A Deathly Silence (RWBY/Drakengard 3)
Update 460 - Too Much Going On
Mortifer
Embrace your inner lunatic. Fun times guaranteed.
- Location
- Under a rock.
[X] Jaune.
The airship had been flying for a while. Ruby was finding herself getting more and more restless as she sat still. Sitting still wasn't in her nature. She was a runner, not a sitter. She never did well in school for that reason.
She looked over to her Disciple. She still barely knew Jaune. It was a bit awkward trying to get to know him. He was inherently someone who should be important, but they'd known each other for only a few days. He didn't look like he was in too good a state. He wasn't as bad off as Ruby had been a moment ago, but he looked really uncomfortable.
Ruby stepped closer to Jaune, using her Semblance to cross the distance quickly. "Hey."
Jaune looked up in surprise. "Hey- Oh, Ruby."
Ruby blinked. Oh right. Jaune wasn't used to her speed yet, huh? "Sorry, did I jumpscare you?"
"A bit." Jaune admitted. "I heard your footsteps but was expecting it to take another bit before you got here."
"Sorry, it's just instinct." Ruby scratched her cheek out of embarrassment. "You, uh. You get used to it."
Jaune nodded. "Did you want something?"
"Wanted to talk." Ruby answered. "You looked kinda… Y'know?"
Wow, maybe Ruby should've thought about that sentence before she started it, so she could actually end the sentence. Man, how did the protagonists of books make this kind of thing look so easy? You'd think the prewritten nature of books meant an author could spend weeks perfecting dialogue to make the characters look casually proficient or something.
"...Yeah." Jaune sighed. "I'm trying to think of how to play it up and look bigger because like. Dad always said that people will take you more seriously if you can just pretend really hard that you're confident. But it's a bit harder to do when…"
Jaune waved his hand over the group.
"Intoner." He listed off. "Heir to the Schnee family, one of the most famous people in the world. Robot girl who scares me. And I don't know who that other girl is, but she's confident enough with the rest of you that she's either as important as the rest of you or she's a lot better at faking it than I am."
"...Dyna's here too." Ruby observed. The Faunus girl didn't want to leave the room, so she was standing near the front of the ship, peeking through a crack in the armoured plating over the front window.
"Great." Jaune muttered. "I'm peer to a girl half my age at most."
"I think she might be a bit older." Ruby shook her head. "I don't know. It's hard to keep ages straight int my head."
"Yeah, I feel like people just have a limited amount of birthdays they can keep in their head?" Jaune shrugged. "I have too many sisters, they take all the birthdays in my brain. Mum and dad have only one day between their birthdays and that's enough that I can't remember which is which."
"Hm." Ruby didn't have anything else to say about that. "...It's normal to feel a bit out of place, y'know."
"Yeah." Jaune sighed. "I'm fine. Just needs adjustment."
"Yeah." Ruby nodded. "You're holding up pretty well, I think?"
Jaune didn't answer. His eyes were shifting. He didn't seem like he wanted to talk about it. Was this going to be a thing where people said they were fine because they didn't want to admit they weren't fine? Or was he actually fine? If Ruby guessed wrong there she'd be misstepping.
Jaune was holding up pretty well, though. Considering he'd been through a few incidents and all he wanted to start with was to check on his famil-
"Oh!" Ruby spoke aloud involuntarily. "I forgot, your family!"
Jaune jumped at the sound. He looked away. "Ah, yeah. We've gotten a bit off track, haven't we?"
"Sorry, I'm dragging you a fair bit more than a bit off track." Ruby shook her head. "Ahhh, and Artzin's gonna want to drag us right to Mistral as soon as we get back…"
Where was Artzin, actually? Probably checking something else on the ship while the autopilot carried people on. Maybe checking in on Five
Ah, how had Ruby not thought about Five in a while? Someone must've said Five was on board at some point because at no point in discussing plans had they discussed going back to pick Five up. Ah jeez, Ruby should go back to talk to her. If nothing else, if the War Chief tried to fight to keep Yang, having both Intoner's on the same page would be-
"Hey, are you okay?" Jaune asked suddenly. Ruby realised her racing thoughts must have been showing on her face.
"...Mostly." Ruby sighed. "Sorry. It's just… There's so much to do and it feels like I can barely keep it all straight."
She leaned against the wall next to Jaune, going through the list in her head. "There's what's going on with this tournament, there's my mother, there's the White Fang, now we need to save Yang, your family, Weiss's… Thing which I shouldn't say without her permission… And there's Doctor Merlot-"
Ruby's hand twitched towards Crescent Rose as she spoke. It was involuntary, but she couldn't bring herself to move her hand away.
"-And…" Ruby sighed. "I keep losing track of it all. I'm probably forgetting something right now. Am I wasting my time with the tournament thing? Would my time be better spent just… Hunting our enemies more?"
"Hey." Another voice interrupted Ruby. She looked up to see Weiss approaching. "Don't think like that."
"I'm trying." Ruby answered. "I… Man, trying to sit down is making me stir-crazy. Once we start doing things again, we should be good."
"...I suppose I can understand that." Weiss sighed. "I'm not quite as bad as you, but I've felt that. I ran off into Mountain Glenn alone to avoid that feeling."
She paused, then tilted her head. "Not alone. With Miltia. But I didn't tell anyone else."
"That sounds-" Whatever Jaune was going to say was cut short once Weiss turned to glare at him. "-Uh, unexpected?"
Weiss glared for a moment longer, then turned back to Ruby.
"Just try not to get lost in your own head." Weiss advised. "If there's too much going on, just stop thinking about some of it. I'll find my own time to find a Pact Beast, so don't you worry about it."
"It's not that simple." Ruby shook her head. "I'd feel bad if I deprioritised stuff."
"Then make a mental plan and come back to it later." Weiss advised. "We can look for a Pact Beast after the tournament in Mistral together, or even between rounds if I can find someone who knows where to look for a Pact Beast."
"...That might work, if someone else can remind me." Ruby nodded. "And Jaune… If you know where your family is, I can probably convince One to lend me an airship for a few hours, go straight there and straight back."
"That can work." Jaune nodded. "I'll remind you when I get a chance."
Ruby nodded. Good. Stuff compartmentalised.
There were footsteps from near the door. Ruby looked over to see Five walk in, wiping some sweat from her brow. Had she been exercising or something? Dito was behind her, also looking fairly worn- ohh.
"So, what did I miss?" The Intoner asked.
"We are still some way from the mountain." Galatea reported. "We've switched to low-power mode to try to avoid drawing the attention of Grimm. The only swarm on our radar is minor, so the chances of them engaging are rather minor."
"What defines a minor swarm?" Jaune asked. "I'm curious."
"Based on the size of the Nevermore flying nearby, they are all relatively young." Galatea explained. "If there was an Elder Grimm or a more advanced breed, its more keen senses would detect us. Without them to order the swarm, we should be-"
The central table started beeping in alarm. Galatea fell silent as she looked at the radar.
"...Correction." Galatea cut in. "The minor swarm has noticed us."
Ruby pushed off the wall and stood up. "I can shoot them down."
"Automated defences are already taking effect." Galatea informed her. "Hm. Why are they flying that high? They're not holding any boulders, and dive bombing is an ineffectual strategy. Most of our guns are positioned on the roof of the airship."
Gunshots punctuated Galatea's statement.
"Grimm defeated." She declared. "That is why this is classified as a minor swarm. The gunshots threaten to draw the attention of more meaningful Grimm, so we will be rerouting for safety reasons."
"Another delay." Ruby rolled onto her heels to fidget, the fronts of her feet rising. It was a meaningless movement, exclusively to keep her body busy. "Can't we just… Fight the Grimm?"
Galatea looked at Ruby.
"Galatea." Weiss cut in. "If you decide to forgo safety just because Ruby asked, I'm going to hit you."
"Your hands are small." Galatea answered. "I would not feel it."
"...No, listen to her." Ruby sighed. "Ignore me, I'm just stressed."
The sound of static filled the room.
"...What's that?" Five asked. "It's an annoying sound. My ears hurt."
"It's…" Galatea frowned. "It matches the audio distortion usually heard when old equipment of low quality attempts to sync up with modern equipment. It's a communication attempt."
"Oh, is that all?" Jaune asked. "So that's fine, right?"
"Equipment of that sort should not have the range to reach an airship of this altitude." Galatea pointed out. "Not without a sort of signal relay."
The audio distortion only continued.
"...It's starting to hurt my ears too." Ruby admitted. "Can we answer the communication or something to make it stop?"
"If you wish." Galatea answered.
"Then do that." Ruby nodded.
Galatea pressed a few buttons on the holographic display. The static cut out.
A stranger's voice spoke through the speakers. There was a faint distortion, like an old walkie-talkie. "Leave."
"Who is this?" Weiss demanded.
"Irrelevant." The stranger answered. The voice was rough, and Ruby was leaning towards the speaker being a man.
"How are you even communicating with us?" Galatea asked. "Your communicator is dated."
The man paused. Was he thinking about how to answer?
"I have a pair of linked signal boosters." The stranger answered. "I had a friend carry one of the two to your position. It fell onto the hull of your airship."
Galatea froze. Ruby wasn't sure what realisation she was going through, but she could feel something odd in the stranger's tone of voice. It sounded like a threat.
"A Nevermore was carrying it." Galatea vocalised. "It fell when the Nevermore was shot down. Am I wrong?"
The stranger didn't answer. Ruby felt a chill run down her spine.
"Hey." Jaune pushed off the wall himself, approached the holographic display. "That can't be right. That'd imply this guy had the Grimm do something for him."
"That's what I am implying." Galatea answered. "Am I wrong?"
The stranger paused again. Was he not going to answer?
It would explain why he had spoken like he was giving a threat. But if he could somehow manipulate Grimm, that made the stranger someone Ruby couldn't ignore.
Maybe, just maybe, this was some kind of bizarre Semblance. But if it was a human manipulating Grimm, the precedent wasn't looking good. Three could hijack Grimm with her Song, but she wasn't here.
The only other options were Merlot and Cinder.
"I have no quarrel with you." The stranger continued. "I am here to avenge the past and bury it in equal measure. The War Chief will die by my hands. If you leave, we will never meet again."
"The War Chief kidnapped my sister." Ruby spoke fast, so nobody else could speak before her. "I'm not going anywhere without her."
"I don't care." The stranger answered bluntly. "If she has learnt of the past, I will kill her. If you learn of the past, I will kill you."
"I can't die." Ruby answered back. She had an iron grip on Crescent Rose's gun-form, using it to hide her anger. Someone just so casually threatening Yang… "I'm an Intoner."
"Many things have claimed immortality." The stranger answered. "My Vraal has proven them all wrong."
There was a crunching sound, and the audio was silenced.
"...Nothing's ever easy." Weiss sighed. "Ruby, what do we do?"
"What we were doing before." Ruby answered. "We get Yang, and we fight whoever gets in our way. The sooner, the better. Nothing's changed."
She was lying. She was trying really hard to project confidence, but she was lying.
Now Ruby knew for sure that someone lethal was approaching Yang. Any hope of keeping herself calm by thinking about how the War Chief had no intention to kill Yang, that maybe the Pact Beast was going in the wrong direction…
None of that applied now. Ruby had a time limit to save her sister.
As if she needed more reason to hate sitting still.
The War Chief stepped away from Yang's sled-chair near the back of the tower. It was bigger than it looked from the outside, in a way which made Yang wonder if there was some kind of optical illusion - It looked like the tower went straight up to Yang, but it also felt wider here than it had looked from the outside, looking towards the top.
Maybe part of it was built into the mountain? Yang couldn't looked with her soul, but she didn't want to touch the Memory Bricks accidentally.
The War Chief stepped ahead of Yang, approaching a wall of Memory Bricks carefully. Those wings of light shot from her back, and a bladed portion shot out as she held out a hand. The end result was the illusion of a blade emerging from the War Chief's fingertips.
She traced the blade of light in a paper-thin seam between bricks. She was ever so careful to avoid actually touching the bricks, which were blood-red and covered in moss. Then she jumped away, and the wall shifted.
Was it some kind of hidden mechanism? Outright magic? Yang wasn't sure. The distinction didn't matter beyond mere curiosity. A few bricks fell back and folded away, eventually revealing a secret compartment. It was only really the size of a bathroom mirror, which made Yang think about the compartments that some people had hidden behind mirrors at eye-level.
The only thing in that compartment was a single Blood Memory.
"This." The War Chief spoke hesitantly, trying to find the words. She pulled back her wings of light, brushed some snow out of her hair. Her hand lingered around her horns. "This is… The last thing my father ever left me."
She reached out for the brick, then paused. After a moment's consideration, she stepped back behind Yang to push her sled forward.
"Are you okay?" Yang asked the War Chief. It was obvious she was stalling.
"I want to be there, to make sure you see everything important." The War Chief muttered. "It's just… Something I need to prepare myself for."
"You don't need to see it if it's too much for you." It was a statement half-made in earnest, half to endear Yang to the War Chief. Thinking about that made Yang feel almost gross, but if it kept Yang on her good side… "I'm good at paying attention."
"No, I have to." The War Chief's voice wavered. Yang turned her neck to look at her as she finished pushing Yang forward. The Dragon Faunus was letting her hair fall forward and cover her eyes to avoid meeting Yang's. "I… I have to."
Her conviction was weak. It would probably only take one push to make her change her mind.
[X] Yang bit her tongue. Maybe the War Chief had something important she wanted Yang to focus on.
[X] Yang pushed. There was hardly a need, and this Memory might dig up something painful for the War Chief.
The airship had been flying for a while. Ruby was finding herself getting more and more restless as she sat still. Sitting still wasn't in her nature. She was a runner, not a sitter. She never did well in school for that reason.
She looked over to her Disciple. She still barely knew Jaune. It was a bit awkward trying to get to know him. He was inherently someone who should be important, but they'd known each other for only a few days. He didn't look like he was in too good a state. He wasn't as bad off as Ruby had been a moment ago, but he looked really uncomfortable.
Ruby stepped closer to Jaune, using her Semblance to cross the distance quickly. "Hey."
Jaune looked up in surprise. "Hey- Oh, Ruby."
Ruby blinked. Oh right. Jaune wasn't used to her speed yet, huh? "Sorry, did I jumpscare you?"
"A bit." Jaune admitted. "I heard your footsteps but was expecting it to take another bit before you got here."
"Sorry, it's just instinct." Ruby scratched her cheek out of embarrassment. "You, uh. You get used to it."
Jaune nodded. "Did you want something?"
"Wanted to talk." Ruby answered. "You looked kinda… Y'know?"
Wow, maybe Ruby should've thought about that sentence before she started it, so she could actually end the sentence. Man, how did the protagonists of books make this kind of thing look so easy? You'd think the prewritten nature of books meant an author could spend weeks perfecting dialogue to make the characters look casually proficient or something.
"...Yeah." Jaune sighed. "I'm trying to think of how to play it up and look bigger because like. Dad always said that people will take you more seriously if you can just pretend really hard that you're confident. But it's a bit harder to do when…"
Jaune waved his hand over the group.
"Intoner." He listed off. "Heir to the Schnee family, one of the most famous people in the world. Robot girl who scares me. And I don't know who that other girl is, but she's confident enough with the rest of you that she's either as important as the rest of you or she's a lot better at faking it than I am."
"...Dyna's here too." Ruby observed. The Faunus girl didn't want to leave the room, so she was standing near the front of the ship, peeking through a crack in the armoured plating over the front window.
"Great." Jaune muttered. "I'm peer to a girl half my age at most."
"I think she might be a bit older." Ruby shook her head. "I don't know. It's hard to keep ages straight int my head."
"Yeah, I feel like people just have a limited amount of birthdays they can keep in their head?" Jaune shrugged. "I have too many sisters, they take all the birthdays in my brain. Mum and dad have only one day between their birthdays and that's enough that I can't remember which is which."
"Hm." Ruby didn't have anything else to say about that. "...It's normal to feel a bit out of place, y'know."
"Yeah." Jaune sighed. "I'm fine. Just needs adjustment."
"Yeah." Ruby nodded. "You're holding up pretty well, I think?"
Jaune didn't answer. His eyes were shifting. He didn't seem like he wanted to talk about it. Was this going to be a thing where people said they were fine because they didn't want to admit they weren't fine? Or was he actually fine? If Ruby guessed wrong there she'd be misstepping.
Jaune was holding up pretty well, though. Considering he'd been through a few incidents and all he wanted to start with was to check on his famil-
"Oh!" Ruby spoke aloud involuntarily. "I forgot, your family!"
Jaune jumped at the sound. He looked away. "Ah, yeah. We've gotten a bit off track, haven't we?"
"Sorry, I'm dragging you a fair bit more than a bit off track." Ruby shook her head. "Ahhh, and Artzin's gonna want to drag us right to Mistral as soon as we get back…"
Where was Artzin, actually? Probably checking something else on the ship while the autopilot carried people on. Maybe checking in on Five
Ah, how had Ruby not thought about Five in a while? Someone must've said Five was on board at some point because at no point in discussing plans had they discussed going back to pick Five up. Ah jeez, Ruby should go back to talk to her. If nothing else, if the War Chief tried to fight to keep Yang, having both Intoner's on the same page would be-
"Hey, are you okay?" Jaune asked suddenly. Ruby realised her racing thoughts must have been showing on her face.
"...Mostly." Ruby sighed. "Sorry. It's just… There's so much to do and it feels like I can barely keep it all straight."
She leaned against the wall next to Jaune, going through the list in her head. "There's what's going on with this tournament, there's my mother, there's the White Fang, now we need to save Yang, your family, Weiss's… Thing which I shouldn't say without her permission… And there's Doctor Merlot-"
Ruby's hand twitched towards Crescent Rose as she spoke. It was involuntary, but she couldn't bring herself to move her hand away.
"-And…" Ruby sighed. "I keep losing track of it all. I'm probably forgetting something right now. Am I wasting my time with the tournament thing? Would my time be better spent just… Hunting our enemies more?"
"Hey." Another voice interrupted Ruby. She looked up to see Weiss approaching. "Don't think like that."
"I'm trying." Ruby answered. "I… Man, trying to sit down is making me stir-crazy. Once we start doing things again, we should be good."
"...I suppose I can understand that." Weiss sighed. "I'm not quite as bad as you, but I've felt that. I ran off into Mountain Glenn alone to avoid that feeling."
She paused, then tilted her head. "Not alone. With Miltia. But I didn't tell anyone else."
"That sounds-" Whatever Jaune was going to say was cut short once Weiss turned to glare at him. "-Uh, unexpected?"
Weiss glared for a moment longer, then turned back to Ruby.
"Just try not to get lost in your own head." Weiss advised. "If there's too much going on, just stop thinking about some of it. I'll find my own time to find a Pact Beast, so don't you worry about it."
"It's not that simple." Ruby shook her head. "I'd feel bad if I deprioritised stuff."
"Then make a mental plan and come back to it later." Weiss advised. "We can look for a Pact Beast after the tournament in Mistral together, or even between rounds if I can find someone who knows where to look for a Pact Beast."
"...That might work, if someone else can remind me." Ruby nodded. "And Jaune… If you know where your family is, I can probably convince One to lend me an airship for a few hours, go straight there and straight back."
"That can work." Jaune nodded. "I'll remind you when I get a chance."
Ruby nodded. Good. Stuff compartmentalised.
There were footsteps from near the door. Ruby looked over to see Five walk in, wiping some sweat from her brow. Had she been exercising or something? Dito was behind her, also looking fairly worn- ohh.
"So, what did I miss?" The Intoner asked.
"We are still some way from the mountain." Galatea reported. "We've switched to low-power mode to try to avoid drawing the attention of Grimm. The only swarm on our radar is minor, so the chances of them engaging are rather minor."
"What defines a minor swarm?" Jaune asked. "I'm curious."
"Based on the size of the Nevermore flying nearby, they are all relatively young." Galatea explained. "If there was an Elder Grimm or a more advanced breed, its more keen senses would detect us. Without them to order the swarm, we should be-"
The central table started beeping in alarm. Galatea fell silent as she looked at the radar.
"...Correction." Galatea cut in. "The minor swarm has noticed us."
Ruby pushed off the wall and stood up. "I can shoot them down."
"Automated defences are already taking effect." Galatea informed her. "Hm. Why are they flying that high? They're not holding any boulders, and dive bombing is an ineffectual strategy. Most of our guns are positioned on the roof of the airship."
Gunshots punctuated Galatea's statement.
"Grimm defeated." She declared. "That is why this is classified as a minor swarm. The gunshots threaten to draw the attention of more meaningful Grimm, so we will be rerouting for safety reasons."
"Another delay." Ruby rolled onto her heels to fidget, the fronts of her feet rising. It was a meaningless movement, exclusively to keep her body busy. "Can't we just… Fight the Grimm?"
Galatea looked at Ruby.
"Galatea." Weiss cut in. "If you decide to forgo safety just because Ruby asked, I'm going to hit you."
"Your hands are small." Galatea answered. "I would not feel it."
"...No, listen to her." Ruby sighed. "Ignore me, I'm just stressed."
The sound of static filled the room.
"...What's that?" Five asked. "It's an annoying sound. My ears hurt."
"It's…" Galatea frowned. "It matches the audio distortion usually heard when old equipment of low quality attempts to sync up with modern equipment. It's a communication attempt."
"Oh, is that all?" Jaune asked. "So that's fine, right?"
"Equipment of that sort should not have the range to reach an airship of this altitude." Galatea pointed out. "Not without a sort of signal relay."
The audio distortion only continued.
"...It's starting to hurt my ears too." Ruby admitted. "Can we answer the communication or something to make it stop?"
"If you wish." Galatea answered.
"Then do that." Ruby nodded.
Galatea pressed a few buttons on the holographic display. The static cut out.
A stranger's voice spoke through the speakers. There was a faint distortion, like an old walkie-talkie. "Leave."
"Who is this?" Weiss demanded.
"Irrelevant." The stranger answered. The voice was rough, and Ruby was leaning towards the speaker being a man.
"How are you even communicating with us?" Galatea asked. "Your communicator is dated."
The man paused. Was he thinking about how to answer?
"I have a pair of linked signal boosters." The stranger answered. "I had a friend carry one of the two to your position. It fell onto the hull of your airship."
Galatea froze. Ruby wasn't sure what realisation she was going through, but she could feel something odd in the stranger's tone of voice. It sounded like a threat.
"A Nevermore was carrying it." Galatea vocalised. "It fell when the Nevermore was shot down. Am I wrong?"
The stranger didn't answer. Ruby felt a chill run down her spine.
"Hey." Jaune pushed off the wall himself, approached the holographic display. "That can't be right. That'd imply this guy had the Grimm do something for him."
"That's what I am implying." Galatea answered. "Am I wrong?"
The stranger paused again. Was he not going to answer?
It would explain why he had spoken like he was giving a threat. But if he could somehow manipulate Grimm, that made the stranger someone Ruby couldn't ignore.
Maybe, just maybe, this was some kind of bizarre Semblance. But if it was a human manipulating Grimm, the precedent wasn't looking good. Three could hijack Grimm with her Song, but she wasn't here.
The only other options were Merlot and Cinder.
"I have no quarrel with you." The stranger continued. "I am here to avenge the past and bury it in equal measure. The War Chief will die by my hands. If you leave, we will never meet again."
"The War Chief kidnapped my sister." Ruby spoke fast, so nobody else could speak before her. "I'm not going anywhere without her."
"I don't care." The stranger answered bluntly. "If she has learnt of the past, I will kill her. If you learn of the past, I will kill you."
"I can't die." Ruby answered back. She had an iron grip on Crescent Rose's gun-form, using it to hide her anger. Someone just so casually threatening Yang… "I'm an Intoner."
"Many things have claimed immortality." The stranger answered. "My Vraal has proven them all wrong."
There was a crunching sound, and the audio was silenced.
"...Nothing's ever easy." Weiss sighed. "Ruby, what do we do?"
"What we were doing before." Ruby answered. "We get Yang, and we fight whoever gets in our way. The sooner, the better. Nothing's changed."
She was lying. She was trying really hard to project confidence, but she was lying.
Now Ruby knew for sure that someone lethal was approaching Yang. Any hope of keeping herself calm by thinking about how the War Chief had no intention to kill Yang, that maybe the Pact Beast was going in the wrong direction…
None of that applied now. Ruby had a time limit to save her sister.
As if she needed more reason to hate sitting still.
~~~~~
The War Chief stepped away from Yang's sled-chair near the back of the tower. It was bigger than it looked from the outside, in a way which made Yang wonder if there was some kind of optical illusion - It looked like the tower went straight up to Yang, but it also felt wider here than it had looked from the outside, looking towards the top.
Maybe part of it was built into the mountain? Yang couldn't looked with her soul, but she didn't want to touch the Memory Bricks accidentally.
The War Chief stepped ahead of Yang, approaching a wall of Memory Bricks carefully. Those wings of light shot from her back, and a bladed portion shot out as she held out a hand. The end result was the illusion of a blade emerging from the War Chief's fingertips.
She traced the blade of light in a paper-thin seam between bricks. She was ever so careful to avoid actually touching the bricks, which were blood-red and covered in moss. Then she jumped away, and the wall shifted.
Was it some kind of hidden mechanism? Outright magic? Yang wasn't sure. The distinction didn't matter beyond mere curiosity. A few bricks fell back and folded away, eventually revealing a secret compartment. It was only really the size of a bathroom mirror, which made Yang think about the compartments that some people had hidden behind mirrors at eye-level.
The only thing in that compartment was a single Blood Memory.
"This." The War Chief spoke hesitantly, trying to find the words. She pulled back her wings of light, brushed some snow out of her hair. Her hand lingered around her horns. "This is… The last thing my father ever left me."
She reached out for the brick, then paused. After a moment's consideration, she stepped back behind Yang to push her sled forward.
"Are you okay?" Yang asked the War Chief. It was obvious she was stalling.
"I want to be there, to make sure you see everything important." The War Chief muttered. "It's just… Something I need to prepare myself for."
"You don't need to see it if it's too much for you." It was a statement half-made in earnest, half to endear Yang to the War Chief. Thinking about that made Yang feel almost gross, but if it kept Yang on her good side… "I'm good at paying attention."
"No, I have to." The War Chief's voice wavered. Yang turned her neck to look at her as she finished pushing Yang forward. The Dragon Faunus was letting her hair fall forward and cover her eyes to avoid meeting Yang's. "I… I have to."
Her conviction was weak. It would probably only take one push to make her change her mind.
[X] Yang bit her tongue. Maybe the War Chief had something important she wanted Yang to focus on.
[X] Yang pushed. There was hardly a need, and this Memory might dig up something painful for the War Chief.
Last edited:
Update 461 - Briar Rose
Mortifer
Embrace your inner lunatic. Fun times guaranteed.
- Location
- Under a rock.
[X] Yang bit her tongue. Maybe the War Chief had something important she wanted Yang to focus on.
Yang kept her mouth shut as the War Chief picked up the Blood Memory. Her hands were shaking as she did so. She was still reluctant, hesitant. Her free hand kept rubbing up to touch her horns.
When the War Chief turned to Yang, she bit her lip. Yang watched for a moment, considering whether to speak up. She could maybe make a comparison to when Ruby was reluctant to get her shots as a kid, and how stalling just meant dragging out the anticipation. But no, speaking up about the War Chief's reluctance a second time would probably frustrate her. If the positions were reversed Yang sure would get that frustration, even if most of it was at herself for hesitating enough for people to notice.
The War Chief brushed off the red brick. Yang briefly saw the etching in the side, but it was too faint from this distance to make out details of the face on the side. Whoever that face was, they were the one conquered for the Legacy. Dead, since it was a Blood Memory. Yang wondered who they were.
The War Chief held the top half of the brick in her left hand and lowered it towards Yang. "Take it. Once you do, we begin."
Yang nodded. She raised her hand slowly, and she saw the War Chief flinch as she moved. Alright, same logic as the needle. Get it over with. Yang lashed out faster to grab the bottom of the brick before the War Chief could stop her.
The two fell into darkness.
This felt different. This wasn't how Yang had felt the last few times she had seen a memory. What was the distinction?
"Forgot what this was like." The War Chief spoke directly into Yang's mind. "I haven't done this with another since…"
She didn't finish the sentence.
Yang forced herself to focus on the memory she was reliving. It took her a while to focus. She felt sensations, devoid of context. An explosion. A rush of motion to get outside.
She looked to see the Legacy burning. The tower had been lit aflame, a chunk of it shattered by an explosion. Whoever's memory this was, Yang felt them roar in shock and rage.
Before the flames was a silhouette. A woman Yang didn't recognize, but one who felt deadly familiar.
"Ah, there you are." The woman spoke with a voice that sounded like someone being roused from sleep. "Hm… You're the current War Chief?"
The one who recorded the memory did not respond. He lunged forward and punched towards the woman. She swayed to the side lazily to avoid the blow, dipping out of the mans point of view. When the man turned, she was further away than made sense for how long she was out of sight.
"So rude." The woman yawned. "My patron told me you people were warlike, but…"
The man turned away from the woman to see the Legacy burning.
The tower reached for the heavens, and now it was consumed by hellfire. The fire was burning far too bright for how much of the tower was actually there. He rushed forward and punched upwards, allowing the distortion of the air following his arms to rob oxygen from the flames. It only extinguished some of the inferno, but it was some progress.
A stake struck the side of the man, shattering against his aura. No, not a stake. A giant thorn. The man looked back to the side.
The woman had partially collapsed, and was now held upright by a gathering of black vines. Flowers were budding on those vines, but not yet blooming. White thorns surrounded the vines.
For a fraction of a moment, a red eye opened on a vine.
It wasn't a plant. It was Grimm.
"Who are you?" The Old War Chief growled.
"Hm…" The woman half-snored before stirring. "Who I am doesn't particular matter. You're the important one."
The man took a deep breath and roared again. Yang felt the Power of Dragons in his breath as the flames erupted, a detonation that drew in so much oxygen that even more of the tower's inferno was extinguished. More vines erupted from the ground to shield the woman, but the sea of fire tore through the Grimm vines.
When the light faded, the sleeping woman was on the ground. Half of her body was gone, her right arm and leg burnt to ash. The Old War Chief turned back to the burning tower, kicking a nearby pile of snow upwards. The snow coated the side of the damaged tower, and as it melted away the water extinguished the flame.
A vine wrapped around the Old War Chief's wrist and pulled him off his feet. He struck the ground, and from his eyes Yang got a sideways view of the injured woman standing.
Healing.
Black Grimm-matter was flowing from her damaged leg, reconstructing the lost limb. Tendrils were shooting out of her arm in much the same way.
Yang had seen this before. This woman was just like Cinder Fall.
"Rude." The woman muttered again.
"What the fuck-" The Old War Chief tried to stand, only for another vine to latch around his throat. He breathed in sharply enough to pulse the muscles on his neck, and the Power of Dragons followed the motion. The vines should have shattered, but the Song disappeared into Silence instead.
The Grimm could absorb that power, after all.
More vines wrapped around the woman, binding her tighter and tighter.
"I came here to talk, you know." The woman yawned again. She shuffled forward slowly, like someone waking up in the middle of the night lazily making their way to the bathroom.
"The Legacy-"
"Oh, that?" The Grimm-woman raised an eyebrow. "My patron disapproved of the abomination. The last time man tried to build a tower to the Gods, it went poorly for her."
"I'll kill you." The Old War Chief intoned. The woman opened her mouth to try to argue, and the Old War Chief spat hellfire at her. The flames burnt through her mouth and her cheek, but the Grimm-matter was regenerating moments later.
The Old War Chief blinked, and suddenly the half-asleep woman was standing above him. Her back arched and the vines caught her, lowering her arm down to the level of the Old War Chief's mouth. She shoved some kind of Dust Crystal into his mouth. Blue, but Yang couldn't see the colour with the flames dancing. Was that ice, or water?
"I come with an invitation." The Grimm-woman declared. "My patron wants to speak with you. A Dragon Faunus… Both the power of Man and Dragonkind."
The Old War Chief tried to kick, but his leg was caught by vines as well. He crushed the Dust Crystal in his maw and spat out an icicle that impale the woman in the head, through the eye. The woman suddenly shot upright, but more of the thorned vines surged into the man's mouth.
The Grimm-woman tried to say something, but it wasn't much understandable. Her hand groped wildly around her face until she caught the icicle that was stabbing through her. She ripped it out, and Yang caught the bone of her skull reassemble itself for a fraction of a second. "Ugh. Regenerating a brain is always tiring. I'm going to need a nap over this."
A shadow stepped into the side of the Old War Chief's view.
"No. No, stop, please. Please-"
It took Yang a moment to realise it was the current War Chief's voice that was pleading.
A gunshot rang out. The vines around the Old War Chief's neck broke from the bullet that bounced off his Aura. Two more bullets echoed out to break the vines holding onto his wrists. The Old War Chief flexed, and the rest of the vines around his body scattered.
Getting to his feet normally would take too long. He punched a crater into the ground and. Somehow remained in the air. Yang could feel muscles moving around her back as she relived the memory. It took her a moment to remember the wings of light that the current War Chief could manifest.
He looked over to the shadow. Yang got a good look at her too. She was wearing ornate armour, with a cape lined with swan feathers that somehow gave the impression of wings. She wore a crown that shared the wing motif, with two attachments in the shape emerging from above her ears. There was a scarf around her neck that flowed back like a veil, and was matched by more cloth tied around her left arm and her waist.
"Run, go back, don't go, don't-"
The woman raised her gun, a rifle, and fired it at the woman who was almost asleep. The Grimm-woman swayed to dodge the bullets as the other woman stepped closer. The weapon transformed slowly. A bayonet emerged from the tip of the gun, and it kept emerging until it was the length of a sword.
The woman adjusted her grip, and the weapon snapped into place to conceal the barrel of the rifle. Another blade shot out of the other end as she did so, forming a slightly curved blade that had a dagger emerging from the other end of the hilt. She stabbed the weapon upwards with the longer blade facing the sky.
Blue trails filled the air, tracing the arc of every bullet she had fired. Each and every one passed through the space surrounding the Grimm-woman. Just one bullet trail passed through the space the Grimm-woman was currently occupying.
That was enough.
A phantom replica of the blade shout out, emerging from the bullet's position to stab the woman from behind. She stumbled forward into the path of another blade, and the another. Until there was more metal than skin on her back, and there was black blood seeping from her lungs.
The real blade descended, and the dagger stabbed into the front half of the woman. Her Aura briefly flared up when the woman's fist hit her, but the dagger itself stabbed into her heart. How? Was that Dragon Bone?
Yang could sense the moment the dagger struck the tip of every single phantom blade. All at once, the fake weapons shot back out. They transformed in mid-air and all at once fired, and the woman with fake wings kicked the Grimm-woman back at the same time.
A storm of bullets shot through the Grimm-woman, and she fell.
The Old War Chief above wasn't satisfied with that. He descended from the skies and fell onto the dying Grimm-woman, driving his knee into what was left of her spine. He pressed down and forced a gurgle out of her throat.
"Why…" The Grimm-woman wheezed. "Why aren't I… Healing…"
"You regenerators are all the same." The other woman spoke with a voice that sounded so much like the current War Chief it made Yang wince. "You never expect a Semblance that can handle your will perfectly."
She turned her back and spoke to the Old War Chief. "Interrogate her however you need. I'll check on-"
"LOOK OUT!"
The current War Chief's scream was the first herald of the danger. Darkness erupted from the woman, like a swarm of locusts bursting from her flesh. The shadows came with such force that the Old War Chief was thrown back, and the woman in front of him fell forward.
The darkness took form in the silhouette of a woman. That silhouette ripped the weapon falling from the swan-feathered woman's hands.
"MUM!"
The blade descended upon the falling woman, and she was dead before she hit the ground.
The Old War Chief was silent, but his mouth was open as if screaming. He shot forward, wreathed in his own flames. The silhouette of darkness flicked a finger at him, scattering the flames back onto the tower of the Legacy.
She closed her hands around the Old War Chief's throat. The darkness flowed out of the silhouette once more, becoming an orb that surrounded his body. And that of the dying Grimm-woman beneath him.
And then the vision faded to darkness.
Within the darkness, the Grimm-woman's voice gurgled. Her words were silenced with blood.
"Hush, child." A familiar voice whispered. "Let the darkness take you slowly. I am with you."
That was the voice that had spoken to Cinder Fall, before she had been saved. Retribution had been robbed from Yang as the one behind that voice brought Lady Erra to Cinder, and granted upon her the power to resurrect the dead.
"Your soul will remain with me, child." That voice continued. "Just close your eyes. It will be other soon, Briar. Then you make sleep eternal."
Yang could see nothing from the Old War Chief's eyes. In the distance, she could hear the vague sobbing of the current War Chief. But she knew, somehow, the moment Briar fell from life.
"And you." The voice spoke from the darkness to the Old War Chief. "What are we going to do with you?"
"YOU!" The Old War Chief roared. "YOU KILLED HER."
"Did I?" The voice continued. "You're the one who repeated the Sin of Babyl. Your kin once responded to that sin by attempting genocide. I think my actions have been even-handed, in that context."
"WHY?" The Old War Chief roared. His voice carried not in the darkness; Yang simply knew the words he was trying to say.
"Let's not ponder on my motives." The voice sounded amused. "Let's instead ask: What are you going to do?"
The man tried to breath flame, punch out, strike out at darkness in some way.
"I see no reason why this should come in the way of a working relationship." The figure in the darkness continued. "I want you, Dragon Faunus. Man and Dragon in one. Enemies of mine have been attempting to create that blend artificially for millennia, and a quirk of fate brought you into being. I want you."
"Are you insane?" The Old War Chief spoke into silence. "You killed my beloved-"
"If you reject me, I will kill your daughter."
The Old War Chief fell silent.
"No, more than that." The voice laughed. "I will give your daughter the worst possible death. And you will live just long enough to realise what I mean."
"You…"
"Or you could join my side." The voice whispered. "Sail West. Find me in the Shadows of Dead Worlds, where human civilization goes to die. I'll be kind to you, even. Join me willingly, and I will pluck the memory from your skull. You'll never have to think about what you're leaving behind."
The Old War Chief growled without words, unable to articulate his rage.
"Or you can come to try to kill me." The voice continued. "And you'll fail. But you'll try. Either way, you'll want to know where I am."
There was a pressure on the front of the Old War Chief's mind. Yang briefly felt that pressure as well, distant yet overwhelming.
"If you take the knowledge…"
"Don't, please don't, dad please-"
The Old War Chief took the knowledge, like he was ripping it from his enemy's hands.
And Yang saw it. She saw, but did not understand. It was like coordinates burnt into her memory but no map or tool to see them with.
And that voice laughed again.
"Come find me." The voice spoke once more. "And if you do somehow defeat me? I'll give back the price for that information."
The price?
Yang felt horror dawning from the Old War Chief.
"You may be asking yourself now. What memory did I replace to give you that knowledge?" The voice of the darkness asked. "Let me answer you with another question. What is your daughter's name?"
And then the darkness disappeared. And the Old War Chief was alone.
The fire crackled behind him, but he paid it no heed. His scream pierced the heavens even as the top of the tower collapsed. Lost in his grief as he was, he saw not the child standing at the open door. But Yang saw.
So the War Chief had seen as her father raged into the earth Flames erupted from his maw without end, the wind distorting as his back moved like he was beating his wings. The girl at the door turned and ran, and her father never noticed.
Then the Old War Chief found the body of the dead Grimm-woman. He raged at her, striking at the corpse.
And then he stopped. An idea piercing through his rage, even through it all.
His hand fell on the woman's bloodied back. His Aura flared and burst forward, like a defibrillator. Yang had never seen the technique used before, but the woman's heart beat once, twice.
With the man's Aura forcing it to be so, he forced oxygen to her brain. For a split second, she lived again.
And in that second, the man crushed her skull.
The brick slipped out of Yang's hand. The War Chief collapsed upon her, unmoving. Yang could feel her shaking breaths as she tried to hide her tears. Tried and failed.
"I…" A fierce intake of breath interrupted the War Chief. "I apologise. I. I had not. When I experience the memory alone, its. Its easier. Lose myself."
Her words came out rough as she tried to force them out. Yang didn't know how to react.
A moment passed, before the War Chief stood. She brushed her forearm against her eyes to wipe away the tears.
"That is why I am alone." The girl forced out. She sounded as if she was reciting from a script again. Yang had to wonder if she had the strength to talk without that script. "My father left a week later. He ensured I would be able to sustain myself for at least two years, and promised to be back within six months. I never saw him again."
She took a deep breath. Looked to the dropped Blood Memory and picked it up slowly. Distracted herself by returning it to the hidden storage in the wall, then undid the mechanism to hide it once more.
"He left me with nothing but the Legacy and the duty to it." The War Chief continued. "The Legacy and all its memories."
The girl paused. She reached to say something, but found nothing.
"...I need to go." She decided after a moment. "I… The Grimm are usually attracted to the emotion of that memory. You have no duty to defend this land, so allow me to keep it safe."
She stepped away. The wings of light started to form on her back. But before she could get away, Yang closed her hand around the War Chief's wrist.
The girl looked back, her serpentine eyes wide with surprise. Without thinking, Yang spoke.
[X] "I'm a fighter. I'll help."
[X] "I'll keep the Grimm at bay. You should rest."
Yang kept her mouth shut as the War Chief picked up the Blood Memory. Her hands were shaking as she did so. She was still reluctant, hesitant. Her free hand kept rubbing up to touch her horns.
When the War Chief turned to Yang, she bit her lip. Yang watched for a moment, considering whether to speak up. She could maybe make a comparison to when Ruby was reluctant to get her shots as a kid, and how stalling just meant dragging out the anticipation. But no, speaking up about the War Chief's reluctance a second time would probably frustrate her. If the positions were reversed Yang sure would get that frustration, even if most of it was at herself for hesitating enough for people to notice.
The War Chief brushed off the red brick. Yang briefly saw the etching in the side, but it was too faint from this distance to make out details of the face on the side. Whoever that face was, they were the one conquered for the Legacy. Dead, since it was a Blood Memory. Yang wondered who they were.
The War Chief held the top half of the brick in her left hand and lowered it towards Yang. "Take it. Once you do, we begin."
Yang nodded. She raised her hand slowly, and she saw the War Chief flinch as she moved. Alright, same logic as the needle. Get it over with. Yang lashed out faster to grab the bottom of the brick before the War Chief could stop her.
The two fell into darkness.
This felt different. This wasn't how Yang had felt the last few times she had seen a memory. What was the distinction?
"Forgot what this was like." The War Chief spoke directly into Yang's mind. "I haven't done this with another since…"
She didn't finish the sentence.
Yang forced herself to focus on the memory she was reliving. It took her a while to focus. She felt sensations, devoid of context. An explosion. A rush of motion to get outside.
She looked to see the Legacy burning. The tower had been lit aflame, a chunk of it shattered by an explosion. Whoever's memory this was, Yang felt them roar in shock and rage.
Before the flames was a silhouette. A woman Yang didn't recognize, but one who felt deadly familiar.
"Ah, there you are." The woman spoke with a voice that sounded like someone being roused from sleep. "Hm… You're the current War Chief?"
The one who recorded the memory did not respond. He lunged forward and punched towards the woman. She swayed to the side lazily to avoid the blow, dipping out of the mans point of view. When the man turned, she was further away than made sense for how long she was out of sight.
"So rude." The woman yawned. "My patron told me you people were warlike, but…"
The man turned away from the woman to see the Legacy burning.
The tower reached for the heavens, and now it was consumed by hellfire. The fire was burning far too bright for how much of the tower was actually there. He rushed forward and punched upwards, allowing the distortion of the air following his arms to rob oxygen from the flames. It only extinguished some of the inferno, but it was some progress.
A stake struck the side of the man, shattering against his aura. No, not a stake. A giant thorn. The man looked back to the side.
The woman had partially collapsed, and was now held upright by a gathering of black vines. Flowers were budding on those vines, but not yet blooming. White thorns surrounded the vines.
For a fraction of a moment, a red eye opened on a vine.
It wasn't a plant. It was Grimm.
"Who are you?" The Old War Chief growled.
"Hm…" The woman half-snored before stirring. "Who I am doesn't particular matter. You're the important one."
The man took a deep breath and roared again. Yang felt the Power of Dragons in his breath as the flames erupted, a detonation that drew in so much oxygen that even more of the tower's inferno was extinguished. More vines erupted from the ground to shield the woman, but the sea of fire tore through the Grimm vines.
When the light faded, the sleeping woman was on the ground. Half of her body was gone, her right arm and leg burnt to ash. The Old War Chief turned back to the burning tower, kicking a nearby pile of snow upwards. The snow coated the side of the damaged tower, and as it melted away the water extinguished the flame.
A vine wrapped around the Old War Chief's wrist and pulled him off his feet. He struck the ground, and from his eyes Yang got a sideways view of the injured woman standing.
Healing.
Black Grimm-matter was flowing from her damaged leg, reconstructing the lost limb. Tendrils were shooting out of her arm in much the same way.
Yang had seen this before. This woman was just like Cinder Fall.
"Rude." The woman muttered again.
"What the fuck-" The Old War Chief tried to stand, only for another vine to latch around his throat. He breathed in sharply enough to pulse the muscles on his neck, and the Power of Dragons followed the motion. The vines should have shattered, but the Song disappeared into Silence instead.
The Grimm could absorb that power, after all.
More vines wrapped around the woman, binding her tighter and tighter.
"I came here to talk, you know." The woman yawned again. She shuffled forward slowly, like someone waking up in the middle of the night lazily making their way to the bathroom.
"The Legacy-"
"Oh, that?" The Grimm-woman raised an eyebrow. "My patron disapproved of the abomination. The last time man tried to build a tower to the Gods, it went poorly for her."
"I'll kill you." The Old War Chief intoned. The woman opened her mouth to try to argue, and the Old War Chief spat hellfire at her. The flames burnt through her mouth and her cheek, but the Grimm-matter was regenerating moments later.
The Old War Chief blinked, and suddenly the half-asleep woman was standing above him. Her back arched and the vines caught her, lowering her arm down to the level of the Old War Chief's mouth. She shoved some kind of Dust Crystal into his mouth. Blue, but Yang couldn't see the colour with the flames dancing. Was that ice, or water?
"I come with an invitation." The Grimm-woman declared. "My patron wants to speak with you. A Dragon Faunus… Both the power of Man and Dragonkind."
The Old War Chief tried to kick, but his leg was caught by vines as well. He crushed the Dust Crystal in his maw and spat out an icicle that impale the woman in the head, through the eye. The woman suddenly shot upright, but more of the thorned vines surged into the man's mouth.
The Grimm-woman tried to say something, but it wasn't much understandable. Her hand groped wildly around her face until she caught the icicle that was stabbing through her. She ripped it out, and Yang caught the bone of her skull reassemble itself for a fraction of a second. "Ugh. Regenerating a brain is always tiring. I'm going to need a nap over this."
A shadow stepped into the side of the Old War Chief's view.
"No. No, stop, please. Please-"
It took Yang a moment to realise it was the current War Chief's voice that was pleading.
A gunshot rang out. The vines around the Old War Chief's neck broke from the bullet that bounced off his Aura. Two more bullets echoed out to break the vines holding onto his wrists. The Old War Chief flexed, and the rest of the vines around his body scattered.
Getting to his feet normally would take too long. He punched a crater into the ground and. Somehow remained in the air. Yang could feel muscles moving around her back as she relived the memory. It took her a moment to remember the wings of light that the current War Chief could manifest.
He looked over to the shadow. Yang got a good look at her too. She was wearing ornate armour, with a cape lined with swan feathers that somehow gave the impression of wings. She wore a crown that shared the wing motif, with two attachments in the shape emerging from above her ears. There was a scarf around her neck that flowed back like a veil, and was matched by more cloth tied around her left arm and her waist.
"Run, go back, don't go, don't-"
The woman raised her gun, a rifle, and fired it at the woman who was almost asleep. The Grimm-woman swayed to dodge the bullets as the other woman stepped closer. The weapon transformed slowly. A bayonet emerged from the tip of the gun, and it kept emerging until it was the length of a sword.
The woman adjusted her grip, and the weapon snapped into place to conceal the barrel of the rifle. Another blade shot out of the other end as she did so, forming a slightly curved blade that had a dagger emerging from the other end of the hilt. She stabbed the weapon upwards with the longer blade facing the sky.
Blue trails filled the air, tracing the arc of every bullet she had fired. Each and every one passed through the space surrounding the Grimm-woman. Just one bullet trail passed through the space the Grimm-woman was currently occupying.
That was enough.
A phantom replica of the blade shout out, emerging from the bullet's position to stab the woman from behind. She stumbled forward into the path of another blade, and the another. Until there was more metal than skin on her back, and there was black blood seeping from her lungs.
The real blade descended, and the dagger stabbed into the front half of the woman. Her Aura briefly flared up when the woman's fist hit her, but the dagger itself stabbed into her heart. How? Was that Dragon Bone?
Yang could sense the moment the dagger struck the tip of every single phantom blade. All at once, the fake weapons shot back out. They transformed in mid-air and all at once fired, and the woman with fake wings kicked the Grimm-woman back at the same time.
A storm of bullets shot through the Grimm-woman, and she fell.
The Old War Chief above wasn't satisfied with that. He descended from the skies and fell onto the dying Grimm-woman, driving his knee into what was left of her spine. He pressed down and forced a gurgle out of her throat.
"Why…" The Grimm-woman wheezed. "Why aren't I… Healing…"
"You regenerators are all the same." The other woman spoke with a voice that sounded so much like the current War Chief it made Yang wince. "You never expect a Semblance that can handle your will perfectly."
She turned her back and spoke to the Old War Chief. "Interrogate her however you need. I'll check on-"
"LOOK OUT!"
The current War Chief's scream was the first herald of the danger. Darkness erupted from the woman, like a swarm of locusts bursting from her flesh. The shadows came with such force that the Old War Chief was thrown back, and the woman in front of him fell forward.
The darkness took form in the silhouette of a woman. That silhouette ripped the weapon falling from the swan-feathered woman's hands.
"MUM!"
The blade descended upon the falling woman, and she was dead before she hit the ground.
The Old War Chief was silent, but his mouth was open as if screaming. He shot forward, wreathed in his own flames. The silhouette of darkness flicked a finger at him, scattering the flames back onto the tower of the Legacy.
She closed her hands around the Old War Chief's throat. The darkness flowed out of the silhouette once more, becoming an orb that surrounded his body. And that of the dying Grimm-woman beneath him.
And then the vision faded to darkness.
Within the darkness, the Grimm-woman's voice gurgled. Her words were silenced with blood.
"Hush, child." A familiar voice whispered. "Let the darkness take you slowly. I am with you."
That was the voice that had spoken to Cinder Fall, before she had been saved. Retribution had been robbed from Yang as the one behind that voice brought Lady Erra to Cinder, and granted upon her the power to resurrect the dead.
"Your soul will remain with me, child." That voice continued. "Just close your eyes. It will be other soon, Briar. Then you make sleep eternal."
Yang could see nothing from the Old War Chief's eyes. In the distance, she could hear the vague sobbing of the current War Chief. But she knew, somehow, the moment Briar fell from life.
"And you." The voice spoke from the darkness to the Old War Chief. "What are we going to do with you?"
"YOU!" The Old War Chief roared. "YOU KILLED HER."
"Did I?" The voice continued. "You're the one who repeated the Sin of Babyl. Your kin once responded to that sin by attempting genocide. I think my actions have been even-handed, in that context."
"WHY?" The Old War Chief roared. His voice carried not in the darkness; Yang simply knew the words he was trying to say.
"Let's not ponder on my motives." The voice sounded amused. "Let's instead ask: What are you going to do?"
The man tried to breath flame, punch out, strike out at darkness in some way.
"I see no reason why this should come in the way of a working relationship." The figure in the darkness continued. "I want you, Dragon Faunus. Man and Dragon in one. Enemies of mine have been attempting to create that blend artificially for millennia, and a quirk of fate brought you into being. I want you."
"Are you insane?" The Old War Chief spoke into silence. "You killed my beloved-"
"If you reject me, I will kill your daughter."
The Old War Chief fell silent.
"No, more than that." The voice laughed. "I will give your daughter the worst possible death. And you will live just long enough to realise what I mean."
"You…"
"Or you could join my side." The voice whispered. "Sail West. Find me in the Shadows of Dead Worlds, where human civilization goes to die. I'll be kind to you, even. Join me willingly, and I will pluck the memory from your skull. You'll never have to think about what you're leaving behind."
The Old War Chief growled without words, unable to articulate his rage.
"Or you can come to try to kill me." The voice continued. "And you'll fail. But you'll try. Either way, you'll want to know where I am."
There was a pressure on the front of the Old War Chief's mind. Yang briefly felt that pressure as well, distant yet overwhelming.
"If you take the knowledge…"
"Don't, please don't, dad please-"
The Old War Chief took the knowledge, like he was ripping it from his enemy's hands.
And Yang saw it. She saw, but did not understand. It was like coordinates burnt into her memory but no map or tool to see them with.
And that voice laughed again.
"Come find me." The voice spoke once more. "And if you do somehow defeat me? I'll give back the price for that information."
The price?
Yang felt horror dawning from the Old War Chief.
"You may be asking yourself now. What memory did I replace to give you that knowledge?" The voice of the darkness asked. "Let me answer you with another question. What is your daughter's name?"
And then the darkness disappeared. And the Old War Chief was alone.
The fire crackled behind him, but he paid it no heed. His scream pierced the heavens even as the top of the tower collapsed. Lost in his grief as he was, he saw not the child standing at the open door. But Yang saw.
So the War Chief had seen as her father raged into the earth Flames erupted from his maw without end, the wind distorting as his back moved like he was beating his wings. The girl at the door turned and ran, and her father never noticed.
Then the Old War Chief found the body of the dead Grimm-woman. He raged at her, striking at the corpse.
And then he stopped. An idea piercing through his rage, even through it all.
His hand fell on the woman's bloodied back. His Aura flared and burst forward, like a defibrillator. Yang had never seen the technique used before, but the woman's heart beat once, twice.
With the man's Aura forcing it to be so, he forced oxygen to her brain. For a split second, she lived again.
And in that second, the man crushed her skull.
The brick slipped out of Yang's hand. The War Chief collapsed upon her, unmoving. Yang could feel her shaking breaths as she tried to hide her tears. Tried and failed.
"I…" A fierce intake of breath interrupted the War Chief. "I apologise. I. I had not. When I experience the memory alone, its. Its easier. Lose myself."
Her words came out rough as she tried to force them out. Yang didn't know how to react.
A moment passed, before the War Chief stood. She brushed her forearm against her eyes to wipe away the tears.
"That is why I am alone." The girl forced out. She sounded as if she was reciting from a script again. Yang had to wonder if she had the strength to talk without that script. "My father left a week later. He ensured I would be able to sustain myself for at least two years, and promised to be back within six months. I never saw him again."
She took a deep breath. Looked to the dropped Blood Memory and picked it up slowly. Distracted herself by returning it to the hidden storage in the wall, then undid the mechanism to hide it once more.
"He left me with nothing but the Legacy and the duty to it." The War Chief continued. "The Legacy and all its memories."
The girl paused. She reached to say something, but found nothing.
"...I need to go." She decided after a moment. "I… The Grimm are usually attracted to the emotion of that memory. You have no duty to defend this land, so allow me to keep it safe."
She stepped away. The wings of light started to form on her back. But before she could get away, Yang closed her hand around the War Chief's wrist.
The girl looked back, her serpentine eyes wide with surprise. Without thinking, Yang spoke.
[X] "I'm a fighter. I'll help."
[X] "I'll keep the Grimm at bay. You should rest."
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[X] "I'm a fighter. I'll help."
Nice to see Salem in some capacity!
Nice to see Salem in some capacity!
Update 462 - Power in the Darkness
Mortifer
Embrace your inner lunatic. Fun times guaranteed.
- Location
- Under a rock.
[X] "I'm a fighter. I'll help."
The War Chief didn't say a word as she carried Yang down the mountain.
It wasn't a particularly enjoyable position. The War Chief had one arm beneath Yang's legs and the other behind her back, holding Yang dozens of metres off the ground as her wings of light let her soar. If Yang struggled or pulled away, she…
Well, between her portals, her transformation and just using Ember Celica to propel herself around, Yang would be fine. But there was a theoretical danger there. If the War Chief decided to drop Yang and she simultaneously fell asleep and couldn't react in time, she could get hurt really badly. The theoretical dependence was enough for Yang to feel uncomfortable.
With the Dragon Faunus not talking, Yang didn't bother trying to push the issue. She closed her eyes instead, reaching out with her soul to try and feel out the landscape around her. Where were the Grimm?
The closest of them were a few airborne Nevermores. Yang opened her eyes again and pointed upwards. The War Chief took a moment to change track, but with a flap of her wings she shot upwards.
There were three of them. Yang held up three fingers so the War Chief could know, mere moments before they shot above the low-hanging clouds that the Nevermores were using as cover. Yang pulled free of the War Chief's arms and fired Ember Celica, throwing herself towards the closest Nevermore and landing on its back.
The Grimm tried to roll to throw her free, but Yang's fingers closed tight around the bones of its wings nearest its torso. Even as the Nevermore tried to fly upside down and Yang felt her body dangle in the wind, she kept a tight grip. Her goal was to force the Nevermore down so she could smash it into the nearest mountain, but the bones of the Grimm broke before Yang could steer it anyway.
The loss of one wing started to spiral. Yang waited until she was above the Nevermore before pushing off and away. Ember Celica fired downwards once, twice, three times before the Nevermore fell beyond Yang's view.
She spun in the air to see the War Chief duelling both of the other Nevermores at once. They were either side of her, being batted away by her wings of light. Yang ripped open a portal to land on top of one of them, her sudden mass impacting hard enough to force it down.
Then Yang remembered an important trick. She opened another portal beneath the Nevermore and waited for it to fall halfway through. Once the portal closed, the Nevermore was cut in half.
Yang looked up again to prepare another portal, but it was unnecessary. With only one foe, the fight was no struggle at all. Yang watched as the War Chief cut her way into the core of the Nevermore, before the wings exploded outward and tore the Nevermore to shreds.
She descended upon Yang and caught the girl before she could fall any further. There was a slight smile on the War Chief's face, though it didn't reach her eyes. She was having fun with the fight, was she?
Yeah, Yang could get that. In a real fight that got her blood pumping, where there wasn't a meaningful chance of dying, Yang would agree that fighting was fun. Fun enough to take her mind off painful things. And if that's what the War Chief was doing, fine by Yang.
"Every time I touch that memory, it's the same." The War Chief spoke for the first time in a while. "A few airborne Grimm. I usually have to hunt them for a while. The longer it takes to find them, the more of them that gather."
Yang considered making her observation about the War Chief's speech public, but she bit her tongue. Dealing with people who were going through it emotionally was tricky.
"There'll be a herd gathering around the lake and rivers." The War Chief continued. "If I let them build up too much, they'll try to block the waterways. I need the fish that those rivers bring in. If I miss the powerful Grimm gathering, they'll start destroying the greenery at the base of the mountains."
"How likely are they to attack the building you live in?" Yang asked.
"They won't." The War Chief answered. "Or at least, if they do, I've never let them build to that point. No Grimm has attacked the Legacy since my father left."
With that she descended once more. She wasn't quite falling, her wings adjusted her horizontal movement often enough that Yang didn't have to worry about the War Chief hitting the ground too hard. It didn't take too long before the nearby mountains were no longer able to sustain the cold needed for snow, and Yang could see strange markings on the edge of the mountains once she got that far down. Almost like small river beds that had grown dry recently. Perhaps they became like waterfalls when it was raining.
As they approached the ground, Yang saw where the Nevermore she attacked had fallen. It was still alive, trying to push itself up with one wing. All around it were other minor Grimm, Beowulves and Ursa. A more obscure breed was emerging from the nearest river - A black tortoise with an opening in its shell. A Xuanwu, Yang believed? She couldn't recall off the top of her head what the opening was for, but it was probably dangerous.
The War Chief descended all the same. She placed Yang down on the mountainside overlooking the gathering Grimm and descended, wings sharpening into blades and cutting the nearest Grimm to her. The Nevermore was decapitated before it could even realise it was under attack.
Even the basic Grimm around here seemed tough. They had a faint colouration difference to them, their black fur and flesh starting to tint into a blackish-grey like some older Grimm. Even as the War Chief killed most of the Beowulves the moment she stepped into range, a few of them were able to dodge around the blades of light.
Yang watched for a moment as the War Chief started brawling with those that were able to dodge. It wasn't too different from how you'd see someone approach a boxer, except that a Beowulf on two feet had claws. Yang took a moment to observe the war the War Chief approached, ducking in and out of blows while her wings of light protected the space around her.
It had been a while since Yang had been able to box like that. Turns out that losing the mobility that working legs gave you denied a lot of the movement you needed to fistfight like that. Teleporting in and out gave Yang a lot of advantages, but it wasn't the same.
The closest Yang had was when she had tried to help Ruby learn how to handle hand-to-hand. Yang really needed to give Ruby some more lessons when she had the chance. Ruby was alright, but she was too eager to take openings. She'd fall for a false opening if you let her think she could get away with it. Too easy to condition.
But that was a thought for later. Yang set her eyes on the unfamiliar Grimm, the Xuanwu. Yang didn't know what that thing could do, so that was her priority. With the portal cutting trick she had, it was easy enough for her to kill something that big. She just needed to get it in the portal.
Time to find out how heavy a Xuanwu was.
Yang teleported behind the Xuanwu and punched it as hard as she could. The beast barely moved, but its shell cracked slightly. The opening flickered open like an eye, and something pale-white shifted beneath the shell. No, that didn't do it justice. It looked like someone had coloured in a chunk of reality white in some kind of computer painting program. It didn't have a natural tint at all.
And as Yang fell away from the Xuanwu, that white mass shot out. The head of a snake like a colour-inverted Taijitu lunged at Yang. That one was much easier to portal-cut, but the one punch against the Xuanwu had been enough to tell Yang she wasn't going to push it through a portal easily. She was going to need another plan-
From behind the Xuanwu, from the maw of the War Chief, flames burst free. The first few sparks gave Yang motivation enough to wrench her eyes shut, and she hit the ground a moment later.
Don't look don't think about it there's no fire there's nothing here to unearth any memory there's nothing-
Yang felt arms close around her, and a sudden rush of movement. She opened her eyes to see the War Chief holding her, looking down at concern.
"I apologise." The War Chief choked out. "I…"
She couldn't continue the second part of the statement. Yang had a fairly good idea what it was going to be anyway. 'I forgot you were like that with fire', or something like that. It didn't matter.
"Talk later." Yang looked back to the swarm of Grimm. The horde of Grimm were surging towards the two girls, with the Xuanwu moving slowly at the back of the pack. Yang pushed out of the War Chief's arms to teleport onto the back of the Xuanwu's shell.
The opening had sealed shut one more, but Yang could see it on the shell. She punched through enough to make a hole, then ripped it open once more. Then she just fell into the inside of the tortoise-Grimm's shell and started flailing.
There wasn't a need for directed force when the enemy was in every direction. Yang smashed every bit of flesh within the shell as hard as possible, Ember Celica firing frequently and echoing through the shell. Eventually the mass beneath Yang fell, and Yang burst out of the back of the Grimm as it dissolved.
There were more Ursa from somewhere or other, and the War Chief was duelling a particularly large one. Yang opened a portal to that Ursa's back and wrapped her arms around its neck to pull it back. The War Chief took the opening to slice through the Ursa, her wings of light reaching just a touch too far and cutting into Yang's Aura.
"My apologies!" The War Chief shouted, less unsure with the thrill of battle rushing through her. "I've never fought alongside another before!"
"I don't care!" Yang shouted back as she fired Ember Celica into the skull of another Ursa. "I get stronger the lower my Aura is!"
"Ah, so that's how it works!" The War Chief sounded excited. The last of the Grimm in the open were dying, and the War Chief's gaze turned to the end. "Come, come! They gather in the dark once their feast fades!"
She ran. Yang had to chain portals together to follow her, falling a short distance with every teleport to keep up with the War Chief. She rushed around the mountain that had the Legacy at its peak, disappearing into a cave near the base of the mountain that led down.
Yang followed the wings of light until she saw them illuminate more Grimm. A Minos shot towards the War Chief and Yang watched as the Dragon Faunus cut it in half. Yang portaled besides the War Chief just in time to open another portal, cutting another charging Minos in half when that portal closed.
The War Chief was panting as she stood in the dark. She couldn't possibly have winded herself that much, so there was more to the panting than mere exhaustion. She glared into the dark further than Yang could see, the perks of being a Faunus letting her see through the dark.
"Here it is, here it is, here it is." The War Chief spoke to herself, but with such fervour that Yang couldn't help but overhear. "Fight. Protect the Legacy. Feed the Legacy. Consume from the Legacy, its memories and knowledge. This is it! This is what I was born for!"
She shot her fist sideways. Not at a Grimm, simply to punch at something. The wind disturbed by her fist shot out and shattered some of the rock of the cave wall.
"Come and get me, Creatures of Grimm!"
There wasn't a sign of the despair or uncertainty that had filled the girl earlier as she fought.
Yang took a moment to observe the situation. It was dark enough down here that Yang needed to wait for the War Chief to illuminate the cave with her wings of light. Once she got a good read on the Grimm down here- More Minos, a handful of strangely thin Ursa that looked almost skeletal- Yang nodded to herself and embroiled herself in the fight.
Nothing down here was enough of a threat to take all of Yang's attention. As she fought, her thoughts kept turning to the War Chief.
[X] Fighting, being able to fulfil a part of her duty without any difficulties like this, seemed to keep her in a good mood. Maybe now was a good chance for Yang to push her on asking what she wanted in the future, and if she was going to cause problems with Yang leaving.
[X] Distractions in a fight were lethal. Even if this fight seemed simple enough, who knows what was lurking just out of sight? Yang should just wait until the Grimm were gone, and ask the War Chief once they were back in her home.
The War Chief didn't say a word as she carried Yang down the mountain.
It wasn't a particularly enjoyable position. The War Chief had one arm beneath Yang's legs and the other behind her back, holding Yang dozens of metres off the ground as her wings of light let her soar. If Yang struggled or pulled away, she…
Well, between her portals, her transformation and just using Ember Celica to propel herself around, Yang would be fine. But there was a theoretical danger there. If the War Chief decided to drop Yang and she simultaneously fell asleep and couldn't react in time, she could get hurt really badly. The theoretical dependence was enough for Yang to feel uncomfortable.
With the Dragon Faunus not talking, Yang didn't bother trying to push the issue. She closed her eyes instead, reaching out with her soul to try and feel out the landscape around her. Where were the Grimm?
The closest of them were a few airborne Nevermores. Yang opened her eyes again and pointed upwards. The War Chief took a moment to change track, but with a flap of her wings she shot upwards.
There were three of them. Yang held up three fingers so the War Chief could know, mere moments before they shot above the low-hanging clouds that the Nevermores were using as cover. Yang pulled free of the War Chief's arms and fired Ember Celica, throwing herself towards the closest Nevermore and landing on its back.
The Grimm tried to roll to throw her free, but Yang's fingers closed tight around the bones of its wings nearest its torso. Even as the Nevermore tried to fly upside down and Yang felt her body dangle in the wind, she kept a tight grip. Her goal was to force the Nevermore down so she could smash it into the nearest mountain, but the bones of the Grimm broke before Yang could steer it anyway.
The loss of one wing started to spiral. Yang waited until she was above the Nevermore before pushing off and away. Ember Celica fired downwards once, twice, three times before the Nevermore fell beyond Yang's view.
She spun in the air to see the War Chief duelling both of the other Nevermores at once. They were either side of her, being batted away by her wings of light. Yang ripped open a portal to land on top of one of them, her sudden mass impacting hard enough to force it down.
Then Yang remembered an important trick. She opened another portal beneath the Nevermore and waited for it to fall halfway through. Once the portal closed, the Nevermore was cut in half.
Yang looked up again to prepare another portal, but it was unnecessary. With only one foe, the fight was no struggle at all. Yang watched as the War Chief cut her way into the core of the Nevermore, before the wings exploded outward and tore the Nevermore to shreds.
She descended upon Yang and caught the girl before she could fall any further. There was a slight smile on the War Chief's face, though it didn't reach her eyes. She was having fun with the fight, was she?
Yeah, Yang could get that. In a real fight that got her blood pumping, where there wasn't a meaningful chance of dying, Yang would agree that fighting was fun. Fun enough to take her mind off painful things. And if that's what the War Chief was doing, fine by Yang.
"Every time I touch that memory, it's the same." The War Chief spoke for the first time in a while. "A few airborne Grimm. I usually have to hunt them for a while. The longer it takes to find them, the more of them that gather."
Yang considered making her observation about the War Chief's speech public, but she bit her tongue. Dealing with people who were going through it emotionally was tricky.
"There'll be a herd gathering around the lake and rivers." The War Chief continued. "If I let them build up too much, they'll try to block the waterways. I need the fish that those rivers bring in. If I miss the powerful Grimm gathering, they'll start destroying the greenery at the base of the mountains."
"How likely are they to attack the building you live in?" Yang asked.
"They won't." The War Chief answered. "Or at least, if they do, I've never let them build to that point. No Grimm has attacked the Legacy since my father left."
With that she descended once more. She wasn't quite falling, her wings adjusted her horizontal movement often enough that Yang didn't have to worry about the War Chief hitting the ground too hard. It didn't take too long before the nearby mountains were no longer able to sustain the cold needed for snow, and Yang could see strange markings on the edge of the mountains once she got that far down. Almost like small river beds that had grown dry recently. Perhaps they became like waterfalls when it was raining.
As they approached the ground, Yang saw where the Nevermore she attacked had fallen. It was still alive, trying to push itself up with one wing. All around it were other minor Grimm, Beowulves and Ursa. A more obscure breed was emerging from the nearest river - A black tortoise with an opening in its shell. A Xuanwu, Yang believed? She couldn't recall off the top of her head what the opening was for, but it was probably dangerous.
The War Chief descended all the same. She placed Yang down on the mountainside overlooking the gathering Grimm and descended, wings sharpening into blades and cutting the nearest Grimm to her. The Nevermore was decapitated before it could even realise it was under attack.
Even the basic Grimm around here seemed tough. They had a faint colouration difference to them, their black fur and flesh starting to tint into a blackish-grey like some older Grimm. Even as the War Chief killed most of the Beowulves the moment she stepped into range, a few of them were able to dodge around the blades of light.
Yang watched for a moment as the War Chief started brawling with those that were able to dodge. It wasn't too different from how you'd see someone approach a boxer, except that a Beowulf on two feet had claws. Yang took a moment to observe the war the War Chief approached, ducking in and out of blows while her wings of light protected the space around her.
It had been a while since Yang had been able to box like that. Turns out that losing the mobility that working legs gave you denied a lot of the movement you needed to fistfight like that. Teleporting in and out gave Yang a lot of advantages, but it wasn't the same.
The closest Yang had was when she had tried to help Ruby learn how to handle hand-to-hand. Yang really needed to give Ruby some more lessons when she had the chance. Ruby was alright, but she was too eager to take openings. She'd fall for a false opening if you let her think she could get away with it. Too easy to condition.
But that was a thought for later. Yang set her eyes on the unfamiliar Grimm, the Xuanwu. Yang didn't know what that thing could do, so that was her priority. With the portal cutting trick she had, it was easy enough for her to kill something that big. She just needed to get it in the portal.
Time to find out how heavy a Xuanwu was.
Yang teleported behind the Xuanwu and punched it as hard as she could. The beast barely moved, but its shell cracked slightly. The opening flickered open like an eye, and something pale-white shifted beneath the shell. No, that didn't do it justice. It looked like someone had coloured in a chunk of reality white in some kind of computer painting program. It didn't have a natural tint at all.
And as Yang fell away from the Xuanwu, that white mass shot out. The head of a snake like a colour-inverted Taijitu lunged at Yang. That one was much easier to portal-cut, but the one punch against the Xuanwu had been enough to tell Yang she wasn't going to push it through a portal easily. She was going to need another plan-
From behind the Xuanwu, from the maw of the War Chief, flames burst free. The first few sparks gave Yang motivation enough to wrench her eyes shut, and she hit the ground a moment later.
Don't look don't think about it there's no fire there's nothing here to unearth any memory there's nothing-
Yang felt arms close around her, and a sudden rush of movement. She opened her eyes to see the War Chief holding her, looking down at concern.
"I apologise." The War Chief choked out. "I…"
She couldn't continue the second part of the statement. Yang had a fairly good idea what it was going to be anyway. 'I forgot you were like that with fire', or something like that. It didn't matter.
"Talk later." Yang looked back to the swarm of Grimm. The horde of Grimm were surging towards the two girls, with the Xuanwu moving slowly at the back of the pack. Yang pushed out of the War Chief's arms to teleport onto the back of the Xuanwu's shell.
The opening had sealed shut one more, but Yang could see it on the shell. She punched through enough to make a hole, then ripped it open once more. Then she just fell into the inside of the tortoise-Grimm's shell and started flailing.
There wasn't a need for directed force when the enemy was in every direction. Yang smashed every bit of flesh within the shell as hard as possible, Ember Celica firing frequently and echoing through the shell. Eventually the mass beneath Yang fell, and Yang burst out of the back of the Grimm as it dissolved.
There were more Ursa from somewhere or other, and the War Chief was duelling a particularly large one. Yang opened a portal to that Ursa's back and wrapped her arms around its neck to pull it back. The War Chief took the opening to slice through the Ursa, her wings of light reaching just a touch too far and cutting into Yang's Aura.
"My apologies!" The War Chief shouted, less unsure with the thrill of battle rushing through her. "I've never fought alongside another before!"
"I don't care!" Yang shouted back as she fired Ember Celica into the skull of another Ursa. "I get stronger the lower my Aura is!"
"Ah, so that's how it works!" The War Chief sounded excited. The last of the Grimm in the open were dying, and the War Chief's gaze turned to the end. "Come, come! They gather in the dark once their feast fades!"
She ran. Yang had to chain portals together to follow her, falling a short distance with every teleport to keep up with the War Chief. She rushed around the mountain that had the Legacy at its peak, disappearing into a cave near the base of the mountain that led down.
Yang followed the wings of light until she saw them illuminate more Grimm. A Minos shot towards the War Chief and Yang watched as the Dragon Faunus cut it in half. Yang portaled besides the War Chief just in time to open another portal, cutting another charging Minos in half when that portal closed.
The War Chief was panting as she stood in the dark. She couldn't possibly have winded herself that much, so there was more to the panting than mere exhaustion. She glared into the dark further than Yang could see, the perks of being a Faunus letting her see through the dark.
"Here it is, here it is, here it is." The War Chief spoke to herself, but with such fervour that Yang couldn't help but overhear. "Fight. Protect the Legacy. Feed the Legacy. Consume from the Legacy, its memories and knowledge. This is it! This is what I was born for!"
She shot her fist sideways. Not at a Grimm, simply to punch at something. The wind disturbed by her fist shot out and shattered some of the rock of the cave wall.
"Come and get me, Creatures of Grimm!"
There wasn't a sign of the despair or uncertainty that had filled the girl earlier as she fought.
Yang took a moment to observe the situation. It was dark enough down here that Yang needed to wait for the War Chief to illuminate the cave with her wings of light. Once she got a good read on the Grimm down here- More Minos, a handful of strangely thin Ursa that looked almost skeletal- Yang nodded to herself and embroiled herself in the fight.
Nothing down here was enough of a threat to take all of Yang's attention. As she fought, her thoughts kept turning to the War Chief.
[X] Fighting, being able to fulfil a part of her duty without any difficulties like this, seemed to keep her in a good mood. Maybe now was a good chance for Yang to push her on asking what she wanted in the future, and if she was going to cause problems with Yang leaving.
[X] Distractions in a fight were lethal. Even if this fight seemed simple enough, who knows what was lurking just out of sight? Yang should just wait until the Grimm were gone, and ask the War Chief once they were back in her home.
Last edited:
Takoe
Dad
- Location
- Xehafort
[X] Fighting, being able to fulfil a part of her duty without any difficulties like this, seemed to keep her in a good mood. Maybe now was a good chance for Yang to push her on asking what she wanted in the future, and if she was going to cause problems with Yang leaving.
[X] Distractions in a fight were lethal. Even if this fight seemed simple enough, who knows what was lurking just out of sight? Yang should just wait until the Grimm were gone, and ask the War Chief once they were back in her home
Update 463 - Heart On Fire
Mortifer
Embrace your inner lunatic. Fun times guaranteed.
- Location
- Under a rock.
[X] Distractions in a fight were lethal. Even if this fight seemed simple enough, who knows what was lurking just out of sight? Yang should just wait until the Grimm were gone, and ask the War Chief once they were back in her home.
Yang put any thoughts of discussion out of her mind.
There would be time soon enough. For now, there was a fight. A nice and simple fight against the Grimm. There was no human thought behind those eyes. Yang didn't need to consider how dark one's heart had to be to turn to banditry or terrorism, because her enemy had no heart.
And she was fighting alongside a peer. All too often Yang found herself fighting alone, or she was fighting alongside an Intoner that outclassed her.
So there was no need to ruin the moment with words anyway. Once they started talking, they'd need to talk about the future. The War Chief had shown Yang the Legacy, and a Blood Memory that hit so close to her soul that the sight of it alone had created enough grief to provoke the Grimm. The War Chief had bared her heart and soul, and Yang was going to say that nothing had changed, that she was going to leave all the same.
That was gonna be a difficult conversation, and it was only gonna be more difficult if Yang got gored by Minos horns halfway through. So she bit her tongue, and she embraced the bloodlust.
…Well, bloodlust was a strong term. But it wasn't really inaccurate.
With her blood pulsing and her heart soaring, Yang threw herself into the fight.
The dark made it hard to see, and the way the War Chief used her wings of light meant the one light source in the room was ever-shifting. Yang set about creating some more, firing Ember Celica into the abyss and letting the Dust illuminate the room. A shame that she couldn't risk keeping her portals open, it'd be really simple to set up a loop so that one or two Dust rounds could act as eternal light sources.
But even just the first projectile lasted long enough. Yang didn't need more than a second of light. That was enough to teleport onto the back of another Minos, grab it by the horns, and force its head into the portal. Yang could pull her hands out faster than the bull could pull its head out, and even if could start to pull away it wasn't fast enough to avoid decapitation.
A wing of light cut through the space next to Yang. That was all Yang needed to see the Grimm nearest to her. Before she could fall from the dissolving Grimm, she was able to grab onto the side of another Minos and rip its legs out from under it. The War Chief surged forward to take advantage of the falling Grimm, delivering an uppercut with enough force that she ripped herself off her feet.
And she remained in the air, her wings of light twisting to hold her aloft. Yang was at just the right angle to see her smiling before she kicked her legs back. Once she was entirely horizontal, she soared forward.
Yang propped herself up against a wall and swung her left arm. Ember Celica fired parallel to the wall to keep illuminating the wall. There were a lot of Grimm further into the cave, but it was hard to get a good read when most of them were being cut down in the War Chief's wake.
And at the back of the pack was something Yang had never seen before.
It was like a Minos, but ancient. Its black flesh was starting to tint grey, and its body had bulked up to the point it stood on two legs instead of four. Its two front legs had started to distort into proper arms, but they weren't there yet.
Minos just mutated into bipedal forms as they got old? Wild.
The War Chief punched forward, and the bipedal Minos ducked away from the blow. The single act of movement told Yang everything she needed to know. That wasn't something you could fight while also fighting the lesser Minos surrounding it.
Yang ripped open a portal and threw herself forward. Ember Celica fired to build up Yang's momentum, and every single ounce of force behind that momentum hit the bipedal Minos straight in the face. The Grimm stumbled back, and Yang opened another portal.
Turns out, it doesn't matter how old a Grimm was. They were creatures of Silence all the same. When Yang closed her portal, the ancient Grimm died.
The War Chief caught Yang before she could fall. When the War Chief turned, Yang could see the Minos swarm turn as well, but charging bulls turned slowly. The War Chief soared into the middle of the herd of bulls, then linked one arm around one of Yang's arms.
Yang figured out what was going on a split second before the War Chief began to spin. Her body fell away from the War Chief's grasp with only the linked arms to keep Yang attached as the War Chief spun. Yang's legs dangled behind her as she moved, her other fist extended and firing to launch Dust Rounds in every direction. In her peripheral vision, Yang could see those wings of light extending out as blades, and even the War Chief's other arm was lashing out.
For a few seconds, the two girls were a spinning top of light and death.
Eventually, Yang's fists stopped meeting resistance. The War Chief's spinning slowed, but took a while to stop entirely. Then the War Chief fell, and she pulled down Yang with her as she fell.
Yang let out a small shout, but she stopped as the dizziness hit her too. She couldn't do anything but lay there for a moment, breathing heavily as the adrenaline made its way through her system.
The War Chief was breathing heavily as well, just out of synch enough with Yang's breathing that it was jarring, impossible to miss. It was hardly a comfortable position, with a varying pressure on Yang's chest as the eb and flow of oxygen from both girls shifted their position. The War Chief was smiling, her eyes wild as they stared up at nothingness.
"You good?" Yang pushed off the ground a bit so she wasn't pressing her full weight into the smaller girl. There wasn't much room for Yang to push down except for above the War Chief's shoulders, and she needed to push aside some of the War Chief's hair to do it.
The wild eyes locked onto Yang's face as she pushed itself upwards. The War Chief simply stared at Yang with her eyes full of… Something. Yang wasn't sure what. It reminded Yang of how someone would look if they would go all day without food and came home to a delicious meal.
"...Really, you good?" Yang was concerned now. "That was a good fight and all, but we're done."
The War Chief blinked. Her smile fell. Then she shook her head, her hand rising to her fringe so she could sweep her hair back.
"I think we're done here." The War Chief declared. Yang rolled off her so that she could stand, and the War Chief took a moment to pick Yang up as she stood. "We have a conversation to finish, I believe."
The War Chief took a while to build up to the conversation. Yang let her have the time to ready herself, even as the War Chief left Yang in the feast hall to go and fetch food. Once the War Chief had a plate full of croissants on the table, she sat down and started thinking.
Searching for a script, was she? Yang kept watching the War Chief, waiting for her to figure it out. After a minute or so, Yang tried throwing her a lifeline.
"That fight right after the Blood Memory kinda derailed us." Yang noted. "It's probably a good idea if we loop around a bit on that front. Now that I've seen it, you should just say outright what that meant to you."
The War Chief nodded. Yang could see the gratitude flicker across her expression for a moment before she reached for her horns, soothing herself with the touch.
"I have been watching that Blood Memory ever since I was four years old." The War Chief explained. "I… Do not know for sure how long it has been since I first saw it. I only know I was four back then because I remember my father saying something about my birthday, and every time I try to keep track of time I lose it again."
Yang nodded without saying anything. Needed to show she was listening, with something this important.
"All I have are the Legacy and the memories." The War Chief continued. "I am determined to live up to both. I will fulfil my duty. And I would fulfil that duty regardless of what it was, but I believe witnessing that memory will have established that this is an important duty."
"...You're right, at least a bit." Yang answered. Then she remembered how bad the War Chief had reacted to a contradiction earlier, when she believed being contradicted meant someone was trying to trick her. "Let me clarify. I don't fully understand everything that happened, but what I do understand tells me that what happened in that memory was important."
The War Chief took a while to formulate a response. "What do you mean?"
"That voice in the darkness, I've heard it before." Yang answered. "She was speaking to an enemy of mine."
The serpentine eyes of the Dragon Faunus widened. "You know the Dark?"
The Dark? Was that the term the War Chief had chosen for that voice? It was more of a name than Yang had, at least.
"I… Don't know how much you would have heard about it, isolated like this." Yang explained. "But this enemy of mine, Cinder Fall, she's a big deal. As in, woke up one of the thirteen most powerful Grimm in the world and tried to set it on a Kingdom."
"Hm." The noncommittal hum from the War Chief was much like Yang's earlier nod, merely a sign that the other party was listening.
"When Cinder was beaten, she ran. And I heard that voice speaking to her, offering her a path to salvation."
And once Yang was remembering that moment, she couldn't help but remember what happened next. The War Chief tilted her head as she saw Yang's face fall. What choice did Yang have but to explain?
"The spirit in the darkness gave Cinder a victim, someone to steal an ability from." Yang explained. "So Cinder took the ability to raise the dead, and raised my mother's corpse to aid in her escape."
The War Chief's eyes widened.
"She's still out there." Yang muttered. "Can't even keep my portals open for more than a second without drawing her attention. Can't go too far or the corpse of my mother will interrupt the journey, try to kill me."
"I…" The War Chief reached for her horns. "Horrific."
"Yeah." Yang nodded.
"I do not know what to say." The War Chief paused, then picked up a croissant. She held it out towards Yang. "I would recommend you eat while I return to my point. So we do not have to talk about that. A parent turned against a child… It is beyond my ability to comprehend."
Yang bit into the croissant with enough force to hold it in her mouth. Once the War Chief let it go, Yang shifted her lips around to draw the croissant into her mouth more, chewing all the while.
"I believe witnessing that memory will have established that this is an important duty." The War Chief repeated her exact words from earlier, even if isolated them from the context made them harder to parse. "Some great enemy thinks it important to interfere with the Legacy. Some great enemy thinks that being a Dragon Faunus makes one important enough that they wished to control my father, and I also fulfil that condition. As such, the continuation of the Legacy - And the refutation of the enemy's desire to possess people like me - Is a duty of more significance than mere sentimental value."
"But you'd work on the Legacy all the same, even if all you had was sentimental value?" Yang asked. She caught the half-chewed croissant as it fell out of her mouth, and started eating it again once she was done talking/
"Correct." The War Chief answered.
…Well, Yang would probably say the same if it the positions were reversed.
"I have done it alone for as long as I can remember." The War Chief continued. "But… As the War Chief, the one who defeats me is entitled to be my wife. I am to pledge the world to you, and I will no longer be alone."
…Ok. Maybe there's a bit more to the War Chief's marriage proposal than just duty. She didn't even seem to realise how much emotion was in her voice when she spoke of being alone.
"Please." The War Chief sounded pleading as she spoke. "If the Dark is your enemy as well, then unite with me in spiting in the face of the Dark. Give my war purpose and direction, so that the Legacy may be built upon it. Let me fulfil my duty, the responsibilities as a Child of the War God. Stay with me."
The War Chief reached across the table. She took Yang's hands, held them tight. If she looked hungry before, like a starving man who came home to a delicious dinner, then the look in her eyes right now was that of a starving man who came home to find the pantry empty. Desperate.
Yang paused. She needed to pick her words carefully. Once she spoke, it would be a rejection. An apology. And perhaps Yang could try to barter with her - Convince her to get in contact with One, promise to stay in touch, maybe even leave the door open to what the War Chief wanted in the future. But what she wanted now, for Yang to stay with her and build the Legacy together, was not something Yang could give her.
But how…
Before Yang could speak, the sound of howling wind interrupted her. The War Chief's gaze shot to the size, all the longing and pleading replaced with fury and thunder.
"What's going on?" Yang asked.
"Intruders." The War Chief hissed. "I've not heard Njord's Wolf howl like that… Ever."
"What wolf?" Yang blinked.
"A spell much like the statue that creates the memories." The War Chief could barely contain her anger as she explained. She stood, pushing Yang's hands away in the process. "Intruders on my mountain! In my skies! Of all times, during my proposal of an eternal oath!"
"I can see what it is." Yang offered. "Reach around with-"
"No." The War Chief extended her wings. "I will deal with this."
She shot away. The door on the hall was ripped from its hinges at the force of the War Chief howling past. She was gone before Yang could even think to stop her.
Fuck. Ok. This might be a problem. Because if there were people here now, then Yang had a fairly good idea of who.
She confirmed it just to be safe. Reaching out with her soul, she could see the airship. Atlesian in design, clearly sent by One. And standing on the deployed ramp at the back of the airship, ready to jump free…
"Ruby." Yang spoke out loud.
God damn it. The War Chief was actively picking a fight with Ruby. Yang sympathised with the girl, but how much of a problem was it going to be to talk her down?
How hard was Ruby going to go? The last time Yang had nearly been kidnapped…
…The War Chief wasn't going to die that easily. But if Ruby came at her with the same anger and panic…
Fuck.
[X] Teleport to Ruby. Explain the situation before the War Chief had time to attack.
[X] Teleport to the War Chief. Force her to calm down before she did something everyone regretted.
Yang put any thoughts of discussion out of her mind.
There would be time soon enough. For now, there was a fight. A nice and simple fight against the Grimm. There was no human thought behind those eyes. Yang didn't need to consider how dark one's heart had to be to turn to banditry or terrorism, because her enemy had no heart.
And she was fighting alongside a peer. All too often Yang found herself fighting alone, or she was fighting alongside an Intoner that outclassed her.
So there was no need to ruin the moment with words anyway. Once they started talking, they'd need to talk about the future. The War Chief had shown Yang the Legacy, and a Blood Memory that hit so close to her soul that the sight of it alone had created enough grief to provoke the Grimm. The War Chief had bared her heart and soul, and Yang was going to say that nothing had changed, that she was going to leave all the same.
That was gonna be a difficult conversation, and it was only gonna be more difficult if Yang got gored by Minos horns halfway through. So she bit her tongue, and she embraced the bloodlust.
…Well, bloodlust was a strong term. But it wasn't really inaccurate.
With her blood pulsing and her heart soaring, Yang threw herself into the fight.
The dark made it hard to see, and the way the War Chief used her wings of light meant the one light source in the room was ever-shifting. Yang set about creating some more, firing Ember Celica into the abyss and letting the Dust illuminate the room. A shame that she couldn't risk keeping her portals open, it'd be really simple to set up a loop so that one or two Dust rounds could act as eternal light sources.
But even just the first projectile lasted long enough. Yang didn't need more than a second of light. That was enough to teleport onto the back of another Minos, grab it by the horns, and force its head into the portal. Yang could pull her hands out faster than the bull could pull its head out, and even if could start to pull away it wasn't fast enough to avoid decapitation.
A wing of light cut through the space next to Yang. That was all Yang needed to see the Grimm nearest to her. Before she could fall from the dissolving Grimm, she was able to grab onto the side of another Minos and rip its legs out from under it. The War Chief surged forward to take advantage of the falling Grimm, delivering an uppercut with enough force that she ripped herself off her feet.
And she remained in the air, her wings of light twisting to hold her aloft. Yang was at just the right angle to see her smiling before she kicked her legs back. Once she was entirely horizontal, she soared forward.
Yang propped herself up against a wall and swung her left arm. Ember Celica fired parallel to the wall to keep illuminating the wall. There were a lot of Grimm further into the cave, but it was hard to get a good read when most of them were being cut down in the War Chief's wake.
And at the back of the pack was something Yang had never seen before.
It was like a Minos, but ancient. Its black flesh was starting to tint grey, and its body had bulked up to the point it stood on two legs instead of four. Its two front legs had started to distort into proper arms, but they weren't there yet.
Minos just mutated into bipedal forms as they got old? Wild.
The War Chief punched forward, and the bipedal Minos ducked away from the blow. The single act of movement told Yang everything she needed to know. That wasn't something you could fight while also fighting the lesser Minos surrounding it.
Yang ripped open a portal and threw herself forward. Ember Celica fired to build up Yang's momentum, and every single ounce of force behind that momentum hit the bipedal Minos straight in the face. The Grimm stumbled back, and Yang opened another portal.
Turns out, it doesn't matter how old a Grimm was. They were creatures of Silence all the same. When Yang closed her portal, the ancient Grimm died.
The War Chief caught Yang before she could fall. When the War Chief turned, Yang could see the Minos swarm turn as well, but charging bulls turned slowly. The War Chief soared into the middle of the herd of bulls, then linked one arm around one of Yang's arms.
Yang figured out what was going on a split second before the War Chief began to spin. Her body fell away from the War Chief's grasp with only the linked arms to keep Yang attached as the War Chief spun. Yang's legs dangled behind her as she moved, her other fist extended and firing to launch Dust Rounds in every direction. In her peripheral vision, Yang could see those wings of light extending out as blades, and even the War Chief's other arm was lashing out.
For a few seconds, the two girls were a spinning top of light and death.
Eventually, Yang's fists stopped meeting resistance. The War Chief's spinning slowed, but took a while to stop entirely. Then the War Chief fell, and she pulled down Yang with her as she fell.
Yang let out a small shout, but she stopped as the dizziness hit her too. She couldn't do anything but lay there for a moment, breathing heavily as the adrenaline made its way through her system.
The War Chief was breathing heavily as well, just out of synch enough with Yang's breathing that it was jarring, impossible to miss. It was hardly a comfortable position, with a varying pressure on Yang's chest as the eb and flow of oxygen from both girls shifted their position. The War Chief was smiling, her eyes wild as they stared up at nothingness.
"You good?" Yang pushed off the ground a bit so she wasn't pressing her full weight into the smaller girl. There wasn't much room for Yang to push down except for above the War Chief's shoulders, and she needed to push aside some of the War Chief's hair to do it.
The wild eyes locked onto Yang's face as she pushed itself upwards. The War Chief simply stared at Yang with her eyes full of… Something. Yang wasn't sure what. It reminded Yang of how someone would look if they would go all day without food and came home to a delicious meal.
"...Really, you good?" Yang was concerned now. "That was a good fight and all, but we're done."
The War Chief blinked. Her smile fell. Then she shook her head, her hand rising to her fringe so she could sweep her hair back.
"I think we're done here." The War Chief declared. Yang rolled off her so that she could stand, and the War Chief took a moment to pick Yang up as she stood. "We have a conversation to finish, I believe."
~~~~~
The War Chief took a while to build up to the conversation. Yang let her have the time to ready herself, even as the War Chief left Yang in the feast hall to go and fetch food. Once the War Chief had a plate full of croissants on the table, she sat down and started thinking.
Searching for a script, was she? Yang kept watching the War Chief, waiting for her to figure it out. After a minute or so, Yang tried throwing her a lifeline.
"That fight right after the Blood Memory kinda derailed us." Yang noted. "It's probably a good idea if we loop around a bit on that front. Now that I've seen it, you should just say outright what that meant to you."
The War Chief nodded. Yang could see the gratitude flicker across her expression for a moment before she reached for her horns, soothing herself with the touch.
"I have been watching that Blood Memory ever since I was four years old." The War Chief explained. "I… Do not know for sure how long it has been since I first saw it. I only know I was four back then because I remember my father saying something about my birthday, and every time I try to keep track of time I lose it again."
Yang nodded without saying anything. Needed to show she was listening, with something this important.
"All I have are the Legacy and the memories." The War Chief continued. "I am determined to live up to both. I will fulfil my duty. And I would fulfil that duty regardless of what it was, but I believe witnessing that memory will have established that this is an important duty."
"...You're right, at least a bit." Yang answered. Then she remembered how bad the War Chief had reacted to a contradiction earlier, when she believed being contradicted meant someone was trying to trick her. "Let me clarify. I don't fully understand everything that happened, but what I do understand tells me that what happened in that memory was important."
The War Chief took a while to formulate a response. "What do you mean?"
"That voice in the darkness, I've heard it before." Yang answered. "She was speaking to an enemy of mine."
The serpentine eyes of the Dragon Faunus widened. "You know the Dark?"
The Dark? Was that the term the War Chief had chosen for that voice? It was more of a name than Yang had, at least.
"I… Don't know how much you would have heard about it, isolated like this." Yang explained. "But this enemy of mine, Cinder Fall, she's a big deal. As in, woke up one of the thirteen most powerful Grimm in the world and tried to set it on a Kingdom."
"Hm." The noncommittal hum from the War Chief was much like Yang's earlier nod, merely a sign that the other party was listening.
"When Cinder was beaten, she ran. And I heard that voice speaking to her, offering her a path to salvation."
And once Yang was remembering that moment, she couldn't help but remember what happened next. The War Chief tilted her head as she saw Yang's face fall. What choice did Yang have but to explain?
"The spirit in the darkness gave Cinder a victim, someone to steal an ability from." Yang explained. "So Cinder took the ability to raise the dead, and raised my mother's corpse to aid in her escape."
The War Chief's eyes widened.
"She's still out there." Yang muttered. "Can't even keep my portals open for more than a second without drawing her attention. Can't go too far or the corpse of my mother will interrupt the journey, try to kill me."
"I…" The War Chief reached for her horns. "Horrific."
"Yeah." Yang nodded.
"I do not know what to say." The War Chief paused, then picked up a croissant. She held it out towards Yang. "I would recommend you eat while I return to my point. So we do not have to talk about that. A parent turned against a child… It is beyond my ability to comprehend."
Yang bit into the croissant with enough force to hold it in her mouth. Once the War Chief let it go, Yang shifted her lips around to draw the croissant into her mouth more, chewing all the while.
"I believe witnessing that memory will have established that this is an important duty." The War Chief repeated her exact words from earlier, even if isolated them from the context made them harder to parse. "Some great enemy thinks it important to interfere with the Legacy. Some great enemy thinks that being a Dragon Faunus makes one important enough that they wished to control my father, and I also fulfil that condition. As such, the continuation of the Legacy - And the refutation of the enemy's desire to possess people like me - Is a duty of more significance than mere sentimental value."
"But you'd work on the Legacy all the same, even if all you had was sentimental value?" Yang asked. She caught the half-chewed croissant as it fell out of her mouth, and started eating it again once she was done talking/
"Correct." The War Chief answered.
…Well, Yang would probably say the same if it the positions were reversed.
"I have done it alone for as long as I can remember." The War Chief continued. "But… As the War Chief, the one who defeats me is entitled to be my wife. I am to pledge the world to you, and I will no longer be alone."
…Ok. Maybe there's a bit more to the War Chief's marriage proposal than just duty. She didn't even seem to realise how much emotion was in her voice when she spoke of being alone.
"Please." The War Chief sounded pleading as she spoke. "If the Dark is your enemy as well, then unite with me in spiting in the face of the Dark. Give my war purpose and direction, so that the Legacy may be built upon it. Let me fulfil my duty, the responsibilities as a Child of the War God. Stay with me."
The War Chief reached across the table. She took Yang's hands, held them tight. If she looked hungry before, like a starving man who came home to a delicious dinner, then the look in her eyes right now was that of a starving man who came home to find the pantry empty. Desperate.
Yang paused. She needed to pick her words carefully. Once she spoke, it would be a rejection. An apology. And perhaps Yang could try to barter with her - Convince her to get in contact with One, promise to stay in touch, maybe even leave the door open to what the War Chief wanted in the future. But what she wanted now, for Yang to stay with her and build the Legacy together, was not something Yang could give her.
But how…
Before Yang could speak, the sound of howling wind interrupted her. The War Chief's gaze shot to the size, all the longing and pleading replaced with fury and thunder.
"What's going on?" Yang asked.
"Intruders." The War Chief hissed. "I've not heard Njord's Wolf howl like that… Ever."
"What wolf?" Yang blinked.
"A spell much like the statue that creates the memories." The War Chief could barely contain her anger as she explained. She stood, pushing Yang's hands away in the process. "Intruders on my mountain! In my skies! Of all times, during my proposal of an eternal oath!"
"I can see what it is." Yang offered. "Reach around with-"
"No." The War Chief extended her wings. "I will deal with this."
She shot away. The door on the hall was ripped from its hinges at the force of the War Chief howling past. She was gone before Yang could even think to stop her.
Fuck. Ok. This might be a problem. Because if there were people here now, then Yang had a fairly good idea of who.
She confirmed it just to be safe. Reaching out with her soul, she could see the airship. Atlesian in design, clearly sent by One. And standing on the deployed ramp at the back of the airship, ready to jump free…
"Ruby." Yang spoke out loud.
God damn it. The War Chief was actively picking a fight with Ruby. Yang sympathised with the girl, but how much of a problem was it going to be to talk her down?
How hard was Ruby going to go? The last time Yang had nearly been kidnapped…
"I…" Ruby looked down at her bloodstained hands, shaking at the sight of them. "His Aura wasn't… He… I didn't mean to…"
…The War Chief wasn't going to die that easily. But if Ruby came at her with the same anger and panic…
Fuck.
[X] Teleport to Ruby. Explain the situation before the War Chief had time to attack.
[X] Teleport to the War Chief. Force her to calm down before she did something everyone regretted.
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[X] Teleport to Ruby. Explain the situation before the War Chief had time to attack
Update 464 - So Close And Yet So Far Away
Mortifer
Embrace your inner lunatic. Fun times guaranteed.
- Location
- Under a rock.
The moment the airship was within range of the first mountain, Galatea kicked it into stealth mode. Their position above the clouds meant the physical presence of the airship was a nonconcern. Energy expenditure was reduced to the point that the primary Dust Reactor could be shut down, and the engines kept running on fumes.
It made the airship move slower. It was slight, it probably couldn't be noticed by anyone else. But even the half-second of deceleration had made Ruby want to scream.
The map in the centre of the cockpit had been reduced in complexity. Consequence of the ship going into stealth mode It was basically just a radar now, pinging structures and movement.
There were a lot of tiny dots moving around one of the big dots. Movement around a mountain. Grimm, Galatea had said. Once they got close enough to get a camera view, they'd be able to tell if they were Grimm they needed to be concerned with.
Ruby kept glaring at the radar. Maybe if she glared hard enough, she could explode the Grimm with her mind from a distan-
Another ping went out. The dot she had been tracking disappeared. Huh.
By the next ping, more dots around the first disappeared as well. Ok, Ruby hadn't been paying attention to those dots. She probably didn't have telepathic Grimm exploding powers.
"There's conflict?" Ruby watched the dots fade out as the radar stopped tracking them. Another pin, and there was only one really small dot. "A bunch of the 'Grimm' just stopped being there, and now there's only one thing."
"Possible." Galatea answered. "We are not yet within range for the camera to be able to tell. If that is something fighting the Grimm, it may be the kidnapper."
Ruby could hear her heart beating within her ears. That changed plans a bit. If that dot was the kidnapper, then keeping track of it meant possibly tracking the War Chief to her mountain.
But there was another possibility. "Or that's the interloper. Or the Vraal."
"Possible." Galatea answered. "Once we are closer to the mountains, we will lower enough that the mounted cameras can try to observe the movement on the radar."
"What's the plan?" Ruby asked. "Please tell me the plan. I need to think or I'm going to do something stupid."
"Should I trap you in a glyph?" Weiss asked.
"I'm learning a lot today about how much I hate sitting in place when something's happening." Ruby answered. "So I don't think that will help much."
Weiss tried to relax her shoulders. She wasn't really successful.
"Do we have any remote cameras?" Weiss asked. "I can have my summons carry them."
Galatea paused. "I'm sending a call for Artzin to bring some here. You will need to go to the launch pad to send your Grimm out."
Weiss nodded. Ruby followed suit, though she didn't know why. That was something. Something.
"War Chief. Grimm controller. Vraal." Ruby counted down on her fingers. "How do we handle this?"
"Ideally?" Weiss asked. "Yang's conscious and in a position to see the sky. We open the airship and she teleports in."
"Ideally." Ruby nodded. "And if she's unconscious?"
"Then we're going to have to fight." Weiss answered.
"All of us fighting at once is a bad idea." Ruby decided immediately. "If we're all fighting the War Chief and the Grimm controller interferes…"
Ruby paused as she realised what she just said.
"I'm an idiot!" Ruby slapped herself on the forehead.
"Only occasionally." Weiss answered.
"It's a charm point." Galatea answered at the same time.
…It would have been nice if someone disagreed…
"That's not the interloper fighting the Grimm!" Ruby answered. "Because they can control Grimm, so why would they fight them?"
Weiss paused. "...I had not considered that."
Five called out from her position, somewhere behind Ruby. "So it seems that actually my niece is the least idiot person in this room."
Weiss seemed upset at that comment, but she quickly composed herself. Ruby wasn't sure if she should comment or not.
"I'll keep track of the dot we think might be the War Chief." Weiss declared. "Once I have my summons set up with cameras, I can track down where they go."
"How much range does your Semblance have?" Ruby asked.
"I don't appear to have a limit." Weiss answered. "But I can't see through their eyes, and I can't keep track off too many of them at once unless they're all doing the same thing. The cameras should help with the first issue, but even sending just two or three is going to take all of my attention."
Ruby nodded. "You focus on the summons. Tell us anything important. And if a fight breaks out use the summons before you come out of the airship yourself."
"Don't you go and get into a fight by yourself." Weiss scowled.
"I'm an Intoner." Ruby answered. "I'll be fine-"
"And wasn't the Dragon of Mistral coming this way?" Weiss asked. "What if they and the Grimm controller are one and the same?"
…Ruby was hoping not to think about that.
She was hoping that nobody else would notice. But with what Yang had told Ruby of her vision in her sleep, of the Dragon's threats and the reptilian creature Yang called Vraal…
"...If the Grimm controller is the Dragon, then all the more reason for nobody else to fight." Ruby answered. "I'll handle it better than anyone else could. Except perhaps Five."
"No 'Except' there." Five interrupted again. "You're more proficient in both skill and Semblance, Ruby."
Fair enough, but that wasn't the important part of what Ruby said.
"But at the same time." Ruby continued. "I… Don't think I can sit still while Yang is in danger. If I know where she is, if I need to be the one to save her-"
Dyna grabbed Ruby's hand. The girl had been quiet for so long, Ruby had thought she left the room.
Right. Focus. Calm.
"War Chief. Grimm controller. Vraal." Ruby recounted. "Ideal situation is we fight nobody. Yang teleports to us. One step down, we have to fight the War Chief but not anyone else. I can keep the War Chief busy long enough for someone else to find Yang."
Everyone nodded.
"But if the Grimm controller is too close, we'll have to fight them." Ruby continued. "And… I think me and Five are the only people who should do that."
"Ruby-"
"Don't." Ruby held her hand up at Weiss. "Listen. Five. You and I fight the Grimm controller and the Vraal. If we only find one of them, one of us stays here and looks out for the other. Meanwhile…"
Ruby looked around. Weiss needed to manage her summons. Dito would be by Five's side ideally. Jaune… Wasn't reliable here.
"Galatea." Ruby turned to the gynoid. "Can I trust you with Yang?"
Galatea paused. She reached a hand for her chest, right over her heart.
"I would be blessed to be trusted with anything, if it was for you." Galatea had to go and say something kinda romantic, but Ruby was too busy dealing with the stress to notice.
"The Grimm controller is here for the War Chief." Ruby observed. "So ideally, you talk to her, set her on the Grimm controller. Then you grab Yang and bring her here, and we can just run away."
"And if the War Chief will not listen?" Galatea asked.
"Please save my sister."
Galatea nodded.
Ruby wasn't sure if this plan actually checked out, but it was something. The airship was lowering slowly, far too slowly for her liking.
The girl in red looked down to Dyna. The dog Faunus was holding her hand tight. Dyna's eyes were narrow, darting around the room with a panic. Looking to the various faces around her.
She was scared someone else might be going missing in this fight, wasn't she?
Ruby knelt down to the girl's side. "You okay?"
"...I don't know." Dyna admitted.
Ruby closed her eye. "Hey. How about you step out of here for a while? There's probably a weapon practice room somewhere on this airship, right?"
"Not quite." Galatea answered. "Nothing for a trainee. There is a firing range for calibration purposes-"
"That's good enough." Ruby nodded. "Dyna, why don't you go off with Jaune and see if they have any scythe weapons there?"
Dyna looked into Ruby's eye. "I…"
"I'm immortal." Ruby cut off the girl's immediate concern. It was bending the truth a bit, considering there was a Dragon here. But Yang had to have her Aura down before she could do anything with the Dragon stuff, so it wasn't like the Dragon of Mistral would be able to attack Ruby with Dragon stuff easily. "I'll be fine."
Jaune stepped over and offered his hand to Dyna. "Hey. I'm also freaking out. Might do us both some good to be somewhere else."
Dyna looked at Ruby with a strange look in her eye.
"...If you disappear too, I'll never forgive you."
…Huh. A bit more anger in Dyna than Ruby had expected. Wow Ruby wished she was a properly trained therapist or something. She liked Dyna better when she was more cheerful. Liked a lot of people better when they were cheerful instead of panicked, stressed or whatever. Herself chief among them.
Dyna went off with Jaune. Dito paused for a moment, then followed.
"Where are you going?" Five asked her Disciple.
"I'm not gonna be able to contribute anyway." Dito shrugged. "So I'm out."
Huh. Ok. Ruby thought that maybe he'd be relevant. How strong were Disciple's anyway? She doubted Jaune was indicative of their strength level, so…
Hm. Dito had beaten out Uncle Qrow once, hadn't he? Or was that just because Ruby had been held captive. She couldn't recall. She didn't like thinking about that incident.
Artzin walked in at some point while Ruby was trapped in her own head. Weiss took one more look at the radar before walking off towards her. Ruby nodded her off, then turned to stare at the radar.
Ruby was going to ask if Weiss had been keeping track of the dots, but that was unnecessary. There was only one thing moving right now, and they were heading towards a mountain. It looked like they had something.
For a while, Ruby had nothing to do but stare. Assuming they weren't completely wrong, Ruby knew which mountain the probably-War Chief was on. Part of her was tempted to jump out now, but no. Focus on the plan. Focus. Focus-
The radar wasn't good enough for Ruby. She turned her heel. "I'm going to see what Weiss is doing."
"Be safe." Galatea answered simply.
It didn't take long to find Weiss. Artzin was standing by the door silently. She gave Ruby a salute as she ran by, and Ruby nodded at her. Weiss was inside a big loading-bay looking area. There were a few empty docks where you could fit vehicles, and a ramp which could go down to open up to let vehicles in or out.
"What's the situation?" Ruby looked around. Weiss was sitting in front of some kind of big camera setup, with ten monitors in front of her. Only four were lit up, only three in Weiss' view. Behind the monitors was something like a CCT tower.
Ruby's wandering attention attracted her to the fourth monitor. "What's that?"
"I was communicating with Lady One earlier." Artzin declared from the door. "She had dispatched a rescue team when she heard Yang had been taken captive. If all goes well, we shall meet them shortly after we leave this mountain. If things go poorly, they can be reinforcements."
It was rare to be in a situation like this and know help was coming. Or at least, Ruby couldn't remember it happening often.
"As for Lady Schnee." Artzin continued. "She has sent three summoned Nevermore to each of the three mountains-"
"Found it." Weiss pointed to a monitor. Ruby turned her head to the monitor in question, positioned just in the blindspot of her eyepatch. There was some kind of tower on one of the mountains, one that gave an under-construction feel to it. There was some kind of hall beneath it which somewhat reminded Ruby of cartoons about vikings.
"That's got to be it." Ruby decided. "Let's go-"
"Wait." Artzin interrupted. She pointed at another monitor. "There's something there."
One of Weiss' climbing Nevermores stabilised its flight. There was a glint of movement on a snowy mountain, something circling it and going down. The Nevermore drew closer to try to see what was moving in the snow, enough to cause the disruption.
Something green flickered out of the snow once the phantom Nevermore was close enough. The camera cut to static.
"Vraal." Ruby knew, on a level she couldn't fully explain. "Artzin, let Five know."
Maybe Ruby should have gone herself, but she was too busy staring at the camera showing the buildings. Yang was there, Yang was there, Ruby just needed to-
Artzin paused to turn a key in the wall, then press a button. The ramp behind Ruby began to lower, big enough for like three big mechs to walk up at once. Big functional-sized ones, not the one that sheltered the town of Sentinel. Paladins, basically.
Ruby couldn't help but approach the ramp. Some kind of Dust was in the medal of the ramp, holding her in place as the ramp tilted down. Gravity couldn't pull her free.
Ruby's heart was beating in her ears. They were below the clouds now. Moment of truth. Was Yang conscious? Could she see-
[X] Teleport to Ruby. Explain the situation before the War Chief had time to attack.
It was hard to explain the elation Ruby felt when she saw the red portal cut itself through the world.
Yang fell through. Ruby caught her before she could hit the ground, holding her sister in a hug.
"Yang!" Ruby declared. She turned around and ran up the ramp, ready to smash the button to close the ramp. "Thank goodness, this saves time-"
"No, wait." Yang cut in. "I- Ruby, I've missed you, but we shouldn't go just yet."
Ruby turned her head to look at Yang. "Yang, there's no tim-"
"The War Chief's not a threat." Yang declared with enough confidence to keep Ruby quiet. "Or she won't be, once we talk, but we need to talk or she'll assume-"
Ruby's heartbeat was speeding up again. She trusted her sister enough to know Yang was going somewhere with this, but they didn't have time. "Yang, we need to go. There's someone coming who can control Grimm."
Ruby could see the shock in Yang's eye. She didn't need to ask if Yang understood the implication. Her eyes flickering from blue to red gave Ruby perfect insight on when she started thinking about Cinder Fall.
"We need to go!" Ruby ran for the button and slammed it without waiting for Yang to reply. Or she tried, rather,. Yang's hand shot out to shield the button, stop her from pressing the button. "Wha-"
"Here, now?" Yang's voice was laced thick with anger. "We can't leave."
"Yang-"
"Shit, there's no time." Yang wrenched her eyes shut. "Fuck I'm glad I came here first. Ruby, stay here. I need to tell her-"
Yang brushed her hand through empty air and opened a portal. Ruby tried to pull Yang away from it on reflex, but Yang fired Ember Celica and turned into a bird simultaneously. The Dust Round shot over Ruby's shoulder, and Yang disappeared into the portal.
Ruby's world turned red. Those portals closed fast, but Ruby was faster. She touched ground on something wooden and had to take a moment to take in where she had landed.
Wood. A rooftop. The rooftop of the building, and-
A force struck Ruby in the cheek, the one beneath her eyepatch. Her Aura burnt up to protect her from the blow, but the force was enough for Ruby to go flying. She fell from the rooftop and landed in a pile of snow that wasn't thick enough to stop the rocks beneath from being painful.
"No, stop!" Yang's voice called out. Ruby looked up to see a shadow on the rooftop, light shooting from the silhouette like wings and casting a shadow over their front. It took Ruby a while to parse details from the shadow.
She was wearing a plain toga, one that looked patchwork. Had to be repaired by an amateur, was Ruby's thought. That'd be what she'd expect of a weapon that looked that mismatched. Her skin seemed almost grey and unnatural, but unevenly tanned darker in places. She had enough hair for it to reach her waist, largely black with a green tint.
The sight of the horns on her head made an unnatural Song play in Ruby's ears.
Dragon. Without a doubt. Many things had horns, but the mere sight of them made Ruby hear the Song of Dragons.
"You won't take her!" The voice that snarled out was younger than Ruby had expected. It sounded almost like what Ruby herself would sound like when frustrated, but with a bit of an accent that Ruby couldn't quite place. Almost like a cartoon viking, but off.
The light shifted. They were wings, Ruby realised. They beat once, lifting the silhouette into the air before pivoting to swoop down to Ruby.
In a flash, Crescent Rose was in the air. Ruby Sang a single note and let that instinct guide her aim. With that, even with one eye, she could have a shot lined up instantly to take out as much Aura as possible. Aim for the throat, enhanced with Fire Dust, let it detonate. Ruby prepared to squeeze the trigger-
-And Yang tackled her target out of the air. A flash of golden hair shot into a portal, and even with Ruby twisting Crescent Rose to fire backwards, she couldn't get into the portal fast enough to follow her sister.
Ruby hit the rooftop from her failed jump, biting back a cry of frustration. Damn it, damn it. Was this Ruby's fault for being so desperate to leave? Should she have tried to explain the situation more? No, she could feel bad about this later. Think now.
Where would Yang have gone? She didn't like to portal too far, so it probably wasn't a place too far from this. But given how immediately violence had started, Yang would probably also push for as far as possible. It wouldn't have been back to the airship, the building here was too close…
There was a hum in the air. Ruby looked up to see the airship peeking lower and lower, actually within sight of the mountaintop hall now. A shadow fell from the ramp, and moments later the snow near Ruby exploded.
"Ow, ow ow." Five's voice complained as the snow hit the ground again. "Ugh, this is not the kind of painplay I'm int-"
"Five?" Ruby leapt off the rooftop to land next to Five. "Are you okay?"
"Ah, I've had worse." Five waved her hand. "My landing strategy didn't work is all."
"I don't know where Yang is." Ruby explained. "She took the War Chief through another portal and I don't know where and-"
"Weiss found the Grimm controller."
Ruby couldn't speak.
A phantom Nevermore landed on the snow, between Ruby and Five.
"I don't know where the Vraal is, but someone should fight the Grimm controller." Five continued. "I was going to go myself, but I don't think you'd be all that happy if I didn't give you the opportunit-"
Ruby was on the phantom Nevemore's back before Five could finish speaking.
"...Well, decision made." Five waved a hand in front of the camera. "Stay safe, niece of mine. I'll hunt down the other threat."
The ghostly Nevermore took flight. Ruby held on tight, tried to ignore the way she couldn't hear anything but her heart beat.
Why couldn't this have been easier to resolve? Ruby had her sister in her arms! They were on the airship! That should have been the end of it!
She couldn't bury her cry of frustration that time. She at least turned it into a Song, felt the way the weak notes were pulled into the Silence of the summoned and white Nevermore.
Alright. So be it. She just needed to make sure this interloper couldn't come anywhere near Yang until Yang had her part of the situation sorted. How hard could that be?
The Nevermore descended, and Ruby clutched Crescent Rose the way a child clung to their plush toy.
At least she wouldn't be sitting still.
When the phantom Nevermore leads Ruby to her foe, where is he?
[X] Standing in the centre of a lake of some kind, Aura pulsing into the water below to harden it into a surface.
[X] Climbing up a nearly vertical wall of stone on the side of the mountain.
It made the airship move slower. It was slight, it probably couldn't be noticed by anyone else. But even the half-second of deceleration had made Ruby want to scream.
The map in the centre of the cockpit had been reduced in complexity. Consequence of the ship going into stealth mode It was basically just a radar now, pinging structures and movement.
There were a lot of tiny dots moving around one of the big dots. Movement around a mountain. Grimm, Galatea had said. Once they got close enough to get a camera view, they'd be able to tell if they were Grimm they needed to be concerned with.
Ruby kept glaring at the radar. Maybe if she glared hard enough, she could explode the Grimm with her mind from a distan-
Another ping went out. The dot she had been tracking disappeared. Huh.
By the next ping, more dots around the first disappeared as well. Ok, Ruby hadn't been paying attention to those dots. She probably didn't have telepathic Grimm exploding powers.
"There's conflict?" Ruby watched the dots fade out as the radar stopped tracking them. Another pin, and there was only one really small dot. "A bunch of the 'Grimm' just stopped being there, and now there's only one thing."
"Possible." Galatea answered. "We are not yet within range for the camera to be able to tell. If that is something fighting the Grimm, it may be the kidnapper."
Ruby could hear her heart beating within her ears. That changed plans a bit. If that dot was the kidnapper, then keeping track of it meant possibly tracking the War Chief to her mountain.
But there was another possibility. "Or that's the interloper. Or the Vraal."
"Possible." Galatea answered. "Once we are closer to the mountains, we will lower enough that the mounted cameras can try to observe the movement on the radar."
"What's the plan?" Ruby asked. "Please tell me the plan. I need to think or I'm going to do something stupid."
"Should I trap you in a glyph?" Weiss asked.
"I'm learning a lot today about how much I hate sitting in place when something's happening." Ruby answered. "So I don't think that will help much."
Weiss tried to relax her shoulders. She wasn't really successful.
"Do we have any remote cameras?" Weiss asked. "I can have my summons carry them."
Galatea paused. "I'm sending a call for Artzin to bring some here. You will need to go to the launch pad to send your Grimm out."
Weiss nodded. Ruby followed suit, though she didn't know why. That was something. Something.
"War Chief. Grimm controller. Vraal." Ruby counted down on her fingers. "How do we handle this?"
"Ideally?" Weiss asked. "Yang's conscious and in a position to see the sky. We open the airship and she teleports in."
"Ideally." Ruby nodded. "And if she's unconscious?"
"Then we're going to have to fight." Weiss answered.
"All of us fighting at once is a bad idea." Ruby decided immediately. "If we're all fighting the War Chief and the Grimm controller interferes…"
Ruby paused as she realised what she just said.
"I'm an idiot!" Ruby slapped herself on the forehead.
"Only occasionally." Weiss answered.
"It's a charm point." Galatea answered at the same time.
…It would have been nice if someone disagreed…
"That's not the interloper fighting the Grimm!" Ruby answered. "Because they can control Grimm, so why would they fight them?"
Weiss paused. "...I had not considered that."
Five called out from her position, somewhere behind Ruby. "So it seems that actually my niece is the least idiot person in this room."
Weiss seemed upset at that comment, but she quickly composed herself. Ruby wasn't sure if she should comment or not.
"I'll keep track of the dot we think might be the War Chief." Weiss declared. "Once I have my summons set up with cameras, I can track down where they go."
"How much range does your Semblance have?" Ruby asked.
"I don't appear to have a limit." Weiss answered. "But I can't see through their eyes, and I can't keep track off too many of them at once unless they're all doing the same thing. The cameras should help with the first issue, but even sending just two or three is going to take all of my attention."
Ruby nodded. "You focus on the summons. Tell us anything important. And if a fight breaks out use the summons before you come out of the airship yourself."
"Don't you go and get into a fight by yourself." Weiss scowled.
"I'm an Intoner." Ruby answered. "I'll be fine-"
"And wasn't the Dragon of Mistral coming this way?" Weiss asked. "What if they and the Grimm controller are one and the same?"
…Ruby was hoping not to think about that.
She was hoping that nobody else would notice. But with what Yang had told Ruby of her vision in her sleep, of the Dragon's threats and the reptilian creature Yang called Vraal…
"...If the Grimm controller is the Dragon, then all the more reason for nobody else to fight." Ruby answered. "I'll handle it better than anyone else could. Except perhaps Five."
"No 'Except' there." Five interrupted again. "You're more proficient in both skill and Semblance, Ruby."
Fair enough, but that wasn't the important part of what Ruby said.
"But at the same time." Ruby continued. "I… Don't think I can sit still while Yang is in danger. If I know where she is, if I need to be the one to save her-"
Dyna grabbed Ruby's hand. The girl had been quiet for so long, Ruby had thought she left the room.
Right. Focus. Calm.
"War Chief. Grimm controller. Vraal." Ruby recounted. "Ideal situation is we fight nobody. Yang teleports to us. One step down, we have to fight the War Chief but not anyone else. I can keep the War Chief busy long enough for someone else to find Yang."
Everyone nodded.
"But if the Grimm controller is too close, we'll have to fight them." Ruby continued. "And… I think me and Five are the only people who should do that."
"Ruby-"
"Don't." Ruby held her hand up at Weiss. "Listen. Five. You and I fight the Grimm controller and the Vraal. If we only find one of them, one of us stays here and looks out for the other. Meanwhile…"
Ruby looked around. Weiss needed to manage her summons. Dito would be by Five's side ideally. Jaune… Wasn't reliable here.
"Galatea." Ruby turned to the gynoid. "Can I trust you with Yang?"
Galatea paused. She reached a hand for her chest, right over her heart.
"I would be blessed to be trusted with anything, if it was for you." Galatea had to go and say something kinda romantic, but Ruby was too busy dealing with the stress to notice.
"The Grimm controller is here for the War Chief." Ruby observed. "So ideally, you talk to her, set her on the Grimm controller. Then you grab Yang and bring her here, and we can just run away."
"And if the War Chief will not listen?" Galatea asked.
"Please save my sister."
Galatea nodded.
Ruby wasn't sure if this plan actually checked out, but it was something. The airship was lowering slowly, far too slowly for her liking.
The girl in red looked down to Dyna. The dog Faunus was holding her hand tight. Dyna's eyes were narrow, darting around the room with a panic. Looking to the various faces around her.
She was scared someone else might be going missing in this fight, wasn't she?
Ruby knelt down to the girl's side. "You okay?"
"...I don't know." Dyna admitted.
Ruby closed her eye. "Hey. How about you step out of here for a while? There's probably a weapon practice room somewhere on this airship, right?"
"Not quite." Galatea answered. "Nothing for a trainee. There is a firing range for calibration purposes-"
"That's good enough." Ruby nodded. "Dyna, why don't you go off with Jaune and see if they have any scythe weapons there?"
Dyna looked into Ruby's eye. "I…"
"I'm immortal." Ruby cut off the girl's immediate concern. It was bending the truth a bit, considering there was a Dragon here. But Yang had to have her Aura down before she could do anything with the Dragon stuff, so it wasn't like the Dragon of Mistral would be able to attack Ruby with Dragon stuff easily. "I'll be fine."
Jaune stepped over and offered his hand to Dyna. "Hey. I'm also freaking out. Might do us both some good to be somewhere else."
Dyna looked at Ruby with a strange look in her eye.
"...If you disappear too, I'll never forgive you."
…Huh. A bit more anger in Dyna than Ruby had expected. Wow Ruby wished she was a properly trained therapist or something. She liked Dyna better when she was more cheerful. Liked a lot of people better when they were cheerful instead of panicked, stressed or whatever. Herself chief among them.
Dyna went off with Jaune. Dito paused for a moment, then followed.
"Where are you going?" Five asked her Disciple.
"I'm not gonna be able to contribute anyway." Dito shrugged. "So I'm out."
Huh. Ok. Ruby thought that maybe he'd be relevant. How strong were Disciple's anyway? She doubted Jaune was indicative of their strength level, so…
Hm. Dito had beaten out Uncle Qrow once, hadn't he? Or was that just because Ruby had been held captive. She couldn't recall. She didn't like thinking about that incident.
Artzin walked in at some point while Ruby was trapped in her own head. Weiss took one more look at the radar before walking off towards her. Ruby nodded her off, then turned to stare at the radar.
Ruby was going to ask if Weiss had been keeping track of the dots, but that was unnecessary. There was only one thing moving right now, and they were heading towards a mountain. It looked like they had something.
For a while, Ruby had nothing to do but stare. Assuming they weren't completely wrong, Ruby knew which mountain the probably-War Chief was on. Part of her was tempted to jump out now, but no. Focus on the plan. Focus. Focus-
The radar wasn't good enough for Ruby. She turned her heel. "I'm going to see what Weiss is doing."
"Be safe." Galatea answered simply.
It didn't take long to find Weiss. Artzin was standing by the door silently. She gave Ruby a salute as she ran by, and Ruby nodded at her. Weiss was inside a big loading-bay looking area. There were a few empty docks where you could fit vehicles, and a ramp which could go down to open up to let vehicles in or out.
"What's the situation?" Ruby looked around. Weiss was sitting in front of some kind of big camera setup, with ten monitors in front of her. Only four were lit up, only three in Weiss' view. Behind the monitors was something like a CCT tower.
Ruby's wandering attention attracted her to the fourth monitor. "What's that?"
"I was communicating with Lady One earlier." Artzin declared from the door. "She had dispatched a rescue team when she heard Yang had been taken captive. If all goes well, we shall meet them shortly after we leave this mountain. If things go poorly, they can be reinforcements."
It was rare to be in a situation like this and know help was coming. Or at least, Ruby couldn't remember it happening often.
"As for Lady Schnee." Artzin continued. "She has sent three summoned Nevermore to each of the three mountains-"
"Found it." Weiss pointed to a monitor. Ruby turned her head to the monitor in question, positioned just in the blindspot of her eyepatch. There was some kind of tower on one of the mountains, one that gave an under-construction feel to it. There was some kind of hall beneath it which somewhat reminded Ruby of cartoons about vikings.
"That's got to be it." Ruby decided. "Let's go-"
"Wait." Artzin interrupted. She pointed at another monitor. "There's something there."
One of Weiss' climbing Nevermores stabilised its flight. There was a glint of movement on a snowy mountain, something circling it and going down. The Nevermore drew closer to try to see what was moving in the snow, enough to cause the disruption.
Something green flickered out of the snow once the phantom Nevermore was close enough. The camera cut to static.
"Vraal." Ruby knew, on a level she couldn't fully explain. "Artzin, let Five know."
Maybe Ruby should have gone herself, but she was too busy staring at the camera showing the buildings. Yang was there, Yang was there, Ruby just needed to-
Artzin paused to turn a key in the wall, then press a button. The ramp behind Ruby began to lower, big enough for like three big mechs to walk up at once. Big functional-sized ones, not the one that sheltered the town of Sentinel. Paladins, basically.
Ruby couldn't help but approach the ramp. Some kind of Dust was in the medal of the ramp, holding her in place as the ramp tilted down. Gravity couldn't pull her free.
Ruby's heart was beating in her ears. They were below the clouds now. Moment of truth. Was Yang conscious? Could she see-
[X] Teleport to Ruby. Explain the situation before the War Chief had time to attack.
It was hard to explain the elation Ruby felt when she saw the red portal cut itself through the world.
Yang fell through. Ruby caught her before she could hit the ground, holding her sister in a hug.
"Yang!" Ruby declared. She turned around and ran up the ramp, ready to smash the button to close the ramp. "Thank goodness, this saves time-"
"No, wait." Yang cut in. "I- Ruby, I've missed you, but we shouldn't go just yet."
Ruby turned her head to look at Yang. "Yang, there's no tim-"
"The War Chief's not a threat." Yang declared with enough confidence to keep Ruby quiet. "Or she won't be, once we talk, but we need to talk or she'll assume-"
Ruby's heartbeat was speeding up again. She trusted her sister enough to know Yang was going somewhere with this, but they didn't have time. "Yang, we need to go. There's someone coming who can control Grimm."
Ruby could see the shock in Yang's eye. She didn't need to ask if Yang understood the implication. Her eyes flickering from blue to red gave Ruby perfect insight on when she started thinking about Cinder Fall.
"We need to go!" Ruby ran for the button and slammed it without waiting for Yang to reply. Or she tried, rather,. Yang's hand shot out to shield the button, stop her from pressing the button. "Wha-"
"Here, now?" Yang's voice was laced thick with anger. "We can't leave."
"Yang-"
"Shit, there's no time." Yang wrenched her eyes shut. "Fuck I'm glad I came here first. Ruby, stay here. I need to tell her-"
Yang brushed her hand through empty air and opened a portal. Ruby tried to pull Yang away from it on reflex, but Yang fired Ember Celica and turned into a bird simultaneously. The Dust Round shot over Ruby's shoulder, and Yang disappeared into the portal.
Ruby's world turned red. Those portals closed fast, but Ruby was faster. She touched ground on something wooden and had to take a moment to take in where she had landed.
Wood. A rooftop. The rooftop of the building, and-
A force struck Ruby in the cheek, the one beneath her eyepatch. Her Aura burnt up to protect her from the blow, but the force was enough for Ruby to go flying. She fell from the rooftop and landed in a pile of snow that wasn't thick enough to stop the rocks beneath from being painful.
"No, stop!" Yang's voice called out. Ruby looked up to see a shadow on the rooftop, light shooting from the silhouette like wings and casting a shadow over their front. It took Ruby a while to parse details from the shadow.
She was wearing a plain toga, one that looked patchwork. Had to be repaired by an amateur, was Ruby's thought. That'd be what she'd expect of a weapon that looked that mismatched. Her skin seemed almost grey and unnatural, but unevenly tanned darker in places. She had enough hair for it to reach her waist, largely black with a green tint.
The sight of the horns on her head made an unnatural Song play in Ruby's ears.
Dragon. Without a doubt. Many things had horns, but the mere sight of them made Ruby hear the Song of Dragons.
"You won't take her!" The voice that snarled out was younger than Ruby had expected. It sounded almost like what Ruby herself would sound like when frustrated, but with a bit of an accent that Ruby couldn't quite place. Almost like a cartoon viking, but off.
The light shifted. They were wings, Ruby realised. They beat once, lifting the silhouette into the air before pivoting to swoop down to Ruby.
In a flash, Crescent Rose was in the air. Ruby Sang a single note and let that instinct guide her aim. With that, even with one eye, she could have a shot lined up instantly to take out as much Aura as possible. Aim for the throat, enhanced with Fire Dust, let it detonate. Ruby prepared to squeeze the trigger-
-And Yang tackled her target out of the air. A flash of golden hair shot into a portal, and even with Ruby twisting Crescent Rose to fire backwards, she couldn't get into the portal fast enough to follow her sister.
Ruby hit the rooftop from her failed jump, biting back a cry of frustration. Damn it, damn it. Was this Ruby's fault for being so desperate to leave? Should she have tried to explain the situation more? No, she could feel bad about this later. Think now.
Where would Yang have gone? She didn't like to portal too far, so it probably wasn't a place too far from this. But given how immediately violence had started, Yang would probably also push for as far as possible. It wouldn't have been back to the airship, the building here was too close…
There was a hum in the air. Ruby looked up to see the airship peeking lower and lower, actually within sight of the mountaintop hall now. A shadow fell from the ramp, and moments later the snow near Ruby exploded.
"Ow, ow ow." Five's voice complained as the snow hit the ground again. "Ugh, this is not the kind of painplay I'm int-"
"Five?" Ruby leapt off the rooftop to land next to Five. "Are you okay?"
"Ah, I've had worse." Five waved her hand. "My landing strategy didn't work is all."
"I don't know where Yang is." Ruby explained. "She took the War Chief through another portal and I don't know where and-"
"Weiss found the Grimm controller."
Ruby couldn't speak.
A phantom Nevermore landed on the snow, between Ruby and Five.
"I don't know where the Vraal is, but someone should fight the Grimm controller." Five continued. "I was going to go myself, but I don't think you'd be all that happy if I didn't give you the opportunit-"
Ruby was on the phantom Nevemore's back before Five could finish speaking.
"...Well, decision made." Five waved a hand in front of the camera. "Stay safe, niece of mine. I'll hunt down the other threat."
The ghostly Nevermore took flight. Ruby held on tight, tried to ignore the way she couldn't hear anything but her heart beat.
Why couldn't this have been easier to resolve? Ruby had her sister in her arms! They were on the airship! That should have been the end of it!
She couldn't bury her cry of frustration that time. She at least turned it into a Song, felt the way the weak notes were pulled into the Silence of the summoned and white Nevermore.
Alright. So be it. She just needed to make sure this interloper couldn't come anywhere near Yang until Yang had her part of the situation sorted. How hard could that be?
The Nevermore descended, and Ruby clutched Crescent Rose the way a child clung to their plush toy.
At least she wouldn't be sitting still.
When the phantom Nevermore leads Ruby to her foe, where is he?
[X] Standing in the centre of a lake of some kind, Aura pulsing into the water below to harden it into a surface.
[X] Climbing up a nearly vertical wall of stone on the side of the mountain.
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[X] Climbing up a nearly vertical wall of stone on the side of the mountain.
Update 465 - Silent Ruin
Mortifer
Embrace your inner lunatic. Fun times guaranteed.
- Location
- Under a rock.
[X] Climbing up a nearly vertical wall of stone on the side of the mountain.
The scope of her rifle let Ruby find her target long before Weiss could lead her there. The phantom Nevermore knew the way all the same, since Weiss had the radar and at her disposal. Ruby took the time to look at her target.
He was climbing up a sheer cliff-like section of the mountain. There weren't really any footholds that Ruby could see, at least not above him. Even without an overt use of force, the man was driving his fingers into stone with enough force to cling on.
…That had to be some kind of Aura trick, right? There's no way his fingers alone should be going deep enough into the rock to hold his weight. The mountain should be crumbling around him. Maybe if he weighed almost nothing, but he very clearly weighed a lot. It was hard to tell with how much he was wearing, the black clothing including a cloak that was designed to conceal whatever he was carrying on his back, but what little Ruby could see of his build left her no doubt. This guy had the kind of build that would make Yang stop on the street to stare for a minute, nod approvingly in the process.
Ruby lined up a shot with the man's centre of mass. She would've gone for the headshot, but it wouldn't have mattered. For one, it'd only do marginally more damage to his Aura than a body shot unless Ruby hit him in the eye. Not possible with his head turned. And then there was whatever was in that cloak, because whatever it was was pulling up his cloak enough that there was actually very little of his head available to hit from this position.
Besides, bigger targets. Not too much of a concern a lot of the time, but Ruby was aiming at a moving target which on the back of a flying ghost-bird. There was a time and a place for showing off, and that time and place involved Yang not being in danger.
Centre-mass. Aiming for the heart was tempting, but it was basically a minor versions of the headshot question. If the bullet got caught in too much wind, aiming for the heart increased the risk of missing. Reward wasn't enough to be worth the risk.
Distance calculated. Accounting for the wind and for gravity, Ruby aimed her gun up a bit and to the side. This much concern probably wasn't necessary. There was Fire Dust in her bullets. It was going to explode when the tip hit a target. Even being off by a little bit, Ruby could collapse that wall down on her foe.
Shot lined up. Ruby exhaled as she squeezed the trigger.
The distance was still enough that the bullet didn't strike true instantly. She had the time to line up her scope with the man again, watch him as his body twisted. His hand shot out from the wall, and his face turned to look into the distance.
To look right at Ruby.
Something skimmed past Ruby's cheek, kissing her Aura the way a pebble kissed the lake it was skipping across. Before Ruby had time to think, the explosion behind her consumed her thoughts.
The shockwave didn't catch Ruby, or the phantom Nevermore Weiss was controlling. The heat licked at Ruby's back, but not enough to devour her Aura. No disruption to the flight plan. Just the knowledge that something had exploded behind Ruby, and nothing was exploding near the Grimm controller.
That was Ruby's bullet.
The Grimm Controller had thrown the bullet back? How had he managed to be that accurate? How had he handled it delicately enough to avoid detonating it? Was this an aspect of his Semblance? Or…
Ruby Sang a high note. The Fire Dust in her guns shifted to Lightning. The man had already started climbing again, faster than before. Ruby fired three times, and three times lightning struck the space where the man had been.
How was he that fast? Ruby took in the mountain in his wake. He was tearing up the mountainside now, rubble ripped free and falling downward. It took Ruby a moment longer than she would have liked to find him again after that.
She kept firing. May as well put pressure on him. Maybe he'd make a mistake.
The distance was closing, so it was easier for Ruby to line up shots. The Nevermore at her feet was close enough that if Ruby tilted her head, she could see the man without her scope now. Probably could do that for a while before now, and she just didn't check earlier.
The Grimm controller was approaching a ledge. If Ruby was estimating speed correctly, the summoned Nevermore would reach the mountain just about the time he got there. It was high up enough that snow was starting to gather, but still low enough that the snow was sparse, melting.
The man shoved one hand into the wall and turned his body out to the sky, towards Ruby. Ruby caught him in the chest with a bullet of Lightning Dust, an artificial thunderbolt catching him in the chest.
His Aura abandoned his shirt entirely, apparently. The bolt seared through the cloth to reveal flesh beneath.
Flesh as black as the Grimm.
Ruby put her eye to the scope just in time to see the white bone sticking through the black flesh. Then it shot out, fired like a bullet in a railgun. Ruby shot it out of the air with another Lightning Bullet, but she could hear the echo out through the mountain range whenever those spines fired from his chest. She heard that echo twice more before she had even squeezed the trigger.
Crescent Rose transformed in her hand. The second spine was almost touching Ruby's heart before she batted it aside with the end of her scythe, and she twisted Crescent Rose in her grasp. Two, three, four more spines deflected. Easier to handle them like this, without needing to look for them with her sco-
There was a lull in projectiles. It caught Ruby off-guard enough that she swung at open air. She heard the launch, so where-
There was a thud. The phantom Nevermore screeched and fell.
Ruby acted on impulse. She leapt off the Nevermore and Sang, changing the Dust in her scythe to Wind. When she fired at the dying, falling Nevermore, she unleashed a blast of wind strong enough to throw her upwards.
It wasn't enough to reach the plateau. But with a few more bullets, enough to empty the clip, it was enough to reach the mountain. The blade of Crescent Rose cut into the mountainside, sliding down and leaving a scar in the stone until it finally caught on something hard.
Ruby's legs dangled beneath her as she clung to the shaft of her precious Crescent Rose. She looked around, trying to see the Grimm controller. She saw nothing, so she took a moment to pull herself up, eject the empty clip in her fun and reload.
There was a rumble. Ruby looked up to see the distant silhouette of a figure looking over the edge of the plateau above. The Grimm Controller, she could tell by the mass behind his back.
And then he shifted, his foot slamming the edge of the cliff.
And the rock wall fell away.
Ruby's eye widened as she saw it coming. The rock at the top was already falling, collapsing like an avalanche. She could feel the vibration through Crescent Rose, and the stone there exploded outwards as well.
Ruby pulled the trigger to shoot away from the mountainside, but enough of the rock had scattered by that point that her back hit another rock. She was falling, and so was a small cliff with her.
But she wasn't going to let the Grimm controller get away.
The rock chunks were big, and a decent distance apart. Firing Crescent Rose gave Ruby the instant burst of movement needed to throw herself from rock to rock, and eventually she managed to land foot-first and start jumping as well.
It was a good thing she was still using Wind Dust and not traditional bullets. The makeshift boulders were being thrown away when she pulled the trigger, not shattering and surrounding her in shrapnel.
She kept jumping and kept firing, making her way to the top of the sheer face of the mountain. Back up to that plateau, back to where the Grimm controller was.
Ruby felt it in the rushing wind before she saw it. Above her, a rock was descending faster than any other. She didn't have time to do anything but Sing, so she Sang. A glyph etched itself into existence in front of her, a barrier to block the boulder. The rock shattered against the Glyph, the shards scattering to the wind.
And the Grimm controller, mere inches behind the boulder, descended upon the barrier.
His fist pierced the manifested Song and shattered it. Ruby fired Crescent Rose and shot to the side before his hand could reach her neck. In reflex more than active thought, Ruby swung the blade as she shot to the side. The tip of the blade scraped against the man's neck
Ruby shot through the boulders, threading the needle and landing against the new cliff face. It was more of a sideways crater now, and Ruby could see something sparking in the stone. Dust Crystals? What-
Before she could analyse that thought further, the man shot out at Ruby again. She repeated the exact same trick, firing to the side and slicing Crescent Rose against his neck as she escaped his fist. Ha! He wasn't learning at all!
Yang had warned Ruby that she was bad at reading people in hand to hand, and that was true to a point. But how much did Ruby really need to read someone when she had this much extra range and her opponents refused to learn?
The man's fist struck stone. The wall didn't shatter this time, but his Aura pulsed out as he did so. The Dust crystals began to glow, a deep purple light.
Ruby felt the gravity pull on her body. The last remnants of the avalanche froze in place, dozens of boulders hovering in the sky as if held in place by invisible wires.
Ruby landed against one of the boulders. It drifted slowly as she applied forced to it. There was no force pulling her down, and somehow her feet were remaining attached to the boulder. Almost as if-
The Grimm controller pushed aside his cloak again. A white spine of bone shot out of the black mass in his chest. Ruby swept Crescent Rose to deflect the blow, but even the force of the deflection was enough to push the boulder away. She leapt off the boulder as it drifted out, and in her peripheral vision Ruby saw the boulder hit some kind of invisible threshold and fall.
Ruby flicked a switch near the trigger of her gun. Crescent Rose realigned its ammo tract, switching from Dust-lined bullets to regular bullets. She wanted to be able to shoot properly, but she wanted to keep the Wind Dust. She had a few tricks up her sleeve with that, after all.
She fired at the Grimm controller, sending herself flying backwards. She hit another boulder and Crescent Rose twisted through the air before firing again.
The pattern repeated itself for a while. The Grimm controller kicked off from the wall after the first few bullets. For the first few boulders he leapt between he used only his body, his feet and fists shattering boulders as he bounced between them.
The two of them passed in the air. The man punched towards Ruby, so she just used the same trick again. FIre to the side, swing Crescent Rose to scrape it across his neck.
The longer the battle continued, the more the footing in this floating battlefield was reduced to rubble. Ruby had to get lucky to kick off the smaller rocks, and she was getting some Aura damage as she threw herself into the shards too small to avoid. But that was the only Aura damage she was getting.
She didn't need to fight long. Yang needed to sort out whatever she was sorting out with her kidnapper, and then…
Well, someone would have a plan. Worse come to worse, Ruby would just beat this guy.
The two passed each other in the sky again. Again, Ruby pulled the exact same trick. It was honestly starting to get concerning. Was she being conditioned here? Why would this guy let himself take this many hits?
She touched down on a boulder, then shot out to the big crater in the side of the mountain. At the same time, she heard the echo of a spine firing. Ruby looked up to deflect, but the man wasn't firing it at her.
He was firing it to throw himself through the air, the same way Ruby would do with a bullet. He was surging towards Ruby back-first, with no mountain in sight.
Ruby smirked. When she swung Crescent Rose, she was singing.
The Wind Dust in the blade caught through the sky, cutting a scar through the sky. With a second cut, Ruby fired off that projectile. It slammed into the man's back hard enough to cancel his momentum, leave him stuck in place within his own place devoid of gravity.
He could fire another spine to give himself momentum again, sure. But Ruby was faster. She kicked off the wall and shot behind her to tackle him out of the air before he could do anything. The momentum she brought along shoved the man face-first into a boulder that shattered in his wake.
Crescent Rose descended on the man. It was too long for the blade to hit easily, but the stick was enough for Ruby's purposes. It struck down on him, and Ruby jumped off his back at the same time. The man shot down like a rocket.
Ruby watched carefully, perching on another rock to watch. The man kept falling, past the last rocks at the edge of his no-gravity zone. When he fell past that, Ruby knew he was going to be gone for a while.
Did Ruby take the time to shoot now? She transformed Crescent Rose so it was more compact in her hand as she looked down, but a flicker of red to her side distracted her.
Ruby turned her head to see her sister's face sticking out of a portal.
"Ruby-"
Yang got no further before Ruby fired Crescent Rose in the opposite direction. She was through the portal before Yang could blink. Yang's body was suddenly pulled away and Ruby fell face-first onto the hard ground beneath.
"Ow." Ruby complained. She pushed herself up and looked around. She was… On the plateau? Right above the battlefield? Yang must have only just gotten here herself-
Right, Yang. Ruby looked over to her sister. She was clinging to the back of her kidnapper, the girl with blackish-greenish hair. Her eyes looked reptilian, though Ruby couldn't place it. Crocodile? Was there even a difference with reptiles?
"Ok Ruby, be cool." Yang had her hand raised, as if trying to keep Ruby away from the War Chief. "This situation is complicated and everyone needs to talk about it."
"No problem." Ruby answered. "What's the plan with that guy? If we get to the airship-"
"I am not abandoning my home." The kidnapper interrupted. She flinched as Ruby turned her attention to her. "I… Understand I have little footing to stand on here, having caused the issue and also resorting to violence against you first. But I can't leave-"
A shadow fell over Ruby.
All three girls turned to look to the source.
Between the sun and the sky, a silhouette was floating. Ruby didn't need much to recognise him. He had cast aside his cloak at last, revealing what lay beneath. Bindings were floating away from his body, some sort of bandage or restriction floating away in the wind. Floating away from the wings which framed the warrior against the sun.
Yang's voice was low, barely more than a whisper. "...Ruin?"
Before Ruby could ask who that was, before the faint stirring of her memory could turn into anything more concrete, the winged man descended. He fell upon Ruby, his fist reeled back and ready to strike.
He fell fast, but Ruby was faster. She saw the opportunity to go for her old trick again, Crescent Rose transforming and extending. She waited until the man was almost upon her before she fired, swinging at the same time to cut against his neck-
And into the other hand he had there, already waiting.
He had anticipated it. Of course he had, Ruby had hit him with this a dozen times already, but-
The man pulled on Crescent Rose's blade before Ruby could finish the thought. Her body was ripped from the ground, her feet dangling as she was pulled towards him.
His fist pierced her Aura like it didn't exist, and Ruby felt a hand close around her heart.
…What?
There was silence. No, that wasn't true. There was a scream, but Ruby couldn't process it. There was a wordless movement of air, but not soundless. It was just that the sound was beyond her.
Her Aura was still up. But there was a hole in her chest. A hand squeezing her heart in place, enough that each beat put a pressure on it too much for her to bear. The world was growing cold.
This close, the wings were no longer silhouettes. They were lined not with feathers, but scales.
Dragon.
Ruby barely had time to complete the thought before the Grimm controller ripped out her heart.
"Ruby!" Yang was behind her in a second. One arm wrapped around her possessively, while the other shot out and struck the man in the face. He barely reacted to the fist, but he didn't react as Ruby was pulled away either.
Ruby's loose grip wasn't enough to hold onto her weapon. Crescent Rose fell from her hands as Yang pulled her through the portal. The two girls hit the ground at the same time.
"It's okay." Yang was quick to try to cover the wound on Ruby's chest. Putting pressure on a wound barely meant anything when it was this big, but she was trying. "You…"
She took a deep breath. When next Yang spoke, it was low. Too low for Ruby to hear.
She had a pretty good idea what it was about anyway. Ruby's chest should be healing. She was an Intoner, after all. If nothing else, her Aura should stop her bleeding.
It was getting harder to think. Her head hurt, burning up. It occurred to Ruby that she could feel the edges of regeneration within her skull. So already, the oxygen in her veins was running out…
"Dragon." Yang's quiet muttering was getting louder. "Dragon's Song. Cancelling, like bone. Needs…"
Yang's head shot to the side. When she called to the War Chief, she didn't even have time to call her name. "Heal her!"
The War Chief didn't respond.
Ruby's vision was dancing in and out, fuzzy and dark one moment and relatively clear the next. It was never perfect, but for a split second she could see the War Chief and the Grimm Controller. At this angle, she could see the side of the War Chief's face.
The girl looked horrified. The man looked at her with killing intent. There was no malice there, no hatred or disdain. He was like a hunter, uncapitalized.
The girl spoke a word that did more to explain her horror than anything Ruby could describe of her expression. "...Dad?"
There was no recollection in the man's red eyes.
He pulled on Crescent Rose again, still holding it by the blade. His other hand, still red with Ruby's blood, closed around the staff.
Ruby's vision was going out again too fast, but she could see when the silhouette of the man ran forward. She could see the blade of her scythe arcing back.
She could see the shadow of the War Chief doing nothing to escape the assault.
Yang was pushing herself up. She was ready to push herself up, throw herself through a portal. She probably had a plan already, even if it was just as simple as getting everyone to a portal to someplace safe.
But every bone in Ruby's body was shouting at her to do something.
And so, while she could still act, Ruby Sang.
[X] She created a barrier between the War Chief and the attacker. He would be able to punch through it, but it would slow him down all the same. Maybe that second of surprise will be all Yang needed to enact her own plan.
[X] She Sang the Song that rewrote Dust. If Yang opened a portal to the War Chief, it would be close enough to reach. If Ruby could shape it to the proper kind of Gravity Dust, the weapon would be too heavy for the attacker to wield.
The scope of her rifle let Ruby find her target long before Weiss could lead her there. The phantom Nevermore knew the way all the same, since Weiss had the radar and at her disposal. Ruby took the time to look at her target.
He was climbing up a sheer cliff-like section of the mountain. There weren't really any footholds that Ruby could see, at least not above him. Even without an overt use of force, the man was driving his fingers into stone with enough force to cling on.
…That had to be some kind of Aura trick, right? There's no way his fingers alone should be going deep enough into the rock to hold his weight. The mountain should be crumbling around him. Maybe if he weighed almost nothing, but he very clearly weighed a lot. It was hard to tell with how much he was wearing, the black clothing including a cloak that was designed to conceal whatever he was carrying on his back, but what little Ruby could see of his build left her no doubt. This guy had the kind of build that would make Yang stop on the street to stare for a minute, nod approvingly in the process.
Ruby lined up a shot with the man's centre of mass. She would've gone for the headshot, but it wouldn't have mattered. For one, it'd only do marginally more damage to his Aura than a body shot unless Ruby hit him in the eye. Not possible with his head turned. And then there was whatever was in that cloak, because whatever it was was pulling up his cloak enough that there was actually very little of his head available to hit from this position.
Besides, bigger targets. Not too much of a concern a lot of the time, but Ruby was aiming at a moving target which on the back of a flying ghost-bird. There was a time and a place for showing off, and that time and place involved Yang not being in danger.
Centre-mass. Aiming for the heart was tempting, but it was basically a minor versions of the headshot question. If the bullet got caught in too much wind, aiming for the heart increased the risk of missing. Reward wasn't enough to be worth the risk.
Distance calculated. Accounting for the wind and for gravity, Ruby aimed her gun up a bit and to the side. This much concern probably wasn't necessary. There was Fire Dust in her bullets. It was going to explode when the tip hit a target. Even being off by a little bit, Ruby could collapse that wall down on her foe.
Shot lined up. Ruby exhaled as she squeezed the trigger.
The distance was still enough that the bullet didn't strike true instantly. She had the time to line up her scope with the man again, watch him as his body twisted. His hand shot out from the wall, and his face turned to look into the distance.
To look right at Ruby.
Something skimmed past Ruby's cheek, kissing her Aura the way a pebble kissed the lake it was skipping across. Before Ruby had time to think, the explosion behind her consumed her thoughts.
The shockwave didn't catch Ruby, or the phantom Nevermore Weiss was controlling. The heat licked at Ruby's back, but not enough to devour her Aura. No disruption to the flight plan. Just the knowledge that something had exploded behind Ruby, and nothing was exploding near the Grimm controller.
That was Ruby's bullet.
The Grimm Controller had thrown the bullet back? How had he managed to be that accurate? How had he handled it delicately enough to avoid detonating it? Was this an aspect of his Semblance? Or…
Ruby Sang a high note. The Fire Dust in her guns shifted to Lightning. The man had already started climbing again, faster than before. Ruby fired three times, and three times lightning struck the space where the man had been.
How was he that fast? Ruby took in the mountain in his wake. He was tearing up the mountainside now, rubble ripped free and falling downward. It took Ruby a moment longer than she would have liked to find him again after that.
She kept firing. May as well put pressure on him. Maybe he'd make a mistake.
The distance was closing, so it was easier for Ruby to line up shots. The Nevermore at her feet was close enough that if Ruby tilted her head, she could see the man without her scope now. Probably could do that for a while before now, and she just didn't check earlier.
The Grimm controller was approaching a ledge. If Ruby was estimating speed correctly, the summoned Nevermore would reach the mountain just about the time he got there. It was high up enough that snow was starting to gather, but still low enough that the snow was sparse, melting.
The man shoved one hand into the wall and turned his body out to the sky, towards Ruby. Ruby caught him in the chest with a bullet of Lightning Dust, an artificial thunderbolt catching him in the chest.
His Aura abandoned his shirt entirely, apparently. The bolt seared through the cloth to reveal flesh beneath.
Flesh as black as the Grimm.
Ruby put her eye to the scope just in time to see the white bone sticking through the black flesh. Then it shot out, fired like a bullet in a railgun. Ruby shot it out of the air with another Lightning Bullet, but she could hear the echo out through the mountain range whenever those spines fired from his chest. She heard that echo twice more before she had even squeezed the trigger.
Crescent Rose transformed in her hand. The second spine was almost touching Ruby's heart before she batted it aside with the end of her scythe, and she twisted Crescent Rose in her grasp. Two, three, four more spines deflected. Easier to handle them like this, without needing to look for them with her sco-
There was a lull in projectiles. It caught Ruby off-guard enough that she swung at open air. She heard the launch, so where-
There was a thud. The phantom Nevermore screeched and fell.
Ruby acted on impulse. She leapt off the Nevermore and Sang, changing the Dust in her scythe to Wind. When she fired at the dying, falling Nevermore, she unleashed a blast of wind strong enough to throw her upwards.
It wasn't enough to reach the plateau. But with a few more bullets, enough to empty the clip, it was enough to reach the mountain. The blade of Crescent Rose cut into the mountainside, sliding down and leaving a scar in the stone until it finally caught on something hard.
Ruby's legs dangled beneath her as she clung to the shaft of her precious Crescent Rose. She looked around, trying to see the Grimm controller. She saw nothing, so she took a moment to pull herself up, eject the empty clip in her fun and reload.
There was a rumble. Ruby looked up to see the distant silhouette of a figure looking over the edge of the plateau above. The Grimm Controller, she could tell by the mass behind his back.
And then he shifted, his foot slamming the edge of the cliff.
And the rock wall fell away.
Ruby's eye widened as she saw it coming. The rock at the top was already falling, collapsing like an avalanche. She could feel the vibration through Crescent Rose, and the stone there exploded outwards as well.
Ruby pulled the trigger to shoot away from the mountainside, but enough of the rock had scattered by that point that her back hit another rock. She was falling, and so was a small cliff with her.
But she wasn't going to let the Grimm controller get away.
The rock chunks were big, and a decent distance apart. Firing Crescent Rose gave Ruby the instant burst of movement needed to throw herself from rock to rock, and eventually she managed to land foot-first and start jumping as well.
It was a good thing she was still using Wind Dust and not traditional bullets. The makeshift boulders were being thrown away when she pulled the trigger, not shattering and surrounding her in shrapnel.
She kept jumping and kept firing, making her way to the top of the sheer face of the mountain. Back up to that plateau, back to where the Grimm controller was.
Ruby felt it in the rushing wind before she saw it. Above her, a rock was descending faster than any other. She didn't have time to do anything but Sing, so she Sang. A glyph etched itself into existence in front of her, a barrier to block the boulder. The rock shattered against the Glyph, the shards scattering to the wind.
And the Grimm controller, mere inches behind the boulder, descended upon the barrier.
His fist pierced the manifested Song and shattered it. Ruby fired Crescent Rose and shot to the side before his hand could reach her neck. In reflex more than active thought, Ruby swung the blade as she shot to the side. The tip of the blade scraped against the man's neck
Ruby shot through the boulders, threading the needle and landing against the new cliff face. It was more of a sideways crater now, and Ruby could see something sparking in the stone. Dust Crystals? What-
Before she could analyse that thought further, the man shot out at Ruby again. She repeated the exact same trick, firing to the side and slicing Crescent Rose against his neck as she escaped his fist. Ha! He wasn't learning at all!
Yang had warned Ruby that she was bad at reading people in hand to hand, and that was true to a point. But how much did Ruby really need to read someone when she had this much extra range and her opponents refused to learn?
The man's fist struck stone. The wall didn't shatter this time, but his Aura pulsed out as he did so. The Dust crystals began to glow, a deep purple light.
Ruby felt the gravity pull on her body. The last remnants of the avalanche froze in place, dozens of boulders hovering in the sky as if held in place by invisible wires.
Ruby landed against one of the boulders. It drifted slowly as she applied forced to it. There was no force pulling her down, and somehow her feet were remaining attached to the boulder. Almost as if-
The Grimm controller pushed aside his cloak again. A white spine of bone shot out of the black mass in his chest. Ruby swept Crescent Rose to deflect the blow, but even the force of the deflection was enough to push the boulder away. She leapt off the boulder as it drifted out, and in her peripheral vision Ruby saw the boulder hit some kind of invisible threshold and fall.
Ruby flicked a switch near the trigger of her gun. Crescent Rose realigned its ammo tract, switching from Dust-lined bullets to regular bullets. She wanted to be able to shoot properly, but she wanted to keep the Wind Dust. She had a few tricks up her sleeve with that, after all.
She fired at the Grimm controller, sending herself flying backwards. She hit another boulder and Crescent Rose twisted through the air before firing again.
The pattern repeated itself for a while. The Grimm controller kicked off from the wall after the first few bullets. For the first few boulders he leapt between he used only his body, his feet and fists shattering boulders as he bounced between them.
The two of them passed in the air. The man punched towards Ruby, so she just used the same trick again. FIre to the side, swing Crescent Rose to scrape it across his neck.
The longer the battle continued, the more the footing in this floating battlefield was reduced to rubble. Ruby had to get lucky to kick off the smaller rocks, and she was getting some Aura damage as she threw herself into the shards too small to avoid. But that was the only Aura damage she was getting.
She didn't need to fight long. Yang needed to sort out whatever she was sorting out with her kidnapper, and then…
Well, someone would have a plan. Worse come to worse, Ruby would just beat this guy.
The two passed each other in the sky again. Again, Ruby pulled the exact same trick. It was honestly starting to get concerning. Was she being conditioned here? Why would this guy let himself take this many hits?
She touched down on a boulder, then shot out to the big crater in the side of the mountain. At the same time, she heard the echo of a spine firing. Ruby looked up to deflect, but the man wasn't firing it at her.
He was firing it to throw himself through the air, the same way Ruby would do with a bullet. He was surging towards Ruby back-first, with no mountain in sight.
Ruby smirked. When she swung Crescent Rose, she was singing.
The Wind Dust in the blade caught through the sky, cutting a scar through the sky. With a second cut, Ruby fired off that projectile. It slammed into the man's back hard enough to cancel his momentum, leave him stuck in place within his own place devoid of gravity.
He could fire another spine to give himself momentum again, sure. But Ruby was faster. She kicked off the wall and shot behind her to tackle him out of the air before he could do anything. The momentum she brought along shoved the man face-first into a boulder that shattered in his wake.
Crescent Rose descended on the man. It was too long for the blade to hit easily, but the stick was enough for Ruby's purposes. It struck down on him, and Ruby jumped off his back at the same time. The man shot down like a rocket.
Ruby watched carefully, perching on another rock to watch. The man kept falling, past the last rocks at the edge of his no-gravity zone. When he fell past that, Ruby knew he was going to be gone for a while.
Did Ruby take the time to shoot now? She transformed Crescent Rose so it was more compact in her hand as she looked down, but a flicker of red to her side distracted her.
Ruby turned her head to see her sister's face sticking out of a portal.
"Ruby-"
Yang got no further before Ruby fired Crescent Rose in the opposite direction. She was through the portal before Yang could blink. Yang's body was suddenly pulled away and Ruby fell face-first onto the hard ground beneath.
"Ow." Ruby complained. She pushed herself up and looked around. She was… On the plateau? Right above the battlefield? Yang must have only just gotten here herself-
Right, Yang. Ruby looked over to her sister. She was clinging to the back of her kidnapper, the girl with blackish-greenish hair. Her eyes looked reptilian, though Ruby couldn't place it. Crocodile? Was there even a difference with reptiles?
"Ok Ruby, be cool." Yang had her hand raised, as if trying to keep Ruby away from the War Chief. "This situation is complicated and everyone needs to talk about it."
"No problem." Ruby answered. "What's the plan with that guy? If we get to the airship-"
"I am not abandoning my home." The kidnapper interrupted. She flinched as Ruby turned her attention to her. "I… Understand I have little footing to stand on here, having caused the issue and also resorting to violence against you first. But I can't leave-"
A shadow fell over Ruby.
All three girls turned to look to the source.
Between the sun and the sky, a silhouette was floating. Ruby didn't need much to recognise him. He had cast aside his cloak at last, revealing what lay beneath. Bindings were floating away from his body, some sort of bandage or restriction floating away in the wind. Floating away from the wings which framed the warrior against the sun.
Yang's voice was low, barely more than a whisper. "...Ruin?"
Before Ruby could ask who that was, before the faint stirring of her memory could turn into anything more concrete, the winged man descended. He fell upon Ruby, his fist reeled back and ready to strike.
He fell fast, but Ruby was faster. She saw the opportunity to go for her old trick again, Crescent Rose transforming and extending. She waited until the man was almost upon her before she fired, swinging at the same time to cut against his neck-
And into the other hand he had there, already waiting.
He had anticipated it. Of course he had, Ruby had hit him with this a dozen times already, but-
The man pulled on Crescent Rose's blade before Ruby could finish the thought. Her body was ripped from the ground, her feet dangling as she was pulled towards him.
His fist pierced her Aura like it didn't exist, and Ruby felt a hand close around her heart.
…What?
There was silence. No, that wasn't true. There was a scream, but Ruby couldn't process it. There was a wordless movement of air, but not soundless. It was just that the sound was beyond her.
Her Aura was still up. But there was a hole in her chest. A hand squeezing her heart in place, enough that each beat put a pressure on it too much for her to bear. The world was growing cold.
This close, the wings were no longer silhouettes. They were lined not with feathers, but scales.
Dragon.
Ruby barely had time to complete the thought before the Grimm controller ripped out her heart.
"Ruby!" Yang was behind her in a second. One arm wrapped around her possessively, while the other shot out and struck the man in the face. He barely reacted to the fist, but he didn't react as Ruby was pulled away either.
Ruby's loose grip wasn't enough to hold onto her weapon. Crescent Rose fell from her hands as Yang pulled her through the portal. The two girls hit the ground at the same time.
"It's okay." Yang was quick to try to cover the wound on Ruby's chest. Putting pressure on a wound barely meant anything when it was this big, but she was trying. "You…"
She took a deep breath. When next Yang spoke, it was low. Too low for Ruby to hear.
She had a pretty good idea what it was about anyway. Ruby's chest should be healing. She was an Intoner, after all. If nothing else, her Aura should stop her bleeding.
It was getting harder to think. Her head hurt, burning up. It occurred to Ruby that she could feel the edges of regeneration within her skull. So already, the oxygen in her veins was running out…
"Dragon." Yang's quiet muttering was getting louder. "Dragon's Song. Cancelling, like bone. Needs…"
Yang's head shot to the side. When she called to the War Chief, she didn't even have time to call her name. "Heal her!"
The War Chief didn't respond.
Ruby's vision was dancing in and out, fuzzy and dark one moment and relatively clear the next. It was never perfect, but for a split second she could see the War Chief and the Grimm Controller. At this angle, she could see the side of the War Chief's face.
The girl looked horrified. The man looked at her with killing intent. There was no malice there, no hatred or disdain. He was like a hunter, uncapitalized.
The girl spoke a word that did more to explain her horror than anything Ruby could describe of her expression. "...Dad?"
There was no recollection in the man's red eyes.
He pulled on Crescent Rose again, still holding it by the blade. His other hand, still red with Ruby's blood, closed around the staff.
Ruby's vision was going out again too fast, but she could see when the silhouette of the man ran forward. She could see the blade of her scythe arcing back.
She could see the shadow of the War Chief doing nothing to escape the assault.
Yang was pushing herself up. She was ready to push herself up, throw herself through a portal. She probably had a plan already, even if it was just as simple as getting everyone to a portal to someplace safe.
But every bone in Ruby's body was shouting at her to do something.
And so, while she could still act, Ruby Sang.
[X] She created a barrier between the War Chief and the attacker. He would be able to punch through it, but it would slow him down all the same. Maybe that second of surprise will be all Yang needed to enact her own plan.
[X] She Sang the Song that rewrote Dust. If Yang opened a portal to the War Chief, it would be close enough to reach. If Ruby could shape it to the proper kind of Gravity Dust, the weapon would be too heavy for the attacker to wield.
[X] She Sang the Song that rewrote Dust. If Yang opened a portal to the War Chief, it would be close enough to reach. If Ruby could shape it to the proper kind of Gravity Dust, the weapon would be too heavy for the attacker to wield
- Location
- Russia
[X] She Sang the Song that rewrote Dust. If Yang opened a portal to the War Chief, it would be close enough to reach. If Ruby could shape it to the proper kind of Gravity Dust, the weapon would be too heavy for the attacker to wield.
With the power levels rising Ruby needs to unlock Intoner mode to catch up.
With the power levels rising Ruby needs to unlock Intoner mode to catch up.