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Not As Grimm

Chapter Twelve

Yay! I finally got around to finishing this Power Trio. I hope you like The Raven And The Wolverine ((TRATW, pronounced 'trat-wu-)), it was just a little piece of creative procrastinating, but I will be continuing it.

Anyhoo! To the story-mobile!

Ozpin was not a man who enjoyed barriers. So when people put up a stop sign saying that he was not allowed to participate in something because it was 'not in his jurisdiction', he got very, very annoyed. He had been an instructor long enough to know that nothing made people want to do something more than being told that they aren't allowed.

Right know he was being denied the right to investigate one certain robbery in the lower district involve a fair sum of dust that was stolen from the local community. It was on the grounds of not enough evidence surrounding the attack, and not enough men to be put on the case because of the upcoming festival pulling away all the manpower. And besides, it was probably just connected to the larger string of dust thefts that had accrued. Three perfectly valid excuses, but just like the student who failed to do his homework's excuses, they were all bullshit.

Something was up, Ozpin just knew it. But with the council already riding his ass he couldn't exactly openly walk down there himself and start sorting things out. Even suggesting a conversation with the lower city's 'big three' would be met with complete rejection.

The government refused to recognize or negotiate with the gangs that ran the lower districts, keeping a sort of law and order of their own to prevent total chaos from reigning down in the slum. But without the assistance of one of those groups, it was next to impossible to get anything out of the dark side of the city without taking a page from Yang's book and just going down there yourself, cracking some heads until they tell you what you want to know.

Even so, Ozpin had to try something to help those people. So he called up the only person he could. Hopefully the man would be sober enough to get things done. After all, no one could blame Ozpin for the drunken affairs of one old crow. And with any luck, this could lead them closer to their true enemy.

Three shadows moved about the storage building 5G, looking all over the outside, taking note of all entrances and exits, as well as the guards. "If the hired muscle is anything to judge by, we must be in the right place." Judith said, her bright eyes flashing underneath her dark hood. She was dressed in a heavy overcoat, just like the one Yuri wore, with a large black lance strapped to her back.

"Alright. Phantom, you have a faunus's night vision, right?" Yuri asked Danny as they settled down behind some crates near the main entrance. They had discussed using the back entrances, but decided against since they didn't know if there were traps there. The front one might be guarded, but they aren't going to put land mines underneath there own feet as they walked in.

"Yeah, I do." Danny said, wondering what else he could do now that he was a faunas ((faunas? I'm trying, people))

"Then we will cut the wires leading into the storage facility. The three of us won't be hampered by the darkness. Hopefully that will give us a better fighting chance." Yuri said as he planned out the attack. With his light semblance, Yuri could both produce flashed like bombs as long as he could get a spark doing, and see clearly in even the darkest of places. His night vision was even better than a faunus's, if the boy's bragging was to be believed. "Phantom, you will move through the wall over on the north east edge of the building and blast the guards on the front door. Once they are gone, Judith and I will storm in ourselves and we will hopefully overwhelm them. If things go south I'll set off a flash and well will pull out and pick off any scouting parties they send out after us."

"Got it." Danny said with a nodded. Part of him wondered why Yuri was so good at this kind of thing. Scouting the area, coming up with a battle plan, marking priority targets and setting up a plan B. He was no rookie.

"You'll go in as soon as the lights are out. So make sure you do something about the glowing." Yuri said, frowning at Danny's glowing body.

"I'll try." Danny said before lowering down his aura as far as he could without slipping out of his transformation. It would be too dangerous for him to use his full strength in that warehouse anyways. Not with so much Dust around. One mistake on his part, and suddenly they would be in the middle of a very very big crater. He wasn't even sure if it would be safe to use his ice powers, or if that would still set the dust off.

Luckily that was a two sided coin, and the thugs would all be limited to melee combat if they didn't want to die from a misfire hitting one of the dust crates.

"Be careful Phantom. We don't need to take any unnecessary risks." Judith said before Danny nodded and faded out of sight. Once they felt like he was really gone Judith spoke again. "You haven't been honest with him."

"Yeah... I know." Yuri said shifting a bit as he got in range of cutting the power lines. "There will be a time for honesty, but now isn't it. We needed some extra firepower, and he's got some to spare."

"Is that why you didn't go to Don. Because you thought he wouldn't approve?" Judith asked, placing a hand on Yuri's shoulder.

"The old goat is stubborn. You know as well as I do that he would never look for an easy way out of his problems... besides, he needs to remain blameless in all of this." Yuri said before bringing down his blade over the wires, leaving the building in pitch darkness. "I am the dark, so these sins are mine to bare."

As the first sounds of combat escaped the warehouse the couple started to move. "You won't ever have to bare it alone." Judith swore as she moved along behind him.

The moment the lights were down, Danny slide through the wall and into the storage. His eyes adjusted instantly. All of the thugs were caught in the confusion of the moment, three dozen of them, each with heavy melee weapons. Looks like there boss didn't want to risk them being stupid around the dust.

Lifting up one hand, he took careful aim at the guards right next to the door, is fighter glowing bright green in the dark before a ray of brilliant green light flew from his finger, hitting one of them in the head. He repeated the process two more times before some of the thug found him, following the green light back to Danny in his corner.

A man in a dark suit swinging what Danny could only describe as a massive fuck off ax, came at Danny, swinging his blade in a fashion that would have taken Danny's arm clean off is he hadn't dropped it and jumped back. The floor cracked and small sparks flew when the blade hit the ground.

The blow had been a heavy one, Danny could feel the large amount of aura, amplified by dust inside the weapon strengthening the hit to the level of a weaker ghost. These guys might not have been that tough, but they were still several leagues above the random Johnnys that they sent to rob the dust stores.

As Danny raised his own aura a little, getting ready to fight, every eye in the room snapped to his body, sensing his presence. Two men wielding swords joined the one holding the ax and moved towards Danny, preparing to attack.

Their strikes were surprisingly accurate and fast as they drove the unarmed Danny even further into his corner. The ghost boy throw up one of his shields, but the shiny green glass didn't even stop a single attack as a sword slashed through it as if it was simple bread. If he could use more of his aura without risking disturbing all of the dust in the room, he could easily just throw up a shield strong enough to hold them back all day, but without knowing the limits of what he was allowed to use, he couldn't risk it.

As a sword swing came close to his right he stumbled left, bumping into one of the crates, and his left hand brushed up against something metal that was lying on top of it. Reacting on instinct, his fingers curled around the piece of metal and pumped it with aura as he swung it around to deflect a overhand swing from the ax wielder.

The crowbar burst into green flames as Danny's aura filled it and it easily deflected the ax. Moving in, Danny punched the ax wielder in the stomach finally managing to bring down one bad guy. "One down... a lot more to do." Danny mumbled, looking up and wishing he could just blast everyone down.

Wind swept through the room as the front door was knocked off its hinges and Yuri and Judith rushed into the room. Danny had to remember to keep his eyes on his own enemy as the two went to work of their own opponents. They lacked the same amount of strength the thugs had without dust, but they made up for it by being almost completely undetectable by just their aura. Their blows finding weak points where Danny had to struggle to get a hit through peoples guards.

Judith had jumped up into the air and was performing surprising acrobatics while swinging around her lance, wind seeming to spin around the weapon, driving it forward with increased speed.

Yuri talking down enemies with faints and sweep attacks, filling his sheath with what little aura he could generate without dust so that the thugs would go after the sheath, taking advantage of the enemies attempts to get around their own blindness.

All in all, Danny served more as a distraction rather than being the one to take out most of the bad guys. Since he was giving off more aura than anyone else, he was the clear target while Yuri and Judith simply swept through the room uncontested, knocking out distracted guards as they went.

"You knew they would target me, didn't you?" Danny said, more than a little annoyed as they took away all of the thugs' weapons and loaded them into one of the emptied crates before sealing them inside.

"You did your job well." Judith said, her voice sounding more cheerful than Danny would like as she reached out and rubbed him behind the furry ears on top of his head.

At that moment, Danny's entire body felt paralyzed and he had to fight and twitching erg to thump his leg against the ground. Damn that felt good. "Stop that." Danny said in a flustered voice, knocking her hand away.

"Oh, are you embarrassed?" Judith teased him as Danny blushed heavily.

"If you two are done, I'd like some help over here." Yuri said as he dug through a pile of papers that littered the only table in the room. "We need to find some kind of record of they organized this..."

He was cut off when another aura could be felt in the room. One much stronger than the other guards. He's hand shot towards sword, bringing it out as he jumped a little further from the source of the energy.

Danny's eyes also focused on the newcomer and he was surprised by what he saw. It was... a young girl. Probably around sixteen though he couldn't be certain. She wasn't very tall, not even Danny's own height, and that was in high heels that had to add at least four or five inches. She was dressed in a rather frilly outfit that looked really childish with a lot of pink and white with black bottoms. Half of her hair was bubble gum pink while the other half was a very ordinary brown, and she was spinning a parasol umbrella behind her head.

"Um... are we supposed to fight that?" Danny mumbled to Yuri, but the older boy looked dead serious.

"Listen lady, we already took out the rest of your friends. So how about you just turn around, and walk on out of here." Yuri said, throwing his voice off the walls in an attempt to mask his position. But the girl looked straight at him, one of her eyes was bright pink, and the other was a dark brown, just like with her hair. She didn't say anything, just stood there with a smile.

"You think she's a mime?" Danny said, a little put off by the silents.

"What's a mime?" Judith asked.

"Well at least those don't exist in this world." Danny said with a sigh.

But then the girl rushed them. Yuri was closest and moved to intercept, trying to swing out with the flat of his sword as she approach. But the strange girl swung her umbrella around, knocking the blade aside before she sidestepped the thrust of Yuri's sheath.

Folding in the parasol, she swung it around, catching Yuri in the chin before bringing the bottom of it hard into his stomach and then kicking him aside.

"Yuri!" Judith shouted, charging the girl, but the thrust of her lance was blocked on the point of the the folded umbrella. The entire scene looked unreal as Judith's attempts to push forward there being stopped by the parasol wielding child.

Danny tried to rush forward to help, but the little girl knocked Judith's weapon aside with ease, grabbing the taller girl and throwing her to the ground with enough forwards to leave Judith gasping in pain. Without enough dust to amplify there aura, hits to their bodies like that could easily be fatal.

Then the girl turned towards Danny. The Phantom swung the crowbar around, trying to get a clean blow, but the girl evaded every single hit, hardly moving as she leaned to the side, letting the blow pass by her. After a few seconds she spun her parasol around, opening it in such a way that it hit Danny's hand, knocking it to the side before she drove the thing forward, pushing Danny off balance.

The umbrella folded in again and the girl jumped up, one of her six inch heels dug down into Danny's shoulder before she did a sort of bicycle kick into his face, knocking him off his feet to fall to the ground with a heavy thud.

Danny started to push himself up again, looking straight to the girl who was sitting on the edge of one of the crates, spinner her parasol around and looking at Danny with the expression of a cat that was playing with its food.

She was... toying with them. Danny felt himself grit his teeth. "You..." He literally growled. His aura started to grow as he got angry. The girl's smile turned to a look of surprise as green wisps of highly condensed aura started to circle around Danny's body. "You want to see what I can do?"

Danny had pushed himself to his feet, tunnel vision making him forget about everything but the girl until Yuri shouted from his position on the ground. "Stop it! You'll kill us all!"

Danny snapped out of it as he heard some dust that was on a nearby table humm

ing. His aura starting to affect it. He quickly brought down his aura again, cursing himself for his stupidity as he looked to the little girl again.

The multicolor girl had a grin on her face again, but now it was the look of a child that had seen something wonderful. She took her umbrella in both hands and started to draw a blade out of it. Her eyes had turned white as her blade was pulled out.

She still didn't speak, but her lips moved forming the words she wanted to say.

"Show it to me."