Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Rose-Xiao long family were at the Vale docks to see Yang off to Beacon. Tai was crouched hugging his eldest daughter.

“I’m so proud of you” He said

“Thanks dad!” yang smiled. She pulled back and wiped a tear from her eye then pulled Ruby into a hug.

“I-I’ll miss you” Ruby said, her voice cracking.

“I’ll miss you too sis” Yang said. Ruby sobbed into her sister’s chest. Clinging to her older sister tighter “Don’t be too sad” Yang got choked up “you’ll be seeing me soon. Just 2 years and you’ll get to join me at beacon!” Yang tried cheering her sister up.

“Y-Yeah” Ruby nodded. Yang gave her sister one last kiss on the head before pulling away.

Tai reached out and ruffled Yang's hair.

“Give em hell kiddo”.

Yang nodded and with a smile boarded the bullhead to beacon.

“Visit when you can!” Ruby shouted “and remember to call!” 

Yang gave her sister thumbs up just as the doors closed.

Ruby’s first night alone was weird although she had long since graduated from running to her sisters room when she had a nightmare it was still weird knowing that her sister wasn't around to help, or comfort her if she needed it.

She shifted uncomfortably in her bed pulling her pillow Into her chest, wrapping her legs around it trying to remember what it was like to cuddle with yang.

TAP TAP

TAP TAP

“Hm?”

Ruby looked up from her bed and saw a raven at her window tapping its beak against it.

“Hello birdie” she smiled and opened the window letting it fly inside. It flapped around the room until eventually perching on Ruby’s hand. “You alone too?” Ruby reached up and patted the bird's head.

“CAW!” The bird let out a cry in response almost as if it could understand her.

“Guess that's something we both have in common” Ruby chuckled “I’m being over dramatic it’s not like she’s gone forever. She’ll still call and visit during the holidays. And soon I’ll be at Beacon too!”

“CAW! CAW!”

“Hehe” Ruby patted the bird again.

Atlas - Schnee mansion

Winter Schnee walked through the halls, her high heels clacking against the metallic floor of the mansion echoing through the building.

Flanking her were her 2 body guards Vi and caitlyn.

“Report” Winter snapped

Caitlyn spoke up first. “The government recently deployed the new Atlesian Knights that we developed for them into Zaun they are hoping to-”

“Unimportant!” Winter interrupted, throwing up her hand in dismissal. “What about our partnership with talisman industries?”

“They initially didn’t want to become our partners, not wanting to share their proprietary Hextech technology with us, but after offering them access to our experimental dust technology. The C.E.O Jayce agreed to the contract.”

“Good”

“Although…” Caitlyn hesitated looking at her partner Vi.

“What is it?” Winter asked impatiently.

“They wanted 1.2 million lien in exchange for the partnership” Vi answered.

“WHAT!” Winter stopped in her tracks whirling around to look at the two who unconsciously took a step back from the furious women.

“They said it was to cover any reputational cost partnering with the company might bring”

“God damnit” Winter threw open two grand doors of the meeting room and angrily stalked in. “Who signed off on that deal!”

“That would be me,” a voice spoke up.

At the center of the room was a long table and at one of the many chairs sat Winter’s sister Weiss Schnee.

Unlike her sister who wore a white long coat that split at the back with dark blue pants, high heels, and a white dress shirt. Weiss wore a white skirt long enough to go down to her knees, high heels paired with stockings and a long sleeved corset.

“Sister,” Winter said, trying to remain calm. “And just why did you do this?”

“Because I wasn’t about to let a billion Lien deal slip threw our fingers like you were. Who cares if they want a couple million upfront, with Hextech added into out machines we could make billions. We’ll easily cover the cost”

“Paying that fee admits to our company's reputation problem. It makes it look like we have something to hide!”

“Our reputation with the public is already in the mud but with Hextech combined with our technology, we'll become the leaders in weapons technology, hunters and huntees will have to work with us, not to mention the military!”

“But you've just handed out dust technology to one of our biggest competitors!”

“Our biggest partners now” Weiss corrected. “We've gotten Hextech and made one of our biggest competitors our biggest asset. The board will be happy”

“Will they now!? Because let me tell you what this actually looks like on paper” Winter Stalked towards the table slamming her hands onto it. “While you did get your hands on Hextech it came at the cost of giving up our own proprietary asset! Dust! Now that Talisman Industries has it they'll be able to implement it into their tech as well!”

Weiss flinched back at her sister's outburst before steeling herself and responding.

“They never would go for that, you’re a fool if you think-”

SLAP!

Winter lashed out smacking her sister across the face.

“Watch your tongue sister. Remember you are not C.E.O and mother is no longer here to protect you”

Weiss looks up and Winter in shock cupping her face.

“Y-Yes sister. I meant no offense.”

“Good” Winter turns to leave followed by her two bodyguards, missing the heated glare Weiss throws at her.

“Someday” she muttered “someday I'm going to be controlling this company, then you'll have nothing”

Winter continued to her office. Vi and Caitlyn stayed on guard outside the door when Winter entered her assistant Rin Tohsaka was already waiting for her inside.

“What is it?” Winter asked as she took her seat

“We’ve received a message from general Ironwood he wants to have a meeting and discuss your future military contracts now that you have access to hex tech” Rin responded

“He works fast” Winter clicked her tongue “very well schedule the meeting, despite the deal's shortcomings we do have access to Hextech now might as well take advantage of the situation.”

Winter learned back in her chair absentmindedly tapping the table, a concerned look on her face.

“Set up a meeting with Jayce so we can discuss how the sharing of resources will work.”

Rin nodded, making a note of it on the tablet she was holding.

“And arrange an internal audit of all our current projects involving dust. If there's anything too sensitive, have the project relocated and scrubbed from all records and I want a comprehensive breakdown of everything talisman industries now have access to.”

Rin nodded, tapping her tablet trying to keep up with Winter's demands.

“I won’t have company secrets leaking because my sister was too eager to play C.E.O. Draft an outline for the tech sharing agreement. We’ll appoint a neutral 3rd party to oversee the operation”

“An actual 3rd party?

“No” Winter chuckled as if the idea alone was absurd “make sure it's someone we have in our pocket”

With the last couple taps of her tablet Rin finished taking notes and sending messages to the appropriate people. She clasped her hands in front of her.

“Will that be all miss Schnee?”

“Hmmm” Winter took a moment to think something over before responding. “Have two new guards assigned to my sister and make sure they keep a Close eye on her. Can't be too careful after all”

Rin nodded and left. Winter leaned back on her chair and sighed, she spun around to look out the massive glass wall that was behind her staring down at the whole of Atlas.

“You've been awfully bold recently Weiss. Making deals and contracts without consulting me. Let's just see what you’re up too”

Ruby sat in signals Grimm studies class not really paying attention. It had been a couple weeks since Yang left and Ruby had been…. Fine.

Sure with Yang gone Ruby's social circle had shrunk down to 0 but that didn’t matter she had Crimson now, the raven that had landed on her window.

Ruby looked out the classroom’s window and saw Crimson sitting there perched on the window watching her. She was never too far away, to others this might be a little creepy the other kids certainly thought so, but it brought comfort to Ruby that at least someone was always with her.

“Miss Rose!” her teacher suddenly shouted.

“Uh um y-yes?” Ruby awkwardly stuttered.

“What is the answer?”

Ruby looked around confused “h-huh?”

The teacher sighed and the rest of the class snickered. Ruby sank in on herself trying to make herself smaller, her face turning red with embarrassment.

“I asked, could you tell us what the weak point of a Boarbatusk is?”

“Oh” Ruby perked up actually knowing the answer to the question “its underside. It has no armor on its stomach”

“That's correct” the teacher turned back to the class and started to monolog, resulting in Ruby tuning her out again. She tried to focus, she really did, but she just couldn’t. Her eyes wandered to the window again Crimson was still there, their Beady red eyes watching Ruby. She smiled at her bird. She liked to think that Crimson smiled back.

The bell rang signaling the end of class. Students began to file out of the room, Ruby gathered her things and went to join them but when she did someone bumped into her, shoving her to the ground causing her to drop her books and school classroom all over the ground.

“Ugh,” she groaned. She scanned the crowd But whoever had pushed her was already gone.

‘probably just an accident’ she thought to herself and gathered her things before leaving the classroom.

The hall was packed and loud, Ruby tried to make her way through the hall but she was bumped into a couple more times. Unlike last time at least they gave her a half hearted apology, although Ruby could tell they didn't really care. She was pretty sure some of them did it on purpose.

Her next class was hunter combat. 

The classroom was bigger than the others with most of the desks pushed back far from the center to make room for the mini-arena that was in the room.

Ruby took her seat and the professor began class.

“Today we will be doing 1 on 1 sparring. Are there any volunteers?”

Ruby raised her hand with the rest of the class. The teacher scanned the class before pointing at two students.

“Ruby and…. Vesper.”

Vesper smirked and rose from his seat.

“You’re going down red” he said his friends patting him on the back. Out the window Crimson flapped her wings at ruby. Ruby smiled and pulled up her hood.

The two students made their way to the center of the room. Vesper pulled out his sword and Ruby deployed her scythe, the two taking combat stances.

“Remember!” The teacher began “the battle stops when one of your aura levels reaches below 20% or when one of you is no longer in a position to continue the fight. If you continue to attack your opponent after that point then it is grounds for expulsion.”

“Lucky you Ruby, you won’t get too badly hurt” Vesper mocked

“Are you two ready?” 

Both students nodded.

“Then. BEGIN!”

They charged at each other. Ruby took the first strike swinging Crescent Rose. Vesper raised his sword and pressed a button on the handle which caused a shield to sprout from it which he used to block her strike following it up with his own.

Reacting quickly, Ruby raised her scythe using the handle to block his attack.

“Not bad” Vesper growled “Guess there’s a reason you have the highest combat scores in our class.”

Ruby kicked him in the chest forcing him to stumble back and began a barrage of attacks with her scythe. Vesper barely kept up in blocking the attacks with his shield.

CLANG!!!

CLANG!!!

CLANG!!!

“HRAAAA!” Vesper attacked with his sword trying to interrupt Ruby's rhythm. Activating her semblance, Ruby dissolved into rose petals 

“Huh?” 

CRACK!!!

Ruby reformed behind him and slash into his back, bringing the full power of Crescent rose down on him.

“GAAAAA!” Vesper cried out the . He was knocked off his feet and thrown forward, flying to the edge of the arena. “Guh” he gasped as the air was knocked out of him from hitting the floor, tumbling across the ground until he slammed into the far wall. Getting to his knees he glanced up at the screen above the arena

Vesper aura: 50%

‘One attack cut my aura in half!?’ Vesper looked at Ruby ‘how the hell-?”

“CAW! CAW!”

Vesper looked back to the window and saw Crimson watching them.

‘That damn bird’

Ruby took advantage of the brief distraction and charged at him, slashing down. Vesper quickly rolled out of the way and got to his feet only to be hit with the blunt end of Ruby's weapon. He’s knocked to the ground onto his back.

‘Alright enough of this’ Vesper got to his feet and glared at Ruby. ‘I don’t care if she has the best combat scores. I’m not losing to this red headed freak!’

“You’re good at combat Ruby, but not much else huh?” Ruby didn’t say a word just crouching low and positioned her scythe behind her “what too scared to talk without your sister around to protect you!?”

“RRRR” Ruby growled. 

BLAM!!

She pulled the trigger on her scythe blasting herself forward. She flew threw the air using all the momentum to power her attack

CLANG!

Vesper raised his shield and blocked the attack but the sheer force of the attack still knocked him off balance, Ruby used the opening to strike again, cutting him across the chest.

“GUAH!” his aura flared up to absorb the hit surrounding his body in a thin green light. 

Vesper aura: 25%

He fell to the ground, panting from exhaustion. Ruby swung down, planting her scythe next to his head.

“Give up,” Ruby said softly.

Vesper glared up at her. “Never.”

He clutched his sword and thrust upwords aiming for Ruby’s stomach. She fired Crescent Rose, the recoil launching the across his throat

“DRAAAA!” he screamed in pain, dropping his weapon and rolling to the side as the last of his aura was depleted.

“The Winner is Ruby rose!” The teacher announced.

Vesper let out some ragged coughs as he got to his feet, rubbing his neck. He glared at Ruby and went back to his chair. Shoving Ruby with his shoulder as he passed her.

“Freak” he muttered.

Ruby looked after him and frowned before returning to her seat. Out the window Crimson caw'd and flapped it's wings, like it was trying to clap for her. Ruby smiled.

‘At least I have one friend’

School ended with dust studies, Ruby's least favorite class. She never really had a need for dust, preferring to rely on her combat skill, on rare occasions she would use bullets that had been infused with gravity dust but that was really it.

With school over she made her way out into the courtyard. She heard the flapping of wings and looked up to see Crimson flying down to her, landing on her shoulder.

Ruby reached up and patted her friends head 

“Hey freak.”

Ruby looked behind her and saw Vesper leaning against the wall.

“What do you want, Vesper?” She asked.

“A rematch.”

“U-um?” ruby hesitated she had never been in real fight outside of training classes. Although she has fought Grimm but they were always fledgling Beowolfs that had wandered near her mothers grave. “N-no thanks”

“I wasn’t asking.”

Suddenly ruby was grabbed from behind and slammed to the ground, her arms pinned against her back.

“AHHHHHH!” Ruby screamed when she was tackled. “Let me go!”

“CAW! CAW!” Crimons screeched in displeasure from being knocked off Ruby’s shoulder.

“Hold her down Garrett” Vesper said. The boy behind Ruby nodded and unclipped her weapon from her waist tossing it to the side. Vesper walked over and crouched down, grabbing Ruby by the hair and pulling her head up to look her in the eyes. “Not so tough without your weapon are you?” he shoved Ruby's head back down in the ground forcing it into the dirt and grime. “You think you can embarrass me in front of the whole class! Your sister ain't here to protect you anymore!”

“CAW!” Crimson flew down and started pecking at Vesper.

“Ag! This fucking bird!” Vesper swung his hand backhanding Crimson.

THWACK!

Crimson was sent spiraling into the ground landing with a pained thud.

“CRIMSON!” Ruby shrieked.

“SHUT UP! Vesper kicked her across the face. He looked to Garrett and motioned off him to hall her up so she was on her knees.

Ruby glared up at Vesper, anger in her eyes.

“You’re pathetic you know? With your sister gone you’ve got no friends”

KTHWACK!

Vesper punched her across the face.

“No one left to care about the loser in the back of the class”

KTHWACK!

Vesper pulled back and looked at ruby’s shaking form.

“Hmp.” He turned and walked over to where he had knocked Crimson and picked up the bird.

“The only thing that will even spend time with you is an animal.” He squeezed the bird causing it to let out a pained cry.

“LET HER GO!” Ruby screamed!

“Oh what? Can’t save the only thing left that cares about you?” He squeezed the bird again.

“CAW! CAW! CAW!”

“STOP!” Ruby shrieked “PLEASE! STOP!”

Vesper just sneered at her, lips curling into a smirk. “What are you gonna do, cry about it? Can’t believe someone like you thinks they can be a huntress”

Ruby watched as Vesper tortured the one thing she could describe as a friend. The only thing that seemed to care about her anymore. Since Yang left for beacon she hadn't even called her, and ruby’s attempts to make contact threw text or her own calls where ignored.

The only thing she had left was Crimson. And Vesper was… torturing her.

“Let her go” Ruby mumbled.

“What was that?” Vesper held his hand up to his ear “Speak up I can’t hear your groveling”

“I said” Ruby stared up at him, a fire ignited in her eyes “LET HER GO!!!!!”

KABOOM!!!!

A shock wave erupted out of ruby knocking back Garrett and Vesper. Both crying out in surprise, Vesper lost his grip on Crimson as he was thrown back, who quickly flew to Ruby.

The shock wave had created carves in the ground blasting away the concrete and stone. Ruby stood at the center of the mini crater, staring at Vesper rage and hatred filled her now glowing silver eyes.

“What the fuck?” Vesper gasped. ‘Where is this power coming from? She's never been able to do something like that before! And what the fuck is going on with her eyes!?’

“Guh” Garrett got to his “hey!” he shouted.

Ruby glanced back at him. Garrett drew his weapon and charged forward.

“HRAAAAAA” He leapt into the air swing at ruby. She easily sidestepped the attack, his sword hitting uselessly against the ground. He quickly turned going for a follow up attack

CRACK!!!!

Before he could even raise his sword Ruby’s fist connected with his Face. She felt his aura shatter like glass on her fist and Garrett fell to the ground unconscious.

With one opponent down she turned to Vesper.

Vesper stared at ruby his hand shaking his legs felt like they would buckle at any second.

“Y-you think i'm scared of you!” Vesper shouted his voice breaking half way through the sentence “YOU THINK I'M SCARED!”

Vesper charged forward, flailing his weapon. “You’re nothing without your weapon!”

“AHHHHHHHH” Vesper swung, an attack that Ruby easily ducked under and countered with an uppercut to his jaw lifting him off the ground and shattering his aura.

“GAUGH” Vesper choked on his own spit, his vision blurring. Before he hit the ground Ruby punched him in the chest sending him flying into the ground. With no aura to shield him the impact knocked him out.

The glow from ruby’s eyes faded and the full weight of what she had just done came crashing down onto her body. She dropped to her knees in exhaustion.

“Hu, Hu, Hu,” she panted “How did I… How did I do that?”

She looked down at her hands in shock.

“About time” Ruby heard a voice behind her say. She turned only to see Crimson sitting on the ground.

“Did you just…. Talk?” Ruby asked in disbelief. Crimson began to glow, a red light overtaking her body. The glow got brighter and brighter Ruby shielded her eyes. The bird body began to change her feathers turning into hair, her wings morphed into hands. When the transformation was complete a woman stood before Ruby.

Raven Branwen.

Chapter Text

Raven stood before Ruby looking down at the girl. Her black hair flowing in the wind.

“Y-you!” Ruby gasped “You're Yang’s mom!”

Wordlessly Raven moved to where Ruby’s scythe lay. She picked it up looking it over before tossing it back to ruby.

“Gah!” Ruby let out a surprised shout fumbling to catch the scythe, almost dropping it.

“Hello Ruby,” Raven said.

“W-what are you doing here?”

Raven began to walk towards Ruby with a soft smile on her face.

“You look just like your mother” Ruby flinched back when raven reached out to cup her face.

“Why. Are. You. Here?” Ruby damned but her voice lacked any real force. Raven began to circle Ruby.

“Do I really need a reason to visit my niece?”

“Considering you abandoned Yang I didn’t think you were the sentimental type, aunt Raven” Ruby spat out her name like it was venomous.

Raven sighed, a thoughtful look crossed her face.

“Yang didn’t have what it took to survive in my world. She wasn't strong enough but you are.”

“How could you say that!” Ruby seethed “She’s your daughter it shouldn’t matter how strong she is you're supposed to love her no matter what! Besides”

Ruby’s gaze fell to the ground. “She's the stronger of the two of us”

“That's not true. I told you you looked exactly like your mother. You have her eyes too”

“My eyes?”

“They never told you?” Raven questioned, “not a surprise. They always were untrusting”

“They? What are you talking about!?”

“You’ve been lied to your entire life Ruby. Tell me do you know how your mom died?”

“My mom?” Ruby squinted at Raven questioningly “She was killed on a mission fighting Grimm”

“Right,” Raven sneered, “that's what they told everyone, right? Tell me, do you really think your mother, the greatest huntress to ever live, was killed by some common Grimm?”

“What?” Ruby questioned “what are you talking about!”

“Your mother wasn’t killed by Grimm, she was assassinated by a women named Cinder”

Ruby’s eyes widened. 

“You’re lying” Ruby’s voice was shaking

“No. It's your father that's been lying to you and Yang. Everything you know about your mother is a lie.”

“Don't talk about my family!” Ruby screamed. She took a step forward, her eyes adopting a subtle glow. “You don't get to just show up after years and Insult my family and the memories of my mother!”

Raven took a step back, her hand moving to rest on her sword, Omen.

“When would anyone even want to kill my mother?” Ruby questioned furiously.

“Because they fear the power your mother and know you hold”

“Power? I don’t have any special power”

“Then how do you explain what you just did?” Raven motioned to the two people she had just knocked, and the crater she had created in the school's courtyard.

Ruby looked around with apprehension, she didn't have a good explanation.

‘Adrenaline maybe?’ She wondered ‘No, last time I checked Adrenaline doesn't make a shock wave explode from your body’

“I-”

“RUBY ROSE!”

Ruby recognized the voice of one of her teachers. She looked back and saw her dust studies teacher Miss Collins approaching Them. Ruby turned back to Raven only to see her gone. Some feathers floated to the ground where she once stood.

Miss Collins grabbed Ruby's arm.

“What did you do! You attacked your classmates?”

“They attacked me!” Ruby quickly snapped back.

“Come with me!” The teacher clearly didn’t believe Ruby and began dragging Ruby back to the school. Ruby took one last glance back at where Raven stood and thought about when she said.

(Zaun)

The streets of Zaun were thick with smog, street vendors were on every corner selling food, alcohol, various gadgets and of course drugs. A girl with long blue braided hair that reached to the ground approached one of these vendors. She wore a long purple cloak with the hood pulled up to hide her face, the color had faded with age and it was stained with dirt and dust from the years of use.

“What are you looking for?” The merchant asked.

“You got any anti-gravity Dust?” the girl responded.

The merchant snorted. “you serious? This ain’t Atlas kid good luck finding any Dust down here”

“Worth a shot, what about just some scrap metal?”

“That I can do for you.” He reached under his table and pulled out a variety of different metal sheets, some looked in good condition but most of it looked like it had been rusted threw.

“How much for all of it?”

“400 lien” 

“This stuff is worth 100 at most”

The Merchant crossed his arms “250”

“Half of its is rusted shit, 100”

The merchant eyed her for a bit. The two stared each other down before he finally relented.

“Fine 100”

The girl reached into her cloak and fished around for her wallet, the movement was enough to shift her hood back exposing enough of her face for the merchant to recognize her.

“H-hang on your Jinx!”

All the chatter in the air silenced. All attention was immediately directed to Jinx.

She slowly turned to look at the crowd that had gathered. They were twitchy hands resting on weapons.

“That's Jinx?”

“She killed Silco!”

“How much is her bounty again?”

“They all blame you” Jinx heard a voice clawing at the back of her head, it felt like nails scraping against her brain.

“Shut up” Jinx mumbled

“Hey” A member of the crowd took a step forward.

Jinx reacted first, throwing a smoke grenade from out of her cloak

KABOOM!

SSSSSSST!

Smoke quickly filled the street. Jinx took advantage of the cover and grabbed the scrap metal off the table before jumping off of it and scaling a nearby lamp post.

“GET HER!”

The crowd drew the weapons, Jinx jumped to an adjoining rooftop as a hail of gunfire chased after her. Jinx she landed and quickly began sprinting across the roof she vaulted over an air duct when…

BAM!!!!

…A stray bullet cracked into her arm.

“GUH!” The impact sent her spinning through the air but he recovered, converting the momentum into a flip and landed on her feet and kept running.

She looked down at her arm and saw blood draining down her arm, blood was draining from the bullet wound down her arm.

“Dammit” she hissed and leapt to the next roof. Just as she landed the door to the roof was kicked up and a man charged threw and attempted to punch at Jinx. She dodged the attack only to be met with a second fist to the face 

CRACK!

She stumbled back clutching Her face.

“Alright then” she snarled and pulled out her weapon, a modified pistol named Zapper “let's do this.”

The women pulled out a sword and charged at Jinx. Jinx opened fire, Zapper shot out 3 blue flares that slowed to a stop and surrounded the women.

“Huh?” She looked confused. Jinx smirked and pressed a button on the side of her gun.

KABOOM!

KABOOM!

KABOOM!

The 3 flares exploded into neon blue flames.

“GAH!” The woman dropped to her knees and collapsed To the ground. 

“GET HER!

“KEEP MOVING!”

Jinx could hear more people running up the stairs. She pulled out another grenade and tossed it into the doorway.

“Huh? OH SHI-”

KABOOM!

Smoke erupted from the doorway as the stairs collapsed killing anyone who was on them

“Try getting to me now.”

CLANG!

CLANG!

“Huh?” Jinx peered over the edge of the roof and saw people scaling The side of the building. “Oh you've got to be joking!”

Jinx took off running again jumping from roof to roof. Glancing back she saw the mob chasing her.

“You know my bounty can't be high enough to make this worth it!”

“250,000 lien!” One of the people chasing her shouted.

“What! Who the fuck is willing to put that bug of a bounty on my head!”

Jinx landed on one of the roofs and fell into a roll, running to the edge only to see it was a dead end, a drop into the streets below too big for her to survive.

“Shit” She turned back and faced the mob. Only 7 had been able to keep up with her. She could handle that.

She fired a shot at the ground between them creating a mini explosion, she charged threw the debris, pistol whipping the first person in front of her. They stumbled back and with a cry slashed at Jinx. Jinx blocked their sword with the barrel of her gun then kicked them away, the sword falling to the ground.

“HAAAAAAA!” Jinx quickly spun and took aim at another person charging at her and pulled the trigger, the flare exploded as soon as it made contact with his body and knocked him off the roof.

Jinx kicked up the dropped sword, catching it and spinning just in time to block an attack from behind.

CLANG!

Their swords clashed sparks flying with the two swords grinding against one another.

“That bounty's mine” the attacker growled

“I doubt it”

BAM!

Jinx shot a flare threw into their gut. They shrieked In pain and stumbled back clutching their stomach.

“Gah! GAHHHHH!” They dropped to their knees. They slowly moved their hand, bright pink light leaking from the wound. The flare was still In them.

They looked up at Jinx in fear.

She smirked.

“WAIT!”

KABOOM!

Their entire upper body exploded, their  blood raining down and stained the roof red. Jinx looked back to what was left of her attackers with an insane smile on her face.

“Anyone else?”

Everyone flinched back, eyes wide, staring at Jinx, blood splattered across her face.

“That's what I thought”

Jinx pulled out a flash bang-

THWACK

“GAAAAA!!!!” Jinx cried out in pain, an arrow was shot through her hand. She doubled over clutching her wrist “WHAT THE HELL!”

“Enough of this Jinx” out of the crowd walked a woman with white hair and a crossbow mounted on her wrist.

“Robyn Hill!” Jinx shouted “What a surprise! You know unlike you huntresses I don’t have an aura!” Jinx tore the arrow from her hand screaming and throwing the arrow to the ground “THIS SHIT AINT GONNA HEAL EASILY!” Jinx held up her hand which now had a hole in it.

“Surrender and I’ll get you to a hospital”

Jinx laughed.

“A hospital? In Zaun? That's rich” she glanced around “So where's the rest of your team? Or are you all by your lonesome?” Jinx adjusted her grip on Zapper.

“Jinx don’t” Robyn warned “I don’t want to hurt you”

“You got a funny way of showing it”

“You think I like doing this? I don’t want to hurt anyone from Zaun! But your too much of a danger to us to be aloud to run free”

“I’m your best chance against atlas!”

“You killed our best chance against atlas!” Jinx flinched back and the visceral anger in robyn’s voice “Your father was the hope of Zaun he was our best chance, he could have given us our freedom and now he’s dead because of you!”

“Silco wasn’t who you thought he was” Jinx whispered looking down at the floor, dejected.

“They'll never believe you”

Jinx flinched at the voice 

“Jinx! Jinx! You're nothing but a Jinx!”

“Shut up, shut up” Jinx clutched her head trying to silence the voices.

Robyn began to circle Jinx cautiously. She's seen her behave like this before it was not a good sign.

“Never good enough”

“It’s your fault were dead”

Shadows began to appear in Jinx’s vision, ghosts with painted on smiles began to emerge from the crowd. Milo, Clagger, Vander, they were all there.

“All you do is Jinx people”

“Silco is your fault”

“No, No” Jinx began to stumble waving her gun around “I… I did the right thing, he… he was going to….”

“JINX!” Robyn shouted “Put the gun down”

“So pathetic”

“Shut up!” Jinx shot at Milo, the flare phased threw him and was headed straight for Robyn. She quickly dove out of the way before it detonated where she once stood.

BAM!

BAM!

BAM!

BAM!

Jinx kept firing, chasing Robyn with flares; they missed her and flew into the crowd, finally forcing those who remained to run unless they wanted to be caught up in the crossfire.

Robyn raised her crossbow and shot arrow after arrow at Jinx while running from the explosions.

Thaack! 

“Gaa!” one of the arrows embedded itself onto Jinx's shoulder. She fell back to the ground clutching the arrow.

Robyn let out a sigh. 

“I'm sorry Jinx” she walked over and grabbed Jinx's arm. “you are under arrest.”

Jinx glared, blood flowing down her arm. She grit her teeth and pulled at the arrow.

“GAHHHHHH!” She screamed, tearing the arrow out of her shoulder and before she could react Stabbed it into Robyn’s ankle!

“AHHHHHHHHHH” Roby dropped to one knee. Jinx kicked her in the face sending her sprawling and sprang back up to her feet. She reached out for the flash bang she dropped earlier but Robyn quickly tackled her.

“Get off!” Jinx tried to punch Robyn off her swinging wildly and without focus but her attack’s were just blocked and Robyn pinned Jinx’s hand to the ground and began to punch her head in.

THUD

THUD

THUD

CRACK!

Robyn pulled back breathing heavily. 

“Surrender Jinx, please”

Jinx just laughed “is that all you got?”

Robyn sighed and prepared to attack again when she noticed something. Jinx was still holding her gun. And it was aimed directly at the flash bang.

“NO!” Robyn surged forward trying to get the weapon out of Jinx’s hand, but it was too late.

Jinx fired and the flare flew directly into the flash bang

KLING!!!!

A burst of light erupted from the grenade, Robyn fell back with a cry, disoriented she clawed at her ears trying to block the Ringing.

When her senses eventually returned Jinx was already gone.

Jinx fell from a roof crashing onto a dumpster and flopping to the ground.

“Owww” She groaned. She had managed to make her way back to her workshop.

She kicked the door open and stumbled inside onto the catwalk gripping the rusted railing to keep herself from falling.

Her hideout was built out of an old support structure that hung over a massive drop and there was a giant hole in the roof exposing the night sky and atlas floating above.

Jinx dumped the scrap metal into a boiling cauldron then scrambled to one of the upper layers where she had medical supplies. She began the tend to her wounds when-

“Are you insane!”

Jinx turned to the entrance and saw Sevika approaching slamming the door behind her.

“I think you know the answer to that~” Jinx chuckled.

“I thought you wanted to keep a low profile! Being chased through the streets by Zaun's resident huntress isn't what I would call a low profile!”

“I needed materials” Jinx shrugged

“Huuuuu” Sevika sighed and looked down at the scrap metal in the cauldron which had now begun to melt down into a thick liquid. “Did you at least get what you needed?”

“Yeah” Jinx responded “Although it wasn’t easy with the entire city after me. Besides what I really need is dust”

“Dust? Good luck with that, only place to find that stuff is atlas”

“Yeah” Jinx gazed up through the hole in the roof staring at the island of atlas floating above them. “Atlas…”

“You really should lay low,” Sevika says gently.

“Can’t do that” Jinx wrapped a bandage around her arm “not until I’m finished building this”

“What are you even trying to build?”

“A weapon. A weapon that can finally settle the score with Atlas”

Sevika clambered up to Jinx and sat next her, watching her dress her wounds before finally saying.

“You need to stop this” Sevika grabbed Jinx’s shoulder “The whole city thinks you killed your father”

“That man is not my father!” Jinx screamed “Silco… He…. He betrayed all of us, he was making deals with Atlas! He sold us out!”

“I know! but everyone else thinks you murdered Zaun’s leader in cold blood. You need to stop, lay low just until this all blows over”

“And let Atlas’s chokehold on Zaun grow!?” Jinx hopped down to the catwalk “we live in the crater they left behind. They live up there in luxury taking our food, water, power, while we live off their scraps!”

Jinx kicked the railing, the sound of the impact echoing off the walls.

“Then left us down here in the dirt in there shadow! And expect us to take what little scraps they give us with a smile!”

Jinx began to fall into full rant fury written across her face.

“And when we fight back! When we step out of line they send down their enforcers to beat and kill us! They live in their ivory towers and label us terrorists while we choke and die!”

Jinx’s eyes were burning with anger

“I refuse to sit on the sidelines anymore”

“Alright I get it.” Sevika hopped down to join Jinx on the catwalk. “Then what's your plan?”

Jinx looked up at Atlas floating above them.

“I told you before I need dust.”

The meeting with the principal didn’t go well for Ruby of course her dad and teachers didn't believe that she had been the one who was attacked.

Her dad opened the car door for her with a look of disappointment on his face.

“I was defending myself” Ruby said

Tai didn't say anything, letting silence fill the car until the sound of the engine kicked on.

The ride home was uneventful with little words spoken between the two of them.

When they got home Ruby stomped in and dropped her bag like a sack of rocks. She headed for her room until her dad grabbed her shoulder.

“Hang on” he said “We need to talk.”

“About what?”

“Why did you attack them?”

“I DIDN’T ATTACK THEM!” Ruby whirled around and slapped her dad’s hand away.

“There was a crater outside the school and the two kids were laid out flat! Even if you were defending yourself you went too far!”

“Too far!? They pulled their weapons on me! What was I supposed to do to let them beat me up!?”

“Ruby!-” Tai stopped himself and took a second to calm down before continuing. “I know Yang leaving has been hard on you, it's been hard on me too..”

“This has nothing to do with Yang!”

“Really because ever since she left you’ve been acting out! You won’t leave your room except for school, don’t talk to anyone. I’m worried about you.”

“Forget this” Ruby stormed off to her room. She slammed and locked the door.

She dropped onto her bed and let her head fall into her hands. 

‘How can he not believe me?’ Tears began to well up in her eyes. She needed her sister, just had to hear her voice.

She pulled out her scroll and called yang.

Ring

Ring

RIng

“Hello this is Yang leave a message-”

Ruby hung up. No answer just like all her other calls for the past couple weeks. Ever since yang left not one message, call, nothing.

“Huuu” Ruby sighed “Everyone's gone….”

TAP TAP

TAP TAP

Ruby glanced over at the window and saw a bird tapping on it.

“Raven” Ruby walked over and opened the window. Raven flew up onto the roof, Ruby sighed and followed her up.

When she climbed up the wall and got to the roof she saw Raven in her human form standing at the edge.

“What do you want?” Ruby asked.

“To train you” Raven turned to look at her.

“What?” 

“I want to train you, teach you to control the power you hold.”

“First tell me what it is. How was i able to do what i did outside of the school.”

“Your eyes that's how.”

“My eyes?”

“You have silver eyes. That's an incredibly rare trait, makes you special” Raven began to pace “Makes you special more than special. Some say those with silver eyes are the descendants of the brothers god.”

“The brothers?” Ruby couldn't help but laugh “their a fairy tale”

“Trust me they are very real” Raven crossed her arms “and their power lies in you”

Ruby rolled her eyes. “If all you here to talk about are old fairy tales then leave”

Ruby began walking away.

“Hey” Raven spoke up. Ruby turned just in time to see a knife headed directly for her head.

“Ah!” She flinched back and the knife… froze, inches away from her face.

“What the?” The knife was surrounded by an ethereal silver glow, and in the reflection of the knife she saw her eyes had taken in the same glow.

She leaned closer, reaching up to touch her face.

“What is this?” She asked Raven only to see that she was also surrounded by silver light frozen in place.

Ruby looked back at the knife curiously and plucked it out of the sky. The glow faded and Raven dropped to her knees.

“See” Raven gasped out and got back to her feet “The silver eyes give you something greater than any semblance. True magic.”

“If I had all this power why haven’t I ever felt it before?”

“Because it was locked away, you had never felt it before so you had no idea how to call upon it, but now that you have-”

“-I'll be able to call upon it at will” Ruby finished.

Raven nodded. “With enough training you will be the most dangerous huntress alive.”

Raven reached out to Ruby. “Let me train you, show you how to unlock your full potential.”

Ruby hesitated.

“Why should I trust you?”

“Do you remember the night when you and Yang snuck out?”

“Yeah” Ruby mumbled, “we went out looking for you and almost died to a pack of Beowolfs.”

“And how did you survive?”

Ruby squinted at Raven, she was kidding something.

“We got lucky” Ruby said slowly “uncle Qrow showed up and saved us.”

Raven shook her head “That's wrong. Another lie.”

“What?”

“You did find me. I’m the one who killed the Beowolfs and stayed with the two of you until Qrow showed up.”

Ruby stared at Raven’s face trying to find any sign of deception, but there was none.

“You’re lying,” Ruby denied.

“Do you really believe that?” Raven questioned softly.

“Then why did no one tell me!” Ruby's voice rose in confusion and anger “Why didn’t Yang say anything!”

“She didn’t know,” Raven quickly interrupted “Yang tried to protect you and was knocked out by the first Beowolf. She never say what happened.”

“Then what about dad!? Qrow!? Why would they-”

“Because they didn’t want you or your sister to know that I’ve been watching you, protecting you.”

Raven walked up to Ruby and cupped her cheek, tilting her head up so they could look each other in the eyes.

“That's what I have been doing,” Raven said. Her voice was softer than before, almost comforting. “Watching over you, protecting you, I’m not your enemy Ruby I just want to help you.” Raven pulled Ruby into a hug. Ruby gasped, the hug felt familiar like one of her moms. “I see the same potential in you that your mother had Ruby. Let me show you how to use it.”

Ruby stood in Raven's arms thinking about what she said.

“Why all the secrets?” Ruby mumbled “why did no one ever tell me anything about this.”

“Because Ozpin doesn’t want you to know about your real power. He and his group want to control you so they lie.”

“Ozpin? What does the headmaster of Beacon have to do with this?”

Raven pushed Ruby away so she could look at her keeping her hands on her shoulders. “I will tell you everything Ruby and unlike your father I won’t lie to you, I’ll tell you what really happened to your mother and why, but I need to know if your with me or not.”

“What do you mean with you?”

“I’m the head of a bandit tribe” Raven said carefully “I want you to join us, we’ll train you on how to use the silver eyes and care for you.”

Ruby looked up at Raven shocked, she broke out of her arms and stepped back.

“You want me to join a tribe of bandits?”

Raven nodded and cautiously approached Ruby. “I know I’m asking a lot but-”

“No” Ruby quickly said the tone of her voice left no room for argument. “I won’t just abandoned dad or Yang.”

“Your sister is off at Beacon and when's the last time she even called you?”

“I DON’T CARE SHE’S STILL MY SISTER AND I WONT’ JUST DISAPPEAR ON HER!!” Ruby spun around to face Raven “I won’t abandon her or dad. I’m not you.”

A look of fury overtook Raven but she quickly hid it before Ruby could see.

“Then what about a trial period?” Raven asked slowly “we’ll start your training early and you can meet the tribe. Then you can make a decision”

Ruby didn't answer right away. A beat of silence passed over the two while Ruby thought. This was the person who abandoned Yang and left her father, but at the same time she was offering the truth about what happened to her mom. 

“Okay” Ruby finally mumbled.

“Good” Raven said.

“So this silver eye power. How exactly will you train me?” Ruby asked.

“I’ll do more then train you I’ll show you how to evolve the silver eyes into their true form.”

“Evolution? What are you talking about?”

Raven smiled.

“Me and your mother called it the six eyes.”

Chapter Text

Winter sat in her office, she was on her scroll in a call with Theodore the headmaster of shade academy. He was the closest thing Vacou had to a leader with how lawless that kingdom was. Most of it was a no man's land with the only real recognized authority in the entire kingdom being shade academy.

“You said the CCT would make life in Vacou easier! But lately it’s caused nothing but chaos!” Winter could hear the sound of the headmaster slamming his desk. “Equitment and data for our hospitals have been corrupted! Things linked to the network have fucking detonated! Important systems for business have gone dark for days!”

“Considering your kingdom's business are what most other kingdoms would call mafia, isn't that a good thing?” Winter snidely replied.

“May I remind you that those “Mafias” are the only reason your CCT towers are even in Vacou and the only reason you have Vacou as a customer for your goods. Who else do you think is buying Atlas products in Vacou? It certainly isn’t law abiding citizens”

“Do people like that even exist in Vacou” Winter scoffed “There’s no problems in any of the other kingdoms where the CCT towers are installed from Adimantie to even Menagerie no one else is having problems. so i’d say any issues you’re having is due to your own kingdom's incompetence. We’d be happy to send a specialist to take care of any issues that your engineers caused with their fault installation. For a price of course.”

“Winter” the headmaster growled.

“It’s Miss Schnee to you, and ill send you a bill” Winter hung up before the headmaster could respond.

“Miss Schnee?” Rin’s voice came crackling through the intercom.

“What is it?” Winter responded. 

“Jayce Talis and Viktor are here to see you.”

Winter smiled, “Perfect send them in.”

The double doors opened and the 2 C.E.O.’S entered.

“Viktor. Jayce” Winter smiled and put in a friendly tone. “Take a seat.”

“Thank you miss Schnee” Jayce said as he and his partner sat. Winter's eyes briefly flicked to Viktor. Unlike Jayce he was very pale, his clothes appeared unkept and torn in some areas.

“It's….. nice to meet the both of you.” Winter said, her voice tight. Viktor missed Winter's look of brief disgust at his appearance. Either that Or he didn't care enough to bring it up.

“We're excited to work with you and your company Miss Schnee,” Jayce spoke up “I think by working together we can make life in Atlas better for everyone.”

“Yes of course” Winter said “There are just some things about the agreement that I wish to talk with the two of you about.”

“I don't understand?” Viktor questioned “Your sister seemed most agreeable to our terms”

“My sister does not speak for the company” A slight bit of anger began to slip into Winter's tone “I do.”

“What is it you wished to discuss?” Jayce asked.

“Weaponization of hextech”

The mood in the room shifted at Winter's words. The air seemed heavier and tense.

“Absolutely not,” Jayce said firmly. Winter glared at Jayce.

“If we are able to combine hextech with dust then-” Winter began but Viktor interrupted.

“This is something we both want, but not for weapons. We know you have more to offer, your energy departments for one thing, not to mention the medical applications. We're more than willing to work with you but not for weapons.”

“Fine” Winter raised her hands in a surrender motion. She clearly wasn't happy with the deal but she couldn't risk hextech falling into a rival company's hands. “Fine. Well move hextech and dust development to a non weaponized department. We can decide what that will be at a later date. There is another matter I wish to speak to you two about.”

Winter Produced another contract setting it on the table. “You asked for a sign-on bonus of 1.2 million lien for a partnership with our company. Even you must know that's unreasonable.”

“We would be more than happy to renegotiate the price or even remove it completely” Viktor said “If we were given certain guarantees”

“What guarantees?”

Viktor and jayce glanced at each other before Viktor said “Your company doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to… how you acquire your assets”

Winter looked at them confused.

“What do you mea-”

“You treat human rights like they're optional” Jayce finally said.

Winter responded with a sigh. “Is that what this is about?”

“WHAT!” Jayce rose from his seat outraged by Winters callousness and lack of care. “Your mines are filled with people from Zaun who die in your caves everyday because of your working conditions! How can you sound so... disinterested!”

“We've had some accents, yes. We can't control everything that happens in the mines.”

“Don’t give me that crap! You hire people from Zaun at an unlivable wage and then work them till they die!”

“Don't pretend you don't do the same” Winter said coldly “Your company also hires people from Zaun almost exclusively to work on your more dangerous and unstable projects. And despite your promises you have yet to allow Hextech into Zaun”

Jayce shifted uncomfortably not expecting Winter to call out his hypocrisy. Viktor reached up and touched his partner on the shoulder.

“Sit down Jayce” he said. Jayce grumbled but fell back into his seat. “Even with what you have said Winter your working conditions are much worse than ours, your fatality rate is unacceptable if we are going to work with your company. We would be willing to lower the sign on bonus but we want assurances that you won’t use your… usual methods on projects involving Hextech”

Winter clasped her hands together. “Fine. We'll look to other methods in projects involving HexTech in return you will lower the sign on bonus”

“That seems agreeable”

The meeting didn’t last much longer, the new sign on price was settled at 500,000 lien after that Jayce and Viktor excused themselves once all matters were taken care of and left Winter’s office.

“I can't believe she treated us like that” Jayce said once they made it into the hallway. “She says we're just as bad as her, when she put her own mother in a coma!”

“That's only alleged,” Viktor responded.

“Oh please everyone knows she did it. The investigation revealed foul play; they just couldn't prove who did it. Wonder who paid them to drop the investigation” Jayce said the last part sarcastically.

The two boarded an elevator and headed for the ground floor.

“What do you think the chances are they actually honor the deal and don't tamper with the dust they send us?” Jayce asked.

“Low, but we'll take precautions. They won't be able to reverse engineer hextech without help from Her .”

“That's another issue. She found out Silco was selling her tech to us and killed him. What do we do now?”

“The bounty We placed on her head should serve as sufficient bait for a Zaunite to capture her for us.” Viktor said matter of factly “If that doesn’t work then we’ll use the CCT to find her”. 

Jayce stilled then slowly turned to viktor. His expression was unreadable but there was clearly worry in his eyes

“Are you sure that's a good idea?”

“It may be our only option if we can’t retrieve her soon. The system's already in place. Might as well use it for what it was built to do.”

“If we get caught...”

“Who's gonna catch us? The Schnee’s use it all the time plus its not like the public knows what the system is really for” Viktor crossed his arms "They still think it's only for communication"

Bing

The elevator doors opened and they left, passing Rin on their way out of the building.

Ruby followed Raven through the forest; the red eyed women hadn't been all that clear on where they were going outside of vaguely saying “to camp.” Ruby didn't know what she was expecting this camp to be but it certainly wasn't a massive wall made out of wooden pikes that towed into the sky almost as big as some of the trees that surrounded them.

The two approached the front entrances where two armed guards stood.

“Commander Raven” One of them said “Welcome back” the second guard quickly spotted Ruby following close behind.

“Is this the girl” He pointed at Ruby who flinched back at his side motion. Raven quickly stepped in front of  Ruby, seeing the girls unease creating a wall between her and the guard.

“Open the gate” Raven demands. The guard quickly nods and does as commanded.

The inside was less impressive then Ruby assumed it would be. Tents were piled up along the walls forming a path down the middle to another massive tent that sat on an elevated wooden platform.

“I'm guessing that's yours” Ruby pointed to the tent in the middle. Raven nodded and the two entered it.

The inside was… warm was the only way Ruby could think to describe it. It was lit by candle, a carpet lay on the floor with a table in the center of it and to her left was a makeshift bed that appeared to be barely used.

Sitting at that table was a girl who appeared to be the same age as Yang.

“Vernal” Raven addressed her “this is my niece Ruby.” Vernal stood up and made her way over to the two, Ruby took a step back and eyed Vernal cautiously. The two stared each other down until Vernal extended her hand.

“Nice to meet you” She said with a smile. Ruby was surprised, she didn’t expect friendliness from anyone here. She shakily shook Vernal’s hand.

“Y-You too” she stuttered. Vernal quickly pulled Ruby into a hug. Ruby stiffened her arms awkwardly pinned at her sides. Her eyes darted around not ready for a hug of all things from a member of a cutthroat bandit tribe. “U-um.”

Sensing her discomfort, Vernal broke the hug and pulled back.

Raven patted Ruby on the back “why don’t you go introduce yourself to the rest of the camp.” Ruby nodded and quickly left the tent. As soon as she did, Vernal's smile vanished.

“Remind me why we are being nice to that child,” Vernal snapped. “It felt like she would break if I held her too hard! She’s soft and weak, she has no place in this tribe.”

“Because we need her!” Raven snapped. “You've heard of her mother, summer rose right? well did you see the color of Ruby's eyes.”

“Yeah… silver but she clearly doesn't know how to use them.”

“But with the right training she will.”

“If you were willing to train her, why didn't we just take your daughter?”

“my daughter didn't have this kind of potential. I saw summer take out entire hordes of Grimm just by looking at them, and if we can teach Ruby to unlock the six eyes she will be the most powerful thing on this planet.” Raven leaned against the wall “and the only thing that could protect us from Salem. Did you get her scroll”

“Yeah” Vernal held up Ruby's scroll “Grabbed it off of her when I hugged her”

“Good block any incoming calls and messages from Yang” Raven turned to leave. “The more abandoned she feels the more Ruby will come to rely on us.”

Jinx approached the last drop. A bar in the center of Zaun that acted as the city epicenter for all of Zaun’s business, criminal or otherwise. Jinx entered and was greeted by a retched smell, fumes from cigarettes and different concoctions of drugs spread throughout the air. Jinx looked around. She used to call this place home before….

Jinx raised her hand to her check and felt an old wound

‘YOU’RE A JINX!’ A fist came flying at her.

Jinx flinched at the memory.

‘No’ Jinx shook her head ‘No time to think about that now’

She quickly took a seat at the bar. The bartender came over, his name was Junior he took over the bar after she had killed… after silco had died. 

He could get Jinx what she needed.

“What can I get for you?” he asked

“A favor” Jinx raised her hood just enough for him to see her face.

“What are you doing here!?” He asked in a hushed tone. “You realize you're the most wanted woman in the undercity right?”

“I need a forged passport to get into atlas”

“What!? You want to get into atlas? Forget it no way” Junior crossed his arms “not for you. Too high profile and I don't need the heat”

“Hey you still owe me or would you rather the Happy Huntresses find out about your side business of supplying weapons to the fire lights. I’m sure Robyn would love to have that info”

“Alright, alright, keep it down. I'll get you your passport but it's gonna take me some time.”

“I don't have time,” Jinx growled. “I'm being hunted by every mercenary and hunter in Zaun.”

“Getting forged atlas credentials isn't exactly easy. I can't do it at the snap of my fingers! The CCT isn’t easy to fool!” Junior sighed and glanced around “Come back in a couple days I'll have your passport.”

“Fine” Jinx hopped off the stool and turned to leave “Better keep true to your word.”

“HAAAAAAA!” Ruby threw a punch at Vernal which the girl easily dodged and countered by striking Ruby's face. She stumbled backward and fell to the ground.

“Guh” she groaned “is hand to hand training really necessary?”

“Yes” Raven responded, She had been watching from close by “Hand to hand combat is an integral part of evolving the silver eyes into the six eyes”

Ruby groaned but resumed training. She threw a punch at Vernal which the girl easily deflected and easily countered, striking Ruby across the face.

“GAAAA” She cried out and fell to the floor. “Guhhhh” She groaned “Is hand to hand training really necessary?”

“Yes” Raven spoke up, she had been watching the fight from nearby. “Your hand to hand combat is severely lacking. You’re too reliant on your weapon, if you’re ever separated from it you’d become useless in a fight.”

Ruby glared at Raven as she stood up. “I wouldn’t be useless,” she grumbled.

“You won’t be after this training” Vernal said “Now come on put em up”

Ruby let out a sigh and stood up getting back into a combat stance. 

“HAAAAAA” She let out a battle cry and charged at Vernal. Vernal raised her guard preparing to block her strike, but Ruby activated her semblance transforming into thousands of rose petals that dashed behind Vernal catching her off guard. 

“HUH!” she gasped. Ruby reformed behind Vernal and spin kicked her in the head.

“Gah!” Vernal cried out, Ruby dropped down and tried to sweep Vernal's legs out from under her but Vernal flipped over and landed behind Ruby who quickly sprung to her feet only to be met with a gut punch from Vernal.

“GUH!” Ruby gasped at the impact but didn’t flinch, her aura absorbing most of the attack. Realising this Vernal quickly spun and kicked Ruby in the side of her head knocking her to the ground.

“Guh!” Ruby grunted more annoyed than anything. She caught herself and blasted towards Vernal who dodged her punch and countered with one of her own.

Raven watched the fight from the sidelines taking note of Ruby's moves and how she could improve them.

‘Her hand to hand combat is miserable but her aura level and strength is a different story. It’s at the level of a trained hunter, Vernal’s attacks are landing but they're just knocking her around and frustrating her, not dealing any real damage. Most hunter vs hunter fights are battles of attrition, the one whose aura runs out first loses because they’re the first one to start taking real damage and not just feeling the impact on their aura.’ Raven smirked ‘But Ruby seems like she’s barely feeling Vernal's attacks and her aura level has barely depleted within the last 3 hours of training, Despite the fact that Vernal has landed more hits her aura is currently lower. If this were to drag out Ruby could really win.’

Vernal landed two more hits on Runt sending her flying into a tree, her aura flared up finally taking significant damage. Raven grimaced.

‘Then again aura can only take you so far’

“Alright that's enough!” Raven called out.

“Huh?” Ruby looked to Raven confused “But I can keep going”

“It’s getting late” Raven began approaching the two of them “It’s best for you to head home don’t want Tai getting suspicious”

“I doubt he even notices I'm gone” Ruby grumbled and kicked at the dirt beneath her. Raven let out a sigh and placed her hand on Ruby’s shoulder in reassurance.

“He's... got his way of handling things.” Raven said calmly. “i'm sure deep down he cares. Have you tried talking to him?”

Ruby shook her head. She'd barely seen her father lately let alone talked to him. He was always away on hunts; he actively avoided home and her.

“I… I think he's still grieving mom. He just needs a little more time”

“That's no reason to trust you like this” Supposedly Vernal was the one who spoke up “Your mother died what? a couple years ago?”

“Two… two years ago”

“And have you had time to grieve?”

“H-huh” Ruby looked at Vernal surprised. “I-I mean I’m fine Yang and dad have had a lot on their plate, with Yang going to beacon now dad has to take care of me himself so you know… I didn’t wanna bother them” Her voice trailed off nervously and she began to rub her arm.

“It doesn’t sound like your dad has been taking care of you at all” Vernal scoffed

“THAT'S NOT FAIR!” Ruby shouted her tone immediately shifting from quiet and nervous to defiant and angry. Her outburst caught both Raven and Vernal off guard, Vernal's dismissive stance changed to something more cautious. “My dad’s trying his best… There's just been a lot going on lately. He doesn’t have the time”

“He should always have time for his daughter,” Raven said, taking a step forward. Ruby glared up at Raven who held up her hands in a surrender motion. “I’m just saying he should be there for you more than he is. Its a parents job”

“Kinda hypocritical coming from you.” Ruby growled

Raven sighed.

“Why don't you wait for me at the gate? I'll escort you home.” she siad

Ruby quickly ran off. Vernal walked up next to Raven Glaring after Ruby.

“Guess she does have some fire in her after all” Vernal joked. Raven turned to Vernal fury written on her face.

Raven whirled on her, eyes blazing with fury. “What the hell were you thinking!?”

Vernal jumped back in surprise, her cocky expression quickly morphing into one of shock and slight fear. “Y-You said the more abandoned she feels the more she will come to rely on us!”

“Not if we push too hard! Then we might end up chasing her away!” Raven sighed and held her head in her hands and began pacing. “Forget it. Did you do the other thing I asked you to do?”

Vernal pulled out her scroll and handed it to Raven.

“Its not much but its what I was able to find”

On her scroll was a blurry photograph from a security camera, pictured on it was a woman wearing a silk form fitting shirt red skirt with a golden flower design trailing down the side over it was a torn up and raggedy brown cloak with the hood pulled up and a pair of high heels to complete the look. Super imposed over the woman in the image was a diamond shaped box and next to it showed her CCT Profile.

Name: Cinder Fall.

Data: Possible connection to multiple terrorist organizations.

Age: 20

Occupation: N/A

Salary: N/A

Location: Vacou.

“How'd you get this?” Raven asked.

“Hired a hacker to track her down real pro goes by, The Fox”

“And the Vigilante” Raven scowled “I’ve heard of him, you sure hiring him was the best idea? I doubt he’s very sympathetic to people like us.”

“Actually, he never found out who I was. He never wanted to meet in person and I didn’t give him much info about me, just a contact number. I paid him up front and he delivered the information.” Vernal smirked, proud of herself.

“Well at least we know where Cinder is now. Vacou.” Raven tossed Vernal’s scroll back to her.

“I gotta escort Ruby home.” Raven began to walk off.

“I’m still not sure about that girl. How long are you going to let a non-member of the tribe into our camp?”

“As long as it takes for her to join us”

“And if she never does?” Raven stopped and considered Vernal's words. Then firmly said.

“She will. And if niceties won’t work. Then there’s always the other option. One way or another she will become a member of this tribe.”

Chapter Text

The blazing heat of Vacou bored down on the town of Selin. The desert kingdom’s daytime heat was not kind. The sand crunched beneath the feet of passerbys in the town square, one of these people was a boy, 19 years old. He wore a long trench coat with the sleeves and upper part of the coat being a dirty brown like a rusted coin while the rest of the coat was a black leather. He had a white hoodie underneath the jacket; the hood spilled out and rested on his shoulder.

BZZZ 

BZZZ

He felt his scroll buzz in his pocket, he pulled it out to check.

Call from Jordi Chin

He answered the call and held his scroll up to his ear.

“What do you want, Jordi?”

“Aiden you actually answered my call this time” Jordi’s voice was filled with annoyance.

“What do you want?” Aiden asked more firmly.

“Jeez, what? No nice to see you? Why don’t you swing by I got a pizza waiting for you” Jordi chuckled.

“Jordi!- wait… swing by? You’re in Vacou?”

“Yep and I got a job for you.”

“Not interested” Jordi was taken back by Aiden's bluntness “I’m already working on something.” 

“Right tracking down that woman in Vacou. Cinder Fall right?”

Aiden rolled his eyes. He really didn't need Jordi keeping tabs on him.

“Wasn’t it my job who set you on her path in the first place?”

“You mean the job you had me to do for a bunch of bandits!” Aiden growled down the scroll. He was pissed about that job Jordi never told him he would be working for the Branwen Tribe and the only reason he found out was after hacking the call log he had had with them and tracing it back to their location.

“You found out about that huh?” Jordi asked.

“If I had known who that job was for I never would have done it!”

“Which is exactly why I didn't tell you!” Jordi’s voice carried a singsongy arrogance. He wasn’t taking any of this seriously.

“Ok i'm hanging up now” Aiden began to move the Scroll away from his ear.

“WAIT! WAIT! WAIT!” Jordi called out catching his attention “I got info for you ok. I just want a small favor in return”

“Whats the info? What's the favor?”

“Not over the Scroll trace this call and meet me at its location”

Jordi hung up.

“Huuuuu” Aiden sighed. Working with Jordi was always a risk, last time they worked together was during a Job in his home kingdom of Arcadia. That ended with him throwing Jordi off a lighthouse, but that didn't take long for Jordi to get over. Business was business after all and Aiden was the fixer's best client.

He decided it was worth the risk and tapped into Jordi's call log. A drop down menu showed up and Aiden tapped track call.

CCT BREACHING IN PROGRESS….

The CCT, the only reason Aiden was able to do what he does. It was marketed as a way to connect the kingdoms and make them stronger together. It would handle communications, Crime production algorithms, City infrastructure but in exchange for that we gave up our freedoms. Now every kingdom was using the CCT as a Central City Operating System or CtoS, All cities where controlled by this system everything from traffic lights to bridges to the powergrid was controlled by the CCT and with everything connected all you needed was one backdoor into the system to bring a kingdom to its knees. Of course the ironwood and the government of Atlas never told anyone about that or about the surveillance state they just put the world into.. 

The CCT's real purpose was to collect data to predict and control the populace, and with their access to the kingdom's network infrastructure they could do exactly that. Now the government of Atlas knows everything about you. The things you look at online, your job, your family, friends, your secrets. They know exactly what actions they can take to get you to do what they want and the governments of the other kingdoms have no clue. They just handed the keys to Atlas happily and made them the strongest kingdom in all of Remnant. Of course they didn’t count on someone like Aiden getting access to their system.

CCT BREACH COMPLETE. CALLER LOCATED.

A map appeared on his scroll with a blip on it showing where Jordi was. He was on a roof top nearby.

Aiden walked up the fire escape that led onto the rooftop where Jordi was. Jordi was standing at the edge looking over the small town. Aiden pulled out his scroll and took a quick peek at the Profiler app.

Name: Jordi Chin

Age: 30

Gender: Male

Occupation: Fixer

Data: Loud, brash, and highly visible in his work, unpredictable flip flops between professional and chaotic, possibly mentally unstable.
Maintains extensive underworld connections across Vale, Mistral, and Atlas.

Bounty: 50,000Ⱡ

Crimes: Murder, Breaking and entering, Assassination.

Aiden pocketed his scroll and walked up next to Jordi. The two looked upon the city for a moment before aiden broke the silence.

“You said you had some information for me” he said

“That I do!” Jordi clapped and turned to Aiden “That woman you’ve been looking for Cinder… I know where she is” Jordi crossed his arms and smirked smugly." Aiden turned to face Jordi sharply.

“How” he asked, his voice was low and threatening almost a growl.

“How i got the info isn’t important what is,  is what you’re willing to do to get it” Jordi walked off the edge back onto the main roof with Aiden following behind.

“What do you want?” Aiden asked.

“I told you a favor” Jordi took a seat on a box and pulled out a switch blade and began to peel an apple he had in his pocket. “You see I hired these guys to transport some merch for me. Nothing big, just some guns, which I guess is why they thought I wouldn’t notice them stealing my entire shipment.” He took a bite of his apple “Mmmm. Which is where you come in, all you gotta do is kill these guys and get my stuff back. Easy right!”

“Do they deserve to die?”

Jordi shrugged his shoulders “They stole my shit.”

“That's not what I asked” Aiden said sharply he was not in the mood for Jordi’s immature bullshit. He couldn’t believe this guy was older than him.

“Fiiiiiine. If you must have your morals met” Jordi put air quotes over the word morals “They all work for a gang called they Hyenas i'm sure you’ve heard of them.”

“They’re the main source of human trafficking in this kingdom. What would people like them want with guns?”

“I don’t know, Maybe they’re expanding into arms dealing, maybe they just want to shoot some birds out of the sky i don’t really give a fuck! Just want my guns back. You can take care of the rest.”

Aiden took a moment to consider his options. On one hand he would have to work with Jordi, head into gang territory with no plan and even less Intel. But he really needed the information Jordi had.

“Fine” Aiden relented “Where are they?”

“they've set up shop in a warehouse on the edge of town away from any prying eyes.”

“Yeah well they can't hide from the CCT which means they can't hide from me.” Aiden begins to walk away already tracking their location.

“Hey pearce” Jordi called out “Why do you even care about this Cinder girl? She's just another criminal isn’t she?”

Aiden stopped and glanced back at Jordi.

“I didn’t give the Brawnens all the data I found on her, and if the shit I saw was true she represented a threat I never knew existed."

“Ok, that's ominous. Care to explain?”

Aiden turned back and walked away. Jordi rolled his eyes and yelled after him.

“You know this cryptic loner thing isn’t as cool as you think it is!” He waited to hear Aiden descend down the steps before pulling out his scroll and making a call. “Hey I need you to find out everything you can about a woman named Cinder Fall”

“Isn’t this the kind of thing you normally hire The Fox for?” The voice on the other end of the call asked.

“Yeah I don’t really want him knowing I'm looking into this. I’ll pay you double your usual rate if you can get this done quickly”

“Alright I'll see what I can do, but who even is this girl?”

“I don’t know but she’s got Fox spooked.”

The sun was setting on Selin as Aiden approached the warehouse. He pulled out his scroll and connected to the security camera’s inside.

The warehouse was dimly lit and hadn’t been kept up. Evidence by the camera’s constant flickering but Aiden could see just enough to make out what was going on. It looked like 4 guys all unloading silver metal crate’s from a van.

“Those must be Jordi’s guns” he scanned the crate and was able to detect multiple weapons inside. He had the camera look around until he spotted an entry point. A narrow metal walkway running along the upper level of the facility, connected to a side door that overlooked the entire floor.

He made his way to the side of the building and scaled the wall up to the catwalk on the outside.

‘They didn't post any guards? Must have thought No one would be looking for them all the way out here.’

He entered the building crouched low so they wouldn’t hear him. Down below they finally managed to crack open one of the boxes.

“Alright what do we have!?” One of them said excitedly.

“Looks like some atlas military weapons. Got a few standard issue rifles and pistols, oooo dust grenades and an energy cannon” They reached to the box and pulled out a small silver sphere that had purple dust crystals melted into its sides forming a ring around it.

Aiden smirked and pulled out his scroll, with a few swipes and taps he pulled up a menu that would allow him to upload a virus into anything that had a signal or computer chip inside it. He tapped on an icon of a grenade cracked in alfalfa with fire spewing out of it.

Beep beep

“Huh?” The gangster looked at the grenade in his hand as the crystals on the side started to blink “OH SHI-!” 

KABOOM!!!

The grenade detonated before he could finish the sentence, killing both him and the man standing next to him and bursting the fuel pipe behind them lighting up the warehouse with the blazes' glow.

“What the hell!” one of the last three gangsters ran over to where the explosion was. Aiden vaulted down landing on one of the guards. His head slammed into the ground knocking him out instantly. Aiden quickly darted into cover before the other two could see him.

“James?” One of the guards made his way to wear he heard the sound of aiden knocking his friend out. Aiden rolled over his cover just out of the guard's view and snuck up to another who was still near the explosion and kicked him into the fire.

“AHHHH! AHHHHH! GAAAAAAA!” He screamed in terror and pain as his body was engulfed in flames. The sound made the final guard whirl around and raise his weapon.

BAM!

THUNK!

Before he could pull the trigger Aiden put a bullet in her head and he fell to the floor.

Aiden walked over the crates and checked their contents before calling Jordi.

“What'cha got for me Pearce?” Jordi asked upon answering.

“Your guns. 3 crates full, had to take out the 4 guys who stole them”

“Four? Weird camera footage shows five”

“Five?-GAAHHH!” Suddenly Aiden was hit to the side and slammed into the wall. 

“Aiden!” Jordi called out from the scroll that had now been knocked out of Aiden’s hand.

“Ugh” Aiden spat out blood but got back to his feet forcing himself to stand, that hit had caved in the brick wall and he didn’t have an aura to shield him form the hit. He got lucky that no bones broke.

“So you must be The Fox” His attacker said.

“And who are you?” Aiden began to circle the guy keeping his movements slow and measured. He was trying to get back to his scroll.

“My name? Won’t be important soon” He smirked and suddenly in one quick motion he unfurled two miniguns from a rig on his back and opened fire.

Aiden dove out of the way, grabbing his scroll and rolling into cover just barely missing the hail of bullets as they turned the wall he just been standing in front of into swiss cheese, He quickly scanned his attacker with the profiler.

Name: Jace Crin

Semblance: Enhanced strength in the form of increased muscle mass to an extreme degree.

Aura level: C

‘Shit, this guy’s got an aura’ Aiden thought grimly and pulled out his pistol. He popped up from behind cover and fired on Jace.

BAM!

BAM!

BAM!

“Guh” Jace grunted and raised his hand to shield his face from the rain of bullets, his aura flaring up to protect him from the attack. Aiden vaulted and pulled out another weapon from his trench coat, an extendable baton with yellow electric dust crystals infused into its edges. 

He charged forward and slammed his baton down on Jace’s raised arm. Upon contact electricity burst out of the baton and arc’d across his body. Jace cried out in pain as the lightning drained away his aura.

“GAH!” Jace struck at Aiden, sending him flying away and slamming threw the cover he once hid behind. 

“SHIT!” Aiden called out as he fell to the floor. Concrete shrapnel cut into Aiden, pain shot up his abdomen but he grit his teeth and grabs his scroll.

Jace aims both mini-guns at Aiden. Aiden quickly taps a button on his scroll, uploading a hack into his guns.

“I wonder what kind of jobs I'll get after word gets out I’m the one who killed The Fox!” He pulled the trigger.

KABOOM!!

The miniguns and device on his back exploded; he screamed in pain and fell to the ground. The explosion broke through his aura and turned the skin on his back into a bubbling paste, Jace couldn’t handle it and passed out from the pain.

Aiden walked up to him, aimed at his head and let out two shots.

BAM!

BAM!

“Huuuuuu” He let out an exhausted and relieved sigh. He walked over to the creates and after inspecting the contents inside and raised his scroll to his ear. “Jordi you still there?”

“Yeah, you good?”

“I’m fine. Next time, how about a little warning.”

“Ah I knew you could handle it. You got my stuff?”

“Yeah it's all here.”

“Great!” Jordi sounded excited “Meet me at these coordinates. We’ll trade the information for the guns.”

“Got it.”

This time they met in a back alley way, Jordi was already waiting for Aiden.

“Pearce” Jordi greeted him with open arms “about time. So! Where's my merch?”

“Not so fast” Aiden said “Info first then I'll give you the guns” 

“Buzz kill” Jordi joked “But fine. Fair enough.”

He pulled out his scroll and showed it to Aiden. “The girl you’re looking for, Cinder. Tomorrow she’s hopping on a bullhead bound for Atlas.”

“What?”

“Yeah she'll be boarding from loading dock A-23.”

“How do you know this?” 

“Please you're not the only one who can hack the CCT.”  Jordi smirked, Aiden just gave him a deadpan stare “Fine” Jordi relented “Alright, alright, fine. I outsourced,  got someone else to do it for me but the info's still good. Had them scan the Vacuo CCT for any sign of her until we got a location ping. It wasn't easy; her profile is hidden by a massive layer of encryption. Not as good as yours but still.”

Aiden tapped a button on his scroll and transmitted the location of the guns to Jordi and turned to walk away.

“Aiden, wait” Jordi called out “Why are you so interested in this girl?”

“You didn’t look at her profile?” Aiden asked. Jordi shook his head.

“My guy could only get her location. Like I said, he's not as good as you.” Aiden pulled out his scroll and handed it to Jordi.

“Take a look at that.”

Name: Cinder Fall.

Data: Classified as an international level threat by the Atlas Council, Vale, and Mistral Intelligence Division. Name linked to the deaths of multiple hunters and politicians including Summer Rose. Although Cinder has never been seen to work with others intel suggests she is working for someone else. 

Deemed too dangerous to bring in alive, Kill on sight order issued. 

Total number of kills: 350 hunter casualties, 1,000 civilian casualties

Bounty: 2,500,000,000Ⱡ 

Semblance: The ability to superheat objects that she is touching (Note: Fall has demonstrated multiple abilities that do not match recorded semblance. More information needed possible classification as aura warrior)

Age: 20

Occupation: N/A

Salary: N/A

“Holy shit!” Jordi was shocked this girls record was longer then his or Aidens and a 2.5 billion Lien bounty! He had never seen one that high before. But one thing on the profile caught his attention. “What's an aura warrior?” He asked.

“No idea” Aiden pocketed his scroll “When I get to her I'll ask her.”

“Whats your plan?”

“Gonna cut her off before she ever makes it to the bullhead. The airport's security system should make it easy, especially since she's headed to Atlas bet they splurged for top shelf CCT security.”

“I'm coming with you. You might need backup.” Aiden looked at jordi confused.

“Why do you care?”

“Come on, I can't lose my best contact.” Jordi smirked.

Aiden rolled his eyes but motioned for Jordi to follow him as he turned away.

The loading dock heading to Atlas was on the edge of a cliff overlooking a vast ocean wasn’t as packed as you would think it was. Most Vacouins weren’t interested in leaving their kingdom that was almost built on crime for a more law-abiding kingdom. This made it easy for Aiden to find Cinder the CCT scan flagged her in less then 5 seconds.

“Got her, she just entered the building. I can catch her near the entrance” Aiden said. He raised his hand to his ear and tapped his communicator. “You hear me Jordi?”

“Yep” Jordi was posted up on a roof nearby with a sniper rifle so he could cover Aiden from a distance. He peered down the sniper scope looking into the window of the airport. “Not much of a crowd huh?”

“All the better for us. We don't wanna draw too much attention.”

“Yeah good luck with that” Jordi chuckled. “You’re about to attack someone with the most insane criminal record I've ever seen in the middle of an airport. No way this doesn’t end up on the news.”

“I’ll be wiped from any footage they manage to capture. Besides I got no choice, if i want to stop her from getting into atlas this is the best option.”

“Alright then how about you fill me in on the plan.”

“I’m gonna try to take her prisoner to get some information out of her. Like who she’s working for and what an aura warrior is.”

“Are you sure about that? She had a kill on sight order.”

“I’ll be fine” Aiden pushed open the door and went in tracking Cinder on his scroll.

He spotted her about 10 feet away. He made his way through the airport pushing through the small crowd. When he passed through the metal detector he tapped a button on his scroll changing the readout to give him the all clear. The security guard waved him  and he approached Cinder. He grabbed Cinder's arm and pulled out the pistol he had concealed on his coat and pressed it to her back.

“Cinder Fall. You're coming with me.”

Cinder chuckled. “Aiden Pearce right? Or do you prefer the fox?” That took Aiden off guard.

‘She knows my name?’ he thought to himself. Suddenly he felt his hand heating up, like heating up a lot, it was scolding! He looked down and saw the pistol in his hand started to glow a red molten color.

BOOM!

The gun exploded knocking Aiden back, Bystanders screamed and started to panic trying to run out the doors. The cloak on Cinder burst into flames and began to swirl around her body going down her arm and taking the shape of a sword. She slashed at Aiden, who thankfully had been knocked back far enough that he was just out of her reach but the wind pressure from the strike still sent him flying onto his back.

“HAHAHAHA” Cinder laughed and stalked forward “I was wondering when you would come for me. I’ve known you’ve been watching me ever since you did that job for the Branwens”

“Jordi” Aiden growled.

“You gotta get her to take a couple more steps. I don't have an angle.”

“Damnit” Aiden got to his feet and began to walk backwards trying to lead Cinder into Jordi’s firing range..

“I’ve done some research into you too,” Cinder said.

“The only thing you found was what I want the public to know” Aiden mocked

“I was able to find your name,” Cinder retorted with a smirk.

“And your the last person who will”

BANG!

A gunshot rang out, the bullet flew through the window of the airport and slammed into Cinder's skull. Her head snapped violently to the side, her body jerking with the force.  But she didn't die, her aura hadn't even been broken. A headshot had done no damage.

Cinder smirked at Aiden's shocked expression then looked out the window where the bullet had come from.

“So you've got a friend out there” in the blink of an eye Cinder took flight and darted out the window.

CRASH!

Two seconds later Jordi came flying in, crashing through the glass and rolling across the ground.

“GAH!” He screamed in pain. Blood dripped down his arm from where glass shards had impaled creating red lines on his white suit.

“Jordi!” Aiden asked, showing some unusual concern for another person. 

“I’m fine” Jordi grunted and ripped the shards of glass out of his arm “pretty soon she won’t be though.” He reached into his suit and pulled out a shotgun. Cinder returned flying in at such a speed that the rest of the windows shattered. Jordi opened fire, Aiden quickly following suit with his pistol. With the two of them combined they must have pumped a total of 30 bullets into Cinder but she didn’t even bother to raise her hand to block the bullets.

“How strong is her aura!?” Jordi shouted.

Cinder laughed “Are you two about done?” She raised her hand and with a flick of her wrist sent a wave of fire flying at them. Aiden crossed his arms in front of him in an attempt to block the blast.

FWOOM!

Both Aiden and Jordi were knocked back into the security section of the airport. Aiden fell hard onto a conveyor belt and tumbled to the ground while Jordi was smashed through a metal detector. 

Aiden recovered first, his gun had been proven useless so he pulled out his scroll and scanned CInder.

Name: Cinder Fall

Aura Level: A+

Aura ratings were measured on an F to S+ scale and no one in history, huntress or otherwise had ever gotten above an A ranking.

‘Who the hell is this girl?’

Cinder walked up to the two of  another flaming sword in her left hand and projecting an aura of flames around her.

“Pearce!” Jordi's voice strained with worry “tell me you got a plan!”

“I'm working on it” Aiden quickly scanned the nearby CCT connections. Cinder's last attack had destroyed most of the tech in the immediate area. All except for one. “Let's turn down the heat.” 

Aiden activated the Sprinkler system, water came drizzling down throughout the entire building drenching Aiden and Jordi but the water turned to steam before it could even touch Cinder.

“Hahahahahaha!” She laughed “You really think this was gonna stop me? Hahahaha!”

Aiden just smirked and held up his scroll, below an icon of a sprinkler was a bar showing the intensity. Aiden maxed out the slider. The light drizzle turned into a torrential downpour.

Cinder looked around alarmed, glancing down at her swords she saw the fire begin to flicker. She charged forward stabbing at Aiden but the blade dissolved just before it reached Aiden. He pulled out his baton and hit Cinders head with it twice. Her body snapped the side each time before Aiden grabbed her.

“Jordi!” He yelled. Jordi nodded and pulled out a knife from his suit. Aiden shoved Cinder towards him. He grabbed her, spun her around, raised his knife and stabbed down at her. As soon as his knife made contact her aura pulsed causing Jordi’s arm to recoil and knock him back. Cinder capitalized on the moment by punching Jordi into an electronic sign.

“GAH!” Jordi’s eyes rolled into the back of his head briefly when he fell to the ground. “Ughhhh” He groaned and rolled off the now destroyed sign clutching his head. 

Cinder advanced towards him and tried to summon another sword but the sprinklers were still pouring down enough water to make it hard for cinder to summon a flame construct without using too much aura.

“Rrrr” she growled in frustration. Aiden ran up behind her and wrapped his baton around her neck. She grabbed the shaft of the baton as soon as she did it superheated and melted. Aiden stumbled back his baton now in two.

“Your profile said your semblance was the ability to superheat anything your skin came into contact with. So what's with the flames?” Aiden asked “And what the hell’s an aura warrior?”

“Oh Aiden” Cinder mocked “So close to the truth yet so far from knowing anything”

“How do you know my name” 

“You’re not the only one who can hack the CCT”

“Bullshit. I’m a ghost to the CCT you couldn’t have found me through there. I didn’t even have to encrypt my profile, it just doesn’t exist.” Cinder grimaced at Aiden calling out her lie “which means. You found out some other way”

“My mistresses intelligence network is wide, beyond the CCT” Cinder said

“Mistress?” Aiden questioned. Worry overtook Cinder’s face, only for a split second but Aiden caught it. She had slipped up.

“RAH!” With a battle cry Cinder charged forward, barreling through the sky and slamming into Aiden and tackling him. She wrapped her hands around his neck and began to choke him. Aiden grabbed at her arms, struggling to breath. Cinder smiled down at him with a predatory grin. “Give up Pearce this is where you-” 

Suddenly Cinder was pulled off of Aiden by Jordi who began to stab into her with his knife. Each strike sparked and bounced off her aura like it was solid steel until the 3rd stab where his knife’s blade shattered. Jordi gasped and stared at what was left of his knife in shock.

“Ha” Cinder spun and punched Jordi across the face then kneed him in the chest. She spun again just in time to block Aiden's attack and grab him by the neck. Using her aura to enhance her strength she threw Aiden, he slammed into the roof and fell back to the ground hard.

Thud!

“Ugh” he let out a pained groan and rolled onto his back his vision was spinning from the impact. With Aiden incapacitated for the moment, Cinder turned her attention to Jordi. 

“Alright flame bitch” Jordi reached both hands into his suit and produced two Mac-10’s “Lets see how you like this!” Jordi opened fire but the bullets just sparked and bounced off of her aura.

RATATATATATATA!

Jordi kept firing until he emptied both guns and she still didn't have a scratch on her.

“You've gotta be kidding” he said exasperated.

“that didn't work the first. Tell me why you thought it would work this time” she mocked. 

“Rrr” Jordi scoffed and tossed the guns aside and raised his fists. He charged forward and threw a punch, Cinder easily ducked under then side-stepped his next strike, her eyes glittering with amusement.

“Is that the best you can do?” she laughed and dodged Jordi’s next two attacks. She grabbed Jordi's arm interrupting his next punch and flipped him onto the ground. 

Crack!

“Oh something definitely broke” Jordi wheezed out. Cinder mounted him and began to pummel his face into the ground with punch after punch painting the concrete red with his blood.

Behind them Aiden, fighting off the nausea, finally got back to his feet. 

‘Shit.’ He pulled out his scroll and checked the sprinklers.

Water amount: 20%

‘Shit soon we’ll be out of water then she’ll be able to use her fire freely. Gotta finish this fast’ Aiden charged in, letting a few shots off from his pistol as he approached. He leaped into the air, and punched down at Cinder.

When his fist hit Cinder's aura it pulsed, throwing Aiden back and crashing through a conveyor belt. Cinder rose from her position over Jordi and walked over to Aiden and reached down, picking him up by his neck.

“Guh! Gak!” Aiden struggled and gagged while Cinder's fingers dug into his neck like claws. 

“Pathetic” Cinder said “That someone like you  thought they could dare touch me”

Darkness began to creep in on Aiden's vision and his struggles slowed.

“No aura!” Cinder punched him into the gut with such force that he coughed up blood.

“No semblance!” Another punch this time he was almost ripped out of Cinders hand.

“No power of any kind!” 

KTHOOM!

“BLACK FLASH!”

When Cinders' next punch landed sparks of black energy erupted from her fist cutting what looked like a dark void into the air behind her fist. The pain was like nothing Aiden had ever felt; it was more than just his bones breaking, more than just the blood that came shooting out of his nose and mouth. The attack felt like it had struck his very soul and ripped a piece of it out of him.

Aiden lost his sense of surroundings but he could feel the air rushing past him. Cinder had thrown him through the window, with his stamina drained and the wounds that had been inflicted on him exhausted set in and he black out and splashed into the water below.