[Vale City – Roman's Hideout]
Roman Torchwick was many things: intelligent, charismatic, cunning, a competent businessman, and more recently, a very rich man. All thanks to the little scoop of ice cream he had decided to take in and had named Vanilla.
She was undoubtedly an interesting creature. Roman avoided calling her human because, if he was honest with himself, he wasn't really sure that she was.
Roman, who had been counting his money, paused and lifted his gaze to watch the fight unfolding between Neo and Vanilla in front of him.
They were in a fairly large room inside the hideout, spacious enough for both of them to move freely without worrying about space.
Vanilla was trying to fight Neo, throwing punches that, even if they managed to land, barely had any effect on Neo's aura.
Neo, on the other hand, did not seem particularly interested in holding back. She took the opportunity to beat the hell out of her, delivering blows with clear enthusiasm while venting some resentment she obviously held toward Vanilla.
Roman didn't care much about Neo's reasons.
His attention was mainly focused on Vanilla.
She had grown incredibly fast, going from about thirty centimeters tall to nearly Neo's size in just a few weeks. Not that Neo was especially tall either, barely reaching around five feet.
Thinking about it, Roman suspected that was probably one of the reasons Neo felt annoyed with Vanilla.
In any case, Roman hadn't allowed them to fight just so they could vent their grudges.
He let them fight for two reasons.
The first, and the simplest: Vanilla had asked him for training. Roman had no problem granting it, as long as he was present to prevent any "accidents" caused by Neo.
The second reason, and the most important one.
He was measuring her potential.
As he watched Vanilla take hit after hit, Roman had to admit she wasn't doing badly. Not only was she growing fast, she was learning fast as well.
In just a few sessions she had gone from basically being a punching bag to starting to dodge some attacks and even throwing a few punches of her own.
"Would it be a good idea to unlock her aura?" he wondered, bringing a hand to his chin thoughtfully.
Of course, unlocking her aura wouldn't be enough by itself. Vanilla would have to learn how to activate it properly.
Still, considering how quickly she learned, Roman was fairly sure she would eventually manage it. And that it wouldn't be a waste of time.
He continued watching the training calmly until Neo, in a swift motion, unsheathed the blade hidden inside her umbrella.
Roman was about to say something, but Neo was much faster.
She suddenly lunged forward, stabbing Vanilla directly in the chest and, without losing the momentum of the movement, twisted her arm and performed a clean horizontal slash that split Vanilla in half.
Both halves of the body fell to the ground.
Roman didn't react to the scene.
If anything, he felt a bit relieved that he had limited Neo to using only her old weapon and not her newest acquisition: her monstrous umbrella, the same one she had proudly decided to name "Mr Nibbler."
Roman's gaze settled on Vanilla's split body, then on Neo, who was now smiling broadly, clearly convinced she had killed her as she approached the body with triumphant steps.
Roman didn't bother warning her that Vanilla could regenerate or that cutting her in half wasn't enough to kill her.
That was just one of the many abilities he had discovered Vanilla possessed, and also the main reason he had become rich.
Vanilla could not only regenerate.
She was also capable of duplicating any matter she had previously consumed.
Both abilities working together had proven surprisingly useful, especially when it came to duplicating narcotics.
A small smile formed on Roman's face as he remembered another of Vanilla's abilities, a less important one but still curious: the ability to change color depending on what she had eaten recently.
[Image]
Watching her shift through different colors throughout the day had managed to make him laugh more than once.
Although the memory was amusing, Roman forced himself back to the present, turning his attention to Vanilla again, who still hadn't gotten up from the floor.
He watched her calmly, waiting to see what she was planning.
Neo, smiling with clear superiority, leaned down to take a closer look. The moment she got close enough, Vanilla lunged at her, completely catching her off guard and giving her no time to dodge.
As soon as she managed to latch onto Neo, her body fully regenerated, clinging to Neo's face with her entire body.
Neo tried to pull her off, but the only thing she managed to do was tear off pieces of Vanilla that regenerated almost instantly.
She seemed to panic as she struggled to rip her off.
Roman raised an eyebrow, clearly impressed. Vanilla was suffocating her with ice cream, a curiously appropriate death for someone like Neo.
When Neo's body fell to the floor and began to stop moving, Roman decided it was time to intervene.
He rose from his seat calmly.
"Alright, that's enough," he ordered as he approached and grabbed Vanilla, who released Neo's face as soon as Roman took hold of her.
"Cough! cough! cough!"
Neo coughed violently, spitting out several large chunks of ice cream as she struggled to catch her breath.
"Excellent work, Vanilla," Roman said with clear approval. "No matter how strong or large a huntsman's aura reserves are, everyone needs to breathe."
He set her down on the floor and gave her a few gentle pats on the head before motioning for her to go play somewhere else.
Vanilla understood the signal and smiled with satisfaction, not without first sticking her tongue out at Neo, who was still on the floor.
Then she ran toward her pet frog Michigan, who was waiting near the entrance, picked him up in her arms, and left the room.
Roman watched the scene calmly before turning his attention back to Neo.
"If it's any consolation, you've gotten stronger too," he said with a small laugh.
Neo, now recovered, didn't take the comment well. She frowned from the floor before jumping to her feet, pushing Roman out of her way with obvious irritation as she grabbed her weapon and vanished in a small flash.
Roman didn't bother following her. She would come back on her own once her tantrum passed.
He simply returned to his seat, opened his scroll, and looked at Neo's aura display.
The truth was that what he had said earlier wasn't a joke. Neo had grown stronger, faster, and not only that. Roman looked at the aura meter on his scroll and noticed it had increased considerably since the last time he had checked it.
It was also possible that her semblance had grown stronger, although Roman still didn't know exactly in what way it might have changed.
Of course, the reason for that rapid growth wasn't a mystery to him.
He smiled with a hint of mockery as he thought about Neo, who had naively believed he wouldn't find out that she had been using her own minions to whip her.
[Training Whip: Being whipped while training improves performance]
Roman would admit that, at first, he thought it was some kind of strange fetish, but he discarded that idea fairly quickly when he began noticing Neo's physical improvements, eventually attributing those advances to the whip, something that by this point didn't even surprise him anymore.
Of course, even though he knew the reason behind her improvements, Roman never confronted Neo.
He trusted her, and if she hadn't told him about it, it was either because she had a reason or simply because she didn't want to.
Either way, a stronger Neo only brought him benefits.
And above all, Roman didn't want to get too involved or learn the origin of those creatures and objects Neo had been receiving.
His sixth sense told him quite clearly that if he did, if he started digging deeper than necessary, he probably wouldn't come out of it alive.
It was already bad enough knowing those things were being sent by Neo's lover/prostitute.
Daniel, if he remembered the name correctly. Now, whether he created or obtained those things from somewhere else wasn't Roman's problem.
Roman already had enough problems of his own.
Leaving the training room, he walked toward his office while his mind began to work through several plans.
On the way he passed by the warehouse. There, several of his men were packing hundreds of containers of ice cream-drugs into boxes ready for distribution.
Roman watched the operation for a moment. He considered expanding into other kingdoms in the future, but that would be when he had enough money, power, and infrastructure.
For now, he preferred to focus on short-term plans.
Like getting rid of a certain pain in the ass called Cinder Fall.
Roman grimaced at the thought of that woman, remembering that more than a year ago she had tracked him down and threatened him into carrying out robberies of dust shops.
She had called it a business where both of them would benefit.
Of course, that was a lie.
The reality was that Roman handled everything while she simply took all the dust, leaving him with minimal profits that barely covered his luxurious lifestyle.
And what exactly did she do with that dust?
She never told him, although it wasn't hard to figure out.
All the trucks that came to pick up the shipments were staffed entirely by faunus, something quite unusual... unless, of course, you were working with faunus terrorists.
That, combined with the fact that Cinder was a fairly powerful huntress, were the reasons why Roman had never considered confronting her before. But now things were changing.
The balance was slowly starting to tilt in his favor. He was now making enough money to improve his troops.
He also had his own pair of powerful huntresses… more or less.
Neo was close to becoming one.
And Vanilla, at the speed she was improving, probably would be soon as well.
A small smile appeared on his face. Roman had not become a criminal just to end up being someone else's slave.
He was his own boss. A strong and independent man, and because of that, at that very moment he began his plan.
"The Fall of Cinder."
Roman let out a very slight laugh when he noticed the wordplay.
It didn't take him long to reach his office.
He entered, closed the door, and sat down in his chair while pulling out a fine cigar imported from Vacuo.
He lit it calmly, taking a slow first drag as he leaned back in his seat.
However, as the smoke slowly filled the room, his gaze wandered around the office and a memory returned to his mind.
He remembered the first time he had seen that boy.
He remembered how he had called him a "whore," something Roman still stood by, but he also remembered that he hadn't seen him in over a month.
Something that, to be honest, made him deeply happy.
Even so, although he knew he shouldn't wonder about it, a very small part of his mind couldn't help but question what kind of activities a person who mailed living ice cream and talking frogs might be involved in.
—/—
[Mines of Moria]
In the chamber of pillars, a werewolf, or rather Daniel, ran between the enormous pillars as fast as he could.
His completely white fur stood out against the dark stone, while his enormous body, which nearly reached four meters and even surpassed Rosella's werewolf form, moved at a surprisingly high speed, leaving behind a faint electric trail.
[Werewolf Curse: 100%]
[Super-Speed: Allows the user to move incredibly fast accompanied by an electric trail]
He ran around the entire chamber, forming a wide circle around the Balrog, using the pillars as cover while the enormous demon swung its whip of fire again and again in an attempt to catch him.
Constant attacks that tore through the air violently… but were simply too slow to reach him.
Daniel didn't dare get closer.
The Balrog radiated an intense aura of heat that extended several meters around it, a true incineration zone that burned everything that entered its range.
Its defensive strategy against the horde of undead had proven extremely effective, as now all the corpses lay burned across the ground.
A complete waste of an army of the undead.
Daniel, who in reality wasn't tired and could have kept running for quite a while longer, suddenly changed direction.
He abandoned the circle he had been tracing and now moved in a straight line directly toward the Balrog.
The creature showed no signs of exhaustion either.
If anything, the opposite seemed to be happening, as the wounds Daniel had managed to inflict on it were slowly beginning to close.
If he didn't act quickly, all his effort up to this point would be in vain.
As he approached, the electric trail he had been leaving suddenly disappeared and, as a consequence, his speed also dropped drastically.
Daniel had deactivated [Super-Speed].
It wasn't due to a lack of aura. He did it because he would need all his concentration for what he was about to do.
Just before entering the incineration zone, his body erupted in an explosion of flames.
Fire burst from his own body until it completely enveloped him, now radiating heat of its own.
[Inferno: Allows the user to expel continuous streams of fire from their body]
It didn't exactly match the Balrog's heat, but it came fairly close.
Close enough for his own fire to protect him from the demonic flames.
The Balrog, annoyed to see that Daniel had managed to cross his incineration field, stopped using the whip and made it disappear while once again taking up his enormous sword of fire, preparing to split in half the suicidal dog that was running straight toward him.
Now that his speed had decreased, the Balrog was certain he could cut him down.
Even as the demon raised the sword into the air, Daniel did not change direction. He continued running directly toward him without showing the slightest intention of dodging.
The Balrog showed a grin at what seemed to be simple stupidity.
The moment Daniel entered range, the demon unleashed a brutal vertical slash using all his strength and speed, a strike so fast that it split the werewolf in two while the blazing blade continued its path, shattering part of the stone floor.
The Balrog began to smile, but the expression never fully formed when he saw that his enemy's body did not fall like a corpse.
Instead, it shattered.
The entire body broke apart in a small explosion of fragments that shone like shattered glass.
[Overactive Imagination: allows the creation of physical illusions that can be seen by everyone]
It took him only an instant to realize he had fallen into a trap.
And before he could react, the real Daniel, still in his werewolf form and wrapped in flames, was already behind him in a stealth attack that the Balrog had not perceived at all, since it had not produced even the slightest sound.
[Lethal Assassination: launches a stealth attack with lethal precision, inflicting 200% assassination damage]
[Absolute Silence: reduces noise in movements and assassinations]
But just before Daniel's claws could even touch the Balrog's back, GLaDOS abruptly cut the transmission.
"I don't understand why you try so hard to watch this," she complained, looking at Rosella with clear disappointment.
Rosella did not respond immediately.
She had been completely absorbed by the transmission, especially after seeing Daniel's werewolf form, and it took her a moment to react before shaking her head and snapping out of her brief daze.
"It's good to see he completed his transformation," she said, pretending to cough into her hand, slightly embarrassed for having gotten distracted. "Although I'm surprised he can still use his abilities…"
"Why wouldn't he?" Aegis asked curiously from Sadako's shoulder, who was still riding the goat while moving behind the group.
"The first transformation for those who aren't born as werewolves tends to be quite intense… so to speak," Rosella explained somewhat vaguely.
But Aegis wasn't stupid. "You expected him to lose control."
Rosella placed a hand on her chest with an offended gesture.
"Are you accusing me of expecting him to go insane, start a massacre, and delight in the blood of innocents?"
Aegis' answer was blunt. "Yes."
Rosella smiled and stopped pretending, lowering her hand with an amused expression.
"Yes, yes, I did expect it."
Aegis didn't seem to care about her confession. The truth was that none of the group cared very much either, since none of them had a particularly high affection for humans.
Mainly because none of them were human.
Most of them saw humans as entertainment, food, or test subjects at best.
"Then why didn't he lose control?" Aegis asked while moving from Sadako's shoulder to the goat's head, which clearly didn't mind his presence in the slightest.
Rosella thought about it for a moment.
"There could be several reasons… perhaps Daniel has great mental strength or a will strong enough to overcome the curse."
"I doubt it. Next hypothesis, hahaha," Aegis mocked without hesitation.
Rosella let out a light snort. "Maybe he has some special ability… or comes from a sacred bloodline that counteracts the curse."
"Do you know if he has one?"
Aegis shook his head. "If he has an ability like that, he hasn't used it."
[Unique Trait: silver eyes]
GLaDOS, noticing that the conversation was no longer particularly interesting, decided to ignore them completely and focus on the place they had just arrived at.
When she exited the corridor, a rather interesting scene opened up in front of her.
An enormous cavern, with great pillars supporting the ceiling while workshops and massive furnaces were distributed throughout the chamber. The floor was wide and solid, formed from large stone slabs, and several water channels crossed the place through the center of the chamber, clearly designed to be used for cooling.
There were also a large number of rails, along which wagons filled with materials had arrived from different tunnels spread throughout the chamber.
A place worthy of the self-proclaimed masters of the forge.
Although at that moment everything seemed abandoned.
Completely ignoring Curly, Larry, and Moe, GLaDOS decided to inspect the forge as she quickly advanced through the workshops.
The rest of the group didn't take long to follow her.
The place was abandoned, although a quick inspection allowed her to estimate that it had not been like that for very long.
Perhaps a month at most.
There were fairly clear signs that the last ones to use the place had been orcs. The smell and the disorder were rather obvious indicators, especially because, according to her records, dwarves were quite orderly when it came to forging.
She continued walking until reaching the rails, where she found several carts filled with raw minerals.
She began checking them one by one.
"Iron…" She immediately discarded it and moved to the next. "Gold… Silver…"
She kept examining the wagons, discarding one after another since none of them contained the material she was looking for.
She continued checking the carts without much interest, pushing one aside after another, until she finally found a different one, one filled with a material she had never scanned before.
"Is it mithril?" Rosella asked, leaning over GLaDOS' shoulder.
GLaDOS nodded in confirmation while continuing to analyze the contents of the cart.
Rosella observed the raw material quite carefully and noticed that the amount was fairly small.
"So they mine it here?"
GLaDOS quickly shook her head.
"They smelt it here," she explained, pointing to a fairly large tunnel that opened on one side of the chamber. "They mine it in Redhorn, which is the main vein where it's extracted."
Rosella looked at the tunnel with some distrust and slightly frowned. Exploring a fallen city was one thing. But she didn't really feel like going to explore a mining vein at that moment.
"Do we have to go see it?" she complained.
GLaDOS's response was immediate. "No."
"It's far away and probably full of giant earth reptiles."
That, of course, wasn't a lie. The vein where the mithril was extracted was full of dangers, and mining it was not something easy, not even for dwarves.
And it most likely wouldn't be simple for her either, so she decided that the best option would be to prepare before attempting it.
However, that didn't discourage her.
If anything, the opposite happened.
The idea of obtaining some refined mithril on her own began to seem quite appealing.
As soon as she made the decision, all the robots began moving following her instructions.
Some ignited the great furnaces, which soon reached extremely high temperatures, while others began pushing the carts that contained the raw mithril ore.
The process would take several hours.
Even so, GLaDOS, with all the knowledge she had obtained from the dwarves, was fairly certain that she could refine the mithril on her own.
Although, of course, it would be a small amount.
But enough to begin some experiments.
Meanwhile, several robots had cleared an area nearby, toward which GLaDOS calmly walked, since she did not need to remain close to the furnaces to supervise the process.
She sat on a carved stone seat while quietly thinking about possible uses for the mithril.
But her moment of peace did not last long.
Rosella appeared beside her and sat down, sliding slightly until she ended up very close to her.
GLaDOS could already imagine what she wanted.
"We could…"
"No."
The answer came before she could finish speaking.
Rosella looked surprised by the response and lowered her wolf ears with obvious disappointment. "You didn't even listen to me…"
"You wanted to ask if we could watch Daniel."
Rosella immediately looked up, suddenly hopeful. "Can we?"
GLaDOS let out a long exhale.
"Why are you so determined to watch how his fight is going when there are so many things to see here?" she asked, gesturing toward the enormous workshop surrounding them.
"We're in a dwarven mine with materials never seen before, creatures never seen before, new culture, artifacts, and who knows what else."
Rosella responded with a puppy-like look.
GLaDOS did not give up. "You could even distract yourself watching Sadako's goat."
She pointed into the distance, where Sadako was still riding the goat that at that moment was jumping between the enormous furnaces.
The goat, noticing it was being watched, performed a full 360-degree flip with surprising agility before landing perfectly on its hooves.
"Now it's just showing off," Aegis commented from Sadako's shoulder.
Despite the goat's impressive acrobatics, Rosella did not give in. Her puppy eyes only grew bigger.
And sadder.
GLaDOS pressed two fingers to her temple, clearly not understanding her.
"He's most likely doing something stupid right now!" she finally complained.
Rosella dropped her pleading expression and looked at her with mild confusion. "Why do you think that?"
"Because it's him!" GLaDOS replied with complete certainty.
"He already did two things right in a row, so now he has to be doing something stupid to balance the universal scale." She made a small gesture with her hand. "That's how he is. He takes one step forward and then two steps back."
Rosella didn't seem convinced by the explanation and simply put her pleading face back on.
GLaDOS did her best not to look at Rosella and resisted with all her will, but in the end she gave in. As much as she hated to admit it, she had grown somewhat fond of her as a research companion.
Reluctantly, she let the projection of the fight emerge from one of her hands.
Or at least that was what everyone expected to see.
Instead, the image showed something quite different.
Daniel, back in his human form, and the Balrog were standing facing each other, several meters apart, both upright and visibly wounded as they stared at each other.
Several seconds passed without either of them doing anything, just staring.
Until…
[Footloose begins to play ♫♪]
Daniel didn't waste any time and reacted immediately.
As soon as the music started, he began marking the rhythm with his shoulders and feet, doing a small march in place while synchronizing his steps with the beat.
[Music intensifies ♪♪]
The bass and drums increased in intensity, and Daniel, without taking his eyes off the Balrog, began a fairly elaborate footwork routine.
He stepped to the right, crossed his left foot behind his right, and then opened his right foot outward again before bringing the left foot in with a small tap.
He finished the movement with a spin and a clap, then repeated the exact same sequence to the other side.
The Balrog narrowed his eyes with each step Daniel made and, refusing to let his honor be tarnished, began to imitate the same steps.
He copied them perfectly.
[Been working so hard. I'm punching my card.♪]
Both of them faced each other in an intense dance battle, placing their hands on their hips as they began stomping against the floor, moving their hips and turning in place with surprising coordination.
[Eight hours, for what? Oh, tell me what I got.♫]
Increasing the tempo, they started a heel routine.
The leading foot struck the ground with the right heel, the legs came together again, then the movement switched to the left heel forward, ending with a light kick that closed the sequence before restarting the step.
[I've got this feeling. That time's just holding me down♪]
For a few moments everything seemed fairly even.
At least until several orcs joined the Balrog's side, backing him up in the dance and repeating the same steps with surprising enthusiasm.
"Son of a bitch…" Daniel muttered.
But before falling into despair, he managed to get some help.
Several machines, completely ignoring their original programming, joined his side to support him, moving to the rhythm of the music with unexpected dedication despite GLaDOS repeatedly sending orders for them to self-destruct immediately.
The machines, of course, ignored her.
They now obeyed a higher force… the power of dance!
[I'll hit the ceiling. Or else I'll tear up this town♫]
The dance battle continued to be surprisingly even.
Daniel and the machines were far more synchronized in their movements, executing every step with precision. But the Balrog and the orcs danced with more heart.
[So now I gotta cut loose. Footloose♪]
Little by little both groups began to separate into distinct styles.
The Balrog dominated a clearly cowboy-like style, with wide stomps and heavy movements that made the ground rumble.
Meanwhile Daniel and the machines created something completely different.
A style impossible to copy.
Daniel's joints and the robots' joints began to rotate as they danced, moving at impossible angles that looked quite impressive.
[Futterwacken: Allows the user to move their joints freely]
Arms spun, legs shifted direction, and the rhythm never stopped.
It was strange, but oddly hypnotizing.
[Kick off the Sunday shoes. Please, Louise♫]
Both groups kept dancing as they advanced, crossing past each other without colliding, simply exchanging dance zones while the music continued.
Just when it looked like they were about to start another routine…
GLaDOS abruptly cut the transmission.
"He is so fucking stupid…" she cursed with all her being.
—//—
Author's Note:
Some of you might be wondering: was the dance battle necessary? Well, I'd have to say yes, yes it was. It was either that or a Guitar Hero battle, and as you can see, the dance battle won in the end.
What follows is the end of the fight. It's also possible that it might be a bit gacha, so if you want to leave any suggestions, now is the time. I always read them all.
Anyway, I hope you liked it, or at least that you didn't dislike it too much… Leave a comment; that motivates me to write faster.
Hugs and kisses ❤️