The New Rose

Chapter 29 - Unity

Earlier that day…

Neo stood atop a tall building, smirking as she saw the chaos unfold. Countless Ursa's, Beowulf's, and a few Giant Snake Grimm ransacked the streets of Vale. Their only deterrent, a few teen hunters in training and one school professor? Neo would honestly laugh right now if not for the fact she would give her position away. Then there was the fact she was mute, something that irritated her to no end as she wanted nothing more right now than to mock these seemingly pathetic children's attempts to play hero.

"Might as well kick back and let the carnage unfold till Roman gets here." Neo thought to herself as she sat on the edge of the roof, kicking her feet merrily as she looked at her scroll waiting for a reply from her lover. She had sent him her coordinates earlier, confidant he wouldn't have been captured and would meet up with her soon. Confidence that began chipping away as a half hour passed and he still hadn't responded.

"Where is he? I know he's no martial artist or hunter, but he could handle a few teenage girls and a train crash…. Right?" That question to herself brought a chill to her spine that made her already pale skin turn ghost white as she eyed the wrecked train and began to have doubts of his survival infect her heart. It was pretty messed up, flames spewing out the sides and windows shattered, a few tracks from underground being upended and lodged in the walls.

She almost gagged at the possibility one could have pierced him. As if that wasn't bad enough, those teenage girls she mocked earlier, they began cutting down the hordes of Grimm near effortlessly. Neo was shocked as she saw little red twirl and gun down a dozen hounds circling her in an instant. Blake and Weiss used the latters semblance to enhance multiple shadow clones with her glyphs to crash into a group of Ursa's, creating an explosion of ice dust and black ash that nearly rocked Neo off the roof. What really shocked her was the blond girl Yang she had beaten up earlier.

"She still has aura?" Neo thought, amazed at Yang's resilience as the girl's hair ignited and she jammed her fist into a Snake Grimm, incinerating its innards at the beast spewed fire from its mouth and painfully screeched before disintegrating.

Neo's jaw in fact hung open as she eyed this teams amazing abilities. With her awe came a deeper sense of dread and fear that Roman was captured by these girls or worse….

"N-No he… they couldn't have…" She thought fearfully. The blond girl practically had reeked of bloodlust in their fight earlier whenever she lunged at her or tried to pound her fist into Neo's head. She honestly didn't put it past these girls to try and kill Roman, a fear growing ever more powerful. That fear was soon sensed by a Nevermore, whose screech startled Neo, almost threatening to knock Neo off the roof as she managed to frantically push herself backwards, falling awkwardly on her back on the rooftop painfully.

The bird Grimm didn't fail to notice her vulnerability and dive-bombed towards her, blaring razor-sharp talon's that grew ever closer to the pink and brown haired assassin, who struggled to collect herself. As she wobbled and stood upright, she gasped as she caught sight of those blade-like black claws inches away from her face. Was this it? Was she going to die? Become bird food?

Her question was soon answered as the claws suddenly pulled away from her face as the bird Grimm screeched painfully. Neo gasped as she saw a hole in the bird's chest from a blast. The bird Grimm head spasm as it soon fell backwards like she had, falling down the building Neo stood on before crashing to the ground, black feathers scattering in the air like snow.

Neo shook as she plopped on her knees, crawling to the edge of the roof to see the beast that nearly killed her turning to ash. She was about to question where that blast came from before a shadow enveloped her and she looked up to see the source, a large Atlesian military gunship with its forward canons smoking.