(GMR) CHAPTER NINETEEN: GROWTH

The air in ABB territory was always a little heavier.

Greg couldn’t tell if it was the ever-present cloying scent of smoke from burn barrels, the broken streetlamps that bathed everything in jittery, unreliable light, or just the psychological weight of being in Lung’s territory. That too-familiar pressure in the chest, like something watching you from every alley and rooftop.

Whatever it was, it was perfect. The kind of terrifying, high-stakes environment heroes were supposed to rise in.

And Greg Veder? He was trying really hard to be one. But that didn't mean he was stupid: a thin shimmer of gold and white flickered across his body as he readied his own constant defense, Aura, just in case he wasn't fast enough to dodge any attack. 

He was unarmed. Well, kind of.

Sure, his parents were still working on clearing out the basement for his future Tinker corner, though it was mostly a lot of “we’ll move that tomorrow”, borrowing equipment from Mr. Perabo across the street, and watching DIY weapon tutorials together. It was admittedly slow going, but none of that meant Greg was helpless.

His boots crunched over broken glass as he passed the shell of what used to be a corner store, the front windows long since smashed in, and the fading ABB tag bleeding red and green over the walls. Somewhere above, a window creaked open, then slammed shut again.

“Nice neighborhood,” Yang muttered in the back of his mind, voice dry and unimpressed.

“Stay vigilant,” Blake warned. “There’s movement on the rooftop to your right.”

Greg didn’t glance up, but he adjusted his posture and flexed his hands. Yes, he didn’t have any weapon, not yet at least, but he had something more important than a weapon: the power to summon Team RWBY’s awesome weapons. 

A few weeks ago, walking these streets like this would’ve felt suicidal. Now? He felt alert and prepared. Not confident, exactly, but aware that he could try. That was new.

“I still think this was a bad idea,” Weiss said, stern as ever. “You don’t even have a real weapon, and you’ve barely trained with ours. This is idiocy.”

Greg swallowed a sigh. “Noted.”

“You’ll be fine,” Ruby said, and somehow her voice made everything feel lighter. “You can’t get better without trying. It’s how I learned Crescent Rose, through trial and error. Mostly error. Lots of error. And explosions.”

Yang groaned. “You almost took my leg off like four times.”

“I thought you said it almost happened five times,” Blake mused.

Greg huffed a laugh as Yang sputtered in embarrassment. Their words weren't exactly comforting, but they felt weirdly motivating.

The streets darkened as he moved deeper into ABB turf. The tags grew thicker and more aggressive, warnings rather than mere art. It felt like walking into enemy territory in a video game where everything had respawned stronger.

Then he heard it: muffled voices down a nearby alley. Instinct had him press to the wall, heartbeat spiking as he waited for Blake’s voice.

“Three hostiles,” she said calmly. “One victim. Looks young, maybe twelve or even younger, and unarmed.”

Greg peered around the corner.

A kid was cornered against a graffitied wall, hands up. Three older teens in ABB colors surrounded him. One of them flipped a butterfly knife idly between his fingers, and though the others didn’t seem armed—that didn't mean much; their weapons could easily be hidden from sight—they had that cocky, dangerous posture Greg recognized from a lifetime of being on the wrong side of hallway confrontations.

His heart pounded. He could walk away, he knew that. No one would blame him. After all, this was his third or fourth patrol. 

But he wasn’t going to.

“You wanted to be a hero, remember?” Ruby’s voice was soft, yet steel-edged. The voice of a leader. 

Greg closed his eyes. “Yeah. We’re doing this.”

“Surprise is your only advantage,” Blake said. “Move fast.”

“Don’t hold back,” Yang added. “Let ‘em know you’re no longer some helpless cape wannabe.”

Greg stepped into the alley, his Aura flaring bright enough to cast its colors onto the brick walls. The thugs turned, confused and then suddenly alarmed.

“Yo, who the hell—?”

Greg didn't answer. Instead, he raised his hand, and imagined the oversized, yet undoubtedly cool scythe of Ruby Rose. For a moment, he could almost hear, amidst the scrambling in his front, the hiss of compressed dust—though how he knew that, he didn't know—and the satisfying shhk of steel locking into place. 

In a flash of red light, six feet of over-engineered black and crimson metal bloomed into existence in his hands.

It had taken Ruby months to build this thing. It took Greg a single pulse of will to recreate it, though only for a moment. It felt right in his hands, even if it was more symbolic than anything, and even if it seemed heavier than he remembered from last time he summoned it. But he chalked it up to his growing familiarity to the RWBY team and their semblance, especially since he could feel Ruby’s familiarity with it in the back of his mind.

Greg let Crescent Rose rest across his shoulders like he knew Ruby did a hundred times in his head.

The ABB thugs backed up, glancing at each other, then knife-boy grimaced and lunged.

Greg sidestepped easily, swung, and the scythe whistled through the air in a broad arc. He didn’t want to hit the guy, just to scare him, but Greg had underestimated the sheer intimidating factor of such a massive weapon flashing towards someone. The attacker stumbled back, tripping over his own feet.

A second thug cursed and pulled something—a gun?—from his jacket, but Greg didn’t wait to see what that was. He rushed forward, aura shielding his legs as he slid past the first attacker, and used the shaft of Crescent Rose to sweep the second thug’s legs from under him, then slammed the flat side into the guy’s stomach.

The weapon fizzled out a moment later upon impact, dissipating into red motes of light, but the momentum carried through. The teen crashed into a row of bins with a painful clang.

Greg winced. “Okay. That was a bit too much.”

The kid against the wall bolted, wisely using the chaos to escape. Good. 

One down, Greg thought.

Then came the gunshot as another guy with a gun opened fire.

Time slowed, but though Greg was too slow to react, his aura flared as it caught the bullet before it could pierce skin. It still hurt, and though he staggered, he stayed upright, gritting his teeth.

Enough.

He raised his fists and, without thinking, shaped a new construct: Ember Celica. Golden light surged, and a pair of glowing, mechanical gauntlets snapped into existence, encasing his arms with an audible click-hiss.

“NOW you’re talking!” Yang whooped.

Greg charged forward. His punch wasn’t clean. If anything, it was clumsy, wide, and poorly timed. But it still collided with the thug’s chest, the kinetic backlash from the gauntlet sending the attacker flying into the far wall.

One left. Nope, he took one last look at his friends and ran.

As silence fell, Ember Celica flickered, then faded into yellow motes of light. Greg stood in the alley, panting, blood rushing in his ears.

He’d done it again. 

Sure, he had fought untrained mooks, so his lack of combat experience didn't really matter—as he was able to overpower them—but he’d survived this skirmish without help. And best of all: he had summoned two weapons.

“I’m proud of you,” Ruby whispered.

“You didn’t panic,” Blake said. “Well done.”

Weiss sounded like she was trying not to smile. “Still fairly reckless, but… not bad. You have improved.”

Yang’s pride radiated like sunshine. “We told you you could do this.”

Greg smiled, breath catching as relief swept through him.

He knew he wasn’t there yet, that his form was still sloppy, and his instincts clumsy. But the weapon would come, and so would the training. He’d build his own Crescent Rose or Ember Celica someday, or something even better. But for now, he had this. And somehow, it was enough.

He rolled his shoulders and checked for injuries, but there were only bruises, and Aura would handle it quickly. He should continue his patrol, maybe for an additional hour or so, then head home. There was laundry to do, barely-started maths homework to ignore, and a basement slowly transforming into a forge to awe at.

The life of a teenage hero, apparently.