Thanks to Natural Born Flamer, Cheatengine343, RetardPen, Soren, and NovaltonG14 for the great reviews and advice. I hope you all like this next chapter.
Blake's POV
I have so many regrets that haunt me, but this won't be one of them. If my last act on Remnant is saving Yang, I'll die happy. I can't think of a better way to end things.
I feel claws dig into my skin as my aura disintegrates. And then, I feel nothing.
The pain eases, and the harsh pressure that was crushing my body disappears. I feel a cool breeze dance over my skin as I draw fresh air into my lungs. I open my eyes and take in my surroundings. The Grimm are gone, but I still hear them. The sound of their frantic howls continues to reverberate around me, and something else. Another sound mixed in with the chaos. A voice. Yelling for someone. Yelling for me.
"Blake! Blake are you guys okay?" I look to my left. Ruby is kneeling next to me. Her face contorted with worry.
"Ruby...What?" my mind struggles to catch up with the world around me. I'm alive. But how? And Yang. Is she okay? I look down and realize that I'm still lying protectively on top of her. She's still shielding her face from the Grimm that are no longer attacking us. But before I can say anything to her, something else catches my eye. We're floating.
We're suspended in the air, and right beneath us is the horde of Beowolves, jumping and biting at the air, trying to reach us, but failing to by mere inches. I look behind Ruby and see Weiss. She holds Myrtenaster out before her, feelings of determination and concentration are evident on her face, but her body shakes with exhaustion. And I finally grasped what happened.
Weiss and Ruby got to us in time. They must have cleared enough Grimm away to allow Weiss to use one of her glyphs. She was able to place us all on her glyph, above the Grimm and out of harm's way. They saved us. I was reluctant to blindly put my life in their hands, but I was wrong to worry. I've never been so glad to be wrong.
"Is….Is Yang okay?" Ruby asks, she looks at Yang's still form. I slowly move off of Yang, my body aches, but it feels good in a way. It reminds me that I'm alive. I kneel next to Yang with Ruby. Yang looks about as beat up as I feel, but seems fine, more or less. But I can sense the heavy emotions tearing through her mind. She's at war with herself. That's something I can understand. But I'm not sure Ruby will.
"Ruby, go check on Weiss while I get Yang up on her feet." I say.
"Weiss is fine, I want…"
"Ruby, Please. Let me do this." I say, interrupting her. I look her in the eye, silently begging her to trust me. I can tell she wants to stay with her sister, and that she doesn't understand why I want her to leave. But I also can see that she trusts me completely, not just with her life, but with her sister's. She has zero doubt that I will do what is best for Yang. I wish I could trust like her. Maybe one day, with this teams help, I can.
"Okay." Says Ruby. "Just hurry." She stands and walks over a few feet away next to Weiss. I turn my attention to Yang. I grab her arms and pull them away from her face. She doesn't put up much of a fight, which surprises me. Her eyes are shut tightly, as if she is trying to block out the world forever. I remember a moment in my life when I did the exact same thing. The world around me had torn into me so much that I tried to hide inside of myself. Adam was there to snap me out of it, with a swift punch to my face. It had worked, but I would never do that to Yang. I won't follow in Adam's footsteps. Not for anything.
"Yang." I say. "Yang you have to get up." She doesn't move. I lean in close to her and gently put my hands on the sides of her face. I rest my forehead against hers. "Please Yang. You need to get up and fight. Not just for us, but for yourself. If you don't get up you'll never forgive yourself, trust me. Besides, this isn't you, you don't quit in the middle of a fight. You see it through to the very end. You never run away. Unlike me.
I always want to run away. But not you. You're brave, and you always stay. And that makes me want to stay, to be better. You make me want to be better. You make me believe that someday, I can be strong enough to stop running. So you can't stop giving me that hope Yang. Please Yang. We need you. I need you. Don't give up."
"Never." A shaky but firm voice echoes in my ears. My eyes snap open, and Yang's lilac orbs look back into mine. They're full of tears and emotions, one of those emotions being her trademark strength that I have come to know so well. "I will never give up. How can I when I got a partner like you to back me up." Her voice gets stronger as she speaks. I lean away from her and smile. Relief washes over me.
"Good to have you back." I say. She slowly sits up, wincing slightly.
"Good to be back." She says, then looks away from me in shame. "I'm sorr…"
"Don't. Don't even think about it. You didn't do anything wrong." I say.
"But I totally just…"
"No buts, no apologies." I say, interrupting her again.
"Can you at least let me explain?" asks Yang, desperate for me to understand what happened. She doesn't see that I already do. But it would probably help both of us if we talked. Unfortunately, that would have to wait.
"You can tell me everything once we get back to Beacon. But right now we have some Grimm to take care of." I say as I stand up. I offer Yang a hand. "What do you say partner, how about some payback?" Yang smiles and takes my hand. I pull her to her feet.
"That sounds prefect." She says.
"You two okay now?" yells Ruby.
"Never better sis." Says Yang. I watch her. I can see a storm brewing behind her eyes. There's still something bothering her, but she's fighting to contain it. She'll have to confront it later, but for now, she needs to bury it. Because this is the life we chose.
"That's great. I'm so happy for the both of you." Yells Weiss, her body shakes as she strains to keep her glyph active. "Now if everyone's done taking a nap on my glyph, I would like to stop before I completely drain my aura."
"You guys good?" asks Ruby. Yang gives her a thumbs up and I ready my weapon. "Okay. This time we stay together, the four of us. Our auras are low, so we have to be careful. But, we've already killed more than half of the horde. We can do this. Just keep killing, don't think about anything else. Fight and don't stop until every Grimm is dead."
With that, Weiss waves her weapon and the Glyph vanishes. We drop to the ground among the Grimm, killing several as we land. I can feel the focus of my team, as we think of nothing but the Grimm right in front of us. Killing them one after another as they crawl over the bodies of their fallen.
My body screams at me to stop, to rest. The only things keeping me going is adrenaline, the will to survive, and the support of my team. My friends. The people who count on me as much as I count on them. With them, I feel that anything is possible.
Weiss's POV
It's always been difficult for me to focus on what's right in front of me. I've always been one to plan ahead. But I try to listen to what Ruby said, and I just focus on killing the Grimm that's right before me. I force myself not to think about how many Grimm are waiting to take the place of the next one I kill. If I do, I'll become too overwhelmed to think clearly. So I don't think, I fight. I stab and slash and kill. Over and over. I ignore my exhaustion and push forward, because stopping isn't an option we have.
I'm not sure how long we continue fighting. It's all a blur of teeth and fur. It feels like we've been fighting for so long, yet somehow, not long enough. It happens suddenly. I behead the Beowolf in front of me, as it falls I quickly lash out to stab the next one. But the only thing my weapon meets is air. I feel confused for a moment as I see no Grimm ahead of me. In fact, I don't see any Grimm anywhere.
I look behind me and see that my teammates have come to the same conclusion. They all breathe heavily as they scan the area for anymore threats. Their weapons are at the ready, as if they don't quite believe that it's over. I don't blame them. I honestly can't believe it either. I think deep down I didn't truly believe we could do it.
"Hurray! We did it." yells Ruby, with far more energy than a person should have after a fight like that.
"Damn right we did It." says Yang, then promptly falls to the ground. Blake smiles at her partner's antics. Both of them look a little worse for wear. I had actually been really worried about them when I pulled them out of the Grimm. Neither of them were moving, and for a brief moment, I thought they were dead. Which devastated me far more than I thought it would.
"So now what?" I say. My mind had been so focused on the Grimm I feel a little disorientated now that we killed them all. At the time, it felt like it would never end.
"Sleep." Mumbles Yang.
"As great as that sounds, I think resting back at Beacon would be better than sleeping among a bunch of decomposing Grimm." I say.
"Oh Yeah! I got to call the airship back to give us a ride home." Says Ruby. Ruby sends a quick message from her scroll them plops down next to Yang. "That was awesome."
"That's not the word I would use." I say.
"I have to agree." Says Blake.
"That was pretty intense." Says Yang.
"Yeah it was hard and scary, but we did it." says Ruby. "We just killed a huge horde of Grimm and none of us died. If that's not awesome, I don't know what is." a laugh escapes my mouth.
"I must be beyond tired, because Rudy is making a lot of sense." I say.
"Wow. Weiss agreeing with Ruby. That is awesome." Says Yang. I don't say anything back to my smart mouthed teammate. I don't have the energy. And part of me is too happy to get angry. I know it's probably just the adrenaline from the battle that's making me feel like this, but I still feel great. This was the most difficult fight I ever fought. And I won. We won. It took everything we had, but we did it.
From the moment I told my father that I wanted to be a Huntress, he told me I couldn't do it, that I was too weak. I constantly told him that he was wrong, but deep down, I believed him. I was never strong, not like my father or my sister. My father constantly reminded me of that. And more than once, I had thought about giving up on becoming a Huntress. But I was too stubborn. I wanted to prove to my father that I was as strong as him. No, stronger. But I never stopped doubting myself. Until now.
Right now, for the first time. I feel strong. I finally feel like I can actually do this. I can not only be a Huntress, but I can be one of the best. I can fight until I have nothing left, and then keep on fighting. My father was wrong. He was wrong about a lot of things. I can't let his words hold me back anymore.
We won a fight I didn't think we could win. And I would have done better if I had believed in myself, and in my team. Well, it's time I stop doubting. I now know the truth. I will be a Huntress, and no one will stop me.
"The airship is almost here." Says Blake. I look around, but I don't see anything. I look at Blake and see that her bow is twitching. She ears picking up the sound of the engines before any of us can see it, let alone hear it. We all keep our eyes on the horizon, and soon the ship comes into view. Ruby sighs and picks herself up off the ground.
"Come on guys. Let's go home."
I really hope everyone liked this chapter. If you have any thoughts or if there's anything you'd like to see in the next chapter leave a review and let me know. I love me some feedback.
-Rin Veil