The bullet bounced right off of Nora’s aura as she charged in, swinging the chair she’d picked up with a grip on a single leg. Nora was one of the more physically capable huntresses in their year, so there was some definitive force behind the attack, but at the end of the day a cheap plastic chair is only a cheap plastic chair. Emerald grunted as she held the chair back with her forearms, but there didn’t seem to be much strain on her aura from the attack, and the plastic of the chair deformed and cracked.
Nora pouted. “Next time we go shopping, I’m bringing a weapon!”
Emerald retaliated with a swipe of her sickle, forcing Nora to jump back as she tossed the ruined chair aside, but there was no room for a follow up with Ren taking her attention, holding the pan he’d used to smash the back of her head as a makeshift shield and slashing at her with the kitchen knife he’d picked up. Blade caught against blade, but only one of them was actually designed with combat in mind, being more than double the length of the cooking utensil and much more sturdy, so Ren was forced to retreat as well before the only “real” weapon between the lot of them was ruined.
“I think I’ll join you in that,” Ren agreed.
Emerald pounced, not wanting to give up her advantage, firing shots off towards Ren’s torso with one of her revolvers while the other tried to slice at his neck. The “shield” managed to take one of the bullets at an angle and send it flying off to the side, but Ren could only grimace as every other shot went straight through the metal, punching holes through the pan and proving it to be as practical as the kitchen knife. Instead of tossing it aside like Nora had done with the busted chair, though, he threw it straight at Emerald’s head, hoping for a repeat of his sneak attack.
Whatever Emerald said in response to that went in one ear and out the other as Jaune turned his back on the makeshift battlefield, scooping up Zinnia in his arms and fleeing. “Cover me, Second!”
“Right.” Second grunted out as they ran down the huge mall hallway.
Did he want to be abandoning his friends against a psycho? No. But his sister’s safety came first, and Nora and Ren worked well together. They’d be able to at least hold Emerald off until something more solid could be figured out.
“Mother fu-” Second grunted out and stumbled. “Faster, please!” He pleaded, and the quick look back that Jaune chanced showed that his semblance had already been used as a human shield against Emerald’s gunfire, bullets destroying tiles on the ground behind them and putting holes into walls and displays around them. Second winced as another struck his back, and Jaune tried to pick up the pace despite the extra weight of his sister.
His team must have done something to Emerald at that point, because the bullets suddenly stopped being shot down the hall, giving them a bit of respite.
“J-Jaune, I-” Zinnia’s words were cut off as she broke out into sobs and buried her face into his chest, the initial shock starting to wear off as the gunshots grew quieter.
“You don’t need to talk, everything will be fine,” he tried to reassure her. And while he was at this point confident that she at least would be fine, his worry grew for his team. Even if he went back now and they turned it into a 4 v 1, none of them were Yang. They knew the basics of hand to hand, Nora more so than the rest of them, but how could they possibly get through Emerald’s aura? The surprise attack from behind had done something, but it clearly wasn’t enough and without a proper weapon…
Second decided to add to his worries. “What are the odds that she’s here alone?”
“What?” Jaune responded as they made their way to the exit that the rest of his sisters would have used. “If she wasn’t alone, wouldn’t they have jumped in back there?”
“Using her as a distraction?” his semblance suggested. “In her state I wouldn’t be shocked if Watts decided to cut her loose and cause problems like this, but it would make for a good distraction while they get up to something else.”
Jaune frowned, considering the possibility. Would grimm breach Mnemosyne? Were one of Salem’s agents up to something? Coming after his other sisters?
No, that didn’t make sense, did it? Emerald blamed him for whatever happened to Cinder, but that was a personal grudge. There’d be no reason for anyone else to come for him or his team, they were just some first years.
That’s not to say that they couldn’t be causing problems elsewhere, but… well, that wasn’t really his concern right now.
“I think she’s probably the only one in Mnemosyne at the very least. If there’s a problem somewhere else, I think I’ll follow Oobleck’s advice and leave it to them.”
Second didn’t look convinced, but didn’t speak up about any other worries as they burst out of the doors to a large crowd of panicking shoppers. Spotting the horde of blondes wasn’t difficult, however, making it easy to rush over to them and drop Zinnia back onto the ground. Aurelia latched onto her instantly while sobbing just as hard as Zinnia was, and the rest of his sisters took to inspecting both him and her for injuries, Kiara speaking quickly into her scroll.
Solana, however, quickly accepted that they were safe, and gave a quick glance to the group preparing to storm into the mall. There was a single officer and… three mall cops. Only one of which would have any idea how to handle crime other than shoplifting and none of which would have their aura unlocked. Jaune didn’t know if they were brave or if they didn’t realize just what they were up against.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
She grimaced as her gaze returned to him and Second. “You’re going back in there, aren’t you?”
“We don’t have time for conversation, if we’re going back to help we should do it now,” Second reminded him.
And so Jaune didn’t answer his sister with words, but with action, running back towards the mall. He ignored the shouts of “Jaune, wait!” and panicked yells of “Dad is–!” from his sisters. He ignored the “Kid, no!” from the one actual cop who tried to stop him from reentering and failed.
His team was unarmed and in danger, he wasn’t about to sit around now that his family was safe.
“I’m a huntsman, just keep them safe!” he shouted back, and the blue duplicate of Jaune brushing into the officer must have been enough evidence for that, because he gave up his interference and started barking new orders at the mall cops.
Good. Jaune wasn’t sure how good that cop would feel if he found out that Jaune was just a first year student and not a full huntsman, but this was better than having people without the proper training charging into a situation like this.
“So,” Second prompted as he made his way to Jaune’s side, “is there an actual plan? Or are we just gonna do our best Yang impressions and hope for the best?”
Grunts, groans, gunfire, and metal clashing against metal echoed down the hall as they got closer to the battle.
Jaune did his best to think over the possibilities. Emerald’s revolver-sickles gave her an advantage at both close quarters and ranged combat, but there were only two of them. “If we tank the hits with our aura, two of us could restrain her arms?” Not the most elegant plan, but if they could wrestle her weapons away from her then the fight would basically be over. “Or maybe…” His thoughts went back to a suggestion Pyrrha had made. “This sounds like a good time as any to figure out how to summon you with a weapon!”
Second scowled at him. “That would leave you without any aura! Vetoed. Your first idea has some merit, though.”
The sounds of battle grew louder as they approached the food court.
“And as for weapons…. I really hope that the short bit of training your friends gave me paid off.”
That’s when Jaune noticed that Second had a gun in his hand. Not a summoned one, but a normal pistol.
“Where did you get that?!”
Second shrugged. “I borrowed it from that cop. I’ll give it back when I’m done with it!”
“You stole a cop’s gun?!”
“It was right there! We need a weapon, he had a weapon, why wouldn’t I grab it?!”
“Do you even know how to use it?!” Jaune definitely didn’t.
“Ruby showed me how to use her rifle, and this is…” Second quickly gave up on that terrible excuse. “Look, I’ve fired a gun before and pistols are simple! Safety off, only point it at Emerald, watch my trigger discipline–” Each “step” in Second’s checklist was followed as he listed them off, and as Jaune saw Ren leap away from Emerald in the middle of some overturned tables, Second took the shot.
He missed.
“Okay, so maybe doing this while in motion is harder than I thought, but–”
Emerald returned fire.
It bounced off of Jaune’s aura and gave his team an opening to move in against her as he analyzed the situation. It looked like not much progress has been made either way, outside of seriously trashing the food court. Emerald was still a mess, but he didn’t see any fresh blood on her, and his friends didn’t look any worse for wear themselves.
“Jauney!” Nora shouted. “I knew you’d come back for us!” She picked up not a chair this time, but an entire wooden table and lobbed it at Emerald. It didn’t land anywhere near the mint haired girl, causing her to frown.
“I suspect she’s concussed at a minimum, but her semblance is still proving to be an issue,” Ren explained, running over to Jaune’s side. At first Jaune assumed it was so that he could relay more information, but instead he made his way past Jaune, stopping next to Second, holding out his hand in waiting. Second gave him a confused look at first, then a disappointed one.
“...fine.” He handed the pistol over to Ren, who noticeably held it in a much more natural manner, even if it wasn’t StormFlower.
Emerald rushed towards them. “Would you stop running around?!” Second received several rounds to the gut as she prepared to slash at them once again, but in her haze she didn’t seem to notice the gun in Ren’s hand at all.
So he shot her in the face.
Her head jerked back from the impact, her charge was not stopped but significantly slowed– or so Ren thought until there was a shout of “Look out!” and it was revealed to his lying eyes that his aim had been off and Emerald swung at the hand holding the gun, making him cry out in pain and drop it.
Before she could press that any further, Nora tackled her from behind, sending her to the floor in a mess of squirming limbs. “Don’t you touch my Ren!” Nora roared, keeping Emerald pinned beneath her and vying for control of the pistol-sickles.
Obviously, the three men went for them as well, but with how wildly they were being swung around it was a bit of a hazard. It wouldn’t do any good to grab them if their aura was cut through in the process.
“Get off me! I have to-” Emerald grunted as she took an elbow to the face. “-I have to save Cinder!”
“Cinder doesn’t fucking care about you!” Second growled back as he wrapped himself around her right arm, trying to pry the weapon from her fingers and getting stabbed for his efforts. “Shit! That still fucking hurts!”
“She does! She does care about me! She saved me!” Emerald tried and failed to keep hold of the sickle in her left hand as Jaune and Ren worked at it together, her grip unable to overcome them double teaming it. With her fingers being literally pried off of the handle, it clattered to the floor and was picked up by Jaune.
With Nora on her back, Second and Ren holding her arms,and Jaune switching the weapon back to the pistol layout, Emerald’s blood matted face contorted in anger and a mess of tears as she looked down the barrel of her own weapon. “No! Get off of me! I have to- I have to–!”
“It’s over, Emerald,” Jaune declared.
“No it’s not! I’m going to save– I– I’m— Cinder is–”
Despite her words of protest, Emerald’s anger faded as the tears flowed more freely, defeat seeping in and making her fighting muscles go limp.
Second grunted. “This is nice and all, but can somebody please get her knife out of my gut? This is not a pleasant feeling!”
