The last bolt of Lightning
A simple extermination mission, shouldn't be that hard, especially with Nora with me, I grabbed StormFlower and sheathed them in my sleeves, Nora had Magnhild on her back. We left the locker rooms, and headed to the landing pads, Nora was bouncing around as we walked, it was usual Nora, I had known her since birth almost, many people think we are together but I know we are not. The next hour seemed like any other hour on a mission, pack, load, travel, and disembark, find your objective and complete it.
As the bullhead transport hovered over the target area I got a feeling of uneasiness, I dismissed and carried on thinking it was nothing, Nora and I jumped from the side of the transport, landing onto the open field below, Drawing StormFlower and scanning for any immediate threats, Nora doing the same having Magnhild in grenade launcher mode.
"Nothing here, let's move." I simply stated, Nora nodded and we moved to the north, an hour later we ran into a an unusually small pack of Beowolves, but at the same time we spotted them, they spotted us, then they did something unusual. They ran, they didn't look old enough to have that knowledge of 'If you see an armed human, run' but I could have been wrong, none the less they were our objective and we needed to complete it, Nora and I looked at each other and Nodded, we knew what to do without even speaking.
Chase after the Grimm
After about 45 minutes of pursuit, the pack of beowolves let them into an open clearing, where more beowolves stood, I looked over at Nora, she was smiling ready get to hammering, I reached up to my ear to radio Beacon.
"Beacon Control, this is Hunter Pair 1, objective found, proceeding as planned."A second later I heard the voice of a women come through "Copy that Hunter Pair 1, good hunting, come back safe."
After radioing, I said to Nora "Smash." and with a flourish she shifted Magnhild into it's hammer form, then with a jump she said "Queens come to rule bitches!" I gave a slight chuckle and started to engage the Grimm, slicing, shooting, using the carelessness of the Grimm against each other, dodging swiped that were meant for me and having them hit other beowolves behind me, after finishing with the first few waves, the alpha reared it's ugly head, spikes coming out of it's back, and sharpened claws on it's hands, Nora, still in her adrenaline fueled stupor, charged wildly, smashing the side of it's head with a mighty swing from Magnhild, and in turn killing the Alpha in one strike.
A few short minutes of rest passed, right as I was about to radio for extract, the howl of a beowulf caught my ear, I turned to see not one, not two, not even three, but ten Beowulf Alphas all staring at us with murderous intent "Nora, we need to go, now." I said urgently to my partner, Nora looked at me and laughed "What, run from a fight like this, nuh uh Renny, we can take 'em."
The Alphas were starting to surround us, without even realising it I reloaded StormFlower and went back to back with Nora "How do you want to do this, take all 10 of them together one by one, or I take five and you take five?" I asked Nora, she didn't respond, I turned around and saw how bad a shape she was in, cuts and bruises all half healed, her breathing ragged, and slightly hoarse. I reached up to my ear "Beacon control this is Hunter Pair 1, we need extract quickly, we are surrounded and won't last.".
All I was met with was static.
I grit my teeth and used some of my aura on Nora to heal some of her bruises, I was surprised the Grimm were giving us a fair fight, or they were playing with their food. Now wasn't the time to think about that, now was the time to act, don't think about the possibility of not coming home, don't think about the possibility of lose, just act and hope everything will be alright.
"One." I started, and Nora readied herself, "two" one of the Alphas let out a howl and the others joined "THREE!" I shouted, and sprinted towards the closest one firing shots, chiseling at it slowly before I neared it, it swiped at my, but I dodged the swipe and brought both blades down onto the arm of the Alpha and pulled hard towards me, making it lose its footing for Nora to come in and slam down onto the head of the Alpha, smashing it to pieces 'One down, nine to go." I thought, Nora ran ahead of me to the next Alpha, I noticed that something different was driving her, she wasn't her happy joyful self in this battle, this was something different. Anger? Determination? Both? At this point, I didn't know, I just cared that she was killing these grimm alongside me.
About 20 minutes of killing Alpha after Alpha, two remained, I looked at Nora and she looked at me, we both nodded before she took off at one, and I took off towards the other, these last two were noticeably more bony than the other eight, they would prove a challenge, as I neared the beast it stood still, like a statue, being too focused on killing it I jumped and attempted to sink both blades of StormFlower into the beast's head but was knocked away, I recovered mid air and managed to land on my feet, but that hit hurt a lot, I looked down and saw that a gash had been opened up on my side just below the end of my ribcage, I wasn't bleeding, but it hurt.
Nora had just finished with her last Alpha, and was going for a distraction hit, but as she jumped it turned around and readied a fatal looking attack "NORA WATCH OUT!" I shouted, but it was too late for her to adjust. The Alpha had a bony spike extended out of it's forearm, it came around and stabbed her, before throwing her to the ground, a splotch of blood coming from her mouth as she was falling "NOOO!" It was at this moment that I snapped, I blacked out and the next thing I knew, that Alpha was dead, and I was sitting on my knees, cradling a dying Nora Valkyrie.
Nora Valkyrie, a childhood friend, and pseudo lover, we had dabbled in the past, but found that it wouldn't work out, so we kept it platonic, the bubbly, energetic, fiery ginger haired girl, so full of life and compassion, dying in my arms.
With her last bit of life and energy, she looked at me and held up an arm with a single finger extended, she get it to my face and let out a soft "Boop." and had the biggest smile on her face that I had seen on her face in the entire time that I had known her. She closed her eyes and embraced her eternal rest, letting her last breathes go, this day would be known to me as when nora let out of her last bolt of lightning out to the world.
Some time later a bullhead arrive, it hovered slightly above the land and the side door opened up, Jaune and Pyrrha stood in the opening, bloodied and battered, when they say what tragedy had unfolded, they were stunned, I looked at them, a single tear escaping my iron will and resolve. My life long partner, was now dead, fighting the very thing that we, Huntsmen and Huntresses, were meant to keep at bay.