The Games We Play

DISCLAIMER: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryugii. This has been pulled from his Spacebattle publishment. Anyway on with the show...errr read.

Hit Box

I lunged forward, rushing across the street with all the speed I could muster. Carmine's monstrous arm flashed across the space between us fast enough to leave bone-white streaks in their wake—if not for my Clairvoyance, I wasn't sure I'd have been able to follow them at all. That speed…even if it was just her arms that were capable of it, that speed was absurd. I moved the moment I sensed danger and it still often cost me an arm and a leg. Literally.

"Any advice?" I asked, voice a tad strained until the pain faded.

I heard Ozpin speaking in my ear, the connection Levant had established still in place. My Air Elemental was stretching herself thin—maybe too thin—to cover all our bases, but at least for now she was holding. Maybe it was the boost from Grimm Slayer, maybe it was just luck, but for now she was managing.

"Carmine Cordelia," He recited. "Forty-three years old, she's been a Huntress since she was twenty. As you're probably aware by now, her Semblance works similar to your mother's with several differences and limitations. First and foremost, it transforms matter into a gaseous state and only a gaseous state. Furthermore, not only is it dependent on contact, but only the immediate area of contact is converted, giving her a much smaller range of effect than your mother. Despite these limitations, however, her ability is made extraordinarily deadly by one thing; it can be used on anything. Neither a protective Aura nor the dark nature of the Grimm prevents her from using her power, assuming she can touch the target directly or else hit them with a weapon she has channeled her Aura through. It takes time for her to entrench the effect in the latter case, but as you might imagine, the results tend to make up for it."

The White Tiger of the West reached out with a long arm and pulled me to the ground hard enough to send a jolt of shock up my legs and shatter the ground beneath my feet. Even so, I didn't hesitate before leaping forward again. Despite the damage, despite the pain, despite the sheer, horrific risk, I knew there was no way through this for me except by pushing forward. Nonetheless, it was still somewhat alarming when Carmine scythed my legs out from under me, leaving me with the knowledge that if not for the Gamer's Body I'd have long since been torn to pieces—but I didn't let simple things like that stop me.

However, I did note that Carmine didn't seem to have any trouble channeling her Aura through her twisted arm. Had Conquest mutated it specifically to take advantage of her abilities? That was a worrisome thought, if not unexpected. As it was, despite my Adamant skin, despite my layered and boosted defense, each and every lash of her arm sheered away brutal chunks of my HP bar—and for all that it didn't seem that way, I knew she was holding back. If not for Grimm Slayer and whatever Conquest had in store for me, I'd probably be long dead by now.

Oh well. I wasn't and that's what mattered—well, that and what I could learn from the experience.

"Heat?" I grunted as I leapt into the air, landed upside-down on an invisible platform, slammed back into the ground with a mighty lunge and snatched myself up in the arms of the White Tiger of the West. I curled myself into a tight ball to make my physical body easy to carry and held myself close as I jumped between two attacks as her sword came into play as well. The White Tiger of the West was momentarily disrupted as it was torn to pieces, but I'd been expecting it and kicked out with my legs to push off from another platform and slam through a third one, slowing just enough to evade an attack in the process. Through it all, I'd survived, with minimal loss of limb, about twenty attacks—and all the while, I'd been counting the seconds.

It had been a long time since I'd been on the receiving end of an attack I couldn't follow and react to easily, but that didn't mean I didn't know how to compensate. After all, I was usually on the other side of this equation and people sometimes reacted to me. Even if the individual attacks themselves were too fast for me to follow directly, I could still make accurate guesses knowing her reach, the number of attacks in a given period of time, and the direction of each lash. Each attack had a starting point and ending point and if one attack flowed into the next, I could use that information to track the pattern of attacks—or even guide it, if I was willing to sacrifice a limb here and there as bait.

For example, if I jumped up to dodge a horizontal sweep, the next attack would come upwards at an angle from whatever side the sweep was headed. If I dodged that by reaching back for the ground, the third attack would slope downwards from the end point of the second attack. Because the attacks came in such quick succession, I could assume that the moment I'd evaded one strike, I'd already be in danger of the next, so it wasn't so much an issue of timing as it was of never hesitating or slowing down and keeping a constant eye—or four—out for deceptions. Adding her blade to the equation was simply a matter of doing that for two different weapons moving independently of one another, each trying to herd me into the other's path. Which was…

Pretty goddamn hard to do in theory and a hell of a lot harder to do in practice. But did I complain? No.

"In a way," Ozpin said after a moment, during which I lost a lot of body parts. "Much like your mother's ability, it's complicated—while the shift in state is not caused directly by an increase in temperature, it is accompanied by one as the matter rises to whatever temperature it would normally exist in a gaseous state at. The distinction is rather semantic in most cases, but I assume you're asking if a resistance to fire would confer partial or complete immunity, to which I'd answer 'Probably not.' However, there does seem to be a correlation between the melting point of the material affected and the amount of Aura Carmine must spend to vaporize it; I'd hypothesize she has a greater difficulty affecting your Adamant skin than she might normal human flesh, though I could not say how much so."

Carmine swung her arm at waist level, apparently aiming to cut me in two; I was already in midair, sensing the motion coming. I landed on all four of the White Tiger's legs, curling claws around the edge of a platform I landed on the bottom of before her sword, swung mere moments after her arm, cut through all four of the spectral limbs. My physical body was already out of the way, pulled to safety by the tail that curled around my waist and threw me to the ground. I landed on my feet, rolled like a pro, and came back up ready to leap forward, putting my body parallel to the ground as a whip-sword passed above me and an elongated arm of bone below. I rolled again as I landed, the renewed White Tiger rising around me—and saw Carmine land from a jump of her own, perhaps five meters from where she'd been before.

Shit, I thought as I tried to compensate, mentally rewriting all the moves I'd predicted to compensate for a change in the source's location, but there wasn't enough time. In the end, I barely had enough time react to the fact that I was in danger and I tried to jump back in the hopes of keeping the distance between us the same.

It was the wrong move, I chastised myself an instant later. It wasn't just a matter of distance; there was a change in elevation on this side of the street, Carmine was crouched, the entire pattern had changed because she'd moved—I had enough time to regret not doing something else before her arm passed through my left elbow, my chest, and my right forearm at the same time her sword cut through both of my knees. For just a moment, I felt myself falling is six distinct pieces before it faded and I was running forward again.

"I'll take your word for it," I grunted, four eyes darting as I tried to take in the whole scene. I'd given up five meters for nothing. It wasn't enough to keep track of both weapons, I had to keep an eye on Carmine's location at all times as well. But Levant was already busy—I could feel her layering protection around Ren and Nora as well as keeping the latter out of harm's way as Keppel launched spikes of black-tipped ice at her. Levant was altering the trajectories of the projectiles and occasionally moving Nora completely out of the way while she bombarded the taken Hunter with her grenade launcher. Beyond that, part of her was elsewhere keeping my mother safe, several other parts were tied up providing air to the civilians we'd placed underground, and she was running my entire communications network. Could I afford to distract her and have her monitor Carmine for me, too? Or should I split her again, reducing her power in other areas? If any of those things should fail…

But damn it; with my Elementals so tied up, my senses had been cut down to the high single digits and I didn't like it. I felt half-blind not being constantly aware of everything going on around me, but I couldn't spare anyone right now. Suryasta and Vulturnus were assailing Lei Hui with a constant display of luminous power that the elder man just seemed to bear silently as he and Ren seemed to dance around one another. Whatever power Ren's grandfather had—and he must have had quite a bit if he knew Xuan Wu style well enough to teach it—it was further enhanced by his new exoskeleton, to the point that he could just brush of a downpour of thunder and flame. All it seemed to be was a distraction to him.

Even so, it was a distraction that seemed to allow Ren to keep just a step ahead of his grandfather, gliding out of the way with measured motions. When blows came too near, he seemed to brush them just slightly aside—and yet he never truly touched his grandfather. The light of his aura gathered in his hands, a barrier that prevented true contact, and he simply nudged the fists ever so slightly out of the way, remaining unharmed.

For now. Despite that fact that he hadn't received a single wound thus far, I could see the pace combat wearing on him. Keeping up with his grandfather like this, putting up the occasional barrier…it was costing him in terms of Aura. As it was, Lei Hui didn't need to do anything special, he simply needed to keep up the pressure and not do anything reckless or stupid—Ren would run out of Aura eventually and that would be that. He was living on borrowed time.

So was Nora, really. I could see that she had huge power, but she was the only one of us who couldn't risk approaching her opponent. With the risk of infection forcing her to keep her distance, she was limited to her grenades—which, in fairness, caused parts of Keppel's golem body to crumble and fall away. On the other hand, Keppel didn't seem to have any problem repairing his body, so how much that mattered was in the air. At this rate, it was only a matter of time until she ran out of grenades.

I needed to do something fast.

"Weaknesses?" I asked roughly, keeping my eyes peeled as Carmine stopped and retracted her weapons. After a moment of hesitation, I stopped as well, pretty sure this was a trap. What I wasn't sure of was whether it was a trap to make me stop moving or not.

"Compared to her offensive power, Carmine's defensive abilities have always been much more limited; something her teammates generally compensated for, especially her husband. If alone and forced to do so, she will generally try to use the former to compensate for the later, vaporizing attacks—she believes that the best defense is a good offense, essentially. However, beyond that, her defense is otherwise fairly average."

I glanced over Carmine's completely and heavily armored form.

"And assuming that's no longer the case?"

"Then she also suffers from the fact that her Semblance is resource intensive," Ozpin said and was kind enough not to add 'like your mother's.' "As you might imagine, vaporizing everything one comes in contact with can take a great deal of energy. Though she has always displayed exceptional amounts of Aura, she can be exhausted in prolonged confrontations if her Semblance isn't used carefully. Given the nature of your own abilities, I would imagine you could outlast her."

"And if a prolonged confrontation isn't an option?" I crouched slightly.

"Then you'll have to find a way to tire her out quickly instead," He answered bluntly.

No shit, I thought. But…

I took a breath, one set of my eyes placing to either of my teammates. Were they too close? Would they be caught in the blast? The upside of having teammates was that you could accomplish multiple goals effectively, support one another in battle, and address a greater number of situations, at least in theory.

The downside was that you needed to worry about other people—not only about them being hurt by your enemies, but about hurting them yourself. Friendly fire was a thing and it really wasn't all that friendly. Three people with no experience fighting together, going all out…for someone like me who could survive so much, there were a lot of things I didn't need to worry about when fighting on my lonesome. But with other people around…

Well, I didn't have a lot of choice, did I? I'd just have to make it work somehow.

"Will do," I said, palming a Dust crystal and then slamming it into my chest.

First was water, I thought, a plan taking shape.

Blue light glowed through the flesh of my chest, pulsating in tune with my heart beat as power flowed through me. It filled me in moments, like water filling a vessel, and then seemed to crash out through my skin, pushing its way out from the inside. In a flickering moment, the light of my Aura liquefied—and poured forth. I rushed at Carmine with all the speed I could muster, each step filling empty space with water until tons and tons of the stuff were bearing down on the Huntress.

And yet, even in the face of that oncoming flood, Carmine didn't back down. Red eyes bore into me for a moment and then pain laced through me as she lashed out, meters of water turning to steam behind me. I stumbled for a moment but didn't—couldn't—stop; when my pace slowed, the water behind me simply swept me up, momentum pushing it forward. Even with the amount she vaporized in a single sweep of her arm, there was too much for her to stop completely and she could do nothing but brace herself as it rose up over her.

The ground shattered around us as she stood up to it, the water moving with all the speed I'd had when I'd first created it. She channeled her power through her body mere moments after the first contact, turning everything that touched her into more and more steam, hiding here momentarily from view.

Well, momentarily for me, at least. My clear sight lived up to its name in just a moment, unscrambling the refracted image within the mist, and I shifted, swimming through the very water I'd left in my wake. I'd expected that Carmine would be able to channel her Aura through her whole body, of course—Aura covers the body naturally, after all—but I still needed to be careful about touching her. I swam past her instead of into her, an effort of will causing some of the water around me to change direction just enough to allow it, and then I skid to a halt on the street, digging watery claws into the earth to slow myself for just a moment.

Then I was on Carmine again, closing in without a trace of fear. The brief moment of contact before she'd been able to channel her Semblance towards protecting herself had still amounted to an unspeakable amount of force and she'd been sent skidding back, her feet carving a furrow in the street. Without giving her a moment to recover, I struck out at her with a fist as I shed more and more water, suspended within my manifested Aura. Her pure red eyes met mine without a trace of fear, arms already in motion, but I didn't back down either. Even as I felt myself get torn in half, I reached out with two fluid hand and liquid fangs—

And then I froze. Literally, my tiger Aura turning to ice in an instant as I balance Water and Air to make Ice. A chunk of ice the size of a person smashed into her, but I was already moving a different direction, stepping back into the flood behind me a moment before my Aura changed and standing my ground as it washed over me, remaining stationary with my will alone. A moment after my Aura froze, a second tiger appeared over the first, water forming over ice as the Water Tiger followed me in stepping back and watched as the flood moved on.

Carmine staggered for a moment—a second too late in using her Aura or briefly struggling with the sheer amount she had to vaporize, I wasn't sure—and I moved again. My physical body merely stepped forward once, but the Tiger moved closer, lunging toward her legs before stopping just a hair short. It retreated a fraction of a step, bobbing up towards her masked face and then striding a step to the left, moving to slam into her from the side and then dancing back. An arm rose towards her face, a leg swept towards the back of her knees, fangs flashed at her eyes, but each time I stopped just a hairs breadth from contact.

And each time, water solidified into ice, the water trailing behind each motion carrying them into their target. Carmine stumbled a pace back ever other attack and my physical body calmly strolled forth, Aura keeping up the pressure. She braced herself against another series of blows before snarling something wordless, eyes focusing on my through the mist. Arms began to move, scything through waves of water, but I sensed the danger coming and the Tiger returned to my feet. As it leapt upwards, I allowed the resulting column of water to carry me into the air above Carmine.

She lifted her head and I knew before I even sensed it that her other arm was in motion, sending vaporizing steel towards me—but I was moving too, an instant before she was. The Water Tiger moved impossibly, crawling down the very stream of water it had created until it stood parallel to me, facing downwards. Instantly, the same limbs that had tread on the water's surface as if it were solid pierced through, a clawed hand grabbing me and drawing me from the column before tossing me into the air behind it. I'd traveled barely a meter before the tail curled around my ankle snapped my down towards the ground and then the Tiger was leaping back as well.

It passed over me, the water that composed it flowing over me as I passed through it, back to front. I slipped into its wake barely a moment after it first touched me and without even the slightest hint of force or surface tension. It kept moving behind me, fluid body arcing back as it flipped in midair and I flowed through the resulting stream, body swimming after soul without even the slightest motion. The Tiger on the street and I landed within it, the flood that trail us splashing out in every direction.

The Tiger rose, claws reaching towards Carmine as she turned, but I stayed bowed until both arm and sword passed above me before rising calmly. With each step, the Tiger left behind statues of itself in ice, each lasting but a moment before shattering or vaporizing as they smashed into Carmine and kept her one her toes, pushing her back with each attack. Perhaps her arms were fast, each blow blindingly quick even to me—but the rest of her body was no match for my speed. Though close proximity presented its own risks and gave me less time to react, at this range I also had the chance to stay ahead of her, to do something.

The street around us quickly flooded with water as I produced and cast of hundreds, thousands of times my own volume in water, whatever Carmine didn't vaporize splashing upon the ground around us. I felt the crystal in my heart weakening as the power continued to flow out of me, but didn't hesitate, didn't stop—

Until with a final step, my Tiger shed the water one last time and emerged like a snake that had shed its skin. It threw its head back and Roared, the sound causing the earth to shake and windows to break around us, the sheer sound of it so real it was almost a physical thing. Whatever part of Carmine was still alive, could still feel—it felt hesitation. Just for a moment.

But it was enough to press another crystal against my chest. Yellow glowed within me as if I'd swallowed the sun, burning out through my skin, my eyes, my mouth. Power flowed through me like I was a machine that had just been plugged in—and then it flowed out of me. The Tiger writhed, nearly unraveled as my power took hold and for a brief instant, it was like I'd caught lightning in the shape of a beast.

And the next, like lightning, it was gone, vanishing with nothing but the faint scent of ozone to imply it had ever been there at all. Carmine's hesitation ended and she focused on me, arm lifting, moving—

The Tiger slammed a fist into her chest hard enough to stop her and bow her over, before vanishing again. She lifted her head, snarling something wordless—and kissed the dirt as the Tiger grabbed her by the hair and slammed her face up to the ears into the ground. She put a hand on the ground, fingers sinking into the mud, and a foot slammed savagely into her side, kicking her away. She hadn't even touched the ground when a fist slammed hard into her back and smashed her down to the street.

Between each blow, the Tiger disappeared, flashing in and out of existence around her without seeming to pass through any of the space between. Through it all, it strayed far from me, five meters, ten, more, reaching out further and further to strike her.

Finally, Carmine seemed to have enough. With a snarl of frustration she slammed her arms into the ground as she was knocked around by another series of blows, whip-arm sweeping along the ground to one side of her body, vaporizing layers of dirt. Pushing off, she rolled quickly once, twice, and then came to her feet with a bit of effort. I could see the damage I'd caused her even through the layers of mud that now caked her form, small cracks in the armor.

"Puddles," She spat as she rose, eyes at my feet. "That's your trick."

I said nothing, knowing what she saw. A writhing, glowing tail wrapped around my left leg, curling down into a puddle by my feet. From there, trails of sparks hopped around the battlefield, leaping in steady streams from puddle to puddle. My Tiger appeared at the edge of the dry area she'd created and took a pair of deliberately slow steps before flickering and reappearing five meters away. It continued its slow pace, vanishing and reappearing every heartbeat or so until it formed behind me. It paced beside me, claws curling as its eyes remained trained on Carmine.

"No matter," She said after a moment, edges of a growl in her tone. "I can destroy them as easily as anything else."

I looked around with my physical eyes and sniffed before cracking my neck.

"Is it getting humid in here or is it just me?" I asked, one finger swirling in the air. As it passed through the mist, water gathered, a thin streamer trailing behind it like a banner. I smiled as her eyes followed it. "With this much moisture in the air, it's not hard to gather it back into water. You vaporize stuff, but you can't destroy it; all that water is still here. And someone like me can do all sorts of things with it."

A sphere of water formed above my fingers and I hurled it like a water balloon into the dry area she had created. It landed just past the edge and my Tiger flickered to the puddle it created, just a step closer—and then vanished as she lashed out at it. Back at my side, it held up its hands, large spheres of water gathering above each as it lowered itself in a crouch.

"I can gather it, control it, use it," I continued as if nothing had happened. I held up both my hands as fists, looking from one to the other and then back to her. "If needed, I can even…"

I uncurled my fingers slowly to show her what they'd been grasping—a pair of Dust Crystals, one yellow, one blue—and then held the latter close to my chest.

"Make more of it," I finished. "Enough games, Conquest. You won't kill me and you can't beat me without doing so, so stop playing games."

All at once, the signs of frustration and pain simply flowed out of Carmine's body and she gave a rolling laugh. Beneath her mask, she was probably smiling.

"Stop playing games?" She asked. "But I thought you liked games, Jaune? I used to buy them for you for your birthday—didn't you say Void Eater was your favoritest game ever?"

The words were mocking, but if she was expecting a reaction, she was disappointed. I stared at her impassively.

"We both know how this will end." I said quietly.

"You're right," She said brightly. "We do. So what? You want me to spare your feelings and give up? Or maybe you'd like me to tell my boys to leave your little friends alone? Because I'm sorry, sweetie, but part of growing up is learning you can't always have what you want."

"If you really do know," I continued, tone unchanging. "Why…?"

"You stupid kid—haven't you realized by now that I don't give a fuck?" She asked, bright tone equally unwavering. "But fine, if you want a reason, I'll give you one—just this once, because I'm so nice."

She leaned forward slightly, eyes focused on mine.

"Because the look in people's eyes when they realize they can't save the ones they love makes me happy," Conquest said simply.

I heard a scream behind me and clenched my fists.

"There," She said. "That's the look. Is it the girl, out of ammunition? Or is the grandson finally slowing down? I suppose it doesn't matter either way, does it? They'll both die soon enough—unless you save them. But can you? Every second you waste here, they come closer to death. You'll beat me eventually, of course, but it'll take time and you have so little of that right now. You can't afford to waste any of it here, can you? Not with your mom at risk, your dad, your tiny little friends?"

Conquest chuckled.

"You told that boy you'd do everything you could to save his poor grandfather," Conquest said mockingly. "What a nice choice of words—no guarantees. But of course, you can't be sure of anything right now, can you? And that way, you say honestly that at least you did your best, right? It's not your fault you failed. Because you will fail, Jaune, won't you? With time so precious, with us fighting back, with two children fighting for your lives, you don't really have time to come up with a cure do you? Especially not for all of us. And even if you did, who's to say it won't be too late? No, you have to hurry. And even if you do come up with something, we all know who you really care about, don't we? You—"

I took a breath and moved, Lunging with all the speed I could muster. Even then, I was pretty sure she could have reacted, done something, but—

She didn't. Conquest stood there in Carmine's body, all but inviting me in, and stood stock still as I drove the claws of the Tiger into the biggest crack in her chest, right into her heart.

"I…" I began before pausing for just an instant to lift my eyes to hers. But when I spoke again, my voice was steady. "I already know that. I'm sorry, Carmine."

Conquest laughed—and cough, gagging slightly on blood as my claws lengthened further.

"Then we'll just call this another person you couldn't save," She breathed and I knew that beneath her mask, she must have been smiling widely even as she died. "Just like you're not going to be able to save your father."

And then, at last, I felt her die—Conquest and Carmine both, fading away. As I looked down at her for just a moment, I thought that…I really, really hated Conquest.

Then I turned and ran to help the others.