Forget me not
Weiss drove the blade of her Myrtenaster as far into the gargantuan beasts' chest as its thick hide would allow her, then promptly jumped off the monster, launching herself backwards into the air to avoid being squished like a bug by a giant, bony fist. With an elegant backflip, she dropped from well over ten feet and landed squarely on the shoulders of an alpha Beowolf, plunging her rapier straight down and killing the creature instantly.
But the firm ground offered her no respite in the heart of Salem's domain. With a Manticore about to pounce at her from one side and a Beowolf swinging at her neck from another, she ducked under the latter's clawed paw and lunged forward with her weapon outstretched, piercing the beast through where its heart would be. With Myrtenaster still embedded in the Grimm's chest, she stepped behind the Beowolf and, planting her hand on its back, pushed it onwards with all her strength, in a single motion ripping her blade free and shoving the monster straight into the Manticore's face, impailing it onto the other Grimm's horns. The Manticore, caught off-guard mid-jump, was thrown off balance and crashlanded into a crowd of lesser Grimm, killing a few with the impact alone and toppling some more. Before the beast could regain its bearings, Weiss vaulted over its back and jabbed at its neck; the Manticore, still lying on its side, tried to bite her in retaliation, but Weiss sidestepped and, seeing an opening, impaled the creature through the underside of its jaw.
As the corpses of those minor nuisances turned into dust and smoke, Weiss looked at the real problem – a giant, bipedal beast bringing to her mind the Jotunn from the Atlesian legends of old, towering over her with its nearly thirty feet of height. She knew not of its technical name, or if such even existed; her team had encountered such a Grimm only once before, and the lesson they had learned that day was that those things were a pain to bring down. Tiny wisps of black mist emanated from the wound Weiss had inflicted but a moment ago on its chest, but the heiress could tell that her attack didn't really do much damage; it grabbed the Jotunn's attention, however, and that's exactly what she wanted.
Under normal circumstances, Weiss could feasibly try to just blast the beast to hell and back, but the battle they were in the middle of was dragging on for far too long already; with her Aura reserves being stretched thin, the situation called for more... creative solutions, ones that provided the biggest payoff with the least amount of Aura used. And that's where getting the beast's attention came into play.
Weiss stepped over a dazed Beowolf, nonchalantly stabbing straight into his spine as she passed it by, and began marching towards the giant Grimm she had pissed off with her indignation. Enraged, the beast let out a sonorous roar and lumbered in her direction, caring not for the fellow Grimm it crushed under its feet not for the tiny patches of white flowers that blossomed here and there across the battlefield. In a matter of heartbeats, a giant fist fell onto Weiss like a thunder... except that Weiss was no longer there. Having dodged to the side in the last moment – and nearly losing her footing after the impact had shaken the ground – the heiress jabbed at the giant's hand, freezing it to the ground; she didn't use much Dust, just enough to stall the beast in that awkward position for a while, hunched and with its centre of balance leaning forwards.
"Got you," she thought, looking up with a pleased smirk while the Jotunn lifted its other arm up, priming it for another strike. "Two, one..."
A bolt of red lightning cut through the air and crashed into the giant's back with the force of a battering ram, pushing it onwards; off balance and with its hand frozen to the ground, the beast toppled like a felled tree. The ice encasing the Grimm's fist cracked and shattered, and when that happened, moments before the giant would hit the ground, Weiss summoned another ice glyph, sprouting a massive ice spike exactly below the beast and letting the monster's sheer mass do the rest.
The beast let out a piercing roar as it collapsed atop the spike, impaling itself. Not everything had gone according to the plan, however; the Grimm was not yet dead. As it pushed itself off the ground with its massive, powerful arms the ice snapped, with a large shard still stuck within the beast's chest. The giant reached with one of its hands to the back of his neck and a loud 'faaaaa!' could be heard as the beast tore a crimson-haired Huntress off its back, with the young woman's weapon slipping out from her grasp and falling to the ground. The Jotunn, holding Ruby upside down by her legs, raised the girl high above the ground, as if about to drive her face-first into the rocky earth. A sudden flash of white interrupted it, however, bursting from the girl's eyes and freezing the monster in place. Wasting no time, Weiss dashed towards Ruby's scythe; dispatching a few pesky Beowolves along the way, the heiress grabbed the weapon and ran back to Ruby, tossing the massive hunk of Crescent Rose into the air for the young Silver-Eyed Warrior to catch it effortlessly with a single hand. Pulling herself up, Ruby swung her scythe, driving the tip of its blade into the joint of the giant's thumb and then pulling the trigger without a sliver of mercy.
The beast, freed from the power of Silver Eyes, howled in pain and dropped its would-be victim, with its right thumb hanging on nothing more but a few tendons – if Grimm even had those. Ruby fell freely, head down, scattering into a cloud of crimson rose petals moments before hitting the ground, not unlike a drop of blood dripping into a pool of red with a splash. The petals, as if carried by a nonexistent breeze, fluttered towards Weiss, where they reformed into her silver-eyed partner by the heiress' side.
"Didn't think he'd survive that," the ravenette muttered, watching discontent as the giant was slowly getting back up onto its two feet.
"Me neither. What now?"
The girl pondered for a while, frowning as she rubbed her eyelids. "Kneebreaker," she said eventually.
"Ouch," Weiss hissed, wincing. "Feeling particularly ruthless today, are we?"
"Not really," Ruby deadpanned, with a single pull of a trigger amputating an arm and a shoulder from the Beowolf that had been trying to sneak up on the two of them, not even sparing the beast a single glance when she did so. Releasing an empty clip to the ground, she loaded another into its place, one adorned with the symbol of four arrows pointing towards a dot in the center; with that, she pulled the bolt handle of Crescent Rose, letting a Gravity bullet into the loading chamber of her HCSS. "Just want to get this mess of a recon over with."
Weiss laughed under her breath. "Fair enough. After you," she said, pointing with the tip of her rapier at their enormous opponent.
Nodding, Ruby aimed at the giant's face and fired a few rounds to prod the beast and draw its attention; then, once the Jotunn's murderous gaze was focused solely on her, with its rage blinding it to everything else, she took off running. The two of them, the monster and the Huntress, dashed towards one another, and when the beast was about to stomp on Ruby and crush her, a gleaming, white glyph appeared out of thin air above the girl's head like a shield, pushing the gargantuan feet to the side and throwing the giant off-balance. It created an opening which Ruby then ruthlessly exploited, dodging to the side and slashing at the back of the Jotunn's left knee. No longer able to support the beast's weight, the leg gave in and the giant dropped to its knee, propping itself on its arms to prevent collapsing to the ground completely. Taking advantage of the fact that the beast's face was now lower, Ruby jumped into the air and drove the blade of her scythe into the side of the beast's jaw; the giant reared in pain and pulled the girl upwards as it jerked its head back, the sudden movement catapulting her high into the air. Furious, the monster turned its unproportionally small eyes that burned like two little embers towards Ruby, readying itself to swat her mid-air with its large hand... but, before it could do that, the young Huntress took aim and fired, extinguishing the vile glow that burned inside its eyesocket forever.
The recoil launched Ruby backwards, away from the log of an arm that was about to smash her back into the ground. While the beast pressed one of its hands to its wounded eye and howled in anguish, Ruby finished her ascent, then used her Semblance and bolted right back at the giant, blindsiding it like a speeding truck; flying right in front of its face, the girl hooked the beast's neck with her scythe as she passed it by and jerked the Grimm to the side, driving its face straight into the side of a rocky cliff. A sickening crunch could be heard and for a brief moment Weiss could see how the monster's jaw swayed morbidly to the side at a strange angle, as if held in place by nothing more than its hide; then, Ruby jumped from the wall onto the Jotunn's shoulder and shouted, "Weiss!" With that call, she caught the neck of the stunned, wobbling giant with the blade of her scythe and leapt forward, dragging the Grimm to the ground along with her. With a single last howl, the Jotunn fell down, landing face-first onto another ice spike the heiress had created.
Amidst the cloud of dust the giant had scuffed up with its collapse, the silver-eyed girl rose up from her knees and blew a stray lock of hair off her forehead; noticing her approaching partner, Ruby grinned and held out her hand, which the heiress promptly low-fived.
"I almost feel sorry for the guy," Weiss said half-jokingly, looking at the smoking carcass in front of her with interest. "You actually broke its jaw."
Leaning tiredly on her scythe, Ruby snorted, pointing at the ice spike going into the beast's maw and poking out from the back of its skull. "Like you're the one to talk!" She shuddered, and tiny drops of sweat fell off her chin and nose when she did so. "Just think of the brain freeze."
Weiss let out a weary sigh and wiped the moisture beading up on her brow, looking around the battlefield. She had already lost the track of how long they had been fighting. Half an hour? Longer, perhaps? In her memory, the whole battle was a blur – working in tandem with Ruby, helping her leader control the battlefield by casting a glyph after a glyph, preventing Qrow and her team from getting overwhelmed by the unrelenting sea of enemies. Everyone was doing a great job, but the Grimm of all kinds and sizes just kept on coming from every direction, wave after a wave, with but a brief moment of a breather between each assault. Admittedly, the situation was now slowly starting to clear up – the last two waves were less numerous than the ones that came before them, and now that Jotunn had fallen they only had to fight a bunch of lesser Grimm, none of them stronger than a Beringel. Still, the long fight had taken its toll on all of them - sweaty and physically exhausted from the constant combat, they all were running uncomfortably low on Aura, especially Blake and Weiss; Yang, trying to conserve what little remained of her ammo, went into full melee, while both Ruby and Qrow were visibly tired from swinging their massive scythes around, with the speed of their attacks dipping noticably. Nonetheless, Weiss was confident when she thought that they should be able to finish off the remaining Grimm - provided that no further reinforcements came.
As if on a cue, she heard Blake shout. "Ruby, the hill!"
Weiss and Ruby instantly snapped to attention, turning their eyes up the hillside at the foot of which they were fighting; there, at the top of the bluff, another pack of Grimm was preparing to a charge.
"Oh for fuck's sake," Ruby muttered under her breath. She bit her lower lip as she stared at the enemies, judging the situation, and Weiss could swear that the girl turned a little bit paler while she was glancing back and forth between her teammates and the incoming attackers. The horde wasn't terribly large compared to the ones they've fought before, but in their team's current state... "It's gonna get messy if they reach us before we're done with the Grimm we've got here already."
Weiss wetted her parched lips, mulling over their options. "I can slow them down," she said eventually in a quiet voice.
Ruby turned to look at her partner with worry and uncertainty painted all over her face. "Are you sure...? You're pretty low on Aura, Weiss..."
"Yes, I'm sure. I can do it," Weiss uttered, with her words coming off a bit sharper than she had intended them to. Meeting her partner's concerned gaze, she took on her best reassuring smile. "Go and help the others clean up. I can hold them off, but not for long."
It was obvious that Ruby didn't like the idea in the slightest, but both she and Weiss knew that their options were limited. Giving the heiress one last, caring look, the girl just squeezed her partner's shoulder and nodded, then ran off to help the rest of her team.
Weiss watched for a second how a crimson ponytail flown behind Ruby as the girl rushed into the heat of the battle, then pried her eyes away from her friend and faced the horde stampeding down the hill - a violent, black avalanche of tooth, horn and claw coming right at her and her team, threatening to overwhelm and swallow them whole. Looking at the beasts – Beowolves, Ursai, Deathstalkers, two Goliaths and even a stray Nuckelavee, and a few more Grimm she knew no name of - she was fairly certain that her team would be done for if that wave reached them before they were ready. And so she stepped forward, blade in her hand, determined to give her friends the time they needed.
Where the Grimm were approaching, the terrain formed a couloir, a steep, narrow gulley that served as a natural funnel of a sort, which gave the heiress an idea. "I can do it," she repeated quietly to no one other but to herself, spinning the dust chamber of her MADR and locking it onto Earth Dust. "Not like we've got any other choice." Weiss took a deep breath and swung Myrtenaster in a wide, horizontal arc, then lifted it high in the air. Loosening her grip, she let the sword flip in her hand, then, with the tip pointing downwards, she exhaled and drove the blade into the ground.
And then, all hell broke loose.
The earth shook and cracked with a deafening roar when a ten-feet tall wall of jagged stone erupted from the ground right below the feet of the first line of the attackers. What followed was a true cacophony of pain, of tearing flesh and breaking bone as line after a line of beasts crashed into the barrier. Some Grimm from the first line, impaled by the cold stone, howled in agony as they hung down from the spikes, while others were outright launched into the air only to plummet to their deaths moments after. Cracks appeared in the summoned stone, but the wall was holding – for the time.
The whole world swayed in Weiss' eyes as a dizzy spell hit her like a large wave, with the only thing preventing her from completely collapsing to the ground being the support of her trusty Myrtenaster. Wincing at the dull throbbing inside her skull, she rubbed her face with her free hand and looked up at her handiwork. "This should keep them out for a while," she stated flatly, too tired to feel any semblance of accomplishment, her words coming out of her mouth as a quiet groan.
"Hell yeah, Weiss!" through the wild ringing in her ears, Weiss heard Yang's enthusiastic cheer.
As she pulled her hand away from her face, Weiss noticed the wild flickering of energy surrounding her palm, fingers and the rest of her body, causing a pit to open in her stomach as she realized that her Aura was now almost completely depleted. "Oops."
As she was staring at her hand, she suddenly noticed between her fingers that the shadows on the ground below her shifted; she immediately snapped to attention, dodging blindly and lifting her blade in defense... but, before she could take on a proper stance, it was already too late.
Weiss' body was sent flying straight into a stone boulder when a black fist bigger than her head knocked the wind out of her, draining almost everything that was left of her Aura, its sorry remains being the only thing that saved her from the immediate death on impact. She slumped down the cold spire, suddenly unable to stand, move or even form a coherent thought; when she finally came back to her senses and opened her oddly heavy eyelids, all she could see was a figure of a giant Beringel that was about to pounce on her and maul her to death. In the last-ditch effort to save herself, she tried to access her Semblance, but to no avail; not having the energy to move, she could do nothing when the Beringel jumped and flew towards her... nothing but to defiantly refuse to close her eyes when looking death in the eye.
But death did not come, and the Beringel disappeared mid-jump with a sudden flash of red.
'What?' She blinked a few times, trying to process what had just happened. When she started wondering whether or not she should care, something light, red and warm fell on top of her nose, so she squinted her eyes to see what it was. Then, a weak, tired smile bloomed on her lips.
A rose petal. 'Thank you, Dolt.'
With some difficulty, Weiss managed to focus her vision just in time to see her silver-eyed savior using the Beringel as on oversized, grotesque skateboard, with Crescent Rose in its war scythe form firmly planted in the monster's chest; after a short ride across the rocky ground, the ravenette transformed her beloved weapon back into its default form and furiously pulled the trigger, shouting.
"I! HOPE! YOU'RE! HUNG! RY!" Each pause was accentuated with a ring of a gunshot from Crescent Rose, loud and clear even in Weiss' dazed mind.
Before the black body of the beast lost its momentum and ceased the drift good forty feet away from her, the Grimm was dead. In the meanwhile, Weiss felt out her Myrtenaster lying nearby and, helping herself with its blade, managed to stand up and take a few shaky steps. While she had been on the ground, Qrow, Yang and Blake took positions in a wide circle around Weiss, to the best of their ability trying to keep any and all Grimm at bay while the heiress was getting back her bearings. As Weiss looked at Blake, their eyes met briefly, and a tired but relieved smile showed itself on the Faunus' face when the brunette saw that the heiress was back on her feet.
"Hey! That was my line, Ruby!" a certain blonde yelled. Weiss took notice of the amusement in Yang's voice, but was still too stunned to connect the dots and determine what that brute of a woman was going on about. She tried, however – maybe even a little too hard, seeing that it kept her from paying enough attention to the battlefield.
It was Yang's shriek that finally roused her from her shock. "WEISS, WATCH OUT!"
She noticed the Beowolf that had somehow found its way into the circle of defenders and flanked her the second before the beast lunged at her, claws first. She dodged back in the nick of the time, and mostly succeeded – she was fast enough to avoid being hit in a way that would otherwise have been lethal, seeing that she had her Aura already depleted. And yet, when she felt the searing hot claws tearing her skin and muscles, she knew that she was still a bit too slow.
Myrtenaster slipped out of her grasp, her arms suddenly becoming limp. 'So, that's it.' She looked up at the beast and stared it in the eye in the last act of defiance as it raised the other clawed paw... and saw its head evaporate into a cloud of blood-red rose petals when another thunder echoed over the battlefield. Her legs finally failed her and buckled, but the pain of hitting the ground never came; instead, she felt strong arms catching her and wrapping around her, slowly lowering her to the ground. The arms that smelled of roses.
"I gotcha, Weiss! I got you!" Ruby was trying with all her will and might to hide it, but Weiss could see that she was terrified – she saw it in the girl's silver eyes. "COVER US!" Ruby roared. Weiss could hear the rest of the group shouting something back, but found herself unable to make any words out of it. "Shitshitshitshit," the scythe-wielder, noticeably paler than usual, muttered, pulling out her Scroll and then cursing under her breath once she'd realized something. "Damn it, we're out of range!" Pocketing the device, Ruby opened a first aid kit and got to work, her fingers gentle, if a little shaky, and actions careful.
"It's getting cold in here," Weiss said weakly after a while, feeling that the blood loss started taking its toll. There was an upside, however – she did not feel the pain all that much.
"Mhm," Ruby mumbled back in response, too focused on stopping the bleeding to pay any attention to anything else. The white-haired heiress forced a small smile.
"How bad does it look?"
"Not that bad," the younger of the two responded, matter-of-factly in a way that would be absolutely convincing if not for the slight trembling of Ruby's hands. Nonetheless, Weiss did appreciate the effort and the white lie. The heiress let Ruby work in peace, not saying anything for a while until she realized that the previously insignificant call of the warm and inviting darkness was getting progressively stronger.
"I think I'm in a dire need of a short nap, Ruby," Weiss jested, her smile faint but genuine this time. "In case that waking me up proves to be difficult... don't wait for me, would you? Just..."
"Weiss..." Ruby whispered, the tears welling in her silves eyes. At this sight the heiress suddenly found herself unable to think and speak. Even after all these things they'd seen and been through, there was still something so inherently wrong in seeing that girl cry... the fact that she was the one to had caused it hurt her way more than the damage her body had sustained. And because of that she averted her gaze and looked to the side, hoping that this way it would be easier to breathe.
There she noticed something she hadn't before, in the heat of battle. She knew they had fought on a flowerfield, but only now did she recognize the familiar plant with flowers of five white petals grouped into beautiful clusters.
'How fitting,' she thought, her sad smile still tugging at her lips. She reached out, picked one of the intact flowers and put it in Ruby's hand. And then she whispered:
"Fergissmeinnicht*, Ruby." These were her last words before she succumbed to the darkness.
'Forget me not.'
* Fergissmeinnicht is German name of a flower commonly known as Forget-Me-Not.
EDIT 10/05/19: In case you're wondering how in the world there is a mention of a Manticore in the prologue to a story that has been around since late 2016, the reason is that the prologue was overhauled in 2019, after much deliberation on my part. I started this fanfic with the idea that I'd get around to explaining the exact circumstances of the battle a bit later down the line and just focused the prologue on Weiss getting hurt, but the story just kept on growing, while my idea of how to handle the narrative moving forward has also matured a bit. Reasoning that combat was never meant to be the focus of After the Storm, I just left it be the way it was for a long while, but the awareness that I have left out too much has kept nagging me. Eventually, I figured that a bit more context regarding the circumstances of Weiss getting wounded would be appreciated; while it did not affect the plot itself in any meaningful way, it certainly impacted some of the readers' enjoyment, especially considering that it is the very first chapter. Thus, I expanded the prologue with the somewhat lengthy action scene at the very beginning - hope you enjoyed!