally was able to move now that he wasn’t using his semblance and jumped to assist his friend and teammate, pulling his weapon out in the process. Unfortunately, it was at this time that the Paladin spun its body again and Tri-Hard was dislodged, throwing Neptune off as a by-product and into the path of the incoming Faunus. The boys collided and fell over the edge of the freeway with yells.“Blake! I’m in position!” Came Weiss’ voice over Blake’s scroll. Blake looked over her shoulder to see the bottom-heavy heiress dropping down from an overpass to the road she was currently traveling, Myrtenaster at the ready half a mile ahead. Weiss ignored the cars passing her by, including the one carrying her teammate as she waited for Torchwick to come to her. At the speeds that they were traveling at, it didn’t take long for the girl to judge that the mech was close enough and spun herself before stabbing her rapier into the blacktop and coating the surface with a smooth sheet of ice.As expected, the feet couldn’t handle the slick surface and caused the to-heavy machine to fall over itself, even bouncing over the kneeling heiress on its way to the edge of the freeway where it crashed through the holographic walls to plunge to an open area below where Ruby was waiting with Crescent Rose in hand.It was unexpected however, that the mech was able to correct its fall in time in order to land on its feet, it’s legs and the crumbling ground beneath them absorbing most of the impact.Moments later, Yang had parked Bumblebee and jumped down to her sisters’ side. Weiss landed nearby as daintily as she could manage. Blake dropped to her knees the second her feet touched the ground and stayed in that position as she tried to get her burning muscles even a moments rest. That didn’t stop her or the rest of the girls from readying their weapons.The mech began stomping its way forward, Torchwick laughing inside the cockpit. “Freezerburn!” Ruby shouts, leading to Blake leaning back and jumping in that direction as Ruby swung her scythe around to use the recoil to help her move faster. Weiss spun once again before creating another sheet of ice around herself as Yang jumped straight up into the air and come back down with a fire Dust laden punch that turned the ice into a fog instantly, shrouding the entire area in white mists that slowly drifted around in the still air.Torchwick activated more sensors in response, multiple lasers meant for tracking motion and other obstacles came to life and began swiveling around in odd patterns. The lasers swept through the fog, illuminating the white mist red wherever they pointed, though the fog hindered their accuracy and range. Blurs of motion skirted the edges of his sight and sensors and so he began firing at them, knowing that he’d get lucky sometime.Yang ran as fast as she could, a pair of shots from the arm mounted Dust cannons nipping at her heels. Blake ran past her before they circled around, this time Torchwick was lucky as he shot the ground just behind Blake, who was able to jump away in relative safety. Yang took the brunt of the blast at her feet and was tossed away by the explosion. Ruby shot through the blast with her scythe to swing at the mech’s body, only to barely scratch the surface.“Checkmate!” The leader calls out as she lands and cocks another bullet. On cue, Weiss and Blake leapt out of the mists on either side of her and towards the hulking machine.Together the monochrome pair hacked and slashed at the joints of the legs several times before Blake turned a stumble into an attack on an ankle while Weiss jumped up to use a glyph as a platform so she could stab her rapier into one of the larger laser sensors and disrupting the systems a good bit as it also held one of the main cameras to the outside world. Having done that, Weiss jumped away a fair distance but upon landing she saw that Blake had yet to move, barely having risen to her feet. As Torchwick tried to stomp on the cat girl, Weiss created a glyph that pulled her back out of the way, the pieces of broken concrete were evidence of the fate she’d been spared of.Roman growled in annoyance as he’d yet been able to get any good hits in yet on the hefty women. He flicked another switch and pressed a button on the consol. “Let’s see how you like this!”Missile pods opened at the top of the Paladin to reveal two banks of ten tubes from which their missiles were launched. Weiss immediately created another glyph to push herself and her partner out of the way as the first missile struck where they had just been. A few more blew up the ground as the pair did their best to continue their momentum by flipping backwards and performing some handsprings.Weiss jumped a little too high and Roman took advantage of that with a shot from his Dust cannon. The girl managed to take the brunt of the blast with the flat of Myrtenaster’s blade but it still sent her flying back a fair distance. That didn’t stop Weiss from creating one last glyph before she hit the ground hard. That glyph spawned under Blake’s feet, glowing yellow and taking the shape of a clock with its hands spinning rapidly- Blake being infused with a golden glow as its effects took hold.Another set of missiles were launched at the Faunus with the hope that at least one of them would take her out. But Blake used the time dilation effects of the glyph to counter with her own ranged attack, focusing her purple aura into her blades and releasing it to cut at a distance. And cut those blades of aura did, cleanly slicing the explosives in half and causing them to prematurely detonate. Twenty of the rockets were destroyed in the span of mere seconds before they could even reach halfway to their target.Blake felt the glyph wear off as she finished, listening to the numerous explosions behind her as she once again took a knee to rest. That was short lived as Ruby ran by yelling “Ladybug!” The young girl used her scythe to catch the crotch of the mech to flip her self around and land safely behind the machine, causing a distraction from the recovering Faunus. Ruby fired a shot behind herself to propel her charge through the mechs legs once again, this time crossing paths with Blake who struck at the joints of the opposite leg as she passed. They repeated the cycle a few more times as Roman spun the body in an attempt to get a bead on either of them, firing his cannons with no luck of hitting the girlsThe next thing he knew, the pair were dropping from the sky and swinging their heavy blades with their own substantial weights behind them, managing to cut off the left arm cannon at the elbow.Yang had spent most of the fight recovering her bearings after being blasted and waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike back at the mech suit. And now was the best time as it was off balance and lost a good chunk of its firepower. She ran at a full sprint before leaping into the air, with an assisting blast from Ember Celica to get her pudgy body high enough to land on its back. Grabbing hold of the armor, it wasn’t too hard to find the holes that Neptune had made with his trident blades. She began discharging as many rounds of fire Dust shotgun shells as she could point blank into those holes as fast as she could with her right arm, with the force of her surprisingly great strength behind her punches helping to dent the metal.Inside the cockpit however, Torchwick was being tossed around in his seat by the force of the attacks and the constant alarms and flashing lights didn’t help him much. But the display showing his surroundings did give him an idea.The mech suddenly leapt backwards into the support columns for the freeway bridge overhead, smashing its way through one, then two of them, with Yang’s soft body being the only padding between the steel and concrete before she was slammed into a third hard enough to pin her there long enough for the mech to stand upright and turn around, exchanging the cannon for the manipulating hand on its remaining arm in the process. Yang started to fall limply before the fist reared back and drove forwards, shattering the pillar with her in front of the fist.Yang tumbled briefly before coming to a stop on her well-padded stomach. “Yang!” calls out in worry of her friend.Ruby glances at the faunus with confidence in her sister. “Don’t worry.” She says as she watches Yang slowly climb to her feet. “With each hit she get’s stronger, and she uses that energy to fight back! That’s what makes her special!” The rose ends with a smile as Yang stood up and clenched her fists.Torchwick couldn’t understand what it would take to take this girl down. He’d been shot with the cannon, smashed through reinforced concrete pillars and still stood up to fight him and the Paladin he was inside of. Maybe it was all of that fat absorbing the impacts. So why not go for a spot without the padding? The mech pulled its arm back once more and punched, aiming for the blondes exposed and bowed head. But the blow never reached her hair as she snapped her right arm out and caught his fist with her own, the force sent shockwaves that could be easily seen racing across her skin like jelly before they reached the ground through her solid bones and muscles where the force shattered the ground under her feet. But Yang stood strong and finally looked up at the mech with burning red eyes as her hair began to glow bright gold.Her left fist was cocked back and with a yell smashed the remaining arm of the mech into hundreds of pieces. Roman stumbled back, still safe within the cockpit but that punch had been strong enough to unbalance more than twenty tons of war machine and destroy part of it with ease. Still, he managed to regain control quickly enough to take the step needed to kick the girl in the stomach and send her flying past her teammates.“Bumblebee!” Ruby yells as Yang goes by, followed by Blake throwing the pistol half of Gambol Shroud to the blonde who manages to catch the hilt as she goes by Weiss who was just managing to stand up.Blake pulled the ribbon tight with a slight application of her aura and Yang’s momentum was changed, helped along with Yang landing on her feet to run and keep the tension. A boosting blast from her right gauntlet gave her enough speed combined with Blake’s tug to get the heavy girl air born long enough to attempt a dropkick on the mech, which took a step back to dodge.That was where problems began to set in for the team, despite Blake’s significant counterweight in her posterior, Yang was much heavier than that and her feet began to slide and her legs buckle under the strain. Weiss assisted with a gravity glyph that gave Blake the anchor she needed to maintain their impromptu physics lesson on force and balance.“We have to slow it down!” Ruby yells as Weiss stops next to her.“And how do you propose we do that?” The heiress asks as she maintains some focus on the black glyph behind her as the black and yellow pair continue to spin.“Ice Flower!” Ruby declares as she slams the bladed tip of Crescent Rose into the ground and taking aim at the mech as a trio of white glyphs float in front of the barrel of her rifle. Moments later, several rounds were fired from the snipier rifle, each of them passing through the glyphs and causing them to have a blue streaking tail like a comet until they impacted the mech. First one hit the shoulder that Ruby and Blake had cut the arm off of. The second hit the other shoulder. Three more rounds hit the hip, right knee, and left ankle. And with every impact, the bullet burst into a chunk of ice that froze onto the steel and into the gaps and joints.Once more Blake gave a tug on her ribbon, putting every ounce of strength into it that she had left as the gravity under her returned to normal. Yang at the same time took another running leap with a blast from Ember Celica to swing her way to the partially frozen machine, her hair bursting into golden flames that trailed behind her.Roman only had a moment to look at his sensors warning of the incoming danger before Yang’s fist impacted with the cockpit housing, the steel folding under her immense strength as if it were paper before the force sent the machine tumbling away from the seething blonde brawler, the multiple impacts and earlier damages proving to be too much and it fell apart around him. The criminal mastermind casually climbed out of the remains of the cockpit and brushed off his with jacket.“I just got this thing cleaned.” He complains, as it he wasn’t in the middle of a fight or that he’d been forced out of a military weapon.That casualness didn’t go over too well with Yang, who was the closest and Burn was still active fired an explosive round at the master thief. Only for an extremely short girl with pink and brown hair in a white coat and black pants to block the round with a pink umbrella, the flames harmlessly deflected away from the pair, even as Roman flinched on instinct.The new girl had no worries as she slowly rested the umbrella over her shoulder as the taller man stepped forward. “Ladies. Ice Queen.” He taunts.“Hey!” Weiss couldn’t stop her indignant shout from being singled out like that.“Always a pleasure. Just what are they feeding you kids at that fancy school of yours? Looks like plenty of cookies to me.” He’d moved from taunting them with pleasantries to insulting their weight and stoking their anger. “Neo, if you would.”The short girl simply offers a bow with a smile, never making a sound. Yang’s anger at the situation was already at the boiling point and the acts crossed the final line. She cocked a fresh round into the chambers of her gauntlets and charged forward with a yell, throwing a massive haymaker that likely would have broken yet another Paladin. Something did break when she punched the girl, both the girl and Roman shattered as if they were made of glass, leaving the furious blonde looking around trying to find them.The sound of turbine engines taking off was the big clue as team RWBY were forced to watch as Roman and Neo flew away in a Bullhead, smugly waving at them from the bay door until it closed and they were well out of range of their weapons to do any actual damage.Yang’s semblance deactivated now that the fight was over, her eyes returned to lilac and her hair stopped glowing. “So, I guess he got a new henchman.” She states, remembering her conversation with Junior.“Yeah, I guess she really made our plans… fall apart?” Weiss makes an attempt at a joke with an expectant grin on her face. Ruby snorted a few giggles at the unexpected humor from the local Ice Queen of Beacon.“No. Just, no.” Yang says as Blake walks away to sit on a large piece of rubble to rest her legs. She still found some amazement at how well her rump molded to surfaces to make her feel comfortable.“What? But you do it.” Weiss was once again indignant, this time at her blonde friend. Even going so far as to place her fists on her own wide hips.“There’s a time and a place for jokes.” Yang says as she begins to walk away for her bike.“Was this not it?” Weiss questions.“No, it just wasn’t very good.” The brawler dismisses.Weiss stuck her nose in the air. “Well at least I’m trying.” She admits as she walks over to rest with her faunus teammate.Ruby left alone, suddenly comes to a realization that she had missed for the duration of the fight. “Hey, where are Sun and Neptune?”A few minutes away by car, the boys of team SSSN sat at a noodle stand being served a meal. It was bad enough that they had been thrown from the bridge as it was, and Sun was exhausted from the chase. But the real kicker that was preventing them from trying to find the girls… was that they were lost in a city that they don’t know much about. Neither of them wanted to be the one to call someone from RWBY and potentially distract them during their fight. So, it was probably best that they sit and wait.“They’re probably fine, right?” Neptune asks his leader.“Probably.” Was the simple answer he was given as the boy was slumped over the counter, holding himself up on his elbows.Fifteen minutes later as they finished their bowls, an Atlesian Manta gunship landed nearby and a pair of soldiers demanded that they come with them. The boys shrugged and carried their weapons to the ship where they found Team RWBY waiting for them, somewhat cramped due to Bumblebee being loaded into the passenger cabin on Yang’s insistence. They were on their way back to Beacon as Atlas gathered the pieces of their prototype robot.DAIT DAIT DAIT DAIT DAIT DAIT DAIT DAITThe northern forest of Vale was full of activity today, a large pack of assorted Grimm were in battle with a team of four from Vacuo. A young Beowolf was decapitated without hesitation by the blonde in green, shortly followed by an older Beowolf trying to take advantage of the distraction by its younger kin to attack and only received the blunt end of the shaft swiftly rising into the bottom of its jaw for its trouble. The blade slicing it from crotch to shoulder ended its existence in a single smooth motion from the initial hit. Raijin struck fast.Anya was a being of brutal efficiency, her bladed gauntlets matched the claws of the Grimm and exceeded them, cutting into their flesh with ease. On occasion she’d fire a pistol round from the inner barrel of her gauntlets, the outer ones along with the strange slot behind it remaining empty. She lunged backwards to drive the blades the protruded past her elbows into the guts of another Beowolf before turning on her heels to rip them through and plunging the blade over her right hand into its neck. Another one approached from the left, it lost the claws and entire right paw to the serrated blades that ran down the outer side of her weapon. Sinners Punishment destroyed the Grimm with ease, as was their purpose to destroy the evil in the world.Nearby, the only Faunus was keeping on the move as she fired shotgun rounds into the heads and torsos of any Grimm within range. When their numbers coming at her were too much to handle in that fashion, a press of a button on the stock of her weapon split it in two, allowing her to target more than one of the creatures at once. Another button and a blade unfolded from the underside of each barrel to create a kama in each hand. The lesser Grimm didn’t stand a chance as she danced around their wild lunges and claws, hooking her blades around any extremity and lopping it off or blasting her guns into the creatures. The Foxes Fury were unleashed.Talon was a blur of motion, always twisting and turning out of the reach of the Grimm, only to duck into their guard and split their flesh with her twin scimitars, Karakaze and Sirocco. Many of the weaker Grimm fell to the whirlwind of blades wielded by the short, stout girl. Yet she continued to dance through the horde, as impossible to catch as the wind itself.While Team DAIT seemed to not be working as a team to take on their foes, it was a mindset from Shade that each of them should be individually strong and self-reliant. Depending on your teammates would only make the individual fighter weaker. That didn’t mean DAIT didn’t have its own combinations, they just weren’t used for weaklings like these.The Ursa didn’t stand any better chance than the Beowolves, and the Boarbatusk’s were simply treated as a nuisance and quickly dispatched. The Alpha Beowolf that started the fight had been killed in the opening moments of the skirmish but there was another one standing back and watching. The same was true for an Ursa Major… it didn’t help that the Ursa was probably the largest of its kind in the entire kingdom territory.But it was the Beringals that had the team worried. Not only was there the Silverback, but there were two more slightly smaller and less experiences of its kind flanking it. They simply stood there and watched as the pack they ruled over was destroyed with apparent ease. Their red, glowing eyes following the movements of the mortals, tracking every step, observing them for any perceived weakness.Within five minutes, nearly the entire pack besides the leaders were dissolved into ashes that blew away in the wind. The Silverback grunted a few times and the other four began to spread out around the team, the Silverback never leaving its place.“I dunno what’s going on but these Grimm are too smart to be good for Vale.” Talon comments as she does a brief look at her blades.“They’ve been around for a long time. They’ve learned to learn.” Denko replies, as much as he was enjoying the fight so far, he knew the worst was yet to come.Itazura took the opportunity to reload her guns. “Smart Grimm are just what you need, bro.”“Like a punch to the face by Yang.” Was his witty retort. He’d been on the receiving end of her punch before… back when they attended Signal together. He was not tempted to repeat the experience now that she was older and stronger.“Let’s just get this over with.” Anya states as she rushes her target, the Alpha Beowolf. It was fully aware of the reach of her blades and used its far taller stature and long limbs to keep her at a distance. Shooting the beast did little to deter it or even hurt it.It truly had been watching her and how she fought. Anya had to raise her gauntlets to block the claws from gouging out her eyes. But that had been a distraction as the other hand swept her legs out from under her. Anya hit the ground hard and immediately rolled away as a clawed foot crashed where her head was. A flick of her arm upwards and a pull of the trigger put a round through its ear, causing the beast to roar in pain before plunging its claws at her body. It missed as she rolled away and rose to her feet, lunging while it was open with its hands buried into the forest floor.Anya unloaded the rest of the clip of her left gauntlet into the Beowolf her right held low in preparation for a strike. The bullets did little more than irritate the larger combatant but proved to be enough of a distraction for her to get in close and plunge her bladed fist into its chin. The sharp blade in its mouth wasn’t enough to kill the creature but apparently the fur and hide in the area were much thinner here and she unloaded bullets into the underside of its mouth until she ran empty. That was fine as the Alpha fell to the ground, dead and dissolving into smoke.One down and four to go.Talon had to deal with the Ursa and the size difference was painfully obvious as the girl barely reached its hip when it stood on two legs. The strength difference was just as bad, she found when she had to dodge the massive paws that took a large chunk out of the tree that was behind her. The trunk was as thick as the limb that struck it and the wood creaked, the tree barely able to stay upright after the sudden loss.But Talon was far faster and struck, her blades biting into the Grimm’s thick hide along the ribs but doing little at the moment. The Ursa swept the other front paw at her, forcing her to jump back out of reach. Once again, she capitalized on the opening and stabbed at the shoulder. She didn’t have much better luck than when she struck at the ribs.The pair descended into a deadly dance, the Grimm making powerful sweeping attacks that took down trees and carved trenches into the soil. Talon was forced into a pattern of dodge and counter attack, trying to kill the Grimm with papercuts before it got lucky and hit her.“Damn it. Let’s see how you handle this.” She taunts the Grimm as she thumbs a small trigger on each blade causing them to begin glowing red and blue.Sirocco swept out in front of the chubby girl, releasing a wave of fire that scorched the Ursa’s fur and blackened the bony armor. Karakaze swung after, a small hailstorm flew at the Grimm like bullets, some managing to pierce the skin and lodge themselves there, the cold of the ice slowly starting to freeze the flesh around them.The Ursa Major roared in defiance and charged its smaller target. It missed as she dove to the side and when the beast turned its head to track her, it received a blast of flames to the face. The fire wasn’t enough to kill the Grimm but it did blind the left eye… and piss it off royally. The large Grimm swung with all of its strength repeatedly at the human, now without any of the timing it had previously shown. It was trusting that its durability would fend off her blades and she’d make a mistake and be crushed by its strength- just like so many others who had fought it over the years.A searing blade cut into the hide like a hot knife through butter along its flank. Shortly after that, the other blade bit into the fur, leaving a trail of frost behind it. Several similar cuts scored its hide before the large Grimm backed off to create some distance, showing that despite its earlier rage that there was still plenty of intelligence born of experience within it. It stood on its rear legs and roared, challenging the girl to come to it.Talon smiled at the large target that presented itself. Quickly she thrust Karakaze at the Ursa’s chest with a small application of the Ice Dust within combined with her semblance, five large icicles were launched at high speeds to lodge themselves in its flesh before it could react to the attack. She lowered her cold blade in favor of her hot one, Sirocco, repeating her previous action but with the Fire Dust this time, creating a fireball that struck the icicles, causing them to evaporate in a flash- the resulting steam explosion tore open the Grimm’s chest along with the flames searing it from the outside. The explosion also had the effect of knocking the hulking Grimm onto it’s back, not that it really mattered as it began to fade from existence.Itazura was having a much harder time dealing with the Beringal that had targeted her. Not only was it just as strong as an Ursa, it was nearly as fast as a Beowolf, tough as a Boarbatusk, and smarter than all three combined… making for a very dangerous Grimm. That didn’t include the fact that it had actual hands rather than claws- making it no less dangerous, you weren’t as likely to be disemboweled as you were to have your limbs ripped off.The Fox Faunus darted around the larger opponent as best she could but her blades could barely cut into its skin, her bullets weren’t much better beyond forcing the Grimm to raise its arms to defend its face. A small pause in the fight as the pair watched each other for openings allowed Itazura to reload quickly, this time with a special clip in each.They charged at each other, this time Itazura fired a round at its right foot, creating a block of ice that trapped the limb and caused the Grimm to trip and fall on its face from the unexpected hinderance. Another blast from her shotgun created a large rock that formed around the bullet during its flight to strike the Beringal in the head. Another shot and the standard buckshot struck its back. A jump and twist allowed for the faunus to land on the Grimm’s broad back and use the force to dig her blades into the back of its shoulders. The act made the gorilla-like Grimm roar in pain and frustration, its own anger forcing it to rise and smash the ice that held its foot, taking the small girl along for the ride. The Beringal thrashed, trying to dislodge the Huntress and the blades but neither would relent. It didn’t help as the blades prevented its shoulders from rotating enough to reach back for the pest. So, it did the next best thing, roll.Itazura was crushed under the weight of the Grimm and against the ground, thankful that her aura prevented her from actually being crushed but she still had all of the pain associated with it. When the pressure was relieved, she was able to refill her lungs just in time for another round, though the way the Beringal hit the ground it dug the blades further into its flesh. It rolled off, leaving Itazura to lay on the ground and trying to breathe again.The Beringal huffed in approval now that it looked at the Huntress on the ground, one of the pests had been dealt with. Now it just had to finish the job. It lumbered over and raised its massive fists as high as it could manage, fighting through the pain and using it to fuel its finishing blow. The fists crashed down to the ground onto the Huntress, creating a small crater in the forest floor due to the force behind them with the Faunus in the center of it all. The Beringal huffed and roared in victory, then it heard laughing. It turned back to the body, only to find it laughing.It grunts in confusion before raising a fist and bringing it down on her chest, crushing the girls’ ribs. Yet when the fist was pulled back, the girl was still laughing, almost hysterically, tauntingly. The Grimm roared in frustration and punched the prone body repeatedly, trying to stop the laughing. Not even crushing her head seemed to work as it simply seemed to return to normal once the pressure was released.Suddenly, the Beringal felt something sharp sliding across its throat, causing it to gurgle as black smoke poured from the wound. It stopped its attacks on the girl at its feet in favor of clutching its neck out of self-preservation. It stumbled out of the crater and saw that the girl it had crushed burst into blue flames and disappear. Then somehow, those same flames seemed to come from itself before fading away and pain registered in its mind, the blades in its back had been removed but now there was pair of guns pressed against the back of its head while the girl stood on its broad shoulder.The Beringal barely had the time to grunt its confusion before Itazura pulled the triggers, twin rounds of Explosive Dust blasted the head clean off its shoulders and the body fell before beginning to fade, leaving the Fox girl to stand victorious.Denko was having better luck with his Beringal than his sister, he had raw strength and durability that she lacked, though she made up for it with her cleverness.He spun his weapon rapidly to prevent the Beringal from attacking recklessly while occasionally lashing out and scoring a few hits. Already, the Grimm’s arms were covered in small cuts that oozed black smoke from the heavy double-edged blade. The figure eights stopped as they separated, judging one another. They locked eyes, the Beringal seemingly giving a grunt of approval to the human.Denko readied his weapon, and the Grimm charged. It struck out with a straight punch at the blonde who ducked to the side then had to scramble back as the Grimm turned the punch into a backhanded slap, catching the boy in the shoulder and spinning him from the force applied. That isn’t to say that he didn’t retaliate, Raijin lashed out like a whip to score an angry gash across the shoulder of his attacker.Both hissed in pain as they gathered their feet beneath them once more and charged, Denko spinning his short polearm in his hand as he ran. The Beringal reared up during its rush and slammed its hands together to trap the young Huntsman between them but he’d seen the sweeping strike coming and ducked under the massive arms, ignored the thunder-like clap the hands produced and Raijin was thrust under the chin, the thick blade piercing whatever parts of the bony armor and mask were in the way on its path to the Grimm’s ‘brain’ if it had one.Their battle came to a sudden end as Denko ripped the slightly hooked blade from the skull to ensure the beast was dead before glancing at his team and noting that they had finished at roughly the same time. All that was left was the Silverback who was still watching.Denko readied Raijin, as did Anya with Sinners Punishment, Itazura with Foxes Fury, and Talon with Karakaze and Sirocco. Yet the Grimm stood still, like a judge on their bench, watching them all carefully, evaluating them. It had seen their fights against the lesser Grimm from that vantage point, saw how easily the pack was destroyed. Even the older Grimm that served as its lieutenants fared little better against the warriors, only able to cause them minor injuries. Now it was alone.With a huff, it turned and walked away, leaving four confused Huntsmen in training behind.“We gotta get after it.” Itazura yells as Talon rockets up to the ledge where the Beringal had been, only to find that it had disappeared into the thick forest already.“It’s gone!” She calls back down to her team as they scrambled up the small cliffside. None of them had the ability to make such large distances irrelevant like Talon does.Reaching the top, they gathered together. Denko lets out a sigh of frustration as he ran his hands through his normally messy hair. “Fine, we’ll just have to report back to Vale with what we have now. They should be able to keep an eye out for the Silverback gathering forces again.” He looks around at the once pristine clearing at the destruction the battle had caused, the fallen and soon to fall trees, the small crater, the gouges in the soil. “But I’m willing to bet that a Grimm that smart will move away from the region for a while. Target somewhere else.”“Like some village along the coast?” Anya says as she collapses her weapons before resting her hands on her hips.“I don’t think so, that thing had a plan. It was testing the defenses of Vale, sticking to the edges of the controlled territory… I don’t like the thought of that but we got rid of its little army so if it tries again it’ll have to start from scratch.”“So, it’s time to go back to Beacon?” Itazura asks, ready for a hot shower to get the dirt out of her hair and wash her clothes. She was the one who looked to have taken the worst punishment of the team.“And get some food in us! Hopefully Oz will let us eat whatever we want from the kitchens tonight!” Talon’s mind was back to food already, nothing unusual.Denko smirked, “I like the sound of that.” He agrees as he leads the girls back towards the nearest outpost tower where they had parked the Scarab.