"Green" Trailer

The "Green" Trailer is the first trailer, and unofficial premiere, of AREO: International Remnant Championship, following AREO's second member of Raydon Irving being unexpectedly visited by an old friend, before entering back into the shadows to confront an old enemy and destroy their leeching organization before it fully blossoms into the antithesis of the White Fang, forcing him and his old ally to engage in an extensive battle, and potentially sacrifice life and limb to come out victorious.

Plot
The fragmented moon of Remnant shines down upon the abandoned shipyard of northern Vale, a graveyard of airships and other aircraft destroyed in the cataclysmic event that was the Fall of Beacon Academy roughly only that of a couple months prior. Scrap metal and frameworks stripped bare of their salvageable metal form a concrete jungle of painful memory and tragedy, and in the dead center of the fenced-off shipyard rests a massive storage warehouse, and that of the former base of operations for the ships to be broken down, left abandoned and slowly decaying due to not being a priority for Vale’s inhabitants for some time now.

However, despite this factor, it seems this doesn’t exactly appear to be the complete case, because amongst the ambience of night, a thunderous racket stirs within the rusted walls of the warehouse, yet any passerby would simply assume it was the work of rambunctious vandals, that of trouble with no benefits or even purpose in bothering with. They were certainly not thieves, because there was nothing to gain from the shipyard’s metal ruins. They were simply hyperactive and explorative, potentially very young, and just looking for a late-night thrill.

...but why there, of all places?

This was the question asked by a peacefully-minded individual, dressed in a thick layer of dark clothing for such a cold Valean night as he was walking down the sidewalk outside of the specific location of intrigue, his wandering train of thought having been aggressively disturbed by the explosive ruckus he had stopped to hear again in case it was nothing more than his mind playing tricks on him at first.

Much to his annoyance upon being confirmed, they simply press on and pushes it to the back of his mind, but however, the further he steps away from the location, the more it seems to draw him closer, and the more it seems the ruckus grows louder and louder, completely curbing his attempts at remembering what he was previously thinking about.

“Quite the commotion, huh?”

Startled by what sounded like a soft female voice just a few feet behind him, the darkly-dressed figure whips their body around with such startlement in their movements that they quickly raise a hand to prevent the distinct, green-feathered fedora from flying off their head, yet as they search and adjust the lowered shades below their analyzing gaze, the owner of the voice seems to be missing from public eye.

“...who... who’s there?”

“Hm, so they were right about where you were.”

“I’m sorry? What are you talking about?”

“Raydon Irving.”

His green-eyed gaze widening in shock with the eventual realization of he was speaking to, the one surprised Raydon Irving, former student of the fallen Beacon Academy, slowly removes his unnecessary shades and places them in one of the many pockets of his signature pitch-black, silver-trimmed trench-coat, their intended purpose revealed to conceal the long scar branching off the corner of his left eye and stopping just shy of that side of his skull’s cheek-bone, as his dark eyes continue to search through the moonlit scenario to find the physical form of the woman whom he was speaking to.

“...I thought we were through. You said it yourself.”

“I changed my mind.”

“Of course, you did.”

With that, Raydon suddenly attempts to walk away from the mysterious woman, no longer interested in communicating with them anymore, but making only a couple steps before they hesitantly respond and freeze him in his tracks.

“''You know I’ve always considered you useful, Raydon... and that’s something I’ve only said to a few people.''”

“That’s because you think you’re so high and mighty.” Raydon responds with venom in his voice, grabbing at the end of his left sleeve and pulling it downwards in hopes of hiding something from whoever this was. “...but when they found and dragged me to you, defenseless and dying, all you did was step on me like a doormat. It wasn’t until I finally pushed you off of me when you realized I was worth your time.”

“''I... stepped on you? I saved your life!''”

“In the most PAINFUL way possible!”

“You’d prefer I’d do nothing and let you die?!”

Shuddering and clutching his sleeve tighter, Raydon bitterly sneers in response, his back still turned, as the sound of footsteps suddenly begin to approach him from behind. In a drastic response, he suddenly reaches into several of his trench-coat’s pockets, pulling out several large metallic components, and in just moments, turns out around he reveals his rapid assembly of his weapon, a slim Thompson submachine gun with a green-and-black color scheme, vertical foregrip, and a prominent drum magazine protruding from its underside, as he points straight at a tall figure cloaked in black garbs just a couple feet away from him.

“Walk the other way.”

“Don’t do anything rash, Raydon.”

“I’m sorry, are YOU telling ME to not do anything rash?!”

Suddenly pulling down the extended left sleeve of his trench-coat, Raydon angrily unveils what he had been hiding, the fact his right arm from the elbow down had been amputated, massive burn scars visible across the stump of his bicep, and replaced by an extremely-crude prosthetic limb of visible hydraulics and a basic hand at the end of only three metallic fingers, all firmly gripping his gun.

“That wasn’t you being RASH?!”

“Your arm was gangrenous.”

“IT WAS MY HAND!”

“There was no purpose in salvaging your limb if it was just going to start ROTTING TOO!”

“Yeah, some surgeon you are, lobbing off the problem with a sword and cauterizing it with Dust!”

“And when did you become so irrational?!”

“Gee, it’s because Remnant’s greatest doctor just came all the way to Vale to ask for me for a favor after she kicked me to the curb a couple months ago!”

“You WANTED to leave!”

“So, why is it now that I can’t be left ALONE?!”

“...because I now know there’s something out there you despise more… and you always say yourself… ‘I’m active’...”

With the deafening scream of sudden silence splitting through the air, Raydon's green-eyed gaze transfixed on the darkly-robed figure, their former ally rapidly breaks apart their weapon into disassembled components, clearly making the best out of their crude prosthetic arm’s limited dexterity, and pockets all of them.

“...you got my attention... give me a name.”

“Does ‘Captain Jelly Roger’ ring a bell?”

Raydon silently clenches the fist of his arm that was still flesh and bone in anger.

“Sure.”

Slowly lifting one of their arms and pivoting their body to the right, Raydon’s eyes follow the tip of their pointer finger, as they slowly aim it in the direction of the warehouse beyond the metal fences before them.

“Lucky you… he’s in town again.” “AHOY!”

A booming cry rips through the rundown warehouse, alerting the dozens upon dozens of grouped-together Faunus clad in tinted goggles and black masks that cover the lower-half of their faces, as they were all in the process of working on the untouched treasures of the shipyard, breaking down aircraft remains and harvesting their materials, although the crude tools they were given, ranging from ones more suitable for cavemen, to Dust-powered electric ones that typically malfunction and seize up, weren’t exactly the most quietest for a job intended to be kept under wraps, obviously the collective origin of the racket that could be heard a mile away from outside.

“LOOK ALIVE, YE SWABS!”

Emerging from the darkness of a upper-floor platform hanging overhead, an obese form hobbles out of the shadows and waves around a metallic, uniform-gray hook replacing their left hand.

“WHICH ONE O' YE BUSHY-TAILED SCALLYWAGS RECKON THEY GIVE OUT MEDALS FER SLACKIN'?!”

Met with a collective silence of shared uncertainty from the Faunus workers not really having an answer, the obese man jabs his hook into the air and continues in his heavy pirate-like accent.

“THEN PICK UP THE PACE, YE LAZY RASPCALLIONS, AFORE I START HANDIN' OUT SOMETHIN' THAT WON'T BE MEDALS!”

Retreating back into the shadows with a defined hobble courtesy of a crude metal pegleg in place of their left foot, the grumbling owner spins around a bright-red Fire Dust crystal between their fingers, comically using it to light a cigar, and shambles down a corridor to the opposite side of the warehouse, all while the timid form of a male Faunus, their legs covered in the scaly, dark-gray skin of a parrot and ending in sharp black talons opposed to toenails, emerges from the shadows to accompany the large man, their angular face partially covered by a dark-blue bandana wrapped around their head and ending in a pointed chin, and a macaw-feather-colored uniform of buckles and leather straps covering their lanky form.

“Ah, Smalt, I was wonderin' when ye would snap out o' yer wee la-la island, 'n return t' work! Tell me, how's the ship?” The pirate-accented man speaks, the glow of their lit cigar between their teeth illuminating their wide, pale face, their hair a mane of black curly hair, with reddish-purple eyes, a hooked nose, and a thin handlebar mustache that curls at the tips, as the parrot Faunus uneagerly stammers in response, “Captain Roger, well-!”

“CAPTAIN JELLY ROGER!”

“C-C-Captain Jelly Roger, yes-!”

“Argh, much better!”

“Captain Ro- J-JELLY Roger, well, the ship has been structurally finished... although a good portion of the exterior still needs to be welded on!” Smalt exclaims, having to slow down a bit as he hurriedly walks to allow his captain to keep up with him. “Perhaps… another week?”

“Another WEEK?! BLAST ANOTHER WEEK! Ye promised me it'd be done by YESTERDAY!”

“I- I- well- you see-!”

“Blimey, get out o' the way, worm-eater! Let me see meself!” Captain Jelly Roger exclaims, aggressively shoving aside his Faunus assistant and finally stepping out of the corridor into the opposite portion of the warehouse, mostly vacant if it wasn’t for one massive structure in the center, that of a conglomeration of metal gathered and collected from broken-down ships to form one massive makeshift ship of sorts, currently half-armored with metal plating and being both tended to and worked by a specific, distinct group of welding-masked Faunus. “Argh, she'll be a beauty once she's finally airborne!”

“Y-Yes, of course, Captain-!” Smalt attempts to positively remark, although with his organic hand, Captain Jelly Roger suddenly grabs the parrot Faunus by the collar and pulls him forth, wrangling him about and yelling so much the cigar goes flying out of his mouth, “Ye! Ye make that week THREE days tops instead, 'cause I know it's 'cause o' those lazy creatures wantin' t' keep thar sweet precious time! If they keep it up, ye 'ave full permission t' shoot 'em where they stand, UNDERSTOOD?!”

“Y-Y-Yes, Captain!”

“We be the BLACK BEARDS, are we NAH?!”

“Y-Y-Y-Y-YES-”

“SPIT IT OUT, SMALT, AFORE I PLUCK YE LIKE A CHICKEN!”

Before Smalt can properly respond, the sudden cacophony of shouting begins to erupt from the other side of the warehouse. Releasing his assistant and stomping out his dropped cigar with the black boot covering his only foot, Captain Jelly Roger hurries back down the corridor he had just come through, signaling Smalt to not follow, but to specifically go retrieve someone, as he gestures to the left to another part of the warehouse, and mouths the words: “Get the girls.”

“'WHA' IN BLAZES ARE YE LILY-LIVERED LANDLUBBERS DOIN' NOW?! YE'RE ANIMALS, BUT THIS AIN'T A ZOO!'” Captain Jelly Roger bellows with his return, although is shocked upon being greeted with the sight of a familiar intruder barraging through metal doors that were chained shut. A brutish Faunus, a guard opposed to a worker, attempts to fend them off with a metal mace, although the trench-coat-clad Raydon Irving bobs and weaves out of the way, managing to trick them into burying their weapon in a nearby wall to leave it stuck, before lighting them up with a rapid-fire flurry of bullets that shatters their Aura after only around a little over two dozen shots, leaving them to collapse in defeat.

Defenseless despite their tools, and terrified by their gun-wielding newcomer, many of the Faunus workers instinctively flee and attempt to protect them with sheets of scrap metal improvised as shields. One female Faunus with a dark, panther-like tail trips during her attempt to flee, as Raydon, gun in hand and currently reloading, slowly begins to approach her, and although she lets out a shriek of terror with the belief she was in harm’s way, she remains completely frozen for a few moments when Raydon instead holds out his hand to help her up.

“I’m not here for any of you...”

Raydon pulls up the quivering worker and allows her to flee with the others, as Raydon loudly cracks the knuckles of his organic hand and looks up at the flabbergasted Captain Jelly Roger, fully revealed in the light to be dressed in reddish-purple, black-highlighted pirate-like attire, with a shiny, reflective black lining, stark-white cuffs, and leather straps and metal buckles across his sleeves, comically getting a better look with a miniature telescope.

“...I’m here for him.”

“Well, speak o' the God o' Death... 'YE'RE STILL ALIVE?! I THOUGHT I TRAPPED YE CHAINSED T' A TREE, 'N LEFT YE T' THE GRIMM!'” An aghast Captain Jelly Roger yells in complete and utter bewilderment while flattening back down and pocketing his telescope, as Raydon finishes reloading, pulls back his left sleeve to confirm his escape from his past defeat was connected to the decay and eventual amputation of his arm, and speaks as he reveals his prosthetic limb, “You almost had me there, Roger, but I wouldn’t go down that easily… I may die one day, but it won’t be by your hand.”

“Argh, how poetic. Ye shall write a chantey.”

“I’m going to hurt you in the most painful way possible.”

“...so it may seem, matey.” Captain Jelly Roger responds to the extremely-blunt threat, scratching his chin almost jokingly, before pounding his metal hook against the metal railing of the overhead platform and roaring out in response, “'YE RECKON YE'RE BETTER THAN ME JUS' 'CAUSE THAT ALMIGHTY GOD O' LIGHT GAVE YE THAR SOME EXTRA EARS ON YER HEAD?! THE GODS CREATED HUMANITY, NAH YE BOTTOM-O'-THE-BARREL ABOMINATIONS O' DIVINITY!!'”

“...oh, so you somehow still think I’m just like them?” Raydon responds with a cocked eyebrow, gesturing towards the  nearest group of terrified Faunus workers around him, and after a brief pause, suddenly raises his prosthetic hand, grips the top of his fedora, and removes it to reveal the lack of his supposed trait, met with a responsive gasp from the others with the realization that he was not among their species, but a human. “I’m not like them… because they’re just like us… extra ears, tails, claws, or not, I don’t give a damn. We’re all the same inside.”

“'YE... YE'RE A HUMAN! YE DARE SIDE WIT' 'EM WHEN YE COULD BE RULIN' THE WORLD ALONGSIDE US REAL SCALLYWAGS! YE'RE A BOTTOM FEEDER, YE'RE A TRAITOR, YE BLITHERIN' BLOCKHEAD!!” Captain Jelly Roger furiously spits up a storm, waving his hook around before looking down at his workers and demanding, “SCUTTLE 'IM! SOMEBODY GRAB A WEAPON 'N SCUTTLE 'IM!!!'” although is met with outright refusal in response to his demands, as individual groups of his semi-fearful workers back off in denial.

“ARGH, SO THAT'S HOW IT MUST BE, YA BLISTERIN' BARNACLES?!” Captain Jelly Roger exclaims with a shaking fist and redness accumulating in his face, as he uses his only hand to quickly pull out a silver-highlighted flintlock, the shiny words of its name, “Sweet Tooth” visibly engraved into the side, from one of his pockets, and quickly take aim on a nearby clustered group of workers, who all yell out in horrified realization of what their captain was now suddenly doing. “'IF THAT BE THE CASE… CONSIDER YOURSELF ALL BARRED FROM THE BLACK BEARDS... 'N AS LIVIN' MORTALS!!!'”

Acting very quickly, Raydon suddenly springs into action and leaps forward, holding out his prosthetic and upon pressing a hidden metal button on his prosthetic limb’s wrist, ejecting out a makeshift bracer over his forearm that he fires out like a projectile, using ito make a miracle shot that manages to obstruct and block much of Sweet Tooth’s stream of ignited Fire Dust powder as soon as the aiming Captain Jelly Roger fires, blocking the shot and startling him. His fedora firmly back on his head, Raydon firmly grabs his weapon, Universal Exterminator, with both hands and unleashes a wave of fiery bullets, that pepper and spray through the metal railing of the upper-floor platform, sending chunks of red-hot shrapnel flying off with each shot.

Although the captain leaps backwards, scurrying to safety and sluggishly trying to reload Sweet Tooth, Raydon continues hysterical gunfire with the presumed intention to not at all stop until his cartridge has completely emptied, although his slowly-shifting line of fire revealed his aiming of particular spots: the lower-half of every single metal bar that connects the platform to the railing. Before the captain can even realize it, Jelly Roger leaps to his feet as soon as the clicking of the emptied SMG rings through the air, although each of the ruined, disconnected supports of the metal podium abruptly give way the moment he stands and attempts to aim, causing it to partially collapse and in just moments, for him to tumble into the ground below.

“'BLIMEY! MAN OVERBOARD!!!'”

“So they’re all fired, huh?! EVERYONE OUT BEFORE YOU GET HURT!” The Black Beard workers’ green-eyed vigilante savior calls out for them all to make their escape, and they all rapidly do so through the blown-open entrance of the warehouse, although Raydon’s distraction in recalling his thrown armguard through the Gravity Dust crystal stored within its underside, and making sure each escapee all make it out leave him vulnerable for a shot to his right shoulder, sending him staggering and for his vibrant-green Aura to flicker. His smoking Sweet Tooth in hand, an infuriated Captain Jelly Roger rises to his feet amongst the remains of the platform, and cracks the knuckles of his single hand, taunting Raydon, “TRAITORS LIKE YE DESERVE A ONE-WAY TRIP T' THE GALLOWS!!!”

“All hands weren’t on deck, hm?”

“That was a dirty trick ye pulled, but now we’re equal ground.”

Pouring a canister of Dust into Sweet Tooth to reload, Captain Jelly Roger pulls back the hammer of the flintlock with his thumb, and with this moment of pause, Raydon takes advantage of it by doing the same, although subtly sneers with the realization his ammo may be dwindling.

“I'll be sure that ye'll be spendin' the end o' time in Davy Jones' Locker.”

“...tell that to Tom.”

“...who?”

With a toothy grin across his foe’s face, Captain Jelly Roger realizes who he was referring to, and quickly leaps out of the way of Universal Exterminator’s gunfire, clusters of ice crystals left with each impact of specialized Ice Dust bullets. Using his strength to flip a metal table sideways as a barricade that Raydon attempts to forcefully blast through, leaving an accumulating layer of ice with each shot against it, Jelly Roger quickly scans the ground beneath him and kicks out a tool, that of a Dust-blade-lined angle grinder, that Raydon reflexively fires at for a second before realizing it was just a distraction. Gritting his teeth in frustration and digging into his pockets, Raydon pulls out one of his offensive rations in the form of a crude, Fire-Dust-loaded explosive, priming it with the press of a button and lobbing it forward, although Jelly Roger leaps out before the released explosion sends the table flying backwards and smashing into the nearest wall.

Briefly stunning Raydon with another shot of Sweet Tooth that whizzes past the side of his head and briefly deafens him, he quickly retaliates with another charge, although aims it downward at the ground and releases a flurry of Wind Dust bullets that launches him upwards into the air, as he flips the gun in his hand to hold it by the barrel and bash the captain over his head with it. Getting a few swings in, Jelly Roger eventually parries by catching it with his hook, and throws Raydon aside with his refusal to let go of Universal Exterminator, although he flips up to his feet and flings out a series of marble-shaped objects between his fingers, that of miniature Fire Dust explosives that collide with nearby ice crystals and erupt into a blinding smokescreen of steam.

“'BLIMEY! SHOW YOURSELF, BILGE-SUCKER!'”

His words chosen poorly, Raydon rushes through the smokescreen and bashes Captain Jelly Roger in the face with the side of his weapon, and parries a swipe of his hook with the gaps between the hydraulics of his mechanical arm, pulling him forward, before kicking him back and knocking him to the ground, his flintlock knocked free of his grip and sliding towards Raydon in the perfect position for him to raise his boot and casually crush the weapon under his boot. Jelly Roger attempts to stand, although a few Wind Dust bullets knocks him back down and causes his reddish-purple Aura to flicker from damage.

“Good form, old man.”

“'AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH! SHUT IT, FISH FOOD!'”

“That was your only trick, huh? It’s wood shavings now. Your move.”

“Very well, then... MR. IRVING…”

Suddenly reaching behind him and pulling out the handle of a large metal object previously hidden under the back of his coat, Captain Jelly Roger unveils the transforming form of a modified gatling gun, instead sporting the slowly-extending barrel of a miniature ship cannon. Using his Fire Dust crystal to light its long fuse, and standing with a wide stance, both hand and hook holding the heavy weapon, a shocked Raydon recoils, taken aback by the reveal of such a monstrous weapon, and quickly begins to dismantle Universal Exterminator, removing what was now an empty cartridge.

“BEHOLD: YER JUS' DESSERTS!”

Its fuse growing shorter and shorter by the second, Universal Exterminator now takes an alternate shape in the form of a weaponized pesticide sprayer, a new cartridge inserted into its underside, and Raydon attempts to change positions and get out of his way, although narrowly trips with the realization his boots were strangely stuck to the ground now. Captain Jelly Roger tilts his head back and heartily chortles with the sight of his foe’s clumsiness, although Raydon manages to quickly free him by pulling foot free of a boot, although the captain simply pivots his body to keep Just Desserts locked on him with the aid of a crude scope attached to the top.

“FIRE IN THE HOLE!!!”

The fuse fully burnt black by its ignition, a massive flaming cannonball, hollow but completely filled with Fire Dust, soars outwards from the cannon and narrowly passes by the wide-eyed Raydon, although flies past him without contact and smashes straight into the wall behind him, not only leaving a massive crater, but unleashing a metallic boom with the impact. A horrified Raydon lands against the ground upon having leaped to the side, reeling back from having just narrowly missing something that would have completely decapitated and killed him, all while Captain Jelly Roger drops Just Desserts sideways, its cannon pointed upwards, using his hook to slash off and remove its burnt fuse, and slowly rearms it with another of the few cannonballs stored on a heavy pouch atop his backside. With a new fuse planted in, Jelly Roger readies the countdown again, although a sudden explosion coats his left arm in ice, startling him.

“PLUNDERIN' RAT, I SHALL-” Captain Jelly Roger attempts to exclaim, although a metal fist soaring into his face cuts him off, as a furious Raydon barrages him with another flurry of swift punches, his attempt at slashing at him with his hook successful in leaving a cut across his cheek, although Raydon quickly catches it again between the gaps of his prosthetic arm, and after a few swings to his jaw and gut that sends him staggering, Raydon pulls out another makeshift explosive, although this one glowing with a familiar purple energy, and flings it straight at Jelly Roger, sending him backwards with the release of a detonated Gravity Dust crystal and slamming him into a metal table, sending tools flying outwards in several directions, as he lays semi-conscious and groaning in pain.

His Aura regenerating the cut across his face, a scowling Raydon uncharacteristically brushes him aside and slowly begins to walk away, realizing his attention had been shifted at the sight of the cannon’s impact site having fully destroyed what was left of the upper-floor platform and exposed a metal doorway. Casually kicking over the upright Just Desserts and pointing his pesticide sprayer downwards to fire out a pressurized blast of Wind Dust, Raydon propels himself into the air with just enough force for him to extend a hand out, catching the ledge of the doorway and pulling himself upwards to glimpse into the dark, unknowing but aware that something secret lays on the other side.

“Old man did talk about building a ship… I wonder if he was actually serious-”

The gleam of glowing teeth suddenly shine through the darkness, abruptly cutting him off, before a slithering, fanged construct of energy leaps outwards and sinks its jaws into Raydon’s waist, the slightest pressure still causing Raydon to scream in shock and terror, as the source of elongated jaws rips backwards like the line of a fishing hook having caught its prey. Suddenly soaring down the corridor at breakneck speeds, and being thrown to the ground when reaching the other side, Raydon groans in pain, although quickly shambles up to his feet, only to be met with the shocked eyes of Smalt just inches from his own.

“H-Hey, scurvy dog.”

“Wh-”

Abruptly cut off by a blast of flames coming his direction, Raydon swiftly leaps backwards and flings another makeshift explosive loaded with Ice Dust, freezing the flamethrower-like weapon of one of the specialized welding-mask Faunus welders, their tools equaling as their weapons with the simple addition of Wind Dust crystals at the tips to fire plumes of burning Smoke Dust. Although with the mere brief defeat of one, several other welders rush into attack, although Raydon quickly flings even more disposable explosives, one unleashing a paralyzing wave of Electric Dust that stuns one worker until they drop unconscious, one that sends a worker flying upwards and back into the ground with the release of fluctuating Gravity Dust, and another that releases Plant Dust, quickly creating a wall of vines that blocks their flames, before Raydon fires a stream of pressurized Wind Dust, blasting the created ash to coat the window of their mask, blinding and leaving them open for Raydon to sprint forward and clock them across the jaw.

However, with the rapid defeat of each of the remaining workers, Raydon suddenly halts with the solidification of Rock Dust around one of his legs, pinning him against the ground, as his bright-green eyes follow the smoking end of Smalt’s bayoneted musket, Landlubber, in hand, as he twirls his weapon, reloads it with a poured canister of Rock Dust powder, and threateningly points his weapon outwards, although his extreme lack of an imitation factor left him looking not as imposing as he seemed to be aware of.

“Y-You always have to put your nose where it doesn’t belong, hm?”

“Oh, now, that’s golden.”

“Y-You’re a hornswaggle, just like the rest of us.”

“I didn’t assemble a racist organization that’s only still standing on two legs because they’ve been siphoning from right under the White Fang’s nose, because I can’t face the music, that maybe my so-called ‘allies’ are a lot less experienced in thievery than I hoped for.”

“SHUT UP!” The parrot Faunus angrily yells, slamming the butt of his musket against the ground and abruptly pointing the tip of his bayonet in the direction of the half-finished airship before them, being worked on by what Faunus workers luckily chose to instead stay out of the fight. “W-We may be incompotent, but look how far it’s gotten us! G-Go ahead, rub it in that we aren’t as good as the famous ‘Mr. Irving’ and the Dust explosives that he creates in his garage and sells just so he can eat! L-Look what we did and you DIDN’T!”

“...that?”

“Wh- What do you mean that? LOOK AT IT!”

“That looks like a piece of junk.”

“WH-?!”

“You spent months stealing Dust, just to build this thing out of recycled aircraft parts from the shipyard?! IS THAT WHY YOU SET UP YOUR BASE OF OPERATIONS RIGHT HERE IN THE WAREHOUSE: TO SAVE RESOURCES IN THE WORST WAY POSSIBLE?! YOU’RE NOT JUST INCOMPOTENT, YOU’RE ACTUAL IDIOTS!!!”

His expression contorting in anger, Smalt lifts his weapon and charges forward with the intent to stab Raydon with the bayonet, although with a quick stomp of his remaining boot, Raydon tears free of his rocky restraints and parries his charge with a jab of his prosthetic arm to his chest, loosening his grip on his bayonet. Firing outwards a burning stream of Fire Dust powder from Universal Exterminator that Smalt stumbles backwards to avoid being burned, Smalt attempts to fire another shot, although Raydon quickly unleashes another gaseous stream, this time of dark-purple Gravity Dust powder, forming an attractive force that yanks Smalt forward and through the flames, and directly in the range of a Hard-Light Dust bayonet-like blade extending from under Universal Exterminator’s nozzle.

With a powerful underhead swing of his weapon, Raydon uses the bladed construct to almost completely shatter Smalt’s weapon, both breaking off the crudely-attached bayonet at the end and scratching its wooden structure. Bringing his arms back down with another swing, Raydon uses his weight to smash Smalt over the hand and send him slamming into the ground in a heap alongside the partially-divided halves of his musket, his futile attempt to try and get back up both interrupted by Raydon’s foot suddenly now on his chest, and the Hard-Light Dust blade of Universal Exterminator just inches from his chin.

“Y’know, I get the pirate theme… but I don’t think weapons made out of WOOD is a good idea.”

“G-Get off, rat!”

“Oh, yeah? Make me.”

“Unwise words.” Smalt responds with a scheming smile, as the familiar construct of fanged energy suddenly ensnares Raydon by the leg and whips him around for a bit, before throwing him aside. Taking a moment to recover, and letting Smalt lurk off to the shadows, two massive figures emerge to now take the place of the captain’s assistant, revealing themselves as a pair of female aquatic Faunus, and higher-ranking members of the Black Beards, the one on the left having dark-teal-blue fins, with seafoam-green membrane, protruding from their forearms, and the one on the right instead having dark-green fins, with pale-blue membrane, protruding from their calves. Both towering in height and covered in dark, coarse skin resembling fish scales and defined musculature, their scanty outfits consist of seashell bikinis, pearl jewelry that include matching necklaces and bracelets, garments woven with pale-teal-blue patterns of imbued Ice Dust, and stylized masks with additional stark-white patterns resembling toothy maws.

“Scilla… and Charna… the Odysseus twins... it’s been a while...” A gasping Raydon responds, stiffly cracking the knuckles of his hands, as the duo wordlessly and simultaneously both scowl and unsheath their near-identical weapons, each a silver-hilted scimitar with Scilla’s blade imbued with dark-brown Rock Dust, and Charna’s blade imbued with dark-blue Water Dust, respectively named Sinkhole and Whirlpool. With an exasperated sigh, the crack of his neck, and the gradual transformation of Universal Exterminator, as Raydon assembles into its final form of a modified, landmine-loaded grenade launcher, and readies himself for the encore. “Aaarrrggghhh…”

Reawakening from having been knocked nearly unconscious, Captain Jelly Roger rubs the side of his head with the back of his hook, slowly pushing himself up to his feet and stumbling for a moment in an attempt to gradually regain his composure.

“...me achin' head…”

Finally able to see straight again, Captain Jelly Roger grumbles as he lifts back up his weapon of Just Desserts, having been distastefully knocked over prior, and checks it for any external damage it may have received during in the time he was incapacitated.

“...argh, hope the twins hold up…”

Unaware of a lingering smoke cloud in the air concealing the form of a fluttering bird flying through the massive hole created by his cannon’s first shot, Jelly Roger lifts back up his weapon and readies to head after his foe, although the sound of a soft cawing startles him, as his eyes immediately begin to rapidly glance throughout the storage warehouse’s interior, soon widening upon catching the sight of a black feather drifting about the air.

“...shiver me TIMBERS!”

The sounds of an unsheathing blade causing the obese form of Captain Jelly Roger to swing around, a familiar dark-red blade of the sword of a rushing cloaked figure attempts to cleave straight into him, although with all his strength, Jelly Roger lifts his weapon upwards and improvises it as a shield that deflects the attack, although pushes him back a few feet, a noticeable streak of scorched metal left from the blade’s impact. Now standing before him, and dropping her cloak, the haunting, black-and-red form of the leader of the Anima’s bandit group, the Branwan Tribe, finally reveals herself, masked but in the flesh.

“...Raven Branwen!”

“I’m here for what you’ve stolen.”

“Oh, wee ol' me? Don't be three sheets t' the wind, lass.”

Raven wordlessly responds by tightly clutching the hilt of her multi-Dust-bladed katana, Omen, and positioning herself to charge and attack again.

“Your next warning will be the relief of another one of your extremities.”

“Argh, they always 'ave be the biggest bootlicker t' the animals among us all, garr?”

“Three seconds.”

“Oh, don't ye worry, lassie! Ye wants yer Dust?”

Captain Jelly Roger suddenly aims Just Desserts forth and towards the Branwen Tribe leader, left completely unphased by her drastic threats, and revealing that although the strike of the Fire-Dust-imbued blade of Omen had severely damaged the side of the weapon’s metal plating, the slash had also ignited its new fuse, and Jelly Roger had been stalling for it to fully burn.

“I've got it right here fer ye... FIRE!”

With a powerful boom, Just Desserts unleashes a freezing cannonball filled with Ice Dust, although Raven stands her ground and with a powerful overhead swing of Omen with all her strength put into both the downward motion of her shoulders and her grip, Raven bisects the cannonball almost perfectly down the middle, the Fire Dust of her blade totally incinerating the released powder inside into steam before it even touched herself, and the petrified metal fragments of each half flying in different directions with such force one impacted with the side of a table and completely crushed it.

“Impressive… I almost flinched.” Raven responds, Omen’s dark-red blade noticeably chipped, although not completely damaged from the slash. Despite the total failure of his singular shot, Captain Jelly Roger somehow still stands tall, with a scheming smile plastered across his face, and annoyed beyond belief by his arrogance, Raven sheathes her damaged blade into the mechanical rotary chamber of Omen’s hilt, filled with multiple, Dust-imbued blades, and telescopically unsheathes a dark-yellow blade imbued with Electric Dust instead. “Will you?”

“Argh, ye know... I've always been weakest when it came t' close combat…”

Unsure what Jelly Roger is speaking off, Raven bends her knees and attempts to charge forth, although suddenly staggers, finding herself strangely anchored to the ground by the soles of both of her feet, all while the captain lays down his weapon upright again and begins to reload.

“...but now, they don't 'ave t' come t' me…”

Through her modified White Fang mask, Raven glances down, discovering the radius of “bubbling” reddish-purple energy engulfing the ground and surrounding her feet, audibly hissing like steaming water the temporary moment it appears. A devious chuckle escaping Captain Jelly Roger’s lips, the Branwen Tribe leader quickly looks upwards to discover the same glow of energy was radiating from the irises of Jelly Roger himself, shimmering through the darkness around him.

“...'cause they get cold feet… savvy?”

“...you unlocked your Semblance.” Desperately diving and leaping through the dirt-and-metal-filled landscape of the opposite side of the warehouse, Raydon hurdles through the attacks of the Odysseus twins, the combined efforts of their respective weapons creating mudpits that repeatedly attempt to ensnare and trap the green-eyed intruder. Flinging out another Gravity Dust explosive that attempts to blow back one of the twins, Scilla simply thrusts out her arms, summoning a trio of energy constructs in the shape of fanged, serpentine-like tendrils from the front of her torso, to reveal they not only originated from her, but were manifestations of her own Semblance, Aura Gullets.

“G-GET THE SHIP IN THE AIR! NOW! L-LOAD UP WHAT WE CAN, AND LET’S GET OUT OF HERE, SCURVY DOGS!!!” Smalt commands the remaining workers, avoiding the battle and quickly heading up an extending metal ramp to enter its deck. Arming themselves with crowbars instead and proceeding to bust open multiple cargo crates, previously hidden under tarps, to unleash the Dust crystals and supplies inside, the workers exchange their crowbars with shovels and begin bringing their fuel inside the ship to power it as fast as they can, all while Raydon uses the strongest form of Universal Exterminator to unleash havoc upon the two Faunus sisters, firing a multitude of elemental landmines that stick to the ground thanks to their adhesive undersides, before flinging a simple explosive to suddenly detonate them at once, releasing multicolored eruptions of Fire, Electric, Plant, and Hard-Light Dust all at once, although the superior Aura strength and vast agility of the twins leave quick enough to evade.

Starting to especially run low on ammo and explosives by now, Raydon begins to panic, breaking a sweat in an attempt to try and figure out his remaining options as fast as possible, as not only was he losing offense, but mobility too, as only a combination of sheer luck and quick thinking left him able to avoid the slow, yet powerful chomps of the energy constructs of Scilla’s Semblance, and even then, his Aura could be on the verge of breaking at this very moment. Realizing these showing weaknesses, the twins unexpectedly separate, with Scilla using two of her Aura Gullets to slingshot herself onto the deck of the airship, and Charna staying behind to get closer to Raydon, unleashing the cyclonic power of Whirlpool to block an Ice Dust explosive thrown her way, thus leaving a petrified statue of swirled ice, and forcing Raydon to duck and avoid a punch thrown his way, running forward and sliding between Charna’s legs to get behind her and fire a Fire Dust landmine straight onto her backside, before ejecting out his prosthetic limb’s armguard to strike its trigger and detonate it, sending the two flying in opposite directions.

“That was the last of my Fire... I’m out of Wind, and I hardly had any Hard-Light to begin with… I still have a few good Dust bullets left, but if their Auras are strong enough to withstand my landmines, then I doubt they’ll do much… I’m down to just a few key explosives, and I have to make them count... or I’m DEAD!” An increasingly-exhausted Raydon mutters to himself, vocalizing what he was currently thinking, as he slowly rises back up to his feet yet again, and stares intently through the cloud of smoke before him, hoping to see the collapsed, defeated form of Charna once it clears, although she instead crushes his hopes by pridefully strutting through the smoke, her skin left splattered in ash and soot, yet entirely unharmed with hardly even a scratch thanks to the defensive capabilities of her Semblance, Aura Muscles.

Charna’s Aura noticeably “hardened” and “constricted” around parts of her body, detailed with a surface resembling sinewy muscle tissue, the simple flexing of her arms intensifies the effects, bulking up her body further. With an empowered burst of speed, Charna rushes towards Raydon in a beast-like stance, although quickly thinking, Raydon grabs and pulls out one of his last resorts, a hammer-shaped Tornado Grenade, a special Atlesian explosive opposed to his exclusively-makeshift ones, and with one fell swoop, aggressively slams the explosive into the ground before him with all his force, again sending the duo flying opposite directions of one another, although Raydon pushes every bit of strength still in him to catch himself when he falls, catching himself with one arm, flipping backwards, and stumbling backwards up to his feet with visible disorientation.

As Charna lays several feet away and presumably defeated against a broken mass of wooden cargo crates, her emerald-green Aura weakly flickering, and her muscles slowly shrinking back down, Raydon rearms himself with his dropped Universal Exterminator, reloading it with what very little he has left, and suddenly hearing a mechanical grinding emitting from his prosthetic limb. Glancing over towards it, dread fills him with the realization that him catching himself had put all his body’s weight onto his prosthetic arm and partially broken it, a few hydraulics visibly cracked. The flexibility of his fingers still mostly functional, Raydon calms himself down from fully panicking now, although suddenly yelps upon being startled by a massive portion of the ceiling being ripped and burst apart by Scilla’s Aura Gullets, as she was creating an escape route from the structurally-unfinished, but primed aircraft, Smalt behind its metal ship wheel.

“W-WE’RE READY!! SCILLA, GO GET THE CAPTAIN!!” Smalt desperately cries out with the dwindling of time on their side, as the Odysseus twin does so, leaping off the side of the ship, but freezing in visible shock at the sight of her defeated sister, and Raydon, clearly not holding up anymore, standing near her. Clutching the hilt of Sinkhole in temptation to potentially finish her off, Scilla lets out a half-audible “Hmph.” of refusal, not towards Smalt, but against him, and extending out an Aura Gullet tendril from the side of her waist, carelessly smacks Raydon aside, but before she can do anything else, an ear-splitting explosion deafens her before the eruption of Gravity Dust violently tears through the separating wall of the warehouse’s two halves, the massive hole it had just created slowly being occupied by the approaching, battered, bleeding form of Captain Jelly Roger, his clothing ripped to ribbons and covered in electrical burns, all while he was still just barely wielding a damaged Just Desserts. “CAPTAIN-!!!”

“'PIPE DOWN, YE BANSHEE! WE 'AVE ANOTHER RAT T' DEAL WIT'!!'” A gasping Captain Jelly Roger croaks out in response, his bloodshot gaze quickly locking onto a familiar black blur soaring through the air and disappearing just behind the side of the makeshift ship, Raven quickly making her unexpected entrance onto the airship. With an audible snarl and the stomp of his pegleg, a recovering Raydon suddenly staggers with the discovery his feet had become stuck to the ground again due to the effects of Jelly Roger’s Semblance, Sticky Situation, signified by the glowing of his eyes as he reloads Just Desserts with another cannonball, plants in a new fuse, and readies to reignite it again with his Fire Dust crystal, only for the incendiary shard to be shot out of his grip from a single bullet fired out of Raydon’s Universal Exterminator, having been reassembled back into its SMG form despite the damage to his prosthetic arm limiting the flexibility of his fingers and overall dexterity. “BLAST IT!!”

Yanking his other foot out of his remaining boot, Raydon waits for the perfect moment for the captain’s disrupted concentration in maintaining his ambient Semblance for its adhesive effects on the ground to vanish, granting Raydon the freedom in quickly reeling back his leg and kicking the footwear straight into Jelly Roger’s face, sending him staggering backwards, and being left victim for a devastating hook from Raydon’s mechanical left arm, the force of such a punch audibly cracking its hydraulics further and breaking off one of its three fingers. Although the sudden lurch and jab right to the captain’s cheek-bone was enough to knock him back down, his Aura shimmering from the damage of the impact, Raydon winces and watches shattered fragments of his partially-ruptured prosthetic limb fall to the ground beside him.

“...can’t… stop now...!” Slash after slash, Raven disables the blowtorch weapons of each of the remaining workers, thrusting them backwards with wide swings of her Wind-Dust-imbued blade. Her final opponent seemingly that of a rearmed, dual-crowbar-wielding Smalt, the Branwen Tribe leader sheathes Omen and swaps blades, telescopically extending out a bright-green katana blade and slashing at the ground to unleash a wave of plant vines that the parrot Faunus leaps out of the way to avoid, swinging and using the hooked edge of one crowbar to catch the edge of her sword. The two trading and parrying slashes, Omen’s sheer strength overpowers and breaks one of the crowbar, stunning Smalt for long enough for Raven to land a powerful underhand swing that knocks him backwards and breaks his other weapon, although catching sight of a crate of Dust crystals that a worker had spilled in their panicked attempt to load up for their escape.

As Raven again switches Omen’s blade through its mechanical scabbard, she narrowly leaps and ducks out of the way of an exploding Fire Dust crystal thrown her way. Resorting to using the Black Beards’ pillaged loot for offense now, Smalt continues to grab several of the largest crystals and lob them as projectiles, although Raven successfully manages to unsheath her Gravity-Dust-imbued blade, slashing the open air to send several oncoming Dust crystals instead flying backwards, one right onto the backpack-like fuel tank of a discarded blowtorch weapon, creating an explosion that sent ducking for cover, although Raven anchors herself through stabbing her blade into the air, leaving her to only be pushed backwards just a few feet. A disorientated Smalt, still standing however, strips a defeated Faunus worker of his weapon and loads it with the powder canisters at his arsenal, arming himself again.

“THAT DUST BELONGS TO THE BRANWEN TRIBE!”

“C-CRY ME A RIVER, BR-BRANWEN!!!”

Strapping a welding mask over his face, Smalt unleashes a stream of pressurized Water Dust powder from his weapon, although a furious Raven effortlessly deflects the beam with a slash of Omen, before charging forward and striking the ground to propel herself into the air with a burst of gravitational energy. Rolling out of the way of her attempted overhead swing, and attempting to shower her with a stream of flames, Raven deflects the flames upward with an underhand slash, before slamming Omen’s blade into the ground with her strength, creating a gravitational shockwave that rips through the airship’s metal deck, the sheer of such leaving a shocked Smalt to futilely try and dodge the blast, although was still sent flying backwards, leaving him in the direct line of sight of an arriving Raydon, having launched himself into the air with a Wind Dust landmine that he blocked any damage by focusing his Aura most strongly into his legs.

Squeezing a secondary trigger of his landmine launcher, Universal Exterminator generates a Hard-Light Dust construct at the end similar to the SMG’s bayonet, although in case, in the form of a roaring sawblade. Although Smalt attempts to try and get out of the way, Raydon descends faster than he can move, leaving him prone to his massive overhead slash, tearing completely through his blowtorch-flamethrower hybrid’s fuel tank, his last offense, and severing the end of his weapon with another overhead slash, triggering the Dust powder stored inside and releasing an explosion that sends Smalt flying backwards and off of the airship, his welding mask and midnight-blue-colored Aura both shattering on impact with the ground below. Meanwhile, coughing and sputtering from smoke inhalation, Raydon staggers slightly, his severely-damaged prosthetic having been used to shield his face and chest from the ensuing explosion, although by now, the mechanical limb had been entirely ruined, and reduced to a crumbling stump. Awakening from unconsciousness again, and slowly getting back up to his feet, Captain Jelly Roger grumbles, wiping blood from a cut across his forehead, and cracks his jaw back into place, his face clearly bruised from the punch. Glancing over towards the defeated form of Charna Odysseus in the distance, although her recovery was visibly impending, as she was dizzily swaying her head around to try and wake herself, and her similarly-knocked-unconscious sister was coming to her aid, Jelly Roger glances over at his fallen cannon weapon and pulling out one of his last cannonballs, rips out its burnt fuse and begins to load it once more. “...I could have really used your help earlier if you were so willing to get involved too.”

“I did consider that the offer I gave you to recover our Dust was a bit more you could chew… was I correct?”

The scowling Raydon responds by lifting up the fragmented remains of his prosthetic arm towards her, chunks of metal falling to the ground as he does so.

“I’ll make you a new one.”

“You’re not an engineer.”

“''I’ll FIND someone who can make you a new one. Help me get this ship in the air. We’re taking back what they stole from-''”

Suddenly cutting herself off with a flurry of energized appendages leaping upward from the side of the primed airship, the chomping jaws of Aura Gullets bite down onto the edge of the deck, allowing both Scilla, and her weakened sister wrapped around her arm, to slingshot themselves back onto the deck and face off against their opponents. Quickly aiming Universal Exterminator upward one-handedly, Charna activates her Semblance, bulking up the muscles of her legs and stomping one of her feet into the ground to create a powerful shockwave that launches Raydon backwards, disarming him, as his weapon slides from his grip and off the edge of the aircraft, much to his dismay as he attempts to catch it.

“Raydon, steer the ship-!”

“FIRE!!”

With another deafening boom, and a powerful force that rips a hole straight through the unarmored back-end of the ship, the quartet still on board stagger and yell out in terror, discovering that a Wind-Dust-filled cannonball from Just Desserts had blown a hole straight through the airship, narrowly missing its engine although destroying its backside’s thrusters almost entirely, all the work of a vindictive Captain Jelly Roger, who was already in the process of reloading his cannon.

“IF YE WISH T' BECOME CAP'N, THEN YE MUST BE PREPARED T' DIE WIT' YER SHIP!!!”

“STEER THE SHIP UPWARD, RAYDON!!!” A determined Raven yells out, quickly replacing her Gravity Dust blade in favor its Ice Dust counterpart, and vertically slashes downward to create a barrier of ice that separates her two opponents, as Charna leaps into the air with her enhanced muscles, and Scilla’s conjured blasts of rock and stone with Sinkhole are swiftly deflected by Omen. Jumping backwards and avoiding Charna’s powerful stomp, the bulked Odysseus twin shifts her Aura Muscles into her chest and shoulders, enhancing the strength of Whirlpool’s slashes, although Raven manages to freeze the blast and swing it back at Charna, stunning her, and leaving her prone to a quick succession of slashes that finally shatters her Aura and deactivates her strength enhancement.

Quickly impaling the ground with the end of Omen, and partially trapping Charna’s immobilized body, Raven swiftly shifts her attention back towards the other Odysseus twin, in the process of launching her Aura Gullet tendrils back outwards to attack, although Raven manages to catch one by the jaws with the edge of Omen, attempting to flash-freeze it, although with much struggle between the two sides, the already-damaged blade gives away, and shatters into an explosion of fragments. However, Scilla’s attempt to attack again while Raven is unarmed becomes suddenly interrupted by a one-armed, frantically-scrambled Raydon grabbing hold of the aircraft’s old-fashioned steering wheel, pulling it towards him like the yoke of a plane to begin elevating its front-side upwards into the air, thus causing the pull of gravity to disorientate the duel, and prompting Scilla to instead go for Raydon, launching out an Aura Gullet towards his backside in an attempt to grab and pull him away.

Quickly switching her ruined blade in favor of Omen’s Plant-Dust-imbued blade, and keeping it sheathed to suddenly send it flying outwards due to a firing mechanism within her scabbard, Omen impales into the side of Scilla’s Aura Gullet, and unleashes a wave of plant vines that begins to rapidly ensnare her and her punctured Aura. Falling to her knees from her joints becoming entangled, Raven quickly rearms herself, again switches Omen’s elemental blade to its stark-white Wind Dust counterpart, and with a heavy swing, effortlessly shatters Scilla’s diminished, azure-blue Aura with a pressurized wave of air that sends her flying off the side of the aircraft, and back to the ground below alongside the similarly-defeated Smalt. Seemingly victorious, any attempt at an early victory was crushed with an explosion of ice, from Charna having regained just enough strength to rip herself free of her restraints, her Aura still broken.

“''UP, RAYDON! STEER UP! WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF THE WAREHOUSE!!''”

Charna makes a sudden mad rush in the direction of Raven, although her gaze was instead focused over her shoulders. With the quick realization she was not heading for her, Raven attempts to halt her charging opponent with a slash of Omen’s Wind Dust blade, although Charna instead catches the slash with the top of her forearm, not losing her momentum and thrusting past the Branwen Tribe leader at the cost of being left a deep laceration across her limb. Although attempting to call out in time, Raydon's focus in getting out of the warehouse left him completely vulnerable, as the Odysseus twin reels back her arm, Gravity Dust crystal in hand, and with everything she has left, violently punches Raydon in the gut, the crystal shattering and creating a dazzling explosion of gravitational energy.

Almost in slow motion, Raydon soars backwards from the force of the explosion, amongst loot and unconscious workers kicked up from the force of the explosion, the threshold of his Aura finally breached as it instantly shatters...

...the mechanical chamber of her scabbard whirring as it spins, Raven swiftly unsheathes Omen’s Gravity-Dust-imbued blade, and makes a vertical slash in an attempt to make a gravitational pull to yank Raydon back towards her…

...but the distance between her and Raydon is too much, and the latter begins plummeting off the side of the airship, futilely trying to latch onto a non-existent ledge to stop himself with his only arm, his eye catching the glimpse of the signature black-and-green of his Universal Exterminator in the distance...

...upon smashing into the ground, Raydon makes a quick dive for his weapon to rearm himself, although suddenly discovers that…

...crackling, boiling energy was pinning his hand and knees to the ground...

“Ahoy thar, envy eyes.”

Raydon's panicked eyes darting upwards, the fizzling of a burning fuse lights through his tunnel vision, and realization hits him like a brick.

“FIREEEEEEE!!!”

The buzzing of Just Desserts’ electrified cannonball filling the air, a black-and-red portal suddenly fissures through the open air, the Gravity Dust blade of Omen spontaneously thrusting outwards in an attempt to cleanly bisect the cannonball…

...but Raven’s miscalculation causes it to instead whizz straight over her shoulder...

...and right towards the trapped Raydon behind her. Just moments later, a fedora, amongst blood splatter, flies through the air.

The green-eyed vigilante slams onto his back from the force of the impact, erupting into a gargling cacophony of agonized screams. Unable to grab at the crimson pulp once a nose and jawbone, and vomiting up fluid to free up his flooding airways, Raydon attempts to weakly crawl away, although Captain Jelly Roger’s Semblance persists in keeping him trapped. A stunned Raven, her weapon’s blade shattered yet again and its hilt knocked out of reach, becomes suddenly knocked to the ground with a thrust of the side of the smoking Just Desserts to her face, partially shattering her stylized mask, as the captain’s cackling fills the air amongst Raydon’s garbled screams.

“'WELL, WOULD YE LOOK AT THAT? I HIT 'IM, DEAD 'N CENTER!!!'”

Tossing aside what was clearly damaged beyond the point of further use, the unarmed Captain Jelly Roger, unbothered and unaffected by his own Semblance, happily lumbers over the glowing dirt and approaches the fallen Raydon, spitting up his own broken teeth and shards of his own destroyed jaw from the gaping crevice of his mouth where the cannonball had hit him, and desperately attempting to inhale and exhale through his broken nose, what was left his face horribly wounded and disfigured with the downpour of dripping blood and minor electrical burns scattered around his bloodshot eyes, as the captain looms over him with a yellow-stained smile completely plastered across his maniacal face.

“I knew I'd scuttle ye this time.”

Captain Jelly Roger relights a new cigar with his trusty Fire Dust crystal, flicking away the latter.

“I can tell ye're in a whole new world o' pain.”

Raydon’s attempt at a response only comes out as a gurgled spurt of blood from his nose.

“...that's alright, I had me fun, so I'll make this quick.”

Searching for the nearest weapon to deal the finishing blow, Jelly Roger chuckles as he chooses to arm himself with Raydon’s own Universal Exterminator, its Hard-Light buzzsaw still at the end, as Raydon’s blood-filled eyes tremble in terror.

“Scratch that. I be still a tad bored.”

Ripping apart one of her sleeves to pull an arm free from Captain Jelly Roger’s Semblance, Raven stares through the massive hole in the left side of her mask, breathing heavily, as Jelly Roger raises the weapon over his head for a fatal overhead swing.

“Any last words?”

A croaking gasp escaping his destroyed lips, Raydon weakly attempts to struggle, although his attempts to escape his fate were futile. With a wild grin, cigar clenched between his teeth, the captain violently brings the weapon downwards, aimed straight for Raydon’s bloodied cranium, although as everything seems lost, Jelly Roger’s cry of victory turns into one of anguish, as Universal Exterminator tumbles from his hands amongst a burst of flames and his severed hook. Clutching the singed end of his amputated limb, a recovering Raven stands tall several feet behind him, his Semblance finally deactivates and returns the properties of the ground back to normal, freeing Raydon, as his bloodied fingers lock around the discarded Fire Dust crystal he was reaching out to grab.

“Your victory was always out of reach, Roger…”

A gleam of bright-red flame glows from within the gaping hole of her broken White Fang mask.

“...I promised to make sure of it.”

“YOU STILL CHOOSE YOURSELF OVER THIS RAT?!?”

With his only hand, an enraged Captain Jelly Roger grabs hold of the hilt of Omen, although its Gravity Dust blade had been reduced to a broken stub of shrapnel, and attempts to charge at Raven in a blind rage, although a freezing blast of wind discharged from a few of her fingers suddenly coats his legs from the knee down in a layer of ice, trapping him where he stands.

“WHO DO YE TAKE 'IM FER?!?”

Raven’s red eyes shining through her broken mask, she watches the wounded Raydon, fueled by a combination of adrenaline and the energy of his Aura he desperately clings onto, as he holds out his only hand, tightly clutching the Dust crystal in his hands, as despite his shattered Aura, fiery bands of energy course up and down his forearm, and surge into his hands, the very crystal he was holding the source of the energy. Despite his twisted ankles, Raydon pushes himself forward with everything he has, and reels his only arm back, Jelly Roger hearing his leap and turning around to aim his bloodshot gaze of shock towards him.

“Your reckoning.”

With a gurgling cry of desperation, rage, and everything stored and pent-up inside of Raydon, the green-eyed vigilante punches the captain across the face, shattering the crystal and releasing an almighty torrent of flames, its output beyond the size of the crystal, that completely engulfs Captain Jelly Roger despite his desperate attempts to reactivate Sticky Situation to stop him. Omen knocked out of his hands, and caught in mid-air by Raven, Raydon unleashes his built-up momentum and the sheer strength of whatever he had just unleashed to aim the wave of flames upwards, focusing them all at a beam that penetrates straight through the underside of the aircraft above.

His skin being scorched by the flames, and blinded in one eye, Captain Jelly Roger lets out a hearty laugh, although one of anguish and terror opposed to joy, as the aircraft’s engines are ripped through, detonating in a dazzling lightshow of discharged Dust energy that splits the ship completely down the middle, whoever still onboard, including Charna and her attempt to pilot, sent flying off like ragdolls. The damage done, Raydon continues to drive further with his punch, his sleeve being rapidly reduced to ash, and his hair catching ablaze, and finally sends the captain soaring backwards with the release of his punch, although an intense blast from the Water-Dust-imbued blade of Omen to Jelly Roger’s backside interrupts his momentum, leaving him to simply tumble to the ground nearby…

...right under one of the plummeting halves of the obliterated aircraft...

“BLASTTTTTTTTT!!!!!”

A gust of wind pulling Raydon to safety, and extinguishing the fire clinging to his body in the process, Raven swiftly catches her ally with one arm, and pulls both herself and him into the grasp of safety. The force of the exploding aircraft pushing the endurance of her dark-red Aura to its absolute limits, a fast-thinking Raven reels her other arm back and using Omen, activates her Semblance, Kindred Link, to tear open the air, slashing it open with her blade, and create a horizontally-opened portal of swirling, black-and-red energy, that she she immediately leaps through to escape alongside Raydon, the two of them entering a wormhole-like vortex of the same-colored energy, with debris, ranging from smoldering chunks of the exploding ship, broken tools, and unharmed Dust crystals scattered about, hot on her trail. In a quiet campsite within the outskirts of Anima, the Kingdom of Mistral’s continent, a tanned woman, with short brown hair, icy-blue eyes, and asymmetrical clothing, sits upon a tree stump under the shade of a tent, and the orange glow of sunrise, sharpening the curved blades of her pistol-like weapons. Nicknamed “Vernal” as her true name was not known, even by most of the tribe’s inhabitants, and perhaps only by Raven herself, she becomes suddenly alerted to the nearby dual-colored glow of the tribe’s leader’s Semblance. A massive Kindred Link portal forming right in the middle of the camp, Vernal leaps to her feet and rapidly approaches it, bewildered by the sheer size of a portal.

After a few prolonged moments, the echo of an explosion all the way across Remnant sends her staggering backwards, dazed and confused, as the blurring forms of Raven and Raydon both suddenly leap outwards through the massive portal, rolling to the ground and quickly ducking for cover from everything else that had flown through the portal. Chunks of fiery wreckage, and the rainfall of somehow-preserved Dust crystals falling to the ground, the unconscious forms of the Odysseus twins miraculously manage to the other side, falling into two separate heaps, before Raven’s broken Aura abruptly deactivates Kindred Link, instantly sealing the portal right as her broken mask, having been blown off in the explosion, soars through the air and lands to the feet of a recoiling Vernal.

They made it to safety.

With commotion erupting through the entire campsite, and tribe members quickly emerging from their tents to face the wreckage, the unmasked Raven uses the cracked Water-Dust-imbued blade of Omen as support, to shakily push herself up to her feet, her arm still wrapped around her unconscious ally and pulling him up in the process, and slowly faces the individual her Semblance of bond-based portals had used as a destination: Vernal.

“...he got… our Dust back...”

“Is that… Raydon? Is he okay?!”

"...active."

Raven weakly smiles in response, before her arm unwraps from around Raydon’s waist, and she collapses back onto the ground, slipping unconscious again. The rest of the Branwen Tribe quickly surrounding them and helping their leader back up, many shocked by the sheer state of Raydon’s grotesque facial injuries, the green-eyed vigilante staggers forward, pale and still dripping with blood, despite his current state. With strength he no longer has, Raydon takes a few stumbling steps, basking in the sunlight shining over the horizon, and although falling to one knee, weakly strikes some vague attempt at a victory pose, all while Vernal and the others watch on in amazement.

With his own affirmation, Raydon finally gives out and falls unconscious to the ground, his own weapon of Universal Exterminator just a few feet nearby, although not just Vernal, but other Branwen Tribe members come to his aid, covering and wrapping up his wounds with cloth.

They made it. What seems to be only hours later, the unconscious, bruised Raydon lays bedridden within one of the tribe’s tents, heavily bandaged and the mess of his lower jaw covered in a thick layer of cloth and gauze, tubes protruding from the nostrils of his splinted nose, while his right forearm was covered in severe, although first-degree burns, and his left arm had been stripped of its destroyed prosthetic. A stethoscope being placed to his heart, a pale-skinned, heavyweight Faunus doctor and presumed member of the White Fang, seemingly bald with his specific trait seemingly hidden by the stylized, lens-eyed White Fang mask covering his face, looks over the unconscious Raydon and soon turns to face an unmasked Raven, almost completely unharmed herself with the visible exception of a few clear bruises and a bandage under her left eye.

“How is he, doctor?”

“Mmmm... his stability is still not entirely determined, but from what it seems, he’ll recover… although it is clear that the lower-half of his face is beyond even my repair… I can take him into our care to see what we can do, but it is clear that there’s little we can do beyond letting him heal himself.”

“...how much?”

“Hm?”

“For your offer.”

“Hmph, well… let’s just say that… if you just happened that you had no use for those two Faunus prisoners… we’d gladly take them off your hands.”

“''The twins? They’re members of that 'Black Beards' organization. Nothing more than 'wannabes' completely against the White Fang.''”

“Oh, that's under the assumption we're... 'recruiting them,' since that’ll be their choice to join us, but if not... you get the picture.”

“Mhm, then consider it done.”

With that, the Faunus doctor packs up and slowly makes his exit, soon leaving just Raven and her unconscious ally. With a depressed glance towards his gauze-covered form, connected to an IV drip and a heart-rate monitor presumably having been brought by the doctor, the Branwen Tribe leader slowly approaches Raydon and gently lays her bandaged hand onto his forehead, thanking him with a silent whisper, before slowly taking her hand away upon being suddenly alerted to the sudden arrival of Vernal through the tent’s flaps.

“Raven, we have a problem.”

“What is it?”

“Salem’s found us.”

“...Salem… okay.”

“Four of her followers are waiting to speak with you.”

“Right… we planned for this… has my helmet been repaired?”

“Yes.”

“...bring me it.” Amongst the rubble of the partially-destroyed storage warehouse, half of it practically leveled by the destruction and plummet of the makeshift airship, both its divided halves laying as distorted, molten skeletons of their corroded frameworks, dawnlight shines over an eviscerated landscape of metal, dirt, and Dust, as the distant sirens of answering firefighters sound off in the distance.

Within the ruins, lies a single cigar, still smoking and surrounded by the shards of Omen’s Gravity Dust blade, the sounds of shuffling, and metal scraping and moving about, in the background, soon transforming into the ambience of shambling footsteps and trickling blood…

...as a scaly, taloned foot walks past, crushing the cigar and slowly vanishing into the new day.

Team AREO

 * Raydon Irving
 * Raydon Irving

Major Events

 * Raydon Irving, the Branwen Tribe, and the Black Beards make their debuts.
 * A vengeful Raydon unexpectedly ambushes a abandoned shipyard warehouse, "secretly serving" as a base of operations for the anti-Faunus Black Beards.
 * After a grueling fight aided by Raven Branwen, the two successfully destroy both the warehouse and their makeshift ship in its process of completion.
 * Raydon awakens an unknown power and using a Dust crystal, releases a massive fiery explosion that seemingly kills Captain Jelly Roger.
 * Raydon's makeshift prosthetic arm is destroyed, and the lower-half of his face is destroyed beyond repair, although his condition is stabilized later on.
 * In their process of escape through Raven's Semblance, both a significant amount of scattered Dust crystals and the defeated Odysseus Twins are taken to the Branwen Tribe campgrounds in the process. Raven takes advantage of this by making the Odysseus Twins prisoners and trading them to the White Fang in exchange for taking Raydon under their care in hopes of repairing his face.
 * Salem locates Raven and sends four of her followers to her camp for an unknown purpose.
 * Smalt seemingly survives the destruction of the warehouse, and escapes during daybreak.

Heroes

 * Raydon Irving (first appearance)

Branwen Tribe

 * Raven Branwen (first appearance)
 * Vernal (first appearance)

The White Fang

 * Faunus Doctor (first appearance)

The Black Beards

 * Captain Jelly Roger (first appearance; death)
 * Smalt (first appearance)
 * Scilla Odysseus (first appearance)
 * Charna Odysseus (first appearance)
 * Miscellaneous Faunus Workers

Villains

 * Salem (mentioned)
 * Unknown Followers (mentioned)