The sounds of horses' hooves pounding against the ground reverberated through their ears for so long that they couldn't hear the sound anymore, not even if they tried to. It was an entirely silent trip as the four masked persons traveled on their less than noble steeds, following a trail that had long since gone cold, to a location they only speculated held the soul of their desires.
Nix wrapped her arms tightly around the back of her sister, locking her fingers together to hold herself in place as she slept on the rapidly moving animal. Her and her sister had just recently swapped positions as the rider and ridey, giving way for Neyah to take the horses reigns and give her sister a moment of rest, but for the pair on the other steed the situation hadn't changed even once since they departed the camp of the White Fang.
Adam stared deeply into the vast desert unblinkingly.
Straining his eyes as he forced his sight to view lands far outside of his own vision in the hopes that he may see glimpses of what was taken from him. Though what kept his sight unwavering may have been nothing more than a hopeful, sleep deprived, malnourishment induced hallucination, his sight was unwavering still.
The bull charged forward with everything he and his horse had, one hand on the reigns and the other gripped tightly to his drawn blade, still glowing with the blood and absorbed kinetic energy from his former opponents.
Blake attempted numerous times to engage in conversation with the man, giving words of encouragement, hopeful statements of support, and even questions of how they planned to attack, but every response she was given, if she was ever given one, was the same.
"They will pay. They must pay. I will make them pay." Each phrase was colder and surer than the last, and each time he spoke Blake could feel the sentiment rising in her chest until she eventually stopped trying to reason with him as well. Instead, she gently placed her hand in the center of the bull Faunus's clenched back muscles and shared a bit of her warmth with the man on their icy, dark, desolate trip to the DFA.
Throughout the night, Blake, Nix, and Neyah rested to the best of their abilities, and they eventually felt revitalized enough to converse with one another albeit through mostly looks, hand signals, and other non-verbal techniques given the atmosphere generated by the man at the helm.
Most of the conversation dealt around the events that had recently transpired, Anaya's kidnapping, their inability to contact their lover, the state that Adam had been left in, and how they would attack moving forward.
It was more than an angsty conversation for them, especially with the fact that they chose to chase down the kidnappers on a whim and they didn't have any way to let (Y/N) know of their situation. Where they were headed, what they were doing, and why it was happening, but they still showed a bit of confidence that he would figure it out at some point regardless. However, it didn't change the air that they were completely out of their league.
Neyah and her twin sister spoke about it in detail as the sky began rapidly heating up with the sun beaming overhead. Nix constantly mentioning the idea that this wasn't a situation to be taken lightly, trying to help her sister grasp the scale of a tribal leader's life being in danger and her connection with the Leader of the White Fang, the fact that the one that caused it was the Elder of the DFA, and they at the forefront of the situation.
They wouldn't just be fighting Grimm, or even just the average tribal Faunus person, but also highly trained individuals that have done nothing but learn to fight and kill other people for their entire lives. It was a large step up from what they were used to, even if the ones that they often practiced and trained with were levels even above that.
People's lives were on the line.
Their health and wellbeing were going to be put at risk, and this time it didn't look like they were going to have an Adonis swoop in to save them at the last possible moment.
Nix saw this first hand as the one called Tyrian practically abused them and treated the masked trio of woman like fodder, and after the venom began taking an effect on Anaya their wasn't anything they could do but help thin the crowd.
He was lightning quick but still incredibly powerful, light on his feet but as destructive as can be, and all the while he never even activated his weapon of choice, instead opting to slap them around with his stinger and taunt them with the idea of death. Plus, without their ability to use dust effectively the battle was pretty much over before it even began.
The only thing that truly gave them an edge was Adam's enraged berserker like state, but once the Elder saw that fighting him was pointless, he just called off Tyrian entirely and gave his men up as a sacrifice to save them time.
By the time they finished taking out all of those that were in the way of the escaping pair, Tyrian and the Elder were already long gone. Since then they've been playing catch up with their trails, trying their best to find the trail that would lead them in the correct direction, though that wasn't quite putting it correctly.
Since the moment they giddied up on the horses, Adam had been leading them in one direction and one direction only. Because of this there was no true way of knowing where exactly they were headed, but because of his steadfastness it was hard to even think they were heading in the wrong direction.
Neyah obviously comprehended the seriousness of the situation but still she kept up her blunt voice and confident attitude as she was sure everything would go to plan, although there wasn't one. With that in mind, Nix looked over to the horse riding by their side, meeting eyes with Blake as they began vocally discussing ideas about how to approach the group, in hopes of maybe gaining the bull's input or at least his attention.
However, as expected, they got neither, so they're only true plan was to keep all the possible negatives situations in mind and focus on following Adam's lead whichever way he may lead them.
It wasn't a solid plan, nor was it truly a plan at all, but they figured that as long as they were able to stick together, they'd stay alive first and foremost, and then have the best possible chance at getting Ananya back if she was even alive.
That last thought was a possibility that none of them spoke of out loud, but they all knew that there was a chance for something like that to occur. However, they didn't have much time to dwell on it as slowly over the horizon the destination that Adam had been leading them too was beginning to appear. At the same time Adam gripped somehow even tighter to his own blade and the other masked figures began to do the same.
Outside the DFA city were numerous lines and groups that were waiting for entry, all impatient, hot, irate, and sweaty because of how long they needed to wait before entering the city. But even as disgruntled as they were, the moment the roaring sound of rapidly crashing hooves began rumbling across the dunes everyone quickly made way for the group. In truth if it wasn't the sound of horses' steps that made them move it was the people aboard those horses that gave them a quick second opinion.
Masks like those of demons and blades of assassins, though prevalent in the harsh climate of Vacuo, none looked more intimidating than the ones who stood confidently on the backs of those animals as they flew past.
Blake tightened her own ribbon quickly before standing on the back of the speedy horse to get a better look at what they were approaching, balancing excellently as she did so. "Adam," she said as she increased the volume of her voice to speak over the raging wind and noisy crowds, "there are a bunch of guards at the gate. What are we supposed to be doing?"
As she asked the question all they heard was the quickening steps of the horse as the hooves thundered across the dunes at a much more rapid pace, effectively giving them their answer.
Once the bull's goals were made clear, Blake swiftly pulled her Gambol Shroud from its sheath, brandishing both the cleaver-like sword and the bladed sheath as one.
She then quickly squatted down on the horse to crouch at a little above the White Fang leader's head level, seeing exactly what he was seeing as one of the entrances to the city rapidly began approaching.
The Panthera twins saw the sudden shift in Blake's focus and after taking a moment to reassure one another with Nix wrapping her arms tighter around her sister's abdomen, the duo pulled their weapons from their holsters as well.
Nix's dagger had returned to its natural shimmering blue glow and after a moment of inspection she ensured that it had returned to its natural strength, so she then gripped its handle tightly and stood in a similar position to Blake behind her sisters back.
At the same time, with a single hand on the reigns Neyah concentrated her Aura into her free hand to quickly generate a weapon she knew was effective on horseback, but wasn't very familiar with nonetheless. Starting from the center of her hand, her aura quickly generated a long shaft in both directions, ending with a long crescent-like blade at its front.
It was a long polearm with an incredibly strong and sharp blade, but its was clearly made entirely of white Aura. However, to mask this Neyah quickly activated the Blue Dust Crystal Nix was given when they first arrived in Vacuo, and its effects took place immediately. The entire white structure was filled and encapsulated in powerful ice, turning the Waldo into a cool beauty of a weapon.
From there, Neyah gave the weapon a few test swings, barely missing the innocent onlookers, before she announced loudly to herself, "aight I'm ready! Bring it you fuckin maniac!" As she shouted her triumphant pump up, the horses they were riding seemed to replicate the sentiment as they loudly neighed and picked their own pace, quickly alerting the guards to their presence.
Nix only shook her head lightly at her sibling's antics before turning to Blake and asking, "how should we handle them?" As she asked the question the cat woman suddenly shifted her katana like blade to its half state, revealing its gun form underneath and once the transformation was complete, she took aim at the guard.
Then, in an even tone she turned to her sister lover and announced, "incapacitate." With that single word uttered the two of them shared a quick nod before both of them focused back on the men they were approaching. Nix's blade quickly returned to its pistol-like form as she drew it from her back and took aim at the guard, looking through her reticle at legs and feet.
Before any shots were fired one of the spear wielding men shouted, "Attack! It's an attack! Everybody gets down!" The moment he shouted a sense of orderly panic erupted from crowd as the people closest to the entryway ran far out of the way of the guard and those closest to the charging horses pushed and pulled their loved ones out of their path without a moment of hesitation.
The rest of the guard quickly got up to speed on the approaching situation and as such the leader amongst them immediately began barking orders. "We've been alerted this would come! Hold the line! Don't let them pass!" As the man taking command of the situation, Blake's finger rested ever so gently on the trigger mechanism of her weapon, and once she felt they were in range she naturally pressed down.
Bullets flew from her weapon at a rapid place, sending tens of the metal projectiles flying into the guard in various places. Each of the men closest to the road's opening into the city were immediately met with the disproportionately powerful weapons, quickly penetrating beneath the skin on their legs, shoulders, and feet before they could even get properly into action. "Ah, I'm Hit!"
"Shit we're under fire!" Though the sounds of the shots were immediately noticed by the group, the damage was done before they could react as two men quickly hit the ground before the rest could get to cover.
The one that took the lead amongst them, however, stood strong at the center of them, the bullets bouncing almost harmlessly against his Aura as he stood in front of them. "Hurry and move the injured! The rest of you start shooting! Aim for the horses!"
On command, the men took cover behind the small fences that bordered their station and switched from wielding spears to bearing bows and rifles, quickly taking aim at the rapidly approaching animals. "Fire at will!"
Once the command was given, one by one each of the guards shot arrows, bullets, and rocks with deadly accuracy at the speeding horses, each of the fired weapons on track to reach there desired targets.
However, with one small grunt from the leading Bull and an audible, "shit" from the fierce feline, the attacks were met with a much powerful force, eliminating them from the air.
With a single powerful swipe from Neyah's newly created weapon, she managed to destroy or displace each of the approaching projectiles, allowing the ones that survived the onslaught to land harmlessly onto the sand behind them. At the same moment, Nix took aim at their attackers and pulled the trigger on her Dust enhanced weapon to which a laser like beam of icy energy erupted from its barrel.
Before any of the men could react, the beam of energy collided with their defenses in an explosive fashion, blowing up their only protective barriers from the cat's onslaught of pot shots and freezing the sandstone that made created them instantly, turning them into harmful projectiles in the process.
The force blew the men from their stations, sending them tumbling across the sands extremely vulnerable to any of the attackers following attacks, and this was only the beginning as the woman continued firing at each of the defensive structures that made up the outer barrier of the city.
The dismantling shots were quickly followed by more rapid-fire bullets that pelted the vulnerable cast of defenders with hot lead, wounding each of them with shots they were likely to survive even if untreated.
However, even though the onslaught left the entire battalion of men injured and awaiting their seemingly inevitable fate, the commander remained strong, standing tall amongst the fallen men with his spear in his right-hand.
He did not waver in the slightest bit and only welcomed the incoming attackers with an eerie smile across his lips. "Come!" He shouted, getting his feet set in an attackers stance. "I cannot let you cross into my city!" With his spear pointed directly towards the leader of the charge, the bull slowly began moving his sword towards its sheath, preparing it to unleash the immense energy he had stored in its bloodied blade.
The moment Blake saw Adam's shift in posture, she gently placed her hand on his, wrapping her hand around the handle of the weapon and the cold fist that was gripping it. Neither of the two reacted from the touch, but when Blake relieved her hand from his own, Adam remained still, stopping the movement in its entirety.
By the time the quick interaction between the two passed, the pair of sprinting horses had closed in on their target, only being at most a few strides away from crashing face first into the final defender's spear. With a large grin the man roared, "COME!" And before the horse could finish its next stride, he got his wish.
Blake launched herself from the back of the horse with a powerful leap, seemingly instantly putting herself directly in front of the commander, and before the man could adjust his position to defend against her, he watched as her cleaver slashed powerfully against his chest.
Though the damage was great, he dug his feet deeper into the sand and didn't allow himself to move, and as such he was able to quickly retaliate with a stab from his spear. "HRAAAGH!" He shouted as the blade launched forward, only moments from penetrating his target.
However, as his blade plunged into the woman and a victorious grin was beginning to form across his face, the commander was stunned into confusion as the woman that stood before him suddenly disappeared into a shadow of blackness.
Before he could even mutter another word a slight bit of pain erupted from his back as his Aura dissipated and the woman's blade cut lightly into his skin beneath the destroyed protective barrier.
Though the attack was sharp, it was much blunter than one would've expected from an attack of that manner, and the spear wielding commander was quickly lifted from his feet and sent tumbling across the dunes.
Laying across the hot sand along with the rest of his aching companions in defeat, the commander was forced to watch as the horses leaped over the fallen men and entered the city he swore to protect.
Once inside, the horses began barreling through the parted crowd of the busy street without a care in the world. As far as they could tell there wasn't another guard in sight, so naturally the rest of the trespasser's decided that now was the best time to confront their apparent leader on what exactly they were looking for.
"Yo Dickhead what the fuck are we doing?!!?" Neyah's question was met with nothing more than a passing glance by the bull, as he continued to charge forward through the crowd, taking a few turns as they raced towards a hidden objective.
Nix swiftly followed her sister's question with, "it would be nice to know where exactly we are headed Adam. We can't exactly just follow you without having any idea what we're doing," she paused for a moment, but after getting no reaction from the man she added, "it's not safe." As the crowd surrounding them continued their hysteric screams and frightened sprinting as they were charged at by the powerful leading Dune Horse, the man seemed to ease of his restraints slightly.
Blake said nothing, instead simply paying as much attention to their surroundings as she could, watching for a potential attack. Even as the same questions that her sister lovers spoke rattled her mind as well, she knew that there was only one true objective, 'save Anaya' and because of that she knew Adam wouldn't be too privy to divulging more.
After a moment of prolonged 'silence', though its very hard for there to be quiet amongst the stampede of horse hooves and panic of a civilian population, Adam quietly growled, "there is an important building near the edge of the city. That is where Anaya should be."
Adam spoke the comment without looking back, and once he was finished speaking, he only seemed to grip the reigns and his own weapon tighter than he did before. But the opposite effect had reached the twins as Neyah said, "oh gotcha. That's all I wanted to know asshole!" While Neyah appeared to have a much more positive reaction to the man's explanation, Nix was a tad bit more skeptical, but after keeping in mind the situation they were currently in she decided to keep her questions to herself.
Her expression remained calm as she said, "I hope she's unharmed." At the comment Adam nodded in silent agreement with the sentiment and the group continued speeding down the road. However, as they traveled further and further down the street, Blake's attention suddenly peeked.
"Wait!" Blake yelled as she rose from the back of the horse. "Incoming!" The moment she announced the incoming threat the attack hit the group. Coming from the crowd, one of the formerly scattering Faunus suddenly swung their massive broadsword in large arc, bringing the blade down onto Adam's horse.
As the sword came down and the threat became real, the animal's natural reaction to startle wasn't fast enough to evade the attack in its entirety. The sword quickly penetrated itself deep inside the horses body and made its exodus at the horse's back leg. In that instant the insanely speedy animal lost all control, sending even the ready passengers tumbling across the sand as the horses speed was converted into a weapon against them.
Once Blake and Adam were sent uncontrollably flying across the ground, Neyah immediately pulled the reigns and forced her own horse to come to a stop, watching as the man responsible for the attack slowly walked out to the center of the street mumbling something to himself. "Found 'em."
As he stood silently amongst the chaos that ensued following his attack, the man quietly contemplated, "should I tell the chief? Nah fuck 'em. These bitches are mine!" Without so much as a roar of warning, the man suddenly charged the duo atop the remaining horse, proving himself to be fairly quick on his feet as he practically glid across the sandy ground.
With the man's sword raised, he quickly leaped through the air once he was close enough to strike the duo's horses, but once he swung the sword down in the same arc as before he was met by a much stronger force. "Back the fuck up!" As Neyah roared along side her swing, the icy spear-like weapon clashed with the broadsword in the middle of the air, instantly coating the metallic weapon in a layer of ice.
The force from the clash sent the Faunus man rocketing back towards the ground, but before he was even able to reach the floor, he was quickly met with frosty beams of Dust that pressured him even further.
When he deflected the incoming shots with his sword, the already brittle blade began chipping at its edge, so as the next shots began raining down from the back of the animal, he clumsily rolled out the way. Once he rose once more, he had a smile on his face, saying, "oh wow, your kinda strong!"
As he spoke, Neyah and Nix both hopped down from the muscular animal, tapping her strongly on her side so she knew to walk away from the duo. Once the horse began walking away, the duo watched with their weapons prepared as their Faunus attacker looked at Neyah with a glint of insanity in his eyes.
"I'm gonna enjoy killing you!" Like before, the man launched himself as fast as his legs could carry him, gliding across the sand with his sword raised awkwardly in a barbaric stance.
"You aint killin shit!" Neyah roared in return, planting her back foot deeply into the sand as she rocketed herself forward at a speed she didn't know she could achieve. Before the attacking man could blink the woman was already practically on top of him, more than within range to have already pierced his chest with her icy weapon of choice.
Though her timing was ripped apart by her own sudden boost of speed, Neyah quickly adjusted her own swing in the middle of her movement arc, turning on her heels to slash against the man's exposed torso.
However, because of the large delay between the woman's launch and attack, the Faunus man managed to defend against the woman's incoming attack using his sword like a shield. Once the two weapons clashed once more the victor of the match was swiftly decided. The loud clang of metal against metal was almost instantly surpassed by the loud BRANG of the brittle sword shattering like glass.
Once the weapon broke, Neyah forced the rest of her strength to follow through the attack, slashing her blade deeply into the man's body with ease. The force Neyah exploded into the man's body sent him tumbling back against the sand, but quickly recovered as he regained his balance.
As he began breathing heavily, the man reached to his body and watched his blood begin flowing from the wound the woman gave him, and once he looked to her, he said, "good shot. You have a strong first step."
The Panthera woman only looked to the man with confusion, letting the compliment go over her head as if the man never said it at all. "You don't have Aura." It wasn't a question; it was a statement. One that baffled her as she felt the strength that the man attacked with.
As the man recomposed himself from the attack and prepared to attack once more, he responded, "if you need Aura for protection than you are weak!" As if he hadn't been injured at all the man launched into his onslaught once more, charging the woman with his bare hands and striking powerful punches at the woman who destroyed his weapon of choice.
The first fist that came flying at the wide-eyed Faunus woman was swiftly dodge by nothing but her instincts, but as the second fist came soaring in her direction, she blocked it with her powerful cool weapon and asked, "but why tho?"
She never received her answer as the man only grunted as he continued swinging, his excited smile in the heat of battle never wavering. His bare knuckles continued rapidly clanging against Neyah's Dust enhanced semblance, recklessly peeling the skin from his fists and freezing the nerves across his hands, but still he swung.
Once Neyah took notice of the affects her defending was having on the man's hands, as the man swung once more, she ducked the attack, sliding her powerful leg swiftly across the sand and catching the man's feet in the process. The sweep made him loose his balance enough for the Panthera to put her weapon aside for a moment to grip the man's chest and throw him with all her strength across the street, sending the man crashing into a tent far away from herself.
"Your done" she said to herself, wiping her hands clean of her opponent before picking her weapon back up and looking towards her sister. However, with seemingly no rhyme or reason, the already injured man that she had just launched across the road into wooden pillars, tables, metal objects, and, unfortunately, open flames, rose from the debris with scrapes, gashes, and burns littering his body. However, the way he got up and began moving was like he hadn't been injured in the slightest bit.
As he climbed from the crash and confidently walked his way towards his opponent once more, he said, "I'm not done until I'm dead!" As he shouted his declaration across the field, he launched himself across at the woman once more, watching carelessly as she ducked and dodged each of his chaotic ferocious strikes, but refused to strike back. "What are you waiting for! Attack!"
Once those words hit her, Neyah grit her own teeth and swiftly dodged another of his attacks to land a powerful kick on his chin, sending him skidding backwards. "Your outmatched, your slow, your hurt, you have no fucking Aura, no Semblance, no fucking nothing! You're done or you're gonna die!" For a moment Neyah relaxed her stance, loosening her grip on the icy woldo. "I'd rather not have to end someone I don't feel like I have to."
When she finished her small speech, the recovering man suddenly looked at her with a deadly seriousness, losing his smile entirely and gritting his teeth with an anger she hadn't seen in a while. "You are scared to kill?" He growled the question through his grit teeth, pausing for a moment as he glared deep into the woman's eyes.
Neyah's eyes squinted in confusion before responding, "no, I said I don't want t-"
"The very thought of losing to a warrior that fears death! That fears killing! That fears finishing what they started! Is an embarrassment to all warriors in Vacuo!" She wasn't able to finish her message as the man angrily interrupted her, clenching his fists in a ball so tight that his own frozen skin began tearing from his hand. "You're a disgrace to all those with strength!" As the Faunus man erupted in anger, he immediately launched himself at her with reckless abandoned.
Neyah watched the man approach without a change in expression, a soft look of careless disappointment that her eyes naturally fell into as she was pelted with his insults. It felt as though time crawled to a fault as the man floated through mid-air with his fist extended towards her jaw.
Her head shifted to the side before she took a light step forward towards the floating man, and once she noticed how slow he was moving in comparison to herself, with an emotionless eye, she raised her blade to his chin.
For a moment, all things remained slow, but only a second later they returned to normal, and Neyah watched as the lunging man impaled himself neck first onto her ice glaive. The ice spear penetrated the man's skin with deadly accuracy, spraying and freezing the blood simultaneously until a choker of frozen blood formed around the Faunus's neck.
The freezing didn't stop at the blood, however, as the cold continued to run its way through the man's entire head until his brain froze over, stopping its function, and immediately killing him before his body even had the opportunity to hit the sand below.
As the Panthera woman watched the man's lifeless corpse sink into the sandy street ground, the only thing she felt was pity, and with one final look she whispered, "you're done now. Rest easy." She then gave the man a silent prayer as she turned back to her sisters who situation seemed to get much worse in the small time since she looked the last time.
What Neyah saw was Nix viciously firing her weapon in the opposite direction as the horse that was supposed to be their method of transportation lay dead on the ground from a javelin piercing its skull.
"What's going on!" Without wasting another moment, the panther woman sprinted across the sand to her sisters side only to see exactly what her sister was firing at.
Four more Faunus men were leisurely approaching the pair from down the street, the foremost of this group was a man with a massive shield far larger than the man himself, and as each blast from Nix's weapon clashed with it the shot was easily deflected. Behind the shield was another man with numerous javelins in a bundle on his back like they were arrows and a kilt made entirely of cracked skulls.
Periodically as the men approached, he would reach from his back and pull one of his javelins, take aim, and launch the projectile at the woman, but now that Nix's sister was along her side, she could easily destroy the weapon before it reached them.
The other usual man amongst them was much shorter and skinnier than the rest of them, but he appeared to have a much more sinister look about himself that permeated through the air as he continuously peeked around the large shield in angst, almost as if he was waiting to get close enough to do something.
However, none of those Faunus men could hold a candle to the massive, armored, powerful Faunus man that stood tall amongst the rest of them.
At the center of the group, standing fully unafraid of the beams of ice that came from his targets weapons was a horned man of ginormous proportions. He had a grizzled face that angled in a rageful expression, slanted eyes, a furrowed brow, grit teeth, and fat huffs of breaths that when escaped from his nostrils seemed to steam even in the desert heat.
Long unkept gray hairs tangled down his face getting caught up in his equally long and unkempt full beard that looked as though it could house a family of birds. He was extremely muscular in frame, each muscle in his exposed body appearing like sheets of plated metal, an impenetrable defensive barrier that withstands any force even without the power of Aura.
The behemoth of a man wore almost nothing, a simple leather tunic that was singed with flame across his chest, small shorts that flowed so well in the wind they appeared like a skirt, and thick cut boots that scraped up masses of sand with each step.
However, the center piece of it all, the by far most intimidating section of armory he wore across his body, was the massive, bladed mace that was hung across his back.
The size alone of the mace was terrifying, as the head of its beastly form was already twice the size of the man's head, with its handle trailing all the way down to the behemoth's inner thigh.
The weapon was silver in color but rusted from dried blood staining the blade's edges and had intricate designs across its shaft that showed the craftsmanship that went into its making. The blade itself, however, was vile even to the eye.
The axe like blades that spiraled in a complete circle to make the piriform of the weapon were dulled from repeated use, chips and scraps were prevalent across its entire structure, and even as the man walked forward the mace loosely scraped its blades up against the back of the man's neck, but none of those scratches even remotely looked close to breaking his tough skin.
He was an absolute beast of a man, and he looked down on all those he came across. "This is who I'm supposed to dispose of?" His voiced boomed throughout the emptied streets, the men that surrounded him chuckling as he spoke. "Three tiny women? Really? I'm disappointed."
As the group began quickening their pace Nix stopped firing seeing as it was pointless to try attacking from this range and in truth, she was just wasting her own Aura. "I thought the White Fang would have more to offer."
As Nix stopped firing, the man behind the shield revealed himself to be a stumpy man of incredibly wide stature, reasonably tall but unreasonably large. He held the massive shield with incredible strength but moved with incredible difficulty. It was no wonder why the moment he stopped defending the rest of the group moved forward with a large increase in speed.
However, before they attacked, their leader's voice boomed across the street once more, "I expected more from the fang, but I can't say I thought the footmen would be much more impressive than you all. So, I'll give a quick death if you just tell me where that son of a bitch Adam is. He'll at least give me a fight worth the effort."
Before Neyah could say anything, another voice spoke up, "he's gone already." The voice came from slightly behind the duo, so they looked over and watched as their sister lover with her Gambol Shroud drawn spoke up once more. "Sorry but you'll have to settle for us three kicking your shit in for now." As Blake spun her katana in her hand for a moment and got into her usual low crouching cat like attack stance, Nix and Neyah swiftly followed.
At the same time however Neyah whispered, "sisters, they don't use Aura at all." Neither of the woman seemed surprised by her words, but after a brief pause, she continued with, "so they aren't gonna stop attacking." Neyah then turned to Blake directly and added, "Ever."
As she slid that piece of information to her sister lover, the gargantuan man across the field pulled his mace from his back and let it fall to the ground by his side, rumbling the sand beneath his feet. After his weapon hit the floor and he had his men's attention, the massive Faunus man sat onto the ground behind the group before saying, "I'm not ganging up on nobodies. Handle it. I'll get Adam after."
Once the order was given the groups smile only grew, the smallest man among them saying in his scratchy voice, "about damn time!"
The javelin wielding Faunus man added, "Good." While the widest of the men said nothing, only showing his excitement for the sentiment from the lecherous grin that grew from ear to ear. From there it was only moments until the group turned their attention to the woman that they would be preying on.
The largest among the three waddling his way forward, the ranger keeping his distance from the others, and the smallest among them weaving in and out of the sand below as he made his way towards the group.
However, as Blake and the Panthera twins watched the oncoming threat and the exchange that occurred between them, they still continued to converse with one another. For a moment Blake didn't even return Neyah's look after listening to her comment about the Faunus groups antics. She knew what she was referring to, as Blake watched the man who sliced her and Adam's horse go head-to-head against Neyah.
It was a battle that she was sure to win, but even as she attempted to non-lethally take him down, she ended with his blood in her hands. A solution that she never wanted to enact. "They can still be disabled though, It doesn't matter how determined they are to fight back, as long as they're out of the fight then there isn't a reason to double tap."
Though in ideology Blake had a point, Nix saw the urgent expression on Neyah's face and decided to add, "Blake, if you cut a leg or an arm they can't stop the bleeding like we can. Even in that scenario they'll bleed to death. Most of the injuries they'll sustain will mean death anyway since there aren't very great medical centers in Vacuo, even in a city like this I'd imagine." Blake let Nix's argument bounce off her, leaving her in denial of the sentiment, but still she understood the idea that she presented.
However, before she countered her sisters' ideology Neyah added, "the one I got told me that he wanted to go. If it does come down to it, your life or theirs, it shouldn't be a hard decision to make."
Instead of responding to the comment directly, Blake turned to the approaching threats and said, "their coming. I'll take the small one." Without warning the black cat launched herself from the ranks of the trio, sliding through the sand with incredible speed as she attempted to meet with the skinny Faunus assassin.
After watching her sudden departure and declaration on who she would be taking down, the Panthera twins shared a single look before they did much the same with Neyah dashing directly towards the shield bearer and Nix shooting a beam towards the javelin man.