Anon's Shitty Volume 3.5 Fanfiction

{Act One}


[Scene I]
Neopolitan lay motionless amongst the rubble and debris that filled the streets of Vale. A frilled umbrella sat a few feet away, discarded thanklessly after it had saved her from the fall. She didn't make a sound as her eyes watched the chaos above with horror and disbelief.
This was nothing out of the ordinary of course. It wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination to assume she was mute, given that few, if any, had ever heard her utter a single word. Nonetheless, her silence was far more evident amongst the mayhem and panic that filled the devastated capital.
The small road she was sprawled along was far beyond quiet in comparison to her surroundings.
It was hollow.
Overpoweringly silent.
This meant that she heard the Grimm approaching long before it came upon her. She didn't so much as flinch when the towering Beowolf blocked the night sky from view, laying its massive shadow across her, hiding her from the moonlight like a predatory quilt.
She didn't meet the beast’s crimson eyes as it sized up her up. Even when the creature’s bone-like, masked face hovered inches from her own sniffing her as if to see if its prey was still fit eat, she didn't look at the thing.
Her gaze was indeed set on the creature, but seemed focused on something far beyond it. It was as if she was looking through it, ignorant to its low growls and heavy breathing.
She heard more surrounding her, but still lay still and silent as they began to encircle her.
She showed no signs of resistance as the Grimm looming above her reared back to strike.
It didn't matter to her.
He was gone.
It had only been for a second as she fell, but she had seen it.
Seen him swallowed whole.
She had nothing now.
It was with her trademark silence that she accepted her fate as the Beowolf lunged at her neck.
But its fangs never reached her.
They were laying with the rest of its severed head across the street, its own neck slashed in half before it could get to hers.
For the first time since falling back to Earth, her attention was snapped back to her surroundings. The pack of Grimm that had surrounded her mere seconds ago lay dead, a veritable circle of corpses with her in the center.
Well, her and the incandescent figure suddenly standing before her.
The young man’s gold coat fluttered in the gentle night breeze that swept through the wreckage. The chainsaw-like swords that had slain the beasts collapsed in his hands and disappeared into his coat as he turned toward her. Those same hands reached down and firmly grabbed her shoulders to lift her into a sitting position as he knelt to bring his face level to hers. His fierce yellow eyes locked with hers, two fiery suns lighting her face in the night.
This almost mythical seeming presence was immediately ruined the second he opened his mouth.
“Kittens!”
She blinked at him.
“Fuzzy little kittens, not even an hour old!” he continued frantically, shaking her gently.
“They're so tiny and precious! They can't even fully open their eyes yet! They’re all just curled up to mommy, like fuzzy little balls of warmth and new life!”
The man wore a weak, but hopeful smile as he searched for some kind of agreement on her baffled face.
“Okay,” he sighed standing up and scratching the back of his almost impossibly blonde head, “Not a cat person, are we?”
She just sat watching the stranger as he turned back to her with renewed enthusiasm.
“What about puppies?” he plead spreading his palms toward her as if he trying to offer an invisible gift in the most desperate, melodramatic manner possible.
“They have those floppy little ears that slap all over the place as they run toward you,” he offered, his eyes darting nervously about, “Can't you just picture them greeting you when you open the door and making those little high pitched barks to welcome you home?”
She stared at him blankly, transfixed by his nonsensical one man show.
The gold man’s shoulders slumped in defeat.
“Jeez, lady what's wrong with you?” he sighed in exasperation, “Who the hell doesn't like puppies?”
He ran his fingers through his hair, regarding her as if she were the one acting insane.
“Alright,” he squatted down to speak with her face to face once more, “I need you to work with me here. I don't know what kind of education they give you folks in Vale, but back in Vacuo, it’s pretty common knowledge that these things-” he gestured to the evaporating corpse of the freshly decapitated Beowolf beside them “-are drawn to negative emotion.”
He jabbed a finger between her mismatched, pink and brown eyes.
“And you positively reek of the stuff. So I need you to do me a solid and think of something happy for maybe half a minute or neither of us are making it out of this place alive.”
Neopolitan couldn't think of anything, let alone something happy. Moments ago she'd been so overcome by disbelief and despair, yet now all she could do was watch this individual with something akin to the feeling of watching a drowning rat suddenly pull himself from the water and begin tap dancing along the shore.
Picturing that, she let out a faint snicker.
“That’s better,” the stranger sighed in relief as an unbelievably warm smile spread across his face.
A sudden howl that he evidently found to be too close for comfort quickly wiped it away again.
“But apparently not good enough…”
The man hesitated for a moment, then seemed to come to a decision before suddenly snatching Neo from the ground and lifting her into his arms.
“Don't let it get to you. Just keep trying,” he smiled nervously down at her as he began to run along the ruined streets of the devastated city.
“I'm Gabriel, by the way,” he continued, rounding a corner and picking up speed, “Aureo Gabriel. But just call me Gabriel, I never liked how Aureo sounded.”
They were in the air above the broken wall he'd jumped over before she even noticed it was there.
“Gabe works too,” he added just before they landed on the other side and he resumed his dash through the ruins of the city, “Nice to meet you, Miss…”
He trailed off, obviously waiting for her to introduce herself. Her only response was a skeptically cocked eyebrow.
“You're right. You're right. Introductions aren't important right now,” he nodded as they skidded to halt at the end of an alley he’d realized too late lead straight into a wall.
“What’s important-” he went on, doing his best to speak louder than the sound of claws barreling toward them that echoed throughout the narrow alley.
Then they were on the roof above the alley.
Neo looked around, utterly caught off guard and completely disoriented.
She hadn't even noticed that he jumped.
When did he jump?
He'd have to had in order get all the way up there...
Didn't he?
“What’s important,” Gabe began running across rooftops, frustration edging into his voice, “is that you keep thinking happy thoughts so we can loose them.”
Each time they moved from one roof to the next, Neo again was unable to discern exactly when they had done so. His running wasn't particularly fast, but somehow they were clearing the wide distances between buildings in mere seconds.
Gabriel apparently saw that she had noticed this and tried to draw her attention away from it.
“C’mon, focus,” he jerked her a little, “Positive thoughts. Positive thoughts. What makes you happy? What helps you feel better when things go wrong?”
The giant claw that suddenly swooped toward them from behind a water tower prevented Neopolitan from even starting down that train of thought. Gabriel hopped to side and shifted her in his arms so he could reach into his coat as the Ursa’s claw smashed into the roof. Neo reflexively went for her umbrella, but Gabriel had already blown its head off with a pistol before she even had time to realize she'd left it where they’d met.
Gabe was obviously at his wit’s end. Apparently, he found it ludicrous that she couldn't do something as think positively in middle of the panic and devastation surrounding them.
His response to this, to her utter bewilderment, was to begin singing.
“Raindrops on roses,” he panted out, “and whiskers on kittens.”
Neopolitan could hear more Grimm following close behind them.
“Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens.”
They were back on the ground again, weaving through back alleys in an attempt to throw the beasts off their trail.
“Brown paper packages tied up with-SHIT!”
The lyric was cut off by Gabriel’s sudden leap backward to avoid the Griffon that had abruptly landed in front of them. He shifted Neo in his arms to free his left hand to reach into his coat and once again produce his gun.
“These are a few of my favorite things!” he spat through his teeth, punctuating each syllable with a shot from his pistol. They didn't seem to deter the creature which responded by slashing at them with its talon and letting out an earsplitting screech.
“Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels,” Gabe continued unimpeded by having to dodge each swipe. He appear on its back with the same abruptness that he’d used on the roofs. Shouldering Neo in the crook of his right elbow, the pistol in his left hand let out of mechanical whir and began to shift into the same chainsaw-teeth-edged broadsword she’d first seen him holding.
“Doorbells!” he bellowed over the roar of the chainsword’s motor.
“And sleighbells!” he sang as he stabbed the blade into the Griffon’s shoulder.
“And schnitzel,” the spinning teeth of his sword ate through the flesh, sinew, and bone connecting the Grimm’s right wing to its body, “WITH NOODLES!”
Gabe was less singing at this point and more yelling the words to the song in time to each of his stabs and slashes.
“Wild! Geese! That! Fly! With! The moon! On their wings!”
Neopolitan didn't bother pointing out that her mood was probably drawing less attention than his enraged fanatical singing at this point.
“THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS!” he recited while his blade severed the Griffon’s head.
They were surrounded now. Twenty if not more Grimm had emerged from the shadows during song and dance/murder number Gabe had been putting on and when he dismounted, they pounced.
Nonetheless, he kept singing.
“Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes!”
The sword met claws and teeth repeatedly, before shifting into a pistol, firing and changing back.
“Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes!”
His weapon was a gun again. Each time one of the Grimm would lunge at them, he'd side step and shoot. But he was obviously not used to wielding only one of his pair weapons, let alone doing so while carrying another person, and was obviously growing weary and overwhelmed.
“Silver white winters that melt into springs.” he panted out no longer firing but simply trying to avoid each lung, swipe, pounce, and bite.
His gun arm fell to his side, exhausted and barely keeping his grip on Neo. One particularly large Beowolf saw its opportunity and took it.
“These are a few of my favorite things…” he whimpered, the last syllable enunciated with a half laugh, half sob.
That sound was the last straw. The unreal absurdity of the entire string of events finally overcame Neopolitan as the Grimm lept at them; fangs bared, claws outreached and the mask like bones covering its head shining in the moonlight. After everything that had happened.
After all of her efforts and losses.
She was going to die in the arms of a singing, golden idiot from Vacuo.
And that was truly funny.
So she laughed.
She laughed harder and louder than she had in her entire life as the Beowolf’s teeth and claws sunk into their flesh and ripped them into tiny bite sized pieces.
…
Only it didn't.
Neo felt it, she was certain of that.
The Beowolf had landed on top of them, knocking them to the ground. Its jaws had clamped around her waist as its claws dug into Gabriel to keep him in place. Her bones were crushed and her organs were punctured as it snapped its jaws shut over and over to kill her so that it could rip bits of her off to more easily consume. The rest of the Grimm had descended upon them, desperate for their own piece of the prey. Many went after Gabe while the big one ate her. She didn't see, but she clearly heard the tearing and snapping of one of his arms getting ripped off.
They had both died.
…
Only they hadn't.
Because just before her consciousness had left her body, it all stopped…
Then reversed.
The whole thing seemed to rewind and suddenly she was back in Gabe’s arms right before the Beowolf lept.
Right as she had started laughing.
And she was laughing again.
Or she was laughing still, rather.
She couldn't stop.
Her whole body shook as her eyes turned from their killer to the man holding her.
He was still panting.
He was still obviously exhausted.
A small drop of blood was even running from his nose.
But he was smiling.
Grinning like a lunatic.
And his yellow eyes, that had seemed to her like two suns trapped in the idiot’s skull when they’d first met, were glowing as golden and bright as they would have if they really were stars.
Then, just as it had happened seconds ago, the Beowolf lunged.
Only this time, Gabe didn't stop singing.
“When the dog bites!” he screamed jumping to the side and raising his pistol to fire a shot directly into the creature’s temple.
“When the bee stings!” he had begun actual carrying a melody as he narrowly danced away from the other Grimm’s attacks.
“When I’m feeling sad!”
Suddenly moving with unexplainable new vigor, the bizzarity that was Aureo Gabriel was weaving, shooting, slashing and fighting off a small army of Grimm quite literally single handedly.
“I simply remember my favorite things,” he sang as he dodged blow after blow, “and then I don't feel…”
He held the note, finally seeing an opening in the mass of monsters bearing down on them. Somehow, he kept holding it through his mad dodges and dashes toward a single Beowolf standing between them and a clear path out of the city.
With a hard kick to its chest to knock it over, a firm stomp to hold it in place, and a shot between its eyes, Gabriel finally inhaled.
“SO BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!” he finally bellowed the end of the verse as he lept over the corpse and resumed running.
And Neopolitan laughed through the entire thing.
And she kept laughing as they left the city limits and disappeared into the forest.
She didn't ask about the impossibility she had just experienced.
You could be forgiven for mistaking the girl for a mute.
If it weren't for the sound of her laughter.
The unbridled, hysterical laughter that, unbeknownst to her, had saved both their lives.




























































[Scene II]
The forest surrounding Vale isn't normally the safest place for a late night stroll. The intertwining branches and leaves block even the light of the fractured moon. This darkness has been home to multitudes of Grimm for as long as any can remember, so all of the old roads built by braver souls have gone unused for years.
But when Beacon fell, the Grimm left their hiding places beneath the trees and fell upon the city surrounding it. Leaving the forest empty.
Without the ever present predators, the forest suddenly felt almost hospital.
Tranquil even.
Or it did, until Aureo Gabriel made his way in, gasping and wheezing all the while.
He didn't know how long he'd been running. He just knew it had been for way too long. His calves were filled angry, flaming hornets and the act of breathing had stopped being worth the effort about an hour ago.
Now it just hurt.
Like the rest of him.
In hindsight, singing the entire time he was fighting for his own and his new travel companion’s life was a very, very dumb idea.
Once he had finally crested the hill he'd started up what felt like hours ago he finally fell to his knees.
The strange girl he’d, for reasons beyond him, carried the entire way simply looked at him with what could have been concern or disappointment for all he knew before moving herself out of his arms and standing up.
Gabe fell, his hands joining his knees on the rarely used dirt road and simply focused on trying to catch the breath that had gotten away from him back in Vale.
“Oh thank god!” finally choked out between his gasps, “You can walk!”
He looked up to face Neopolitan with what he had intended to be a cocky grin, but looked much more like the deranged expression a man about vomit out his soul might wear after overstaying his welcome at a tavern.
“You could have said something… Oh, I don't know,” he grumbled sarcastically rising shakily to his feet, “Maybe a mile or two back.”
Neo simply continued to watch him as he finally got his wind back.
“Alright,” he began while taking in their surroundings, “We should be safe… Well, safer here for the moment.”
He extended his handed toward the silent young woman with a smile.
“Let’s try this again. Hi there, I'm Aureo Gabriel. I like sticking my nose where it doesn't belong, rescuing damsels with a death wish, and long moonlit walks through cities I've never been to before that end without me dying.”
Neo backed away slowly.
“Okay…” Gabe said with a mixture of hesitance and confusion, withdrawing his hand,  “Not sure if this is just a Vacuo thing, but usually after someone introduces himself, the polite thing to do is to respond with an introduction of your own.”
Neo simply stared at him.
“Okay. Look,” he threw up his arms and hung his head, “I realize now that grabbing you and taking you with me without even bothering to ask if you wanted to come was kind of presumptuous on my part. I'm sorry I essentially kidnapped you and brought you all the way out here.”
Neopolitan, moved her eyes from his brown leather shoes, to the top of his yellow shaggy locks.
“What’s up?” Gabe asked, regarding her much the same.
Then a smile spread across his face and he placed a hand on the trunk of a nearby oak, leaning slightly to the right. He made a point to sweep the edge of his long gold coat behind him and confidently place his other hand on his hip. He finally crossed one foot over the other, placing him in what he hoped was a casual, yet suave pose.
“Oh I see,” he smirked with self satisfied bravado, “see something you like, do ya?”
Neopolitan simply continued to take him in, her eyes finally resting on his shoulder. They lingered for a moment then fell to her own waist.
“Oh…” the smile left his face and his body language quickly shifted from conveying cocky flirtation to self conscious awkwardness.
“Those aren’t bedroom eyes… Those are ‘how the hell are we still alive’ eyes.”
The young man subconsciously rubbed his arm uncomfortably and looked away
“Yeah…” he struggled to find the right words, “Sorry about that too.”
He turned his face back toward her with an apprehensive smile this time.
“My semblance usually only kicks in for me,” the words came quiet and hesitantly, “but I guess since I was holding you at the time, you must have come along for the ride.”
His palms rose before him with an apologetic shrug.
“I didn't mean to put you through that. It just…” he trailed off for a moment before looking away once more.
“It's kind of a defense mechanism, ya know? If I'm dying, it just reflexively kicks in and…”
He attempted to pantomime the hands of a clock moving in reverse.
“Takes me back to right before it happens…”
For the first time since they'd met, he joined her in her silence.
After an uncomfortable, at least for him, few minutes Gabriel finally broke it, looking back at the city below them.
“Listen, if you want to go back, I can-”
The girl responded for the first time since they'd met, cutting him off with a subtle shake of her head.
Gabe raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“Alright, then how about I take you wherever home is. You have to live somewhere around here right?” he asked jokingly.
Neo shook her head.
“Wait, you don't? Are you from out of town too?”
Neo shook her head.
“Okaaaay….” he trailed off confused and caught off guard by her seemingly contradictory gestures, “so you don't live here and you’re not here from somewhere else…”
He thought for a moment.
“What about friends?” he offered, “I can take you wherever they are.”
Neo shook her head.
Gabriel bent over and grasped his face in his hands, frustration edging into his voice.
“Family then!” he threw out his arms in exasperation, looking back up and begging her to make some kind of, any kind of, sense, “I’ll take you to wherever your family is! Everybody has family somewhere!”
Neo’s face fell, her blank poker face growing pained and lost.
“...everybody but you, apparently.” Gabe muttered with immediate regret and realization that his foot had somehow found its way into his mouth.
“Christ, I'm sorry,” his eyes softened and a gentle hint of guilt wormed it's way into his voice.
“Did they…?” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder rather than finish the question.
Neo’s only answer was the slightest movement of her head, which Gabriel took for a nod.
He slapped his face, suddenly noticing the egg splattered across it.
“Shit…” he muttered from behind his palm before removing it to reveal eyes filled with apologetic sympathy, “I'm so sorry…”
The pair stood like that for a time. Gabe began to suspect that Neopolitan’s muteness was contagious while he desperately searched for something to say.
“I can't even begin to imagine what that’s like,” he finally spoke, though with evident hesitance, “You don't have anyone who can take you in now?”
Neo shook her head.
Gabriel’s shoulders slumped again, turning his head to either side as if hoping to find some sort of Home For Recently Orphaned and/or Widowed Young Mute Women that he’d managed to overlook.
When no such establishment presented itself, he took a deep breath and tried to bring some confidence back to his voice before speaking again.
“Well I'm going to go find try to find a safe place to spend the night, you're welcome to come along if you'd like.”
The unbroken silence he continued to receive in response was beginning to get on get on his nerves.
“Has anyone every told you that you're an absolutely delightful conversationalist?”
The sorrow still in her eyes, Neo managed a small smirk.
Gabe began to wonder if his shoulders were going to be able to unslump at this point.
“Well I'm going to go look over there,” he sighed, “You can just… do whatever it is you plan on doing.”
He strode into the trees, leaving the road behind.
But, to his surprise, not Neo.
She followed him through the brush and foliage from a small distance, never far enough for him to mistakenly think she was going somewhere else, but never close enough to give him the impression that she was doing so because wanted to. He just assumed it was easier for her to follow him than to stand alone in the woods, with no company aside from thoughts and memories of whatever had happened to her back at Beacon.
They trudged through the trees without speaking for a long time. This was, of course, completely natural for her, but Gabriel was clearly struggling it.
“So…” he asked after he could stand it no more while holding back a branch that she would have otherwise walked straight into, “you have a name?”
Neo nodded.
“Alright, alright. We’re getting somewhere…” Gabe nodded ducking under the branch and continuing their slow trek through the woods, “What is it?”
As always, she said nothing.
“Well what am I supposed to call you if you don't tell me?”
When she didn't even look at him, Gabriel’s frustration came screaming back.
“Alright fine,” he huffed, “If you don't want to tell me then I'm just going to come up with a nickname for you. And I warn you…”
His eyes narrowed and he pointed toward her threateningly.
“It will be lame.”
Neopolitan stopped and finally looked back at him with an almost smug look of curiosity.
“Okay, if that's how you wanna play it…” he muttered returning her expression aggressively.
Gabe looked her up and down, almost as if sizing her up the same way the Grimm he'd first saved her from had only hours earlier.
“Hmm…” he stroked his chin to dramatically emphasize his presumably deep contemplation.
The young woman before him was short in stature, not even five feet tall. Her small size had made it certainly easier for him to fight while holding her. But she was by no means twig. Individual possessed the unmistakable curves of a woman, even if they were a tad subtle
She wore a white coat, lined with pink over, what he assumed to be, a brown corset. Her hair was a mix of all these colors, with white streaks throughout the strawberry pink half of it.
He realized she may be even shorter than he'd originally thought when he noticed the long heels on the white boots that she wore over a tight pair of brown pants.
The most striking feature she possessed, aside from her seemingly missing voice, were her mismatched eyes. One was an unremarkable, though not entirely unappealing, warm chocolate brown, but the other was the same vibrant as half of her hair. And, though he couldn't say for certain, they seemed inconsistent in which was which. When he'd made mistake of being up family earlier, he'd even thought he saw her irises turn white.
“Okay, last chance,” he warned seemingly coming to a conclusion, “if you don't tell me your name, I'm giving you the new one I just came up with.”
Neopolitan crossed her arms over her chest and simply smirked in anticipation.
“Have it your way,” Gabe shrugged before rubbing his hands together, “from this day forth, you shall be known as…”
I pointed at her with a hand placed on his hip, posing as if he were modeling for the sculpture of some world famous explorer that had lead the world to new wonders and fantastical discoveries.
“Peppermint!” He declared into the night with all the authority of a lawyer revealing the guilty party in the midst of a turbulent trial.
Neopolitan simply rolled her eyes in disappointment and continued walking.
“What?” he called after her, “I think it fits!”
She just continued walking, her sorrowful expression long gone and replaced with a smug expression she seemed to wear all to naturally.
“Oi! Wait up Peppermint! Where are you even headed?” Gabriel hurried to catch up to her, unable to see the smirk that had finally softened into a simple, almost unnoticeable, smile.
Gabe grumbled to himself as he pushed hurriedly through the bushes and branches she'd already passed.
“I swear if it turns out you know exactly where we can safely set up camp and just didn't bother to say it, I'm gonna rename you Strawberry or Turkish Delight or something.”










































































[Scene III]
“Ya know...” Gabe began, suddenly wishing he’d learned to drive or maybe even just owned a horse. His reliance on the Kingdom’s public transport suddenly seemed lazy and naive in the grand scheme of things.
“I'm starting to think there isn't jackshit in here besides us and these damn trees.”
Their journey through the forest was nearing twice the length of time it had taken them to escape from Vale. Gabriel had spent most of it half talking to Neo and half talking to himself. But mostly just talking. Whether she minded this or not was completely beyond him.
Her movements were most definitely no longer the cautious, guarded steps of a stray cat lost out in the rain.
No, that was very clearly a strut if Aureo Gabriel had ever seen one.
They were strutting through the forest on the edge of what was now essentially a war zone. Exactly who it was leading either side in this particular war, Gabe couldn't say. He just knew he wanted no part in it.
He had no intention of getting involved in any fight that had a giant dragon that shat out other Grimm on either side.
“Alright, it’s official.” Gabe declared authoritatively, “there is quite literally nothing in this godforsaken spruce orgy!”
He kicked a nearby trunk in frustration, a sight Neopolitan seemed to take in with some mild amusement.
He wasn't sure how he felt about that. Sure, she wasn't acting like the victim of some world altering trauma like before, which he definitely counted as a positive. But now her face seemed be giving off a hint of sadism, as if she was legitimately enjoying watching him struggle through this.
Watching him squirm.
Just who the hell had he saved that night?
He decided that that was one thread his thoughts could follow another time, shaking his head like he was try to knock them out of his skull before regaining his composure and walking face first into a spider web.
Which proved to be just about all he could take.
“Oh come on!” he cried into the night, “At this point it would have been better for us to just have huddled in the corner of some abandoned house back in Vale and wait to see whether we'd be an Ursa’s early breakfast or just a light midnight snack!”
His golden coat the fluttered as he paced back and forth in the midst of what he would later refer to as a meltdown followed swiftly by a tirade, but, from where Neopolitan was standing, was quite simply a grown man throwing a temper tantrum.
“Sure we'd die, but at least we'd have some walls around us at the time!” his outburst seemed squarely aimed skyward at this point, almost like he blamed the shattered moon above them for the whole situation, “If we were lucky, we might even had had a roof over our heads!”
A breeze snaked its way through the trees and Gabriel shivered violently at the chill of the autumn wind
“I thought we'd be safer out here, but it's starting to look like we're just going to freeze to death instead of getting eaten. How the hell do people live in this icy death climat!?”
The last statement was the first thing to put actual weight behind his claims of being from Vacua. He seemed a bit garishly dressed compared most of the rather subdued garb Neo associated with the people of the desert Kingdom she'd encountered and occasionally killed.
But, considering she was perfectly comfortable in the barely even nippy weather that he was so obviously freezing in, his growing up under a blazing sun amongst the sand would make a great deal of sense.
It would even explain the arguably out of season overcoat he was wearing, though not why he’ed chosen one of such an unapologetically striking shade of yellow.
“I mean...” his quieting voice and the slowly of his enthusiastically unhappy movements made it clear his frustration was starting to crumble into resigned self pity, “It’s not like I was expecting some kind of cushy resort or something out here. But I thought we might at least an old cabin or even a cave. For fuck’s sake I'd be happy to find a rotting, hollowed out stump to crawl into at this point!”
His entire body was sagging under the weight of his own feelings of helplessness by the time he finished his little rant. As such he was able to finally notice that Neo had been tapping her foot in irritation for most of his outburst.
He weakly raised his head to see that her face might has well have had the words, ‘ya done?’ written across it and that she was imationantly pointing toward something.
His eyes followed her finger to what had been the ironic backdrop of his entire monologue:
An abandoned Atlus military airship that now lay propped at an angle against the trees that it hadn't splintered in its likely unplanned descent into the forest.
“Or that…” he stammered after allowing himself a few moments stunned disbelief, “That’ll do.”
That same old smile that seemed to be just as defining for him as Neopolitan’s silence was for her made its triumphant return to his face. He straightened his lapels and said a silent thanks to whatever had caused the crash as he strode toward the wreckage.
“Good find, Peppermint,” he praised, patting her shoulder as he passed. Though brief, his touch caused something to flash across her face. Gabe neither knew what it was nor cared at this point.
“Oh, that reminds me,” he stopped for a moment before reaching behind him, into that seemingly bottomless jacket of his, and tossing something at her over his shoulder.
Neo only realized that it was her parasol after she'd already caught it.
She blinked back up at him in surprise.
“I grabbed it back when I was dealing with those Grimm when we first met,” he explained without looking back at her, “I figured it was yours since it matches the whole ensemble you have going on.”
If she was grateful, Neopolitan’s eyes didn't show it. She simply took in the familiar weight of the umbrella in her hands.
After a few seconds she looked back toward Gabriel.
His back was to her, busy inspecting the vehicle and working on forcing the ship’s door open.
He was utterly defenseless.
Her fingers instinctively tightened around the parasol’s handle and she slowly began to draw the blade hidden within.
But before the steel even peeked out of its sheath she hesitated. After a moment she slid the hilt back in place and went to join Gabriel in his search for a way into what seemed to be their camp for that night.
















































































[Scene IV]
The lifeless, formally automated steel hatch screeched open with a significant effort on Gabe’s part. He stuck his head into the cramped, dark interior of the ship and sarcastically announced himself.
“Hello? Anybody home? No? Alrighty then, we’re coming in!”
He pulled himself inside with a quiet grunt, then stood to turn and offer a hand to Neo. She took it and gracefully followed him inside. He gave a melodramatically sarcastic bow like some sort of overly theatrical valet as she strode past him. She smirked and rolled her eyes again, an act he took a small amount of comfort in. He didn't particularly mind playing the role of a jester if it kept her from sinking back into the state she'd been in when they'd met.
“Well…” Gabe began, looking about the interior, “this is cozy.”
Cramped was more like it. Gabriel had found the skybus he’d taken from Vacuo to be rather stuffy for his liking, but that might as well have been a ballroom compared to this thing. It wasn't big enough for anymore than maybe six or seven of Atlus’s soldiers, not including the pilots. Normally that would have been plenty of space for the two of them, but this particular ship had been carrying cargo and not passengers. As result, even with the minimalist, military decor (meaning nothing but grey steel walls), they still had to wade through various crates and overturned boxes to move around.
Gabriel headed straight for the cockpit to make sure they wouldn't be spending their evening with a corpse or two, but found it empty.
“Wonder if the pilots bailed before or after they hit the ground,” he murmured as he sat in the captain’s chair and inspected the console.
“Ooooh, what have we here?” he grinned deviously as he reached down to retrieve a bottle from beneath his feet, “Somebody forgot their booze.”
He eagerly unscrewed the cap and brought it to his lips, but stopped when he noticed Neo was giving him a rather skeptic, almost disgusted look.
“What? I'm legal.” he shrugged defensively, “At least I think I am… What's the drinking age in Vale?”
Predictably, Neo didn't answer if she knew and simply went to begin rummaging through the various crates that littered the floor.
“Eh, who cares? World’s ending,” he smiled before taking a quick swig and pocketing the alcohol, “the cops have bigger problems.”
Gabriel quickly came to the conclusion that the ship’s original occupants, wherever they were now, had at least lived long enough to abandon the craft on foot. Many of the crates were empty, the few vials and shells left behind hinting that they'd previously contained Dust. It seemed to have been there in almost every form; raw, crystallized, munitions, and more.
Gabe felt safe in assuming that had been the contents of almost all the empty crates. Most likely the airship had crashed much earlier in the
evening when the chaos first broke out. Its crew had taken every bit of Dust they could get their hands on in the hopes of making their escape as safe as possible and left everything behind.
But even after Gabe had tossed the last of the empty crates out of the open hatch, making a nice little hill of future firewood, a great many still very full boxes remained.
“Alrighty,” He exhaled, rubbing his hands together like a child eager to tear into their Birthday presents, “let’s see what wasn't worth taking with them.”
He pulled one of swords from his coat and began to wedge it in between the crate and its lid. But before he had gotten it to budge more than a centimeter or so, a soft thunk resounded within his skull.
“Mother-” he growled, massaging the lump that would soon be forming on his crown and turning around angrily. The grimace stretched into a look of surprise when he saw Neo standing behind him. She was holding a crowbar she seemed to have found at some point and, though she was smirking, it was quite obvious she was offering it to him and the knock to his head had been a… let's go with playful way of getting his attention.
He quickly retracted his sword with a smile and accepted it.
“Thanks, Peppermint,” he grinned, “But next time ya really gotta put some oomph into it or I won't stay down. Or just tap me on the shoulder instead, if you wanted my attention and not my life.”
Neopolitan rolled her eyes before taking a seat on the largest, most technologically advanced of the boxes. She was obviously continent with her contribution and simply anticipating watching Gabe do all the manual labor.
Gabe began prying open the crate with a fair bit enthusiasm, narrating their contents for Neo. She figured he'd probably have done it even if she hadn't been there, the man seemed to believe his mission in life was to never let a conversation lull. Even one with a girl who never spoke.
“Welp,” Gabriel huffed opening the last of a set of steel crates that each bore the emblem of a large white snowflake, “Guess they didn't grab every speck of Dust after all.”
He began stacking the crates next to the one Neo had plopped down on. The absence of just the five small crates was already clearing up the craft’s floor. As Gabe was placing the lid back on the topmost crate he noticed Neo eyeing the stack with a devious glint in her eye.
“My Dear Lady!” he gasped, recoiling like she’d just started bleeding sewage while spouting hatespeach, “Surely, you don't intend to pilfer the fine wares of the noble Schnee Dust Company!?”
Neopolitan watched his movements with mild amusement as always, but there was a distinct sharpness to her gaze now. Years of thieving can give a person a hint of paranoia and if Mr. Hero over there was going to take the highest of high grounds, with what was essentially a giant stack of Lien in the middle of the woods, then their brief time together was about to come to an abrupt end.
“Say it isn't so, my Dearest Peppermint!” Gabe lamented, his right arm on his brow theatrically and his other arm spread to stage left, “Why stealing from Schnee is akin to robbing the great Kingdom of Atlus itself! Just think of all the great things Atlus has done for us in the Vital Festival alone!”
Gabriel had settled into the iconic Shakespearean kneel at this point, with his hand stretched out toward Neopolitan as if he were professing his love in some Italian family’s backyard.
“Nay!” he declared, “You shan't have to think, for I, Huntsman Aureo Gabriel, shall list them.”
Neopolitan was having difficulty figuring out whether he was an idiot or insane.
“First!” As Gabe spoke the word, a yellow vial popped out from underneath the hand that he had placed on his chest, “they gave us the true thrill of discovering that the young girl who was representing them in this tournament was actually an android masquerading as a student. They even had the courtesy to reveal this fact by letting the entire world see her being sliced into pieces by her own wires.”
“Second!” Another yellow vial popped up from between his fingers, “The fine military of the Kingdom of Atlus taught us the true might of their robot soldiers when they all went rogue and opened fire on their creators and the people they had been designed to protect.”
“Finally!” Gabe’s melodramatic expression casually slid into a cheeky grin as a third yellow vial joined the first two in his hand, “The truly compassionate Kingdom of Atlus taught us the true meaning of altruism when they ferried Grimm and The White Fang directly to the stadium and school grounds to make sure they wouldn't tucker themselves out on their way to kill, maim, and/or eat us.”
Neo snickered a little at Gabe’s performance, but most at the fact that she'd actually thought he might have objected to her taking Dust laying in a crashed ship in the forest. Then she noticed something Gabe had left out.
Neopolitan tapped the floor of the ship with her umbrella a few times to get his attention. When he noticed, she gestured in one large sweeping motion to their surroundings.
“Oh! Good point, Peppermint!” Gabe finally stood and got back to opening the remaining boxes, “we can also thank Atlus for giving us this ship to stay in for the night. As well as all of that Dust they left behind. Which you can help yourself to, by the way. I snagged every vial of my preferred strain when I was searching through the crates. Now let's see what else we can thank Altus for!”
Gabriel began moving from box to box and announcing their continents.
“Thank you, Atlus, for,” he paused for a moment to peer inside, “these bedrolls, sleeping bags, and tents.”
 He moved over to the next box and repeated the process with each one thereafter.
“And these rations and nonparitiallbles.”
“And this gallon of water and canteens.”
“And this first aid kit.”
“And this.”
“And these.”
“And those.”
“And…” having organized everything that had been in them, Gabriel finally found himself before the last and biggest crate. Whatever was in it must have been important, but fleeing soldiers wouldn't be able to open a box that was fused to ship itself, let alone take it with them. The steel was thicker than any of the other crates, reinforced too, if the sound it had made when he tapped his knuckles on it was any indication. The door on the top, which Neopolitan somewhat begrudgingly agreed to get off of, was longer than the hatch they'd entered through was tall.
It almost looked like a coffin.
To top it all off, the whole thing was protected by the most high tech locks and chains that Gabriel had ever cut through like butter.
“And finally, let us reach deep into our hearts and thank Atlus for,” he threw open the lid and peered inside, “this dismembered dead girl!”










































































[Scene V]
Gabriel just looked into the box for a moment, that same old grin plastered across his face.
Then his brain seemed to have rebooted, as the delayed, much more rational reaction to what he was seeing finally kicked in.
“HOLYFUCKINGASSBLASTINGTITTYCRACKERS!” he screamed, furiously crawling backward, still staring straight at the crate and subsequently tumbling backward out of the hatch.
He landed squarely on his face, getting an up close and personal interview with the moist Autumn dirt and his own footprints therein.
A few borderline contortionist maneuvers eventually brought him upright again, freeing him to hurriedly wipe his face off with his hands between spitting out chunks of leaves and mud.
The performance happened in the near blink of an eye and a second later Neo saw Gabriel poking his head over the edge of the doorway, obviously too uncomfortable to be near the crate's contents.
“WHAT THE… WHY WOULD… WHO THE FUCK-”
Gabe’s panicked questioning was cut short, when he felt the very distinct sensation of an almost absurdly large gun barrel pressed into the small of his back.
“Freeze, Goldilocks,” ordered a voice from behind him.
Gabe did as the voice said. Something he normally wouldn't have done for what he’d guess to be an adolescent girl on the precipice of adulthood, but a gun has a funny way of giving just about any voice a certain air of authority.
“Alright, now hands in the air or I'll use the power of bullets to magically transform you from the walking hunk of cheddar you are to a lifeless slice of Swiss.”
Gabriel groaned and did as he was told. He really didn't have any right to be surprised. Just because the crate wasn't important enough to risk taking with them in their escape, didn't mean it wasn't unimportant enough to not be retrieved once they'd found a safer place to rest before returning for it later.
“Good boy, now slowly turn around so we can get a better look at you,” the girl said, softening the pressure on the gun’s muzzle jabbing Gabe in the back.
Gabriel complied and begrudgingly turned to face her.
Well, them.
The girl forcing him to do what was starting to feel like some kind of demeaning dance routine was standing a little ways in front of another girl who had yet to say anything, but was simply watching him, a hand ready to grab the small box on her hip should he do something stupid. The two made quite a pair, the girl with the minigun trained on him with her stylish beret and sunglasses and her companion with her surprisingly sturdy looking combat armor and rabbit ears, marking her either a Faunas or a very lost cosplay enthusiast.
“Alright, Banana Man,” the girl with the gun smirked-
-Did all girls in Vale smirk this much or was it just the ones he kept running into?-
-and looked him over, “Who are you and what exactly are you doing all the way out here, crawling into an Atlus airship?”
Gabe would have normally jumped at the opportunity to introduce himself, but the second question made him hesitate. He wasn't entirely sure what he was doing out in the middle of some forest in Vale. He was crawling back into the airship because he'd just seen girl’s dismembered corpse in a box and really wanted to know why it was there, almost as much as he wanted to put the lid back on the damn thing.
But that thought lead him down a mental line of questioning that didn't seem to connect at one point.
Why had he climbed into an abandoned airship?
Because it was the first place he and Peppermint had found that looked like a decent place to stay the night.
Why did they need a place to stay the night?
Because Peppermint had nowhere to go and he would feel guilty if he didn't help her find one.
Why would he feel guilty about not helping her?
Because he was the one who saved her from the Grimm and took her all the way out here.
Why did he save her and take her to the woods with him?
…
“HEY, LEMONHEADS!” the gun toting girl barked, drawing him away from the impromptu analysis of his life choices, “Did you hear me? I asked who you are.”
Since trying to deduce the reasons behind his current situation had lead him to an even deeper mystery, Gabe decided to fall back to his tried and true plan of action: just start talking and wing it from there!
“White Fang,” he calmly answered the girl he now realized was actually a few inches taller than him in her high heeled boots. He found that fact a tad bit emasculating for some unknowable, subconscious reason, but decided that anymore psyche delving right not was probably a bad idea.
The girl furrowed her eyebrows and gave him that oh so familiar “Oh dear lord, do you even have brain in that head of yours?” look he seemed to get from nearly everyone at least once. Neo had given him one at least once an hour for the three or four hours they'd known each other.
“You expect us to believe that you're part of an extremist Faunus Rights Movement? Aren't you a little too, oh gee what’s the word I'm looking for here? That's right, human!” Glasses and gun girl scoffed, the lines dripping sarcasm, but the delivery lightly peppered and sautéed with a healthy amount of Don’t Fuck With Me Blondie.
“Umm, Coco…” the Faunus girl finally spoke up, doing so in an arguably adorable Australian accent, “I think he means them.”
The girl holding Gabe at gunpoint, Coco apparently, looked over her shoulder to see two dozen armed men and women in full white combat platemail. The all wore the black hood and Grimm masks of the White Fang movement.
They were also pointing guns at Gabe, but were kind enough to put the two girls in the line of fire as well.
“Drop the weapon and step away from the ship,” ordered a man to the front who looked like he’d been locked in room with nothing but a pair of dumbbells to pass the time with for the past six months.
Coco suckered her teeth in annoyance, but did as she was told. She may have had a very big gun, but they had enough between the lot of them make up for the discrepancy in size. The Faunus girl dropped her hand from her hip, but didn't remove the box she'd been reaching for. Gabe suspected that it was in fact a weapon that she would also be asked to drop, but his surly new friends didn't seem to pick up on that.
He let out an exasperated sigh and let his hands fall behind his head, moving into a much more relaxed looking position.
“What the hell is this? Some kind of new Stick Up Conga Line?” he laughed bitterly, “Do we have someone coming to hold them at gunpoint next or is this a rotation thing where it's my turn now?”
A bullet whizzed an inch from his face, failing to wipe away his sarcastic smile, but causing his eyes to open much wider than they had been.
“Can it!” the musclebound man yelled, “This airship and everything in it belongs to the White Fang! If you twerps don't want to die tonight, I suggest you get the fuck out of here before my trigger finger slips aga-”
The large man went silent, what little of his face could be seen behind his mask had gone slack jawed with shock. Gabriel blinked a few times before realizing the man was looking behind him. He did his best to follow his gaze without moving his head too much to avoid getting shot at a second time.
Either the gunshot or sheer boredom seemed to have compelled Neopolitan to investigate the situation outside, because there she was in the open hatch, taking in the scene with a look of mild annoyance.
“Miss Neopolitan?” the White Fang leader lowered his gun as he spoke, “What the hell are you doing here?”
Gabe’s eyes shot back and forth between the two.
“Neowhatnow?”
“Where’s Mr. Torchwick? I thought you and he were always together.”
Gabriel’s eyes stopped bouncing between them. He had no idea what a Neopolitan was, but he recognized the name Torchwick.
Roman Torchwick was a notorious criminal who'd recently been seen doing business with the White Fang and was responsible for a devastating Grimm attack on Vale just before the start of the Vital Festival.
Gabe’s eyes turned their full attention toward Neo. Coco and the Faunus girl were also staring at her, but their faces looked far more bitter than anything else.
“These… old friends of yours Peppermint?” Gabe asked in as light hearted a voice he could manage, “You think you could get them to stop pointing their guns at us?”
He was trying his damndest to keep his usual grin, but only half of his mouth was cooperating. His eyes begged her to deny what he'd asked. Once again he looked at her with a face that desperately asked her to answer him, but this time it wasn't out of exasperation.
He'd barely known her for a night and during the entire time they'd spent together she hadn't said a word to him. But he didn't want to believe she was a criminal. He didn't want to believe she was the kind of person who'd associate with what were essentially terrorists. It made no sense, least of all to him, but he felt something for her.
Camaraderie?
Affection?
Sympathy?
Pity?
He couldn't think of a word for it. He just knew he wanted them to be on the same side. He wanted her to be comfortable standing beside him. As little sense as it made to him.
He finally realized why he'd felt compelled to help her back in Vale and why he'd taken her with him:
She seemed like she needed someone.
And he wanted that someone to be him.
So he searched her face for answers, not with exasperation, but with confusion and betrayal.
But, as always, Neopolitan said nothing.






























































[Scene VI]
“Miss Neopolitan, what's going on?” the burly soldier asked again, not quite aiming his gun at them anymore, but sure as hell not putting it away, “Are these kids working with you? Are you being held prisoner?”
Neopolitan was just standing there, motionless as when she'd been lying in that street. Everyone was looking to her for answers she didn't have. The two girls who'd first snuck up on Gabe were looking back and forth, seemingly trying to figure exactly whose side she was on in all this.
But that’s what she was trying to figure out herself.
There was a long silence around the airship, the far off calls of nocturnal birds and the Fall breeze through the leaves the only sounds indifferent to the tension in the atmosphere.
Neo looked at all the people around her, taking in each of them in turn. But, as it seemed bound to, her gaze finally rested on the man named Aureo Gabriel.
The two seemed lost in a separate scene of their own, each looking to the other for answers.
But finally, Neopolitan’s face fell. Her eyes were no longer looking at anyone, simply avoiding theirs.
And then she spoke.
It was only a single word and it was only just above a whisper.
But Gabe heard it.
He saw the corners of her mouth curl ever so slightly and heard her say the only thing any of them ever had.
“...Peppermint…”
Gabriel just stared in awe for moment while everyone looked around in confusion. Then his cocky grin returned in full force and his eyes flared like they had back in Vale.
“Good enough for me,” he murmured.
Then he was gone.
Coco and her Faunus friend looked around in bewilderment, searching for the swatch of yellow that had just vanished before their eyes.
“Where the hell-” Coco cursed under her breath, only to be cut off by a guttural wail of agony from behind her.
Everyone spun toward the sound. The source was the overly muscular White Fang soldier, who was now pinned to a tree almost 20 yards away with one of Gabe’s swords. Gabriel hadn't impaled him, but he'd certainly thrust his sword into him hard enough to shatter his breast plate. Gabe had hit him so hard he was actually imprinted into the bark. He looked like he was crouching on the man horizontally, his feet planted firmly against his torso and knees bent like he was about to jump off of him like a diving board.
And then he was gone again.
“Captain!” one of the soldiers yelled, “Fuck it, open fi-”
The words were barely out his mouth before he was launched into the air by nothing. A split second later he careened back into the the ground with a sickening grunt.
“OKAY!” Coco yelled grabbing her minigun from her feet and spinning around, “WHAT THE FU-”
“Don't worry about it,” Gabriel reassured from directly behind her, causing her to jump nearly out of high heels, “I’ll explain later if you do me a favor and keep them off me for few minutes.”
Coco spun on her heel and trained the gun on him. Gabriel’s hair was disheveled and he was sweating far more than seemed possible in the brief time between when the White Fang had arrived and their captain had been smashed into a tree.
“Who the hell are you!?” she demanded, “Why would we help you?”
Oh, there’s the look again, thought Gabe when he saw her face, the good ol’ “Are you crazy or just an idiot?” look. She wears it well.
“Because-” he began in front her, but finishing his sentence as he slashed the muzzle off a machine gun one gutsy soldier had pointed at them from across the clearing, “-I'm pretty sure they’re past the talking through this phase and settling into the fuck it, kill all five of ‘em phase.”
“Yeah because you slammed one of them into a damn tree!” Coco spat, trying desperately keep her eyes on him as he kept seemingly blinking in and out of existence.
“Well… To be fair,” Coco’s Faunus friend interjected, “They were holding us at gunpoint a moment ago.”
“Seriously, Velvet?” Coco gave her look from behind her sunglasses that prompted her friend to smile awkwardly and look away.
“Yeah!” Gabe panted, popping back up behind them, “and if I hadn't they would have shot first. You have any idea how many times I've watched you two get shot?”
“What the hell are you-” Coco started to ask before he disappeared and reappeared in the middle of the White Fang soldiers to whirl in place and knock a third of them a yard away like some kind of bladed top, “STOP DOING THAT!”
“I would,” Gabriel gasped to their left this time, “if you would hold them off for a minute so we can get out of here before the rest of them show up!”
Coco was about to protest again, but Velvet put a hand on her shoulder before she could speak.
“I think we should trust him for now,” she said doing her best to smile reassuringly, “I'm just as confused as you, but if he wanted to he could have attacked us by now.”
Gabe smiled, seemingly catching his breath at last.
“Thanks,” he retracted his swords and slid them back into his coat, “believe it or not this is actually really hard to keep up and I need to save my energy if I'm going to get us out of here.”
Coco looked between Velvet and him skeptically before raising her minigun and firing into the couple of soldiers that had apparently gotten tired of waiting for them to finish talking and elected to charge them instead.
“You're lucky Velvet seems to like you, Sunflower,” she half sighed and half growled, “because I don't.”
Gabe beamed at her in relief.
“Give me time,” he winked, “I grow on you.”
“Don't hold your breath,” Coco scoffed, taking off the sunglasses Gabe had thought were rather impractical considering the time and furrowing her brow, “So, how’re you getting us out of here?”
“With that,” Gabriel jabbed his thumb at very crashed, very damaged damaged ship, “Just give me five minutes.”
Oh, there's the look again. She really nails it.
“You have three,” Coco shook her head.
“I can work with that.” Gabe nodded with a shrug before running off toward the ship.
The White Fang were moving closer and Gabe had apparently been right about there being more of them. The original two dozen were being joined by comrades that had apparently heard the chaos in the clearing from wherever they'd been camped out.
“I really hate how quickly you make new friends,” Coco smirked at Velvet, “You get a good shot of them?”
Velvet smiled back and reached toward the box on her hip. Two ghostly shadows of Gabe’s swords formed in her hands above it and she flawlessly fell into his stance before leaping into fray. Coco’s eyes narrowed toward the oncoming enemy and she followed suit.
































































[Scene VII]
Gabriel heaved himself into the airship with considerable effort. His semblance had always been useful in time’s like this. Being able to take shortcuts and breaks in between the flow of time and space made it fairly difficult for people to guard against your attacks.
Unfortunately, it was also exhausting. The first time he’d stepped outside of time for a single second he’d nearly killed himself with the physical strain it had put on his body and the devastating stress it's placed on his mind and soul.
Luckily, he’d spent most of his life learning to properly use it. Now he could easily phase out of time with next to no effort and return without feeling worse than he would if he’d just gotten back from a brisk jog.
He called it phasing out, because technically he wasn't stopping time, even if that's what it seemed like to him. He just kind of, stepped out of it, allowing him to hop around to whichever point he wanted. But he could only move a few minutes at most, anymore than that and he'd start to feel like he was dying again.
The same went for his physical position as well. Even without leaving the flow of time, he could slip through the cracks in the material world and take shortcuts to completely unconnected locations. This aspect was far less hard on him, but it had taken a lot of work make sure he took the right turns between existence or he'd pop out on the other side of the world or in the middle of the ocean. To top it off, the trips could be ridiculously disorienting, so he preferred to move around like everyone else as often as he could.
But being able to warp out of here wouldn't let him get all three girls out as well. He'd already phased out far too many times tonight and taking anyone through his shortcuts with him was extremely dangerous, seeing as if they weren't used to it or lost contact with them, half of them could wind up at the destination while the other stayed where they'd started.
Gabriel thanked whatever powers may be that he'd learned that from trying to take a stuffed toy with him when he was a kid and not a friend.
All the same, just because he couldn't use his semblance on himself didn't mean he couldn't use it to save their collective asses.
He jumped to his feet and was about to rush to the cockpit when he realized Neo hadn't moved from her spot by the hatch. She was simply staring into melee outside with a pensive look of disinterest.
Gabe hesitated, but decided that his master plan could wait to get in motion at least a minute longer and walked cautiously over to her. She heard him approach, but didn't look at him. She was obviously still thinking about where she belonged in all this and no matter how much he wanted to put her mind at ease, Gabriel couldn't think of anyway to help.
“Hey um…” he began before realizing he had no idea what he was planning on saying. He eventually decided on, “Can you fight?”
She perked her eyebrows at this and turned to face him. A glint had found its way into her eyes as she gracefully pulled the sword from umbrella.
“Okay. Great!” Gabriel was taken aback by the appearance of the blade, but his smile had a hint of relief in it, “You mind watching the door so I don't have to worry about getting shot while I fix this thing?”
Neo seemed to ponder for a moment, but eventually grinned deviously and hopped out of the ship to join the fight.
Gabriel was a little unsettled by how she'd seemed to perk up at the prospect of killing people, but quickly shook the thought from his mind.
He needed to focus on what he was about to do or he might accidentally kill himself.
He dashed into the cockpit, stopping briefly to replace the lid on the corpse box, and threw himself into captain’s chair. His right hand slid across the console and controls while his left grabbed the bottle of alcohol he’d snatched earlier and took a deep swig. To his displeasure, the entire ship seemed completely dead, no matter what he fiddled with, there wasn't even the slightest response.
He took a deep breathe, tried very hard to block out the sounds of clashing steel and gunfire from outside, and resigned himself to what he had to do.
Gabe put both of his hands on the dashboard and closed his eyes. He did his best to empty his mind and concentrate on nothing but the ship. There was no guarantee this was going to work, he'd only done it on the trailer back home a few times and he was pretty good with machines, but the airship was very big and how it worked was very, very complicated.
Steadying his breath and straining his consciousness Gabriel reached his senses slowly into the machine. The mere effort was giving him a near unbearable migraine, but he persevered and felt his way through the ship's inner workings. The turbines were fine, which was good because they were the part he understood the least. The landing gear was mangled and unusable, but that would only be a problem if they managed to leave the ground. The hull was breached in few places from what he guessed had been Nevermore claws and the windows were all either severely cracked or shattered. None of that was ideal but wouldn't get in the way either.
He felt a blood vessel burst high in his nostril and a trickle of blood sneak it’s way out as he forced himself deeper into the cracks of the ship.
Finally he found the major issues. The fuel tank had ruptured when the ship had been attacked and the primary line connecting it to the engine was in shreds. The engine itself had been scrunched up like an accordion when the ship hit the ground nose first.
Those were the bits he needed to focus on.
He inhaled for a long moment and held the air before pushing it out of longs and beginning the process. Retracting his mind from every other inch of the ship but the fuel tank he began to channel his semblance into it. Slowly and shakily the liquid Dust that had leaked out began to run back into it, flowing backwards and up the side in flagrant disregard for physics. The shreds of cloth and rubber that lay beside it inched toward each other before slowly fusing back together. Steadily, but with as much haste as he could afford, Gabriel rewound the damage that time had done to the machinery, finally forcing the puncture in the tank shut by unmaking it.
He panted like he'd just run around the entire continent. His face was burning and he could hear his heart furiously slamming against his chest so clearly it might as well have been squeezed in between his ears.
“Okay…” he mumbled to himself, “Easy one’s done… Now for the real shitshow.”
Gabriel didn't open his eyes, but forced his way back into the engine of the airship. The fuel tank hadn't been easy to mind, but adjusting how time affects what is essentially a giant bottle was relatively easy.
Engine’s aren't bottles, they’re intricately complex and even the slightest hiccup in it’s makeup could keep the entire thing from running. And if he didn't turn back the clock on each part at once, they would become disconnected and it'd be nearly impossible to send them all back to the same point. It would be like taking a brick out of a wall and expecting all the other bricks to come with it.
So he wrapped his mind around the ship’s engine, let it drip into every little indent and alcove, and enveloped the entire thing in his consciousness.
Then started pulling it back into a point in its history where it had worked.
It was excruciating. The force of will it took to dislodge the machine from its current position in time was nearly crushing him. He felt more blood vessels in his nose burst, heard a monotonous screeching in his ears as blood began trickling out of them as well. His eyes felt like they were bulging out of his skull, being pushed out by the brain behind them that seemed to be engorged and throbbing like a giant pimple on the verge of bursting. His tears began mixing with the blood seeping out of his eye sockets and started literally crying blood.
But, little by little, the engine began to uncrumple and return to its original state. Just as Gabe had started to tremble like he was seizing, it roared back to life.
The second it ignited, his eyes shot open and he leaned forward and vomited violently. He sat bent over, gasping for air and shivering for moment until the screeching left his ears and he heard the sounds of the battle outside again.
He grabbed a cloth from his jacket and wiped the bile, blood, sweat, and tears from his face before getting up shakily and doing his best to clean up the puddle of blood he'd just vomited onto the floor. Content, he tucked the rag back into his coat and began to hobble toward the hatch while clinging onto the wall.
“HEY LADIES!” he bellowed over the rumble of the airship and chaos of the battlefield, “THE BUS IS LEAVING! GET IN OR GET FUCKED!”
The small clearing in the woods had evolved from a skirmish to a full blown battlefield at this point. The White Fang had them completely surrounded and the reinforcements had come much better equipped than the small group that had originally come to loot the ship.
But even though the numbers seemed so utterly overwhelming, the three young women Gabe had left to defend the ship weren't giving them an inch. Coco and her minigun had mowed down all of the original soldiers at this point and their friends were struggling to block her bullets with their riot shields and impromptu fortifications. Velvet may not have been able to make use of Gabe’s semblance, but she was effortlessly recreating his hyper aggressive, acrobatic and balance centric style. And Neopolitan barely seemed to be breaking a sweat. Not a single one of the the White Fang soldiers could lay so much as a finger on her. She almost seemed to be dancing across the battlefield rather than fighting. She twirled past any attacks thrown her way, shifted ever so slightly, then redirected her opponent's own force into her strikes. Gabriel struggled to take his eye off her in the brief moment between his announcement of their departure and her turning to gently flip back into the ship.
Coco and Velvet’s exit was less elegant but the second they heard Gabe’s voice, they withdrew with the kind of efficiency and speed that one can only get from years in the field. Seeing such competence made Gabriel feel a little better about blindly inviting them to come along.
“Alright,” he wheezed, back against the wall as Coco helped Velvet into the ship before forcing the hatch closed, “Show of hands. Who knows how to fly one of these things?”
Gabe raised a shaking and limp-twisted hand as Coco and Velvet shared a look of hesitant confusing. Neopolitan simply shift her gaze between the three of them before, noticing Gabe’s strained hopeful smile, sighing and raising her own.
“Okay, great…” Gabriel panted just before his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed onto the hard steel floor. Velvet’s little yelp of surprise was the last thing before his consciousness left him.