You hit the ground after what feels like forever falling. You hit hard.

Spit the blood from your mouth, and curse yourself when it dribbles out, soaking your chin because you haven't found the strength to stand yet. But stand you must, because that little multicolored mute is floating, yes, floating down towards you, as if she hadn't just hooked the handle of that umbrella around your ankle and dragged you into a twelve-story plummet with jagged debris at the bottom.

At least her smile's gone. You got rid of that when, to her surprise and immediate chagrin, you kept your head. This fight is not like the last, with you blinded by doubt and anger and an overwhelming desire to pummel the little shit. No, this time you forced yourself to breathe more easily, approach her more carefully, and this time you weren't left at her mercy.

The assault on the warehouse had been a blur, but it had been a well-planned blur. Search and destroy, get Weiss out, capture the ringleaders and end the White Fang threat. Not at all easy, but at least they knew their enemies.

Adam, Blake's old partner, had finally been taken down by virtue of Blake and her own teamwork. You can't bring yourself to feel guilty about double-teaming the rogue Faunus, not with the veritable army of White Fang that had been at his back. Plus he was kind of an asshole. The mission went off with a few hitches; Weiss had been captured by one of the few Bullheads remaining, Blake had had her arm broken in two places, and you'd seen red at seeing your friends in danger and had nearly pulverized that stupid mask and everything behind it while you'd had the man at your mercy.

Leaving Adam alive had been worth something after all. Two days later, you wait outside of Ozpin's office as Adam walks out, escorted by Goodwitch and visibly paler than he had been prior to his capture. For once, he had been in no mood to pick a fight with anyone. Ozpin tells you not a minute later that the ringleaders of the White Fang conspiracy are three individuals who had posed as students from Haven during the tournament. In addition to these three (you snap back to attention, shaking away the pang of frustration because you had thought Mercury and Emerald were cool, dammit) he also displays the files of two career criminals involved in the cause. Of course everyone recognizes Torchwick, but you and the remainder of your team raise a brow simultaneously at Neo Politan.

Yes like the ice cream. There's one treat you'll never enjoy again.

One time assassin, occasional thief, Atlesian intel informs you that she's basically Torchwick's adopted daughter. The two have worked together on a number of… projects, but where Torchwick's face is well known to wanted posters, newspaper headlines, and mug shots, Politan is a fucking ghost. The only shots of her accrued by the database are grainy affairs with Torchwick in the foreground, and even from that you can discern the need for caution.

You hesitate to say that she's like Blake in that regard; you don't want to sully your partner's name with the comparison, but you think it anyway. Neither make any effort to draw the spotlight, not like Torchwick or even yourself (though, you do so to take focus away from your team and innocents; Torchwick is just a prick). Both display that same lithe grace underlined with an incredible sense of lethality present in every movement. But therein lies the difference.

Whereas Blake had made great effort to avoid loss of life during her time in the White Fang, this girl, Neo, would probably kill you for looking at her funny.

Your lips quirk. Not quite a smile, not with Weiss gone and Blake so stressed and Ruby near inconsolable, but close enough.

You think that you're going to enjoy your next meeting with this girl.

Bring it bitch.

…

You let out a long sigh from your suffering lungs, eyes still tracking the floating girl. You and your big talk. You wonder how light she must be to have her parasol support her in free fall like that. Your head feels like shit, so you don't have the time to run through the approximate calculations, and it's not like she would actually answer any questions.

Neo lands. Her feet have barely touched down before the grin's back, but it's not the same as before. Before, the look on her face told her that she wanted to embarrass her, take you down a peg.

Now it looks as if she wants to put a few holes in you.

Your gaze remains impassive even as you lay there, eyes flicking over the other girl's form cautiously, even as memories unbidden flood your dazed mind. Your eyes roll towards the ceiling and, for reasons you can't really explain later on, you tell her.

You tell her how, when you were young and your mother, both mothers, had gone, you and your sister had both expressed desire to become huntresses. You tell how, after a month of hesitation, your father had agreed to train you both, and how proud you had been at your martial arts prowess and at Ruby's speed, even at such an age.

You tell her how exhilarating it had been to experience the rush that came with your semblance for the first time, and how you couldn't wait to try it out in a spar.

You tell her that you break your father's arm in three places with a single, simple throw.

It had been an accident of course; you didn't know your own strength. But you did know the look of shock and small yelp of pain that crossed your father's face, escaped his lips. You knew the sound of Ruby's cries, so young and so terrified at even the prospect of something happening to the only parent she had left. And you'd run, you're shamed to say. You run upstairs to the sink in your little house because you tasted bile in your throat, and when you look up in the mirror all you can see are red, red eyes, just like those monsters your uncle had once saved you from.

Just like the monsters you were training to fight.

You and your father rarely spar after that, as you'll always be busy working on some other aspect of being a Huntress. Ruby decides to focus more on weapons training than hand to hand in an effort to avoid the subject. You know your father does not, would never blame you, but a part of you has never stopped feeling his disappointment at being denied the chance to teach his daughters more.

You tell this strange girl in front of you that you still remember all of the pins and holds and chokes and submissions that your father bestowed upon you. It was his gift, his blessing to you to enter a more dangerous world, so how could you forget?

You tell her that you avoid using these very techniques as much as possible, because people just break so easily.

You built Ember Celica to allow you to deliver as much brute force behind your blows as possible and, in terms of functionality and style, it works. It serves your purposes because you can put your full might into brutalizing Grimm, but also pull your punches against human beings and avoid doing to them what you did to your father all those years ago. It helps that aura is so effective against preventing blunt-force trauma that even a shrimp-sized twig like Weiss (you've tried to get that girl to eat more) can take a heavy blow from Nora and still be up and about later in the day. You barely have to pull your punches.

Ember Celica was not made to complement what your father taught you, so you retract them into bracelet form.

You tell this murderous looking girl in front of you that you, in spite of your bravado, do not like hurting people.

You tell her that you'll do so anyway, that you'll even kill if it means the safety of your friends and loved ones.

You tell her that you have no more reservations holding out on a little creep who likes hurting people, and you stand.

Politan has been listening calmly, neither boredom nor interest making itself known. She's just been waiting around, patiently, to kill you, you realize. She draws her sword and you let your eyes flash red for the first time at her.

She does not flinch, though the minute widening of her eyes is good enough for you. You take up a ready stance and let her come to you this time.

She obliges, slashing in wide arcs that force you to spin away from the keen edge of the blade. She's fast, her blade darting silver with a reach that belies her height. You could have been mincemeat had she done this on the train with you so unfocused. But you're not, and you send silent thanks up to your team and the rest of your friends for the training you've undergone.

Weiss, whose own swordsmanship was a close equal to what you face now. Blake, who made sure in many a spar that you would never lose track of an opponent. Ruby, who you lose track of anyway because she's so damned quick, but has given you reflexes the likes of which others in your profession would kill for.

All of your team, to whom you eventually told in full what happened on the train. Your team, who never wanted it to happen again.

Pyrrha and Nora, because the three of you have literally beaten each other into the ground so hard and so often that no other student can be found anywhere near the training room floor when any of you enter.

And Ren, who reminded you of the effectiveness of precision.

You deflect the flat of her blade with the flat of your hand even as she makes to plunge it into your middle, and you do so again and again and again until the growing rage is palpable on this strange girl's face and she slips. You do not hesitate for a second in reaching for her overextended sword arm. Watch her eyes widen as she just barely escapes your grip.

She backs up a step, and you feel a slight shift in the air before her visage shatters, leaving you alone in this place.

You do not rage, but rather steady yourself, closing your eyes and focusing inward. At first you had only worked with Ren on focusing your aura into certain points of your body to deliver pinpoint strikes, but you discovered his skill at aura sensing after only two spars when he weaved around a few of your blows without actually watching you move. You smashed him into the bleacher stands not a minute later, but the message had sunk in.

You worked diligently at obtaining that skill, your team not far behind in following the example. And while you're not at Ren's level yet, not even close, it will pay dividends here.

You let out a breath that's only a little shaky, and concentrate your senses, aura and otherwise, on the seemingly empty room. Just your luck, the pink little shit's semblance apparently messes with your aura reading, because you can't tell her distance or proximity to you, just that she's in the room.

You've never been good at waiting, but you hold your ground, wondering if the girl is waiting for the suspense to literally kill her.

Movement out of the corner of your eye shifts you into action, but even as your turn to look at this Neo, sword extended right at your eyes and grin merciless, you feel nothing. She, this illusion, is nothing.

What is something is the tidal wave of bloodlust that you can feel cascading to your right, the image at your left a fatal distraction. Do not take the time to wonder how this small girl can radiate so much hate and kick your leg out in a low sweep at what you cannot see.

A small sound accompanies the jump the invisible bitch must've made to avoid being flattened, and you immediately follow your momentum into a roll. The scraping sound of the sword on crumbling rock is all you need to know you made the right decision, and the illusion shatters.

Mismatched eyes glare at you as you regain your feet about ten feet away, less than a blink's distance for either of you. You give her your hardest stare back, and know you've come to the end.

Neither of you stir for a moment, not at all content to give the other even a microsecond longer to initiate a counter.

She dashes forward, blade already dancing. You spring high, blessing Blake and her damn acrobatics routine, and shift in midair into a kick which promises to spill the contents of her skull on the dusty ground. She abandons her latest swing in favor of keeping her head intact, and your foot makes contact with the ground, detonating the already destroyed basement floor with all of the fury of gravity and your own palpable rage.

Spin into a punch as you land, because of course she's already behind you, and bring your arm down on her so she's forced to twist away instead of retaliating with the blade. Inch closer and closer, every blow thrown to finish this. Stay inside her guard. Jab, jab, cross, sweep, jab, uppercut. Do not let up, you will not tire. Jab, cross, jab, jab. Continue, because like this, powered by your rage and your love for your friends and your own stubbornness, you will not lose. Not like this.

Like this, you're a monster.

You've accepted this.

You're hardly a foot away when your hand meets her wrist. Not the sword hand, but close enough. Immediately she makes to throw you, but she's pint-sized and you've already adopted a low stance, just like your father taught you all those years ago.

Squeeze. Hard.

You're not surprised when she doesn't make a sound, even as all of the little bones in her wrist are pulverized into an unrecognizable mass of fragmented tissue. You've figured something must've happened to this girl pretty early on to render her mute. You've never heard her make a noise before. She won't now. Not that it matters.

There's no mistaking the look in her eyes.

She takes a step back, as far as she can with you still grasping her shattered arm, and swings across her body at your neck. You're not surprised, and have already moved forward so that her bicep meets your neck instead, even as your forehead meets hers.

She staggers to a knee. You're still holding her arm.

Strange, you think inwardly. This girl has done nothing but try to kill you and your friends, and in return you didn't strike her that hard. It would have ended it. You'd be picking scraps of gray matter out of your hair for weeks.

You look at her as she slowly rises to her feet and realize that the both of you are monsters, in your own ways. You break the things you love by accident, and she breaks everything and loves nothing.

Man, not having a moral code must be so easy.

You release her wrist and deliver a sharp tap to her jaw even as she rises. Grab your other wrist while she recovers. You don't want to kill her, but every second you don't disable her is another where she could put a few new holes in you.

And at this point, you're really not above just hurting her.

Twist the arm straight so the sword is perpendicular to you both, you standing behind her. Deliver a quick palm strike to the locked elbow with your free hand. Do not flinch as you shatter bone once more.

The girl lurches forward, and it is only when the sword falls from nerveless fingers that you release her, shoving her harshly a good distance away. Watch as she attempts to rise on useless arms and pitches forward onto her face.

Pick up her weapon, never removing your eyes from your fallen opponent, and flare your semblance to the max.

You could not do this while fighting her. She knew that game. In this state, you can be outlasted, a clever opponent waiting around as you literally burn yourself out. It had to be with your own two hands, and a part of you is proud that it was. Another part of you remembers crunching bone and is sickened.

Flames twist around you like a protective cloak. They lick at you and almost immediately the blade in your hands is red-hot. You do not care. You've never cared about such things. Look over the girl, feebly stirring, once more, and snap her blade over your knee. Throw the pieces to opposite ends of the vast basement with all of your strength, and let the flames die.

Take a moment to steady yourself after you realize that Politan has passed out from the pain. The building is coming down, the massive hole you fell through having only widened due to the battles still raging above. You don't suppose you've done the structural support any favors either, and bits of debris are falling like rain. You need to get back to your team.

You plot a course from floor to floor, your weary legs already despising for all of the acrobatics involved. After another moment you're ready to go, but it's another second's hesitation and a basketball sized chunk of rubble landing next to the smaller girl's head that has you slinging her over your shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

You know she would not do the same from you, but somehow that just makes the act all the more appealing. You're just going to dump her somewhere before moving on to brutalize someone else. Maybe you'll throw her at one of those lying bastards up there, be a good distraction.

Allow yourself a small grin before the grim look settles back onto your face, and like that you're back to war.