The death knell rings so faithfully, a crescendo of chimes resonating with every man, woman, and child. A beautiful sound. Can you not hear it? For every heart we stop, another receives its sum of fear, a new melody of despair that pierces all silence, and we march to that faltering beat. They will bend, they will break, and they will be consumed.
Early Fall, One Month after the Disaster
Falling from the sky was not nearly as uncommon as a Hunter might desire. Possibly, Ruby herself wouldn't judge someone's preferences. She rather enjoyed the feeling of free fall. Looking to her left, she admired the rising sun on the horizon, the sea glistening gold across black ripples, and flaming sections of Grimm streaking downward from the same place she started her descent.
Looking up to the heavens and in front of her was less pleasant. A larger Beowulf with a head as big as her torso, getting slapped by her tattered red cloak and Ruby's own long hair, snapped his jaws like any rabid dog might toward their frightened prey. Not that she was afraid of course, but that fact wouldn't slow him down.
Delivering a defiant and almost playful kick to his chest, the one-eyed Huntress attempted to dislodge her scythe out of the monster's shoulder, but found little luck. Since the incident, the average size and intelligence of Grimm doubled, and where this Beowulf may have been a dumb, human-sized beast, he now held Ruby's weapon inside his left shoulder, preventing her from unloading lethal rounds into his partially armored body.
She fired a round in hopes of yanking Crescent Rose away, but instead dug deeper into his now limp arm and sent them both spinning at a sickening speed. "Bad beasty!" she laughed, shoving her foot into his collar bone. Savage and driven, the monster lurched forward and sunk his fangs into her firing hand, giving momentary panic to the much smaller, weaker fighter. "Bad! Bad beasty!" she yelled again, less humor in her voice. Aura still strong, the fangs did not pierce her, but pain prevailed, and aura would eventually fade.
More motivated, Ruby hooked her left leg around his arm that still held her weapon, and kicked with all her might at his clenched jaws. A dozen frustrated kicks later, Ruby felt the pain evolve from bruising and crushing to mutilating and crushing, blood now flowing from her hand to the wolf's mouth. She shouted something indistinct with pain-addled anger. Her free hand dove to the pack on her lower back, and whipped out an automatic pistol she had picked up somewhere, then aimed into the Grimm's eyes
Click click.
She threw the empty gun at him, and searched the pack again, this time pulling out a rusted revolver.
Boom boom click.
One bullet cracked his skull armor and the second passed through his snout, his own blood mixing with her's in his throat. He gave a wet roar. The recoil stopped their spinning.
Breaking away from him though still connected via Crescent Rose, she took note that the ground, which was very much not the sea, was mercilessly approaching. She had an idea.
Torquing herself around, she twisted their combined being as to put the Beowulf on the bottom, then shoved her revolver into his snapping jaws and removed one threat, then pulled herself closer to his frame by pulling on his still violent hand. She tried her best to control his wrist, but his strength proved too much as his claws raked down her face, carving a three-mark trail from her brow, over her missing eye, and halfway across her cheek. Another pained howl.
Overcoming the injury, a wide grin worked its way onto her face, formed by teeth red with blood and stained by time in the wilderness. She let go of her favorite weapon and slapped the monster's mouth. "Goodbye," she said.
Jumping with a Hunter's power, Ruby floated for a key second, the monster crashing fatally into the ground. Falling an easy fifteen feet, Ruby landed atop the corpse, proud of her handiwork.
Not one for wasting time, she glanced down at her mildly mangled hand, and reached into her pack for her radio. She couldn't find it. 'Did it fall out while we were spinning?' she thought, irritated. Ruby would've preferred to call for pickup so she could be treated before the pain overcame the adrenaline, but one can't always win. A moment later her radio hurtled atop her head, knocking her down. Further irritated, she picked both herself and the radio up from the mud, the scarlet Forest of Forever Fall still wet from last night's rain. Inspecting the radio, it worked regardless of the large dent, and from there Ruby called for extraction.
Following directions, Ruby dragged her scythe downhill. After some time, the sound of aircraft screamed overhead, then a high shadow momentarily blocked out the daylight. The Huntress instinctually dashed behind a tree to hide. A gust of wind ran its course through the forest, the sound of great wings soaring away. Ruby allowed her heart to slow before going on her weary way, slogging along until she found a road where she then shot a flare into the early morning sky.
While she waited, the combination of starvation and blood loss she suffered made her light headed, almost blacking out at one point. Eventually, a faded green tank of four treads and one long cannon stopped a dozen feet from her, a treaded trailer carrying supplies screeching to a halt behind it.
The hatch to the turret opened sluggishly and with weight, Sun's upper body springing up immediately after. "Ruby!?" he called to her, confusion in his voice. "You're hurt, how bad?"
She apathetically shrugged, "Nothing terrible I think."
"Good." He nodded, noticeably more at ease. "Aren't you supposed to be escorting a ship?"
Walking towards then climbing the heavy tank, she answered, "A civilian carrier, yes, I did, and Weiss is still with them. I just had to remove some hostile work conditions from the work site."
"Ah." Moving aside to let her in, Sun explained in kind, "We're getting cargo to the airstrip you probably just came from."
As she bumped against him on her way down, she asked with a hint of worry, "Did you see the Nephilim?"
Sun looked to the sky. "We were under a tree canopy when it passed. Couldn't see it."
"Hey Blake, hey Neptune," she greeted the tank crew, "where did you get the supplies, and uh, Blake, could you help me? Preferably with morphine?" Ruby plopped herself down in the passenger space behind the driver, who at the moment was Neptune.
"So we're going now?" asked the once blue-haired boy, his head now crowned with natural brown hair and his red coat patched with grey steel armor.
"Yeah," answered Sun, "follow the road south." Taking his seat below the hatch, head still popping out, he continued, "We got the supplies from a town. Well hidden, no survivors, lots of unused supplies."
The turbine engine groaned to a faster revolution cycle, and all the cabin members lurched back and forth as they took off. Blake limped over to the gunner's seat next to her team leader, her dark leg brace stiff yet functional, and set her medical kit atop her lap. Like Sun, Blake donned a leather bomber jacket with a lined collar, though where Blake's was black leather and gray fur, Sun's was tan with dirty fleece. "No morphine. Let me look at your hand." Blake spoke no more words than was ever necessary.
"Ah man!" Ruby exclaimed, pulling the tattered headband from her bad eye, "I was saving this! I still have my eye lids, right?" Blake nodded in affirmation. Ruby peeled open her cut eye lids, removed a cotton ball from her empty eye socket, and pulled two white pills from the cotton. She swallowed them dry, gagging as she said, "ah I regret that, I should've drunken something, bleh, ew." Balling up the cotton again, she shoved it back into her right eye. "Alright, give me a minute to psych myself." She leaned back both cathartically and lethargically and showed Blake her hand.
Looking it over, the cat faunus shook her head with disappointment. "I'll get your face with iodine, I'll have to stitch your palm, and I have to brace two of your fingers, which are broken, so... I'm going to put you under." She finished with two yellow eyes focused on her partner's one drifting, flickering silver eye.
"Fine by me." She let her head roll back and took a deep breath.
Blake soaked a cotton ball with a clear liquid and held it under Ruby's nose, and moments later, she was out.
After some vague pain and time, she started to become aware again when she felt water running down her throat, and then sound came back to her and a faint ringing stopped. She was awake again and gripped the water bottle Blake had held in her mouth. Once satisfied, she checked the mirror to her right and saw iodine staining the skin surrounding the claw marks on her face. Looking down at her right hand, she admired Blake's medical attention, her two fingers braced competently and bandaging snuggly hiding the stitches underneath. "Thanks," she coughed, smacking her wetted lips.
"No problem. While you were out, I got some things for you." The uninjured of the two held up a plate of crackers. Normally, no one was excited for crackers, but crackers with fresh cheese was a completely different animal.
"I love you Blake, never think otherwise," Ruby giggled, taking the plate, cutting the hard and brittle cheese, decorating the salty crackers with the slices, and eating them all with one hand. Blake might've been impressed, that is, were she capable of feeling impressed in the first place.
"I looked through the haul we got, I'll think you'll appreciate this." The medic kit on her lap had been replaced with a wicker basket of goodies. "A black, long sleeve flannel shirt, keep you warm. A canvas vest, lots of pockets, again, black." As she named items, she displayed them for Ruby, putting them down by her feet as she went along. "A new flare round, I think it's green. A can of soup. A new bundle of bandaging. A pipe bomb. Oh yeah, I went ahead and filled one of your magazines with bullets, put the remaining in the one in your gun. It's half full now."
Ruby nodded. ".50 cal, right?" Her eating never slowed.
"Of course. Normal gunpowder rounds though, not dust. You'll shoot through wood and thin metal, but not stone or anything. And I didn't find too many."
"I know."
For the last item, Blake pulled from behind her a sheathed longsword with a forty-inch blade from what Ruby could tell. The sheath was odd to say the least.
"Found this on a dead Hunter. Longsword-turn-bladed whip, sheath uses 12 gauge shotgun shells, could you use it?"
Ruby nodded. Using other weapons saved her ammo and kept her on her toes, lest she grew complacent with her scythe.
"Good, I got two bandoliers for you, fully loaded."
"Op!" Neptune yelped, forgoing english for expediency, "Goliath up ahead, I think it's going for the camp."
Sun drew his attention from behind the tank to the front, and without the need for binoculars, the Goliath, impossibly large in all dimensions, walked tall through the forest it trampled underfoot and could've acted as it's own geographical landmark for miles. "That's what that sound was!" When he did inspect it with his binoculars however, he made out little specks dancing atop the colossus. He squinted hard to make out any details.
Blake jumped into the gunner's seat, head rested against the padded periscope and hands gripped around the joystick as she lined up her cross hairs with the distant black mass. "Ready."
"How did we miss something that big?" contemplated Ruby aloud.
"No wait," Sun dissuaded her, "Jaune's group is already there." The blond tank commander slouched back in his armored throne, binoculars falling to his chest. Gray, greasy fingers rubbed at the creases in his brow. "Radio the camp, the scouts in that sector are dead."
Racing alongside the Goliath's feet, every step the colossus took launched Jaune and his steed into the air. Great and old oaks snapped like twigs under its weight, but the sound of tearing lumber echoed like lightning. While the body appeared to move slow and meticulously, the sheer distance covered by each step put the monster's pace at almost as fast as Jaune's horse.
Needing to make an impression to grab the Grimm's focus, Jaune turned in his saddle to grab the tool for the job. His hand passed over his sword and sheath on his hip, passed over the lance strapped alongside the horse, but grabbed the steel recurve bow from the horse holster. Switching grips, Jaune let go of the reigns and reached for one of the special arrows in his kit, a steel wire tied to just behind the fletching. Knocking it in and drawing back, the knight let sail his arrow into the front left leg of the Goliath. Steel wire screamed from a coil inside the horses satchel. "Alright Levon," he shouted, patting the chestnut brown stallion along his neck, "let's not mess it up this time! Hya!"
Rider and steed bolted forward and in, putting themselves at the center of the beast before slowing down, wire pulling taut and wire wheel spinning. Within moments, they fell behind the rear legs, then raced back out to the left, then dashed in front of the rear left leg again, then fell back, ad nauseam, until the leg was wrapped several times with wire. "Oh shit," he groaned, "time to commit." He locked the wire wheel so it wouldn't turn.
Jaune steered them back under the body, but instead of wrapping around the same leg, they crossed over the right side, where then the rear right leg stepped into the wire, suddenly placing extreme tension on the steel. Blood sprayed from the wrapped left leg, and a howl permeated the air like hell itself opened up. Jaune and Levon were expectedly flung forward and tumbled violently along the shattered woods stamped into the mud.
High above and on top of the Goliath, Ren and Nora braced themselves as the Goliath dropped to a knee, its trunk finally not swiping at its brow. Now was their chance to slay the threat.
Nora, clad in dirtied pink, gray, and white, with custom made silver greaves to wield her hammer and greaves to stomp on her foes, and military issued armor not dissimilar to Jaune's original chest piece, marched forward to strike the peak of the Grimm's skull. Superficial bones shattered and flew away to reveal bald spots of skin stretched over the true skeletal skull. Whipping her long pony tail to part the stray hairs from her sweat coated cheeks, she yelled to Ren, "Now Ren! Hold it down!"
Far less put together, Ren donned a torn green sweater and tan cargo pants, his leather boots sporting holes and scuffs everywhere, with only his chest harness seeming to have any care given. Even his black hair was shaggy and greasy, the pink highlight faded in the mess. Sliding to the target spot, he screwed a conical explosive to a segment of pipe he pulled from a quiver of his own, then stabbed once into the flesh, securing the explosive perpendicular to the skull. "Go!"
Nora dropped her belligerent instrument upon the make shift stake, driving it two feet deep, leaving one side of the pipe still above the cracked and wedged bone. The Goliath roared and shook his head, but the two Hunters held their ground.
"I set it for fifty seconds," he spoke, voice even. He pulled another segment of pipe from his quiver, screwing it to the bloodied pipe already in the Goliath, then leaned back to give Nora room.
She struck the pipe again, driving the explosive another two feet deeper. Ren screwed on another pipe and they continued their pattern until Ren stood up and stepped back. When he covered his ears, Nora followed suit.
A high pitched bang rattled their bones, but fortunately did far worse to their prey. The pipe shot halfway out of the fissure and the whole of the colossus shuddered before falling forward, limp, its brain matter liquified.
Nora allowed herself to slide down the face of the beast, down the trunk, and onto the ground, while Ren removed the pipe first. The simple pipe that had been directly connected to the bomb was shattered, but he could reuse the other half dozen two-foot segments.
Across the scarlet forest of Vale, past the beaches, out at sea, a super carrier welcomed a small convoy of civilian transports and escort gun ships onto its upper deck. From one of the transports, two brilliant figures strode with majesty off the ship ramp and took in the moment, all the while soldiers, sailers, and civilians stopped to look at the two women.
The first was Weiss, immaculate and clean, a high ranking Atlesian long coat draped from her slim shoulders, cinched around her waist and tight against her metal corset. Myrtenaster dangled from her right hip, and her sister's saber dangled from her left, with Ironwood's hand cannon holstered on the small of her back to finish her noble flair. She unceremoniously wiped some dribbling snot from her running nose with gloved hands.
The second was Pyrrha, tall and regal. Layered, flowing crimson fabrics and sashes both covered and hid underneath an assortment of light gold armor that almost sparkled in the rays of the rising sun. She carried her shield on her arm, which sheathed her original sword-turn-rifle-turn-spear, and holstered her newer very big rifle-turn-lance on her back, red and gold motif kept intact. As she walked, her hair flowed freely behind her, long since unbound by her tiara, and when the wind picked up the long strands of hair, portions of her sarong, cloak, mantle, and spare sashes, the etherealness of her motion forced many to gaze upon her undeniable beauty. Many even believed the merciful propaganda being pushed about her being the invincible Goddess of Fall, inheritor of the Maiden's powers. While she was the Fall Maiden, beautiful and deadly, a booster of people's morale, she was far from invincible.
A prototype gunship landed in a space adjacent to where Weiss and Pyrrha walked, its twin turbines slowing to a low hum. The cockpit glass popped up and slid down, a energetic Yang in pilot fatigues stained with oil jumped down and ran up to her friends. As she started talking, she removed her black aviators and held a cigarette in betwixt her fingers. "Hmm hmm, you smell that wonderful sea smell? Fish?"
Weiss sniffled through her impatient expression, responding in monotone, "No I don't smell–" she stopped, pulled her head back with an offended air and angered tone, "No I don't smell anything! Ugh, I'm sick of being sick."
Yang laughed, but stopped as soon as Pyrrha walked passed her with zero regard or acknowledgement. "Hmm." She gestured to her remaining friend, "where's Ruby?"
The heiress, now the spokeswoman and inheritor of her family's legacy, sighed. "She jumped before we cleared the beach."
The blonde pilot chuckled. "I bet the Major will love that, maybe she'll give her a talking to?" she imagined humorously, wiggling her head a bit as she did.
"Doubtful. Forgetting everything else, she still did her job."
"Well obviously. Anyways, where are we going after this? Now that we're here?"
Weiss looked at her feet, then Yang, then the sunrise, then the command bridge of the boat. "We should talk to them anyways, easiest way to get things done," she answered, waving roughly in the direction of the command bridge as she started strutting away.
This was the world people lived in now. Three years ago, Weiss and Yang had started their first year at Beacon in the fall, wide eyed and children still. Three years later, after White Fang attacks, espionage, civil war, tens of thousands of deaths, and after the summer incident, the sea became the safest place to house non combatants, the mainlands remain a constant war zone against the recently formed Black Fang, the Grimm, and Salem's personal elite. Ruby, the youngest of her pack, stands tall as an adult, a woman, and as the spearhead of the fight against extinction. Gone are the times of adventure, teenage shenanigans, the contemplation of one's goal in life, and the innocence of youth. There is work to be done, and while each person searches for their own moments of solace when they can, every soldier must hold position, every warrior must charge forward, and every beast awaits the hunt.
-End Chapter 1-