A Study in Colors [Azecreth & MoFo]

[Azecreth]

It was a lovely day in the city of Vale, the sort of day that made one want to go out and do things, to see old friends and just enjoy the sunshine. The sort of day that could fill one with energy. An energy that was added to with the recent influx of people, arriving in ever greater numbers for the coming Vytal Festival that would be held soon. Anyone could be excited for that, and right now the tourists were out in force (much to the pleasure of shopkeepers)

Of course for students now was the time to prepare for said Festival, which was what Team RWBY was doing now. The red leaves of Forgotten Falls surrounded them, twisting and twirling in the air. It was an air accompanied by growls, gunshots, and the thud of innocent trees that had been cruelly lain in the middle of the conflict between Huntress and Grimm.

"Yang, on your left," Ruby called as she spun Crescent Rose in her grip, shooting one incoming Beowolf before slamming the blade into another one. Her speed came in handy here as she raced around the clearing.

"Got it," Yang returned as she seamlessly shifted in the same direction that had been indicated. An incoming blow would be deflected before she returned the same, throwing another Beowolf through a tree.

So they might have kinda sorta accidentally angered an entire pack while they were practicing together. Weiss had stopped being angry by now to focus on fighting, while Blake remained as taciturn as ever. It was good practice, if they could come out of it in one piece. There were a lot of Beowolf around, and she was pretty sure that there was an Alpha somewhere around here. A huff escaped as she jumped back, letting a clone take a blow for her before riddling the Beowolf with bullets. Right, that was a future problem. For now, focus on the bunch of enemies around them.

 

[MoFo]

The Forest of Forgotten Falls had a boarder with a village that lived remotely and away from access to a full scale hunters school. So, they had to make due with hiring any freelance hunters that rolled through there. Lucky for them, two such hunters did in fact, roll through.

Silver Belsh, and Alsot Lance two hunters in training who were not students at any of the major schools. Thus instead, they were hired in place of a small village having to go through a third party and spend the Lien they did not possess. So the boys took the job out of good faith, and were making their way down through the trees. The Autumn leaves dotting the dirt path.

The two were known to be skilled. Having single handedly handled normal grimm with ease before. "So how many you thinking there will be Al?" The shorter individual said to the 9 foot tall man in a fortress like mobile suit of armor. Heavy blue armor. With a cape and various mechanical bits and pieces Atlas's secret project. The Behemoth Armor unit. Only one was made. The owner of it now working as a hunter for hire much like the ex-assassin Silver who walked with him wore a black tank top, paired with beige cargo shorts that went down and flared around his knees. His shoes were black with white soles. Also having white laces. His waist adorned with a belt, with two holsters and the butts of two revolvers sticking out. Attached to the belt were a pair of suspenders he could unhook and let drag behind him if for any style reason he needed too. He stood about 5'5 short for a boy his age.. "I imagine it is a whole lot of them."

The armored suit man would say through his heavy helmet. In hand a massive tower shield and a lance made of large rotating units. Upon him saying this his ears perked to the sound of howling and snarling. A look further would let him see the looks of trees falling, and the blast of dust energy going off between gaps in the trees. "Looks like there are folks fighting them already Al... we should go help them."

Silver said as he used his speed to rush forward and break through the brush firing off several rounds into the back of one of the beowolves, the metal rounds shooting holes into the beast, and when one of the bullets exits the chest of the beast, the silver haired boy vanished suddenly and was right outside the exit hole of the bullet.

Then a noticeable red glow was visible from the hole and the black hide of the beowolf who was just as surprised by the sudden glow in his chest. Before it was to late and the thing turned out to be a dust bomb the boy placed in its chest. Causing it to burst like a balloon as showers of blood flooded the area where the blown up Beowolf was.

This display caught the rest of the pack off guard. To which, another Beowolf was unlucky enough to suddenly be tank charged by the man in the massive armor suit, who burst through the brush much the same as the silver haired boy. The hulking 9 foot suit caused a sudden panic in the beowolves who by nature did attack prey larger and visibly stronger then them.

However, that would not make much difference here, a rotating spear was jammed into the side of one who was then thrust up against a tree, a press of a button on the lance's shaft and the drill whirled to life. The grizzly sound of the spear piercing flesh and bone and the beowolf barking and howling as the tree was drilled through, as was the grimm.

"Sorry for dropping in ladies, thought you could use a bit of back up." The silver haired boy said wiping some grimm blood off his hands.

 

[Azecreth]

The sudden arrival of the duo was unexpected but understandably welcome. The Grimm pack was cast into disarray, though they reacted fairly quickly to the new threats that had appeared in their rear. Team RWBY certainly hadn't seen it coming, but they did not reject the offer of assistance. They could handle this fight, sure, but getting this done faster was never a problem. For now they didn't have a problem.

"The more the merrier," Yang replied with a grin as she wasted no time launching into another clustering of Beowolves, sending them scattering from her powerful shots. The guy in the armor seemed to be a fighter after her own heart, and she had no problem turning this into a tag team match.

Blake didn't say much, instead zipping across the battlefield as she had before to strike at each foe that got in her way. The boy with the explosives had caught hr attention, but since she did not recognize him she did not worry too much about it. They seemed to have complimentary fighting styles, at least to some extent.

The other man that appeared was enough to bring Ruby up short however, eyes wide in awe as she beheld the armor suit that he wore to go with his weapons. "Oh man that is so cool," she gushed, as if she wasn't in the middle of a combat zone. "How does it work?" Not that the question stopped her from chopping up a Beowolf that came at her.

For a moment Weiss glared at the armor, something tickling in the back of her memory. But what was it? It felt very familiar, sand she resolved to figure out what it was when this was all over. "Ruby, focus," she called, unleashing a blast of fire dust at a nearby Beowolf.

It was about that time that the Alpha Beowolf emerged, howling as it looked upon the group decimating its pack. It did not hesitate in joining the fight, rushing at Ruby and Weiss since they seemed like the ones who could be best affected by it. The duo leapt back, with Weiss forming a Glyph to let Ruby shoot elemental dust at the thing. Not that it simply stood around to take the hits. And with the other Beowolves still around, it seemed that this fight had gotten a little more complicated.

 

[MoFo]

Silver hears the girls are okay with his, and his friends help. "Awesome!" The silver haired boy works over a few more beowolves, ducking and weaving perfectly out moving the grimm. Ducking out of their sweeping clawed arms reach. Then firing solid ammo into them, and in repeat fashion shoving grenades in the opened holes in their bodies faster then the eye could see.

The sound of the Alpha arriving eventually gave Alsot the time to activate his aura. With a brilliant glow coating his armor, the Grimm all focused their attention on him. As if lured and drawn to it. The aura taunted them to focus right at him. Causing even the Alpha to look right towards him. Slamming down his shield anchoring it into place, the shield face opened, and the mouth of a massive cannon revealed itself.

"Stand back if you don't want to get blasted to hell." He warned the girls, as he charged up a massive red energy within the mouth of the cannon. As his aura caused the beasts to charge fourth at him. Alsot's shield fired a massive beam cutting straight through the pack, and decimating the minor beowolves and a few stretch of forest in a matter of seconds. The Alpha would survive, but heavily injured from the attack and on its back, limbs torn off as it laid there thrashing about. Alsot approached forward. Then taking a heavy boot smashed the foot of his armor down crushed through the skull of the beowolf. The sickening sound of the heavy armored foot crushing the beasts skull giving a nice crunch to the air.

 

[Azecreth]

If the warning had not been enough to earn their attention, the red glow from the cannon generally indicated to them that there was about to be a powerful attack from the man in armor. As a result they did not need to be told twice to get out of the way of the attack when it came, so they were well clear when it finally did. A good thing too, since it looked like it probably would have blasted clean through their aura if they had been hit by it. Definitely a scary thought, that was for sure.

That basically spelled the end of the attack though, as the death of the Alpha sent the remaining Beowolves fleeing for their lives if they were not rapidly dispatched by the other Huntsmen. Soon enough the forest was silent again, with only the dissolving remains of Grimm and many a destroyed tree to indicate what had taken place here. All in a good days work as far as Ruby was concerned.

"Good job guys! That was awesome," she exclaimed as she let Crescent Rose rest from her hard combat. It deserved it for the good job that it had done. It looked like everyone had come out basically okay too, so she couldn't have asked for more. Except cookies. She could always ask for cookies.

Yang stepped forward with a grin of her own, examining her knuckles before turning to the duo. "So, who might you brave fellows be?" she asked happily. It was no fun to fight with someone if she didn't know ho they were. And if they were courteous enough to ask permission when joining the fight then they would probably be courteous enough to give them their names now that the fight was over.

 

[MoFo]

The moment the shield dust cannon went off it decimated a good few meters of forest. Smoldering remains of trees and dirt still charred from the massive blast. The knight like individual wearing what seemed to be a massive 9 foot suit of armor pulls back his helmet and the looks of a man close to their age with long blue hair looked to them. "Sorry to cut in on your action ladies. I am Alsot Lance and the one over there is Sipver." The moment things seemed clear Alsot pressed a button on the chest of the suit. Thus it all seemed to slide off and compact itself into a nice brief case. Underneath he was wearing a skin tight light blue suit and a pair of boots. His sculpted figure on display making for some real nice eye candy for the young ladies... Yang specifically.


Silver came up and cleared his throat. "We were hired by a nearby small settlement to come here and take care of a Beowulf pack to close to the village. We would have asked before jumping on in, but the heat of the moment kicked on and here we are." Then he calmly eyed the four of them and gave a rather dirty little smirk. "They are pretty cute looking huh Al?" Which got the short spiky haired trickster a sharp bop on the head with the brief cased up suit. Which hurt but Silver's hard head was used to it. "Ow what was that for:" Silver grumbled. "Instead of hanging around here why don't we all make for the village and we can talk more at a slightly better location, am sure Powell and Buck are waiting for us back in town."

 

[Azecreth]

The girls watched, some more awestruck than others as Alsot took his armor off, the entire thing contracting into a suitcase as a sign of just how advanced it really was. Needless to say Ruby was wide eyed at the display, her excitement close to bubbling over. She would love nothing more than to spend hours talking away with him about weaponry, of whatever variety came to mind. There was no doubt that she could learn something useful for Crescent Rose from it.

"It's fine," Yang reassured the duo as he she retracted her gauntlets, everyone else putting their weapons away at the same time now that the danger was past. "We had it under control but I'm always a fan of meeting some strong fellows like yourselves."

Weiss huffed, and it wasn't clear whether she was objecting to what Silver said or what Yang said. But her opinion was clear as she crossed her arms and turned her nose up in the perfect 'heiress disapproval' look.

Meanwhile Ruby grinned and nodded. "I'm Ruby Rose, and this is my sister Yang, my partner Weiss, and my sisters partner Blake. We're Huntresses from Beacon." She paused at the offer before looking back to the others. Without any real objection there was no reason to refuse. "Sounds like a plan, but I wanna now all about that armor. Let's go team!"

 

[MoFo]

With that the group moved along a dirt road, it was clear the village was quite remote and had been left to the wilderness. Some folks in the days of old had moved out from the wilderness to live safely within the protective zones of the major cities. Unfortunately there were settlements like this, where people chose for one reason or another to fend for themselves, either for sentimental reasons, or for others. The small hamlet was called Sleepy.

A small logging village that nested amongst a clearing of woodlands. Wooden houses, with straw roofs, it was almost like looking at a village from medival times. But this was simply what it looked like when people banded together after a calamity and built up their civilization from the ground up. As they arrived, what looked to be small children playing around with a wood carved airplane. It must have been quite a culture shock to the girls, seeing such a rare place. These places didn't survive long but those that did, were quite the site. Everyones clothes looked outdated, as if they had been hand made.

As the group moved along, they came upon a house, two stories, built from wood cut down from the area around. "Here's where we have been shacked up." Silver said, as they approached a homely old woman broad built, grey hair built up in a bun. "Ahh its the mercenaries." Thus it became clear what sort of role Silver and Alsot fell into. "Hello Miss Tucket, we cleared out the Beowulves." Alsot steps in to do the talking. "Have the others taken care of the Ursus camping out in the caves?" Silver asked after their other two companions, who had gone to handle the other task the villagers asked of them. "Ahh, yes they did, they came and collected their due and headed off towards the mountains on their way." Suddenly, a sound of a loud stomach growl perked among the group, as Silver clutched his stomach. "By the by Miss Tucket we brought some friends back with us, and we could go for a good warm meal. Right ladies." Silver turned his head to the team with them, seeing what they thought of all this.

 

[Azecreth]

As the group moved along the members of Team RWBY chatted with each other a bit, mostly remarking on the fight and how pressing it was that they return to Beacon in a relatively swift manner. Most of that was settled by the time that they arrived in the village to whatever might be found there. It was a relatively familiar sight for Ruby and Yang, though Patch was still different from this kind of place, and Blake was used to it as well to some extent due to her lifestyle.

It was a fairly new experience for Weiss though, as she looked around at all the village had to show off. It was just so...old, nothing like Vale at all. There was plenty of homemade stuff, and she was surprised by it even if she intellectually knew that these places were effectively cut off from the Kingdoms and had to try and survive as best they could on their own most of the time. The fact that this place had the money to hire mercenaries was really quite impressive. Not that she was dumb enough to actually ask about that at the moment. She had more tact than that.

"Hey, " Ruby called with a wave once they had been introduced to the people that Silver and Alsot were directly working for. "We were in the area and figured we'd help out." Not exactly true, but the specific details didn't really matter all that much.

Blake shrugged, not all that thrilled with the offer but willing to accept it. "We wouldn't want to impose on you. Things must be pretty tight around here." This didn't really seem to be a farming community so she had to imagine their food supply wasn't all that deep. They wouldn't want to do more harm than good, especially with all the stuff they enjoyed back in Vale.

 

[MoFo]

The old woman takes the group inside. Her home vary small but it fit all of them well enough it had two floors the feel of real wooden floors beneath their feet. Silver made sure to wipe his feet before entering showing the boy had enough manners to show this much respect. The group gathered around a table settling in. The woman bringing out bowls of stew home made, with plenty of meat and veggies for growing teenagers like them. Silver wasted no time enjoying the meal.

"Thanks Miss!" The food was good it was just about what you could ask for in this small village. Alsot looked to Ruby and her team. "So you are Beacon students yes?" Alsot unlike his friend did not just start chowing down. He knew food was tight here, and wouldn't just partake while there was still business and stuff to keep himself occupied. But to alleviate this the woman who made the stew seemed happy to see the young man going in on it. "Seeing an appetite like that makes me think of my son." She seemed delighted, while the milage may have varied around the table.


Silver though seemed to eat as if he had no problem with his morality. He was hungry and a growing young man, it was either atrocious what he was doing by just digging in with tensions and awareness of how bad the food situation must be for this small village. Though he proved to be listening. "Don't mind me my semblance takes a lot of energy out of me, and eating helps get back what I lose." He simply stated. Alsot looks to Silver as flippant as Silver seemed Alsot respected his help in the field. "As you four probably can guess we are not students." He looked them each in the eyes. "You have questions and I am happy to answer them just not so much at once alright." Helping himself to stop a Ruby avalanche of questions about his gear.

Meanwhile, half way between scarfing down stew and looking towards the old lady who employed them. "By the way why did Buck and Powell head towards the mountain? They could have waited here for us I think." He was perceptive at least for someone with a bit of beef broth leaking from his lip corner, to which he rectified quickly with a swipe of his tongue over his lip. "Well, the one with the... um big horns.. antlers I guess." She said making rather obvious gestures to point out the one she was talking about was a faunus. "Anyways he said he felt like going up the mountain, didn't say much of why...the one with his hair in his eyes all the time just sort of followed him then."

Silver hears the old woman's explanation then goes back to eating, seemingly not worried. "They should be fine, so... Ruby was it... you like weapons huh?" Remembering her gushing over Alsot's hulking suit, and flicks the case that Alsot had with him, maybe to distract her and answer some of her questions, all while setting his twin handgun knives on the table. They sat there and were probably all to less impressive then Alsot's armor. They were revolvers, equipped with chambers and all, the unusual part about them being is they didn't have any seeming ports for loading dust in, instead the chambers seemed to hold live metal bullets, an unheard of method of fire in the day and age of bullets of pure dust.

"This is Comet and Kupid." He said laying them out there, a cute little detail was the bells attached to the butts of the gun which made for a small personal detail, they seemed to be manufactured, not hand made, but the bells were clearly put on them by him.

 

[Azecreth]

"Thank you for the food," yang said as they all crowded around the table to eat the meal that had been laid out before them. There was nothing like homecooked food to kick up an appetite, even if it might not compare to Dad's cooking (And hopefully it surpassed Taiyang in some areas). She did not hesitate to dig in to the soup, enjoying it with a satisfied hum. The others did th same, very little hesitation to be seen after a hard fight like that.

In mid bite Ruby nodded at the question, flashing a grin at the same time. "Yep, we were just out doing some practicing and we may have gotten a bit lost that's all."

Weiss snorted aloud, dismissive of that idea. "You ran us right into a pack of Beowolves, I guess that counts as lost by a certain definition." It had worked out though so she really didn't complain more. Besides, they had to show team solidarity for the people that they were visiting.

"We didn't know there was a village so close to where that fight happened," Blake remarked, deflecting from the team drama to focus on what was important at the moment. There would be plenty of time to handle that sort of thing later.

Presented with the weapons Ruby leaned over them, eagerness on display as she looked over the guns. "Wow, these are pretty old fashioned aren't they? I mean, not that there's anything wrong with the classics. I just don't think I've seen a gunpowder weapon...ever." Dust was more efficient and did a better job of killing Grimm, so it must have been his Semblance that made him use these rather than a conventional Dust weapon. There was no other explanation for it.

 

[MoFo]

"Another member of ours also uses live ammo, but simply put the gun parts of my weapons arn't what I use them for mainly I use them to work with my semblance. It lets me swap places with small objects. Take for example this spoon." Silver said and gave it a sudden toss and then in a blink of an eye where the Spoon had been going Silver suddenly appeared, and the spoon landed right into the chair Silver had been sitting. It allowed him to jump distances quick mostly.

"Long story short." He collects his spoon sitting down and slurping up the rest of the stews broth. Then setting the bowl down. "I can move distances very quickly and get in, course for dust I carry some grenades with me, you saw me blow the head off of one right Blake." He remembered the name of the dark haired girl, who had the most laid back look about her among the group. The way his eyes just drifted to her bow. "Pretty bow by the way, is it made of velvet?" He was keen and was deceptively sharp, and if she thought just because he had about the same attention span Ruby seemed to have.

"You don't have to hide anything though, these folks are generally pretty relaxed, faunus or not, we have a faunus with us too. Buck's his name, real quiet, likes nature, a bit grumpy sometimes..." Alsot looked to Weiss on the other hand noticing her features, and then remembering her name, "Weiss was it, you wouldn't happen to be related to the Schnee family would you?" It was clear that the Scnhee family had very few unique features from each other, the pale skin, white hair was kind of a good means by which to discern.

 

[Azecreth]

"Ah, I get it. That's a pretty neat trick. I can see how it would be useful," Ruby agreed once Silver explained what it was that he could do with his Semblance and why his old fashioned guns were so useful. That wasn't really the sort of thing she could apply to Crescent Rose, but overall as a weapon aficionado she just found it to be interesting in general. This was the sort of thing she enjoyed a lot. "Now then, I'd like to know about that armor...."

Blake was not fazed as her particular secret was found out in fairly short order. They hadn't seemed like the type she was concerned about, the only annoyance was that they had figured out so quickly. "It's my personal preference," she explained when he mentioned not having to hide it. Of course she knew she could just do that, but from what she had seen in the past it was best to just remove the temptation. It'd be a lot easier to treat her as just another human if she kept the bow on. Besides, it really was fashionable.

Finding herself addressed, Weiss' posture straightened a bit as she took on that heiress persona that she was so used to employing. "That's correct. I happen to be the heiress to the Schne Dust Corporation, so I suppose you could consider there to be some relation." She was used to people knowing her identity, although now she felt compelled to ensure that she gave off the best impression possible. She had to make sure her family looked good.