Miracles of Ancient Wonder
~
Chapter 5.4
~~~
"Weiss, Nora!" Ruby called out with a quick gesture towards the sorceress. She pointed, then gave a thumbs down. "Bring her down."
Weiss had already started weaving a ribbon of Earth Dust towards the sorceress. She blasted with a bit more after Ruby's command, the mist surrounding the other woman wavering as soon as Weiss' attack connected.
"Blake," Ruby continued, "hand-off to Weiss then assist."
Weiss was the only member of either team whose style left her with a free hand and Blake had probably used up a lot of Aura already.
"Ren, Pyrrha. With me. We'll take the other two." Ruby stepped free from the alley and sank into her knees. "Jaune…"
Jaune stepped up, eyes bright and sword drawn.
"Keep Yang safe." Ruby forced the stutter out of her voice. She needed to be a leader, not a sad girl who made it so her sister couldn't protect herself.
"I-" Jaune cut himself off and nodded. "Got it."
Ruby pulsed her Semblance at the same time that Nora's grenades hit the wall. The woman staggered and lept from the crumbling floor. While sticking with her team may have been a better idea, Torchwick was an infamous criminal who'd beaten tons of Hunters before and she couldn't recognize either of the other two. That meant he was probably the most dangerous. She, Ren, and Pyrrha were all fresh and uninjured. Also, Torchwick looked like the oldest person there, and therefore, the most experienced. He wasn't old-old, like Ruby's uncle, but still old enough.
She flew past the short girl with the combat parasol, landing behind her target. He had barely started turning around to respond to her when she moved again. The sword in her hands wasn't like Crescent Rose. Its weight was too balanced for Ruby's normal style, but when she had her opponent off-guard, none of that mattered. Weiss, Blake, and Nora could deal with the person who was probably worst in melee while the dangerous target was held back, then they could clean up the rest.
Ruby searched for the best attack methods and forced all of them to happen at once. She split into four girls attacking with four different strikes. He narrowly slipped back from most of them. The final, a straight thrust, caught the edge of his coat and-
He shattered, falling into hundreds of fragments and appearing three feet away at the same time that a bright orange light ignited around the sorceress. Ren, who had been looking right at the light, got hit in the back of the knee by the smaller girl, and launched into the air by her parasol follow up.
Ruby dashed toward Torchwick again. She swung as hard as she could; he parried her blade into the ground and snapped the end of his cane into her face. Red light poured out of it, but his shot flew off course thanks to Pyrrha's interception.
Her spear rocketed into his side at the last possible second. As she approached, Pyrrha snatched it out of the air and smoothly started another attack. Ruby stepped in to join the assault.
She spun the sword into each slash, using the momentum from the previous one to make the next easier. It wouldn't work as well if she ever hit him, but her goal was to force him further into Pyrrha's whirlwind of blades. She must have been getting two or three strikes in for each of Ruby's. Stab, slash, shoot: Pyrrha did all within the span of seconds and each hit brought them closer to taking Torchwick down.
He couldn't strike at them without leaving himself open, but he still managed to keep them from landing anything solid through constantly retreating. If Ruby had Crescent Rose, he'd never have been able to stop her. Instead she was left with a long piece of metal without any sort of extended blade to bypass Torchwick's cane.
But, with him unable to hurt them, they'd eventually take him down.
Which was technically a better place to be than where the rest of the fights were. Ruby caught enough glimpses to let her enough to know she'd messed up.
Ren wasn't able to get anywhere near the smaller girl, but she also kept missing him. His larger reach kept her at a distance, but she flowed around each strike of his, making it miss by a matter of inches and countering with a sharp blow from her umbrella. They danced back and forth, like they were in an exhibition spar instead of a serious fight.
Weiss, Blake, and Nora didn't know each other's styles enough to work well together and their enemy had already figured that out. To make matters worse, the light that hurt to look at was coming directly from the sorceress. A blazing halo of orange light that was almost as bright as the sun encircled her body. Ruby couldn't make her face out at all and her attacks were just as hard to catch, thanks to her glass weapons letting some of the light through.
She focused on Weiss, aiming for her injured leg. The strikes were precise, never using more movement than she needed to. Each flowed into the next while she stepped in with a pair of scimitars, keeping herself inside of Weiss' range and mixing in elbow or knee strikes whenever possible.
It left Nora unable to use her grenades or the full force of her hammer, even before considering the blinding light. Even if Ruby had Crescent Rose, she couldn't say for certain that she'd be able to do much better. A wide, sweeping strike could easily be redirected into an ally when they were that close.
Blake, who hadn't been able to hand off the hard drives, mostly stuck to shooting. But the woman was projecting some sort of flame barrier that stopped the bullets.
The wrong people were in the wrong fights.
Ruby sped her next swing up enough to clip Torchwick. The edge bit into his leg right before be could jump away. Ruby kicked off of the ground with a pulse of her Semblance, emulating a Gravity Dust shot from Cresent Rose.
At the peak of her rotation, she forced the best attack options into existence.
Her quadruplet selves spun into a mouth of blades descending on Torchwick. A raised cane stopped two strikes cold, but left his sides open. Ruby's form hadn't been perfect, one sword was higher than the other. When they connected, they pushed him into the air and over top of Pyrrha who… wasn't ready. Her stance was split, shield toward Torchwick's former position while she spun her sword on the other side. Her blade bounced around like it was hitting something.
Pyrrha followed his arc with a leaping shield bash at… nothing. Her shield struck the ground and her follow up stab against was just thin air, nowhere near where Torchwick's path brought him. Pyrrha brought her guard back up and gasped, "What?"
A feeling of danger came from above. Ruby ducked and spun, changing what would've been a blow to the neck to the shoulder instead. She moved with the hit and used it to slash in the direction of the threat. But nothing was there.
"Pyrrha, what was that?" Ruby moved so she was back to back with Pyrrha. They advanced on Torchwick while he stood up.
"I don't know, but- down!" Pyrrha moved as she shouted. Ruby ducked below the shield flying overhead, twisting under Pyrrha as she lunged at empty space again.
"What's the matter kids? Scared of little old me?" Torchwick spun his cane around one finger and held his arms out wide, asking them to break their stance and charge him. Neither Ruby nor Pyrrha moved. "Or maybe I just need to give you more to care about."
He flicked the end of his cane to the side and fired a Dust shot at the alley.
"Jaune!" Pyrrha turned away, flinging her shield at it, but they were too far away for her to intercept.
Danger from the side. Ruby tried to catch whatever it was, but the attack hit Pyrrha in the back and sent her flying, without Ruby's sword connecting with anything. Roman snapped another shot off, hitting Pyrrha mid bounce. But she kicked off of the ground and landed on her feet.
Ruby pulsed her Semblance to get in place and parried the third shot off to the side. She paused there, listening to the music of the world. They were surrounded, surrounded by a subtle display of Aura. And the source of it was right next to her, unseen to the naked eye.
Ren hit the girl with a quick palm strike, but she shattered.
She appeared before Ruby with a scowl and brought her parasol into a rapier stance. With the flick of a button, a metal spike extended from the top. Her Aura pulsed, then it moved to the side without her body following.
~~~
Jaune got his shield up just in time to catch the Dust shot. It exploded on impact, forcing him back and fanning flames over the edges of his shield. But, none hit Yang.
She was still leaning against the wall where he'd propped her up. It took a bit longer than it should have to move her. It was like those times that his youngest sister, who was still older than him by two years, went completely limp to stop him from getting her off of his bed. Only with someone who felt like she weighed more than team JNPR combined. Which was a little weird, but he had bigger things to worry about, like how his friends were getting their butts kicked and he was left standing behind.
He squinted to catch the other fight. Even if seeing Weiss like that made his breath catch in his throat, it was important to watch.
She tried to use a glyph to push her enemy away again, but the evil woman glided around the edge and spun in with another slash to Weiss' belly. She stepped through, hitting her again and again, ending with a double palm strike to the back that forced Weiss into the path of Nora's next strike. Thankfully, she pulled her hammer to the side at the last second and only smashed the road up some more.
Through all of their sparring classes, Weiss had always been one of the most graceful fighters, quick on her feet and hard to pin down. But now, she was favoring one leg so much that all of the slight hops were impossible. And that woman was taking full advantage of it.
She had to have some sort of weakness or vulnerability. Some sort of opening that they could exploit. But Jaune couldn't see any.
There was one way he could help. If he had to stay here, guarding Yang, then he could at least make the fight easier by watching something smart.
"Blake!" Jaune shouted, waving his sword in the air. "Give me those, you fight."
She lept next to him in a single bound.
"You need to keep these safe. I copied data from some of them, but if we have everything-" Blake kept her eyes on the fight.
"I get it, they're important." He shrunk his shield and grabbed the hard drive rack. "Don't worry about these, just… help Weiss."
She nodded and rejoined the battle, a blade in each hand. Jaune stepped over to Yang and placed the hard drives in her lap.
"Yang, can you keep a hold of these?" Jaune redeployed his shield to cover both of them.
Yang didn't respond.
After a moment of waiting, he grabbed one of her hands and wrapped her fingers around the edge. When they stayed in place, he repeated the motion with her other hand, though, it fell to the ground as soon as he let go.
"Close enough," he whispered as he stood up and looked back at the fight.
Ren and Nora had swapped places with Ruby directing Nora's aim. The two of them sort of chased the small girl with grenades. They kept shooting off to the side of wherever she was. Pyrrha'd shifted to rifle mode and was doing the same. She always seemed to shoot the girl wherever she appeared after the teleport-shatter thing she'd been doing.
"No…" Jaune muttered to himself while he watched the result of another grenade. When the girl appeared again, she was leaping out of the blast. "Not teleporting… illusions."
With that puzzle solved he turned to the other fight. Blake matched the other woman blow for blow, neither seeming to land a good hit. Ren stood by Weiss and deflected any black shards that the sorceress fired. At the same time, Weiss was weaving a blue-white ribbon of energy that ate into the orange halo. Which left…
Jaune raised his shield just in time to block the cane. The end hooked over the lip and with mighty heave, Roman Torchwick yanked Jaune's shield into his sword arm. He followed up with a hard crack to the back of the head, but Jaune was very familiar with the wave of dizziness that came with head blows. He caught the ground with his shield and pushed off with a wide slash.
"I was in the mood for an easier fight." Torchwick hopped back, moving out of range of Jaune's sword. "And I believe you have something of mine."
He pointed at Yang with his cane. Jaune turned his head slightly to look, but got his shield up in time to block the next hit. Two more blows rattled off of it before he forced the man away with a thrust. A thrust that also failed to connect.
"Come on kid, you're in over your head. Just let me take those back and you won't have any more problems." Torchwick smiled. "Don't throw your life away like this."
Jaune gripped his sword so hard it was shaking.
Torchwick stalked to the side, flipping his cane around so he held it by the handle. "What're you going to do to me that your friends couldn't?"
Jaune stepped forward in a flurry of swings, none of which found their mark. Torchwick seamlessly moved from parry to parry, ending with a barely blocked strike at Jaune's knees.
"Is that your best? That girl out there, the young one in the red cloak-" He stepped to the side of another slash. "-She's easily worth five of you. And that's when she isn't cloning herself."
"SHUT UP!" Jaune roared, his sword so hot it was almost burning his hand. He rained blows on Torchwick's cane, steel crashing against steel again and again. The heat built up with each collision, sparks flying and growing in intensity as the smug jerk laughed in Jaune's face.
Jaune pushed his Aura into his sword. Bright flames ignited as he swung, spilling over the cane in a wave of fire and landing on Trochwick's jacket. He jumped away, narrowly avoiding the next attack by jumping back to the entrance of the alley.
"Nice trick kid, but it's not enough." Torchwick took aim with his cane. "I never needed to beat you to win this fight."
Jaune raised his shield to catch the Dust shot. It left the end of the cane on a bee-line to him, but at the last second, Torchwick spun his cane and smacked it off course with the handle. Jaune swiped at the fiery orb as it curved around him, heading towards Yang. But he missed.
Jaune winced as it approached her, glowing bright and brighter until…
She caught it. Her open hand wrapped around the shot as it exploded, the flames seeping into her body while her hair glowed gold.
"Huh…" Roman took aim again. "Let's see if you can-"
Jaune cut him off by throwing a diagonal wave of fire at him. Trockwick leaned to the side to avoid it. Jaune stepped up and flung another, making the criminal step to the side, moving part of the way out of the alley.
As he rushed forward, Jaune glanced towards Ruby and Nora. Nora still had her launcher out, covering the field while Ruby and Pyrrha had the smaller girl almost trapped against a wall. It was perfect.
Even with his first real sword technique, Jaune couldn't beat someone like Torchwick in a straight fight. He could barely even slow him down. But, there was one thing he had plenty of because he was waiting in the back, not getting hit. And all Jaune needed to do was slow him down enough.
"Nora!" he shouted as he threw another wild strike that got blocked. Hopefully she remembered the tactic that had won him the last wargame they played. "Blue-on-blue, fire at will."
Torchwick's eyes went wide, but Jaune pressed forward whenever he retreated. Nora's first grenade came in close to their feet. The explosion threw Jaune into the air, he waved his arms wildly, but managed to land on his feet. He turned towards Torchwick again and charged. The man snapped a shot off at Nora, but that was all the distraction Jaune needed. He leapt through the air, colliding with the man and wrapping his arms around his waist.
Two more grenades rained down, explosions interrupting the cane blows to Jaune's back. Each one bounced them off of the ground, rattling Jaune's teeth. They ended at the wall of a building, where one more blasted them, and the wall, apart.
For several long seconds, all he could see was dust.
Jaune's ears rang while he tried to push himself up. His Aura was still there… technically. Though the enormously heavy weight on his back was doing its best to fix that. With each inch that he moved, the section of brick laying on top of him crumbled a little more, and moving further was even easier.
"Almost there," he said through clenched teeth. Jaune tensed all of his muscles and threw the wall off with one final heave!
Only to end up on his knees, staring down the barrel of Torchwick's cane.
"That's far enough kid." The man stood over him, scowling. His hat was missing and the sleeve of his jacket torn, blood dying the white cloth red. "Too bad ginger snap cared more about keeping you alive than killing me because you're as good as dead."
He gestured upward with his injured hand. "So stand up and none of the rest of you get any smart-"
His cane violently snapped to the side, up and out of his hand as if someone grabbed ahold of the end yanked it away. Torchwick gaped at the flying weapon, mouth opening and closing in disbelief. "What?"
Jaune lunged, bashing him in the gut with his shield and bowling him over. Torchwick hit the ground hard, clenching his stomach and groaning. With another heave, Jaune staggered to his feet.
"Just…" He pointed his shield at Torchwick. "Just stay there."
After picking his sword back up, he looked at the fallen man again. "Actually wait, no. You stand up and come over here."
~~~
Ruby dashed under Pyrrha's shield and slipped another hit past the small girl's guard, only for her to shatter and reappear inches away. Thanks to Nora's grenades, they'd worn her Aura down to the point where she focused her Semblance entirely on defense instead of invisible feints.
Though that didn't make the fight that much easier.
Ruby swung at the same time that Pyrrha bashed with her shield. The girl leaned back, slipped between their attacks, and snapped a kick to Ruby's chest. Without slowing, she rolled over Pyrrha's back and looped Ruby's arm with the end of her parasol. With a surge of Aura based speed, Ruby brought her sword in and smacked the girl's back. But, Ruby still got her face smashed into Pyrrha's forehead.
They bounced apart, Pyrrha barely parrying a parasol thrust from the girl and forcing her across a grenade crater with a flurry of spear thrusts.
Ruby blinked a couple of times to make sure she wasn't seeing things. The red light was back again even though she wasn't using that technique anymore.
The girl blinked at her, eyes shifting color from brown-pink to pink-brown, and tapped her forehead. Ruby groaned, of course she'd used that much Aura already. She took the momentary pause to listen for the others. Ren and Weiss were barely using their Auras; whereas Blake's was so loud it drowned out everyone except for the sorceress.
Ruby licked her lips and pulled her hood up to hide the symbol. She could ask the world what the solution was, but she was already running low enough that the symbol appeared.
"Pyrrha, Nora." Ruby glanced between them. "Can you handle her?"
The girl looked confused and a little offended. She placed her free hand on her hip and shook her head at them. She was also using her Semblance, but her Aura remained on her body.
"I believe that we can." Pyrrha kept her rifle aimed at their enemy.
"Yeah, we've got this." Nora landed next to Ruby, hammer in hand.
Ruby checked on Jaune. He had Torchwick at sword point, walking over to the alley where Yang was. The cane was still in the middle of the street. At some point, Ruby needed to ask Pyrrha what she did with her Aura when it went flying, but that was a question for later. Jaune's strategy was another one that she had concerns about, even if it seemed to work in the end.
"Right. You know what to do." Ruby stepped back and turned toward the other fight. Blake was the only one in melee. Ren circled with his weapons ready while Weiss had retreated much further. She was forming lots of ice shards from her Dust and waiting.
Even though it made the glowing brighter, Ruby pulsed her Semblance to get into the thick of it as soon as she could. She burst from the crowd of petals with a thrust that was off-handedly batted to the side.
She threw as many strikes as she could without calling in her Aura. None connected with anything except for the woman's blades. The final parry knocked Ruby's sword above her head and opened her up to a kick to the gut. Blake's Aura sang and her form blurred into a double-sword strike to the woman's back that knocked her into an Aura enhanced kick from Ren.
"Can you hold her off for a bit?" Blake asked in between shots from the pistol part of her weapon, each of which got burned up by the flame barrier.
"Weiss?" Ruby glanced at her partner.
"I'm ready." Weiss stopped spinning Dust into needles and now held countless numbers of them in the air.
Ruby dashed forward and stopped in front of the woman, sword held high. Ren fired a short burst as Ruby's sword came down. She met the woman's blade head on and the glass scimitar cracked. It brought a smile to Ruby's face, that was quickly replaced by a frown when she heard the woman's Aura flowing into the glass.
The cracks filled with orange light and exploded into a shower of shards that the woman pointed at Ruby and Blake with her Aura. Each by itself wouldn't cause a problem, but there were so many that the red light flared up to the point where her hood couldn't block it anymore.
The woman's eyebrows raised, then settled back into a glare. Her Orichalcum channels flared to life and another sword formed in her hand. But instead of attacking, she tried to push past.
Ruby saw all of the paths she could take and moved in front of them. She split into a cage of swords. Each swing wouldn't do too much by itself, but all of them formed an effective barrier.
It slowed the sorceress down just enough for Weiss to begin. Shards of ice as longer than Ruby's fingers fired at the sorceress from every direction. She summoned the fiery barrier again, drawing on her Aura to power it. Ruby had assumed that she was using Dust, which made it much more interesting. If it wasn't her Semblance, maybe they could do something similar.
The woman weathered Weiss' hail of ice and Ren's bullets without a scratch, but standing there and protecting herself took time. And with each passing second, Blake was getting closer and closer to completion.
It was incredible to listen to. Even though it seemed like Blake was just standing with her katana sheathed and her hand tightly grasping the grip, her Aura flowed outwards and expanded like a net grabbing every bit of energy it could. Then wrapped around itself and nestled into a tight weave around either Blake or her weapon. As soon as one pattern was in place she began forming the next. She moved as the final shards were fired.
Blake flew past Ruby so quickly that the wind took a second to catch up, drawing her blade at the perfect moment to transfer all of the force into her foe. It bit into the glass, its edge obscured by a purple so dark it was almost black. The sword tore through the glass and slammed into the woman's gut hard enough to fold her over it. The second blow, from Blake's cleaver, was sheathed in the same energy. It slamming into the woman's shoulder with a sickening crunch.
The sorceress tumbled across the ground, landing on one knee. Her dress had torn where Blake's attack connected and a light line of blood ran down her skin, even though her Aura almost instantly closed the wound. The arm that took the second blow dangled uselessly at her side.
Ruby barely resisted gasping. She could only do damage through someone's Aura by hitting someone with the point of Crescent Rose's beak from a Semblance enhanced dash. And Blake did it without being louder than Ruby going all out with her take all options technique.
Blake flowed back into a ready stance, her sword sheathed again, when the sorceress's eyes erupted into orange fire and she spoke in a strange language that Ruby somehow understood the meaning of.
Her Aura twisted and amplified the melodic phrase while the flames around her eyes changed into a pearly white glow. A riddle appeared in Ruby's mind, a riddle that made no sense.
Everyone fell silent as the spell took over their minds. The only sounds were the clinking of the sorceress' heels against the pavement while she marched towards the alley Yang was in.
Ruby tried to move, to stop her, but she was caught, literally ensnared by the chords of the spell while she tried to answer the impossible. The words moved in her mind again and again, but they never made any sense. No matter how many times she repeated them.
She could make out another sword being forged from the woman's Aura, but the riddle was still all she could focus on.
The blade whipped through the air with a crack that ended with a loud metallic ringing.
After a moment, it happened again. This time it was followed by a meaty thump and the sound of Yang's Aura tearing the air to shreds.
The sorceress passed them again, flying almost as quickly as Blake had. It wasn't under her own control though. She smashed through the wall of the warehouse, vanishing into the darkness within.
"Moo," Weiss whispered. But that made no sense, what did cows have to do with dogs?
Weiss raised her rapier and conjured an enormous glyph beneath her feet. She spun every color of Dust she had into it. The particles glowed brighter and brighter until she was surrounded by a whirlwind of white light.
With a flourish she sent a wave of white energy coursing over the street. As it touched Ruby, the fog on her mind cleared and the riddle was forgotten. Though it was hard to not try and remember.
"Weiss what was- Everyone get down!" Ruby cut herself off.
Danger was coming from the warehouse and it would hit all of them.
Butterflies of black glass flew from the hole in the wall like bullets from a machine gun. Their wings dug into the edge, making the hole even wider and allowing more to pass.
Ruby knocked as many of them away as she could, but two more followed each that she hit. With each impact the red light grew stronger and stronger, spreading over her entire body.
After what for like an eternity, the shards stopped and she could take a look at what happened.
Weiss' glyph shield vanished and she staggered back. There was a small red splotch on her shirt in the same location that the Beowolf stabbed her. A new gash was also open on her thigh.
Ren, Jaune, Nora, and the small girl were in a similar state, though their injuries were less severe.
Pyrrha stood in a pile of broken glass, breathing heavily, but was otherwise fine.
Both Blake and Torchwick were nowhere to be found.
And Yang was standing! She slowly stumbled forward, dragging her feet with each step. Both her body and the hard drives were unharmed.
"Weiss." Ruby dashed over to her and scooped her up.
"We need to leave."
"Why? With Blake, Pyrrha, and me we can still bea-"
"That woman's Anathema! She hasn't even begun to start fighting us!" Weiss shouted.
Ruby blinked at her. "How do you know that?"
"No one can cast that many spells that quickly. We need to get out of here before she finishes another."
Ruby turned her attention to the warehouse. The sounds of the same spell forming again echoed from within. The sorceress stood near a giant box of Dust with eyes and Orichalcum channels blazing, the rest of her dress in tatters. But besides that she wasn't hurt… And her Semblance seemed to be control over glass… Which they were currently standing in a field of.
"Run!" she yelled to the others and pulsed her Semblance, not caring how much more it made her glow. Ren and Nora followed behind her, moving much more slowly. Blake reappeared with Jaune and Yang thrown over her shoulders. And Pyrrha…
Pyrrha had taken Ruby's former position. She stood with her rifle slotted into the side of her shield, firing into the warehouse as quickly as she could.
"Pyrrha get out of there!" Jaune yelled.
Pyrrha ignored him, her eyes locked on her target. She kept firing until the spell was cast once more.
A wave of black butterflies consumed her. Razor sharp glass hit metal again and again while Pyrrha's Aura blazed with sound. Ruby caught glimpses of her furiously parrying butterflies from the air.
After a second of listening, the butterflies fell and Pyrrha raced towards them.
Ruby set Weiss down. "I'll be right back."
She pulsed her Semblance and skidded to a stop next to Pyrrha. Ruby threw her over her shoulders and dashed with her Semblance again, putting as much distance between herself and the warehouse as she could.
