ShadowPony12, here!
How's it going? Sorry, about the long wait! Writing this chapter turned out to be harder than I thought.
I finally posted it though.
We'll be focusing on Nymph and her group for most of this chapter. So get ready for a little insight on our little bubble of joy.
Well not so much this chapter... She's little more serious for the most part.
I have issues with making someone way too happy in a battlezone. My brain just don't function that way so I couldn't keep her bubbly persona in.
I'll try harder next time.
Anyway, here's the story!
Chapter 7
Secrets of the Past
'CRASH!'
The sound reverberated through the entire forest causing all initiates heads to snap towards the direction of the sound.
"Huh? That did not sound minor..." the pink haired assassin thought out loud. 'I should probably check that out, it could be someone I know. Though that wouldn't make sens-'
Her thoughts were interrupted by a growl and to her misfortune an Ursa Major was just a few feet away from her... charging. "Great..." she dived to the left, narrowly avoiding the charge.
"Do I really have to fight you?" She asked as the Ursa charged her again.
It closed in on her as she rolled out of the way and spoke again, "I mean come on really? Can we just go our separate ways and forget this happened?" Her only response was a growl and another charge. She jumped to the side avoiding it again. Although, the Ursa would not fall for it again and made a sharp turn and swung at her.
Not at all surprised or if she was she did a pretty good job at keeping her surprise hidden under her normal facade. She brought up her Deagles in a x-block and was sent skidding back.
"This is too much work for me..." The Ursa growled at its plan being thwarted and charged her again. She rolled her eyes and sighed not liking the fact she had to continue fighting.
"You're hopeless... fine we'll fight, but I promise you it will be extremely quick." As soon as she finished, the Ursa was already in front of her swiping at her position. She rolled her eyes at the predictable attack and turned into a mass of shadows just as the claw swiped through her previous position.
This was a mistake and the Ursa paid for it. The shadow wrapped around the claw and tossed it into the air sending it flying. Odissia materialized with her pistols charging directly under the Ursa. Once they were charged up properly she finally let the triggers go an a red and blue laser fired directly at the Ursa's unguarded underbelly, it easily piercing through. It didn't even get a chance to roar as it dissolved into ash and was blown away by the wind.
Her pistols were still in the same spot with smoke coming from the barrel. "Ugh... I was hoping for a simple walk through the forest..."
Settling back into her lazy stance she refocused on what she was originally going to do. "Well, I should probably go check on that now." She spoke out loud as she melded into her shadow.
Ozpin & Glynda
Glynda was not one to be easily surprised but the ability Odissia showed with her aura and semblance definitely surprised her without a doubt, but managed to mask it pretty quickly.
"Her skill is definitely on par with our more experienced students, maybe even better then some."
Ozpin nodded and grunted, "Her Shadow manipulation is an ancient ability forgotten in the sands of time. To see it in action definitely reminded why it was forgotten."
"Indeed, it's a rather unique skill. Quite rare, only found..." Glynda let it hang there as Ozpin nodded and continued her sentence, "...in that bloodline. We seem to have and interesting group of students this year."
Glynda could only nod before looking back at her scroll and switching cameras as she lossed Odissia.
Ladon
"What the hell happened here?" Ladon asked no one in particular as he looked down the huge hole with minor amusement.
"I've take it you followed the sound as well?" An unknown voice spoke with a lazy drawl.
"Wouldn't that be obvious? Or else I wouldn't be here." he responded in slight annoyance at such an obvious answer.
"Relax, you know what happened here?" she responded unaffected by his show of annoyance.
"Not a clue Odissia, but whatever it was it was definitely very powerful."
"Maybe one of ours?" she suggested. He shook his head, "Unlikely, we all agreed to keep our more powerful skills hidden to avoid attracting attention to our group."
"You can't be positive about that?"
"I'm not, but there is no reason for us to use our high tier attacks against such weak Grimm." He kneeled next to the hole trying to discern what could've been the cause.
"I suppose you're right... should we go down?" she questioned in reluctance, hoping he said no.
"No, we should find the others and complete our objective. Whoever did this is obviously powerful, they should be fine." He remarked as he left the hole.
"Okay... so this makes us partners, no?" she asked already knowing the answer.
"It does, lets go." He took off in a full sprint leaving Odissia behind.
"Uh... you bastard! I don't want to run!" she yelled taking off after him. Unknowingly leaving behind Nymph and the others.
Elsewhere
'Pew'
'splat'
'pew'
"Damn it, I missed." A feminine voice whispered to herself disappointedly. She stood up on a branch dematerializing her rifle, jumping off her post landing on the back of the Beowulf she missed before it could notice her slip up. She materialized her Chakram, which was a foot in diameter, and slit the throat of the grimm before it could roar. She dematerialized her weapon again and swung around to the front of said grimm. She created a simple silenced colt pistol and firing a few rounds into the underside of the Beowulfs head, finishing it off. She jumped off and walked away from the Grimm as it faded into ash and fell to the ground.
She walked into the open field and revealed Gaia surrounded by several dozen piles of ash. She brushed back several strands hair behind her ear with her finger and walked away until she heard a rustling of bushes causing her to immediately jumped back on to a tree branch and formed a rifle pointed to the source of the noise.
Looking down her sight she noticed a mop of yellow hair slowly rising over the bush. 'Yang?'
Yang
"Ruby is that you!?"she yelled unknowingly attracting the attention of a several of Ursa Majors that Gaia was trying to avoid. She was trying to waste as little energy as possible and draw as little attention as well.
'Damn it Yang!' she mentally screamed at her now she had to waste more energy than necessary.
Yang slowly looked up and saw it was definitely NOT Ruby.
"Nope." was all she said as she dived to avoid the the swipe of the Ursa's claw. She rolled again to avoid another trying to flank her. The moment she came out of her roll another one was on top of her, but that was a mistake since Yang was faster.
Transforming Ember Cecilia into gauntlet mode she punched the Ursa with a straight as she fired off a shell from the gauntlet at the same time, sending it flying away, ducking under a claw swipe from behind she twisted her body around slamming her hand to the ground and struck out her foot towards Ursa's face forcing it to change it's course.
The Ursa from earlier tried to attack her in her vulnerable moment but didn't account for one thing, her gauntlets. Yang shot another shell into the ground this time and launched herself into the air evading the Ursa. She righted herself in mid-air and began to spin her body as she fall back down. Closing in on her target, she stuck out her leg for a single axe kick hitting the Ursa directly on the head causing not only the Ursa's skull down, but smashing it and kicking up dirt from the strength of the impact and created a crater at the point of impact.
Gaia
Gaia was astonished by the show of skill and power from Yang. 'Okay... maybe I won't need to do anything. If things get bad I can always provide support with my rifle, but at least for now everything looks under control.'
She kneeled with her rifle in position ready to provide support if necessary.
Clearing
The sound of metal ripping through flesh filled the area as abominations were eliminated left and right. In the midst of this action were Ladon and Odissia.
"I swear these things are absolutely annoying. we can't have a nice walk through the forest without one of these things attacking us out of no where." Odissia complained with unadulterated annoyance as she shot down another abomination.
"You're just annoyed because we actually have to do something." Ladon retorted dismissing her complaints.
"So what of it?" she responded not bothered by his dismissal of her complaints if anything she was amused by it. Although one wouldn't be able to tell through her demeanor.
He rolled his eyes as he finished the last abomination, "Well now that this is done, let's get to the temple. We spent too much time here as it is."
"Can we actually walk this time?"
"You want to end up fighting more Grimm?" he sped off without giving her time to answer.
She sighed, "I hate it when he makes a valid point..." was her final complaint, before speeding off after him.
Yang
A series of gunshots were heard and an Ursa was seen being smashed into the ground with a fist, the owner of this fist was Yang, finishing off another Ursa that came with in her range.
"Well those two were easy... and before we continue your pounding have any of you seen a girl in a red hood?" she questioned as if she did not just kill their kin.
A roar of rage escaped it's throat and charged her.
"You could have just said no." was all she managed to say before she backpedaled to dodge it's claw and then backflipping to dodge its follow up attack.
"Wow you to couldn't hit the broadside of a-" She paused in the middle of her taunt as her whole world seemed to move in slow-motion. She saw a single strand of golden blonde hair lazily drift down in front of her face and gently land on the ground, it was HER golden blonde hair to be precise and a single thought entered her mind, "You monsters!"
Like a switch her eyes went from a playful lilac to a burning red inferno of rage.
This showed outwardly as her Aura bursted from her body and manifested in a shroud of fire causing her to fire off like a shell from her gauntlets. She made first contact with the one who attacked her and set off a chained combo of punches, each punch was fueled by the power of her gauntlet's shotgun mechanism, increasing not only her power but speed behind each attack all leading up to a single devastating punch that launched it through several trees leaving behind a streak of fire.
She turned to face its accomplice ready to fight it as well, "What you want some to!?" she challenged the beast causing it to stand up on its hind legs as to accept her challenge but froze momentarily and let out a weak roar before falling over with a blade imbedded in its neck. The blade was connected to a black ribbon which was wrapped around the arm of the one and only Blake Belladonna.
She recalled her blade and caught it in her hand, immediately sheathing it as she turned towards Yang with a small smile. Yang didn't say anything yet, instead she recalled her wrath and settled into a more relaxed stance with her arms to her side and shrugged. "I could have taken him." she said confidently to Blake who looked at her but said nothing.
On the branch
'I suppose I don't need to be up here anymore.' dematerializing her gun she jumped off the branch and landed deftly on the ground. She walked towards them without a sound, not intentionally of course, but silent movement is second nature to her as it is to the rest of her team.
"If what I saw was any indication I have no doubt you could." Gaia said startling the two, Yang more so than Blake. Blake sensed her ahead of time, but was still startled since she couldn't actually detect her location. She just knew she was in the area.
Reigning in her shock she responded, "About time you revealed yourself. Did you enjoy the show?"
"I did actually, Yang is quite the powerhouse." she responded smoothly, effectively hiding her awe at the previous show of power.
"Wait... let me get this straight. You..." pointing at Gaia, "...were here the entire time" Gaia nodded. "...and you didn't bother helping me?"
"Well, I was but I would have provided support from the tree over there." she pointed with her thumb back to where she was previously posted, "If it looked like you required any assistance, but obviously you had the situation under control and didn't need me."
"You still could have offered a little assistance? You could have saved my hair." Gaia and Blake facepalmed.
"What? My hair is serious business." she responded.
"I've noticed..." she deadpanned waving her hand at the trail of fire.
"We should probably move before this fire attracts any unwanted attention and go to the temple." Blake pointed out as she started walking towards the north end of the forest.
"You have a point. I don't feel like wasting more energy than I have to." She quickly followed behind Blake.
"I don't see why, we can just beat them again." Yang shrugged but followed anyways. The entire time they were unaware of the trials and tribulations that were about to unfold soon.
The Hole
Several Kilometers underground laid three bodies surrounded by a single streak of light. Beyond the single spotlight was complete darkness and silence The only sounds that were heard were the sounds of dripping water and light breathing,
'Drip'
'Inhale'
'Drip'
'Exhale'
'Drip'
'Inhale'
'Drip'
"Ugh... my head..." the sound of a females voice pierced the silence like a sword through air. The female raised her hand and gripped the side of her head. Gently propping herself up with one arm she was able to place herself in a sitting position. She slowly opened her eyelids to reveal confused silver eyes. She took a look at her surroundings, well she would have anyways if she could see anything beyond the light.
The only things or should I say people were Weiss who was lying against a rock with her head bowed and bits of blood leaking from the side of her head. Seeing this caused Ruby to stand up and rush to her side, but she didn't make it far since she tripped over another body. Looking to what tripped her she noticed Nymph's body lying on her side, but that wasn't what really caught her attention though, it was the small but noticeable pool of blood surrounding her arm.
The sight of the blood caused Ruby to panic as she didn't know what to do to stop the blood flow and even if she did, she didn't have the resources to patch her up, but Weiss... then it occurred to her, 'If I can wake Weiss she could help.' With her newfound revelation she proceeded with her course of action and crawled over to Weiss and shook her a little.
"Weiss" she shook her again, "Weiss wake up" still nothing, "Weiss I need you to wake up." this got a stir out of her.
"Huh, what?" her eyes fluttered open and noticed the close vicinity of Ruby face and interesting position, but before she could respond with anything.
Ruby spoke quickly and urgently, "I need your help, Nymph is bleeding badly from her arm and I don't know what to do."
Sensing the urgency and panic behind her voice, caused her to toss out her embarrassment and respond accordingly. She pulled out her medkit from seemingly no where, "Where is she?" she asked while moving Ruby out of the way.
Ruby didn't respond she just pointed a couple of feet away, looking towards area she pointed her eyes widened in shock and immediately rushed over to her body. Kneeling down next to Nymph, she flipped her body over onto her back and saw the full extent of the damage her arm, it had several cuts and lacerations from the fall.
Though shocked by the gory sight it didn't stop her from assessing the wound, 'It's a lot worse than I expected, but not fatal unless she continues losing blo-what it's already healing' The cuts and lacerations that were trailing down her arm were slowly disappearing as if it were never there.
'Not possible with wounds like that it shouldn't be healing that quickly... or effectively. The scratches maybe, but the lacerations and cuts shouldn't be.' she assessed although still confounded by the regeneration rate, but another look showed that her wound from her earlier battle was unaffected by the healing factor, but why...' her observation was interrupted by Ruby's voice.
"Is she going to be okay?" she asked in trepidation and gasped when she saw the marks that were still there but was surprised by how much blood was actually there and how extensive the damage is or was, taking into account of the healing factor.
"Yeah, she'll be fine when she wakes, exhausted from the massive amounts of blood loss, but fine all the same." she responded as she wrapped up Nymphs wounded wrist again.
Ruby let out a breath of relief, knowing her friend is going to be okay. She wouldn't know what to do if she lost another person in her life.
"Now that she is patched up we should work on finding a way out of here." She prompted Ruby as she stood up but loss balance and gripped her head as she fell back. Only to be saved by Ruby who had a very concerned look on her face.
"Are you okay?" she asked concern flooding her tone, whilst she held up Weiss, one hand on her lower back and the other on her shoulder.
Weiss immediately removed the pain that showed on her face and glared at Ruby. She shoved Ruby off, causing not only Ruby to stumble but herself as well from the lost of support. "Of course I'm fine." She said tersely, but soon again lost balance again and fell back, but once again was caught by Ruby.
Weiss felt extremely light headed and ran her hand across the side of her head. She felt something very moist, very slick and with a quick movement she brought it up front.
"Blood?" she spoke barely above a whisper, but Ruby still heard her making her eyes widen in realization... she forgot about Weiss's wound, "Oh no! I can't believe I forgot! I am so sorry Weiss!" she spoke quickly and remorsefully.
"You du-woah..." she tried to speak but her lightheadedness interrupted her causing her to pull out a vial of peroxide from her mysterious medkit. "Agh... Ruby disinfect it and I'll wrap it up..." Ruby nodded and grabbed the vile from Weiss's shaky hand.
Ruby tried to get her to moving, but couldn't, "Uhh... Weiss can you sit down? I can't apply it if you're wobbling everywhere." She said.
Ruby sat down and patted the area in front of her, "Come on..."
Weiss nodded, too lightheaded to acknowledge the she hated being ordered around by someone that wasn't her instructor. She sat in the spot Ruby patted with her knees pulled into her chest so she could lay her head down.
Ruby ripped a piece of cloth from the gauze and dabbed it with Peroxide. "Hope you're ready, it's going to sting a little..."
Weiss nodded almost un-noticeably, Ruby began to wipe away some of the blood causing Weiss to flinch every now and then.
After several minutes of wiping and disinfecting the multitude of cuts, Ruby tossed the bloodied cloth to the side, "Weiss, I'm done." she said, but got no response.
"Weiss?" she shook her shoulder, but all she got was Weiss falling back into her chest.
"Weiss?" she began to worry and looked over Weiss, but began to calm down when she noticed the steady rises of Weiss's chest.
She sighed with relief, but was soon over-encumbered by embarrassment as she took notice of their position.
'I.. um.. uh.. Wh-what? I should uh- wa-wake her u-up' She looked at Weiss and and was about to shake her but noticed how relaxed she looked. She looked at her pale skin that shined like porcelain in the dim lighting.
Ruby couldn't help but feel her cheeks warm up a bit. 'She's so cute...' before she could catch herself from staring a sound of a throat being cleared shook her out of her trance. She looked towards her left and noticed Nymph wearing a sly grin.
"Gee, Ruby. I didn't know you swung both ways." Nymph said teasingly with a mischievous glint in her eyes.
"I-I don't know wh-what y-you mean." she quickly denied causing Nymph to laugh, but flinched as a sharp pain ran through her arm.
"Oh are you okay?" She said dismissing her previous embarrassment and replaced with concern.
Nymph lifted herself, flinching as she did so. She gave a weak smile, "I'll live, it's just sore... thanks for patching it up."
Ruby shook her head, "It wasn't me, it was Weiss."
Nymph raised a delicate brow, "Really? How? She seems to be resting."
"She did it before her head wound got the best of her..." Ruby clarified.
"Oh." She staggered as she walked towards the duo. She stopped next to them and kneeled by Ruby examining the two. "So you going to wrap up her wound? Or...?"
"Oh dear! Can you hold her up as I tie it around her head?" Ruby asked quickly up forgetting Weiss's wound... again.
Nymph let a small smile tug her lips as she nodded and held Weiss steady for Ruby. A few moments later she finished the knot and wiped her hand across her forehead.
A twinkle entered Nymph's iris again, "So how long have you been bi?" she asked with amusement littering her words.
Ruby fell back, dropping Weiss in the process, "Wh-what are you talking about?" She looked around nervously as if someone would hear their conversation.
Nymph's smile turned even more mischievous, if that was even possible, "Oh you know, when you take an inter-" Weiss groaned rubbing her head and sat up, "What happened? I remember blood then-" her eyes widened and ran her hand where her wound was but only felt the rough texture of her bandages.
She sighed in relief, "Ruby you patched me up?" Ruby nodded and looked over to Nymph who nodded with a cheeky smile. She turned her attention back to Ruby, "Thank you for patching me up."
"You're welcome, but are you okay to travel we still have a test to complete, meaning we have to get out of this cavern." The now calm, Ruby spoke in what is slowly becoming her leader voice.
Weiss took a few steps and pulled out Mytrenaster and took a few practice swings and jabs, "Fine, but I wont be making any precision hits anytime soon." She said placing her weapon back on her side and rubbed her head.
"That would have to do for now, Nymph, how about you?" She asked turning her attention to Nymph who was standing their with a weak smile.
"Without my left arm in top condition, I won't be able to use my aura bows, but plain bows should be fine for the most part, though not as accurate but still pretty spot on." She explained, bending over and picking up a few rocks tossing them in the air, firing arrows at them as she winced with each shot, only hitting one, skinning another and completely missing the last one, "Or not, but those rocks were small."
Ruby hummed for a bit, she should be fine for the most part as her accuracy is still impressive even with her constantly wincing, but, "How's your close range?"
"Not too good, my style consists of two blades one for defense and another for offense. My defense arm is wounded I would take more damage before I could deal damage. In other words I'm more of a burden then useful, now, if my offense arm was wounded, I could use my defense and counters, but unfortunately, that's not the case." she explained, she rubbed her wounded arm as Ruby scrunched her face little.
Weiss spoke up, "That is an issue… don't you have a back up style?" Nymph shook her head, "No, that's why I have a bow to make up for that weakness. Gaia said I should come up with a back up style, just in case something like this happened." She looked towards the ground, regretting not taking Gaia's advice.
Ruby, moving out of her thought process, walked to Nymph and placed a hand on her shoulder, "Look, umm… don't feel sad about it… we all make mistakes, so just correct it when we get out of here." Ruby tried to be as comforting as she can, but she doesn't have much experience doing so and settled for a comforting squeeze and a weak smile.
Nymph looked up at Ruby and gave her own little smile, "Thanks for trying Ruby, but when the others hear about this I'm going to be sent through the grim grinder." Ruby smile faltered but still kept it as big as she could. Nymph truly was grateful, but as it stands she jeopardized their test with her recklessness and Ladon has warned her time and time again that she should watch how she approaches her missions.
The stunt she pulled on the surface could have easily been avoided if she made a tactical retreat and found someone to help her or hold out till someone came to help, but can they really blame her? If she would have abandoned the fight another initiate could have been seriously injured or worse, killed.
About that, how did the Grimm use aura? That's not even supposed to be possible, they have no souls yet that one had a pretty strong one if the fast recovery rates were anything to go by. How'd it even do that… wait, just before it turned a black haze surrounded it's form and transformed-no, evolved into something worse than an Alpha. What was that? It was exponentially more powerful than the Alpha, even more frightening, it was stronger than her as in its Aura completely dwarfed hers. Essentially, two people wouldn't have been able to defeat it anyways, so she really had no choice but to use a double edged attack like that.
Why can't she just live a life where she can dance, sing and watch MLP? Ugh, a life not for her apparently. She really should think about her career choices… nah, this is more fun she could just record the show.
After her little inner monologue and smiled at her last thought, "Well, anyways I'll deal with it when the time comes! Lets go!" She shouted, her usual exuberance showing again as she skipped into the darkness of the cavern.
Weiss and Ruby were confounded by her 180 personality twist, "Bipolar." was all Weiss said before following after her. Ruby snapped out of her confusion and ran after them, "Hey! Wait for me! Do you two even know where you're going?"
That, caused Nymph and Weiss to stop in their tracks, "No, not really… I was following Nymph." she said, red faced at her slip up, it was the head wound that messed her up… no, it was not her carelessness it was all the head wound. She would not admit it was her own fault in any shape or form. It was the head wound, that's her story and she's sticking to it.
Nymph turned around with a smile and nodded, "Yeah, I do! We're going to follow this cave to the surface!"
"You know this how?" Weiss question suspiciously, her arms crossed under her breast and single brow raised with her foot tapping the ground in front of her.
Nymph raised her hand and held it there for moment. She then moved her hand over the wall and held it there, for a moment nothing happened before a light flashed from under her hands and Nymph's eyes glowed an ethereal white. Veins started to glow, the same ethereal white appeared all around her body, a pulse of energy was seen emitting from the placement of her hand, lifting her pigtails in a flowing motion and moved around as if it were sentient. The most striking feature was the pair of AquaMarine angel wings flapping behind her. The Aura backlash on her arm slowly began to heal, even if it was barely noticeable. The focus of aura pulsed every couple seconds, the effect was not just limited to Nymph, but the others as well.
Ruby, although frozen by the ethereal beauty of Nymph and warm feeling that washed over her body, she approached her slowly, raising her hand to touch the wings on her back, but she was stopped by Weiss's grip on her wrist. Ruby looked to Weiss somewhat confused, but Weiss shook her head. Not really knowing what else to do Ruby retreated back next to the Schnee Heiress.
Ruby didn't know how to explain the feeling that was flowing through her body, it was refreshing in a sense, like she could take on hoards of Grimm and come out unscathed. The energy moved through her body, soothing her aches and pains from the fall.
Weiss didn't know what to think, but she knew there was a lot more to the Faunus girl then she first believed. The energy that passed through her body soothed her constant headaches and blurs of vision. She felt a rush of energy, ridding her of exhaustion. Whatever Nymph was doing was definitely something worth asking about later.
After a few more moments, the effects began to die down and showed Nymph in her normal form, coming back to her senses she stumbled for a moment and caught herself on the cavern wall. She panted in exhaustion from heavy use of such high level bloodline techniques.
Ruby was the first to notice Nymph's heavy panting and immediately ran to her position placing her arm under Nymph's arm and lifting it onto her shoulder, to help steady her out, Weiss joining moments later.
"You alright Nymph? That looked like it took a toll on you." She gave an exhausted smile, but somehow still maintained her usual energy in her smile, "Yeah, just a little tired from using so many Aura techniques at once." She explained wearily, hoping they don't ask question about the techniques, she wasn't supposed to reveal those abilities yet. After all, if the wrong people got wind of their abilities, their low profile status will be exposed and they will be hunted down by the very same organization that orphaned her and Odissia.
"Anyways, I found the way out, that little pulse I sent out worked like a sonar, mapping out these tunnels and imprinting them in my memory as if I created these tunnels." She further explained her ability. She removed herself from Ruby and Weiss, though she stumbled she regained her balance immediately.
She swung her injured arm a little, stretching it a bit. She then removed the bow from her back doing the same process she did with her arm, but still winced as a sharp pain jolted through her arm. "Aww… man, I still won't be able to use my aura bows, my arm is still internally damaged, but at least I can shoot accurately now, but I will still be useless in melee combat." she gave a small pout that she still couldn't use her whole arsenal.
Weiss snapped out of her shock and approached Nymph and Ruby, "If that's true, stick to long range combat, we can't risk one of us getting hurt we're still technically in uncharted and hostile area. We need to be careful." Weiss demanded in a tone that left no room for opposition.
Ruby nodded, "I agree we should get moving though. We've probably fallen behind the other groups." She informed the other two, "Nymph take lead you're the only one with a map of this place."
Nymph nodded happily and smiled, "Alright, so far we just need to follow this path. Remember I can detect passage ways, but if there is any Grimm I won't be able to detect them. So even though I have knowledge of the place I don't know what is waiting for us, so try and stay aware." Lifting her bow into a ready position she took point and began walking down the hall, the others following her example.
As they walked through the tunnels they began to notice the ever increasing formation of crystals, more specifically, dust crystals and the ever increasing size of the tunnel.
"Oh dust, that's a lot of dust." Weiss nodded, agreeing with her assessment as her dad would love to get his hands on this vein. Speaking of which, "I don't recognize this kind of dust, it looks yellow, but glows green." Weiss voiced her confusion at the strange two toned dust.
Nymph's face took a look of confusion, "I don't get it…" Ruby looked at Nymph, "What do you mean?"
"I mean, I looked through the imprinted map, but this area doesn't fit any of the passages or caverns. Whatever this dust is, it's disrupting my sonar ability."
"You mean we're lost?" The Schnee Heiress snapped at Nymph, who didn't give any outward reaction, but replied, "No, we're not, we just need to get out of range from these crystals."
"Oh really? How we supposed to know when we're out of range if we have no Idea where we are going? This tunnel is most likely a maze! We're only lucky it's been a straight away so far." The moment those words left her mouth a series of tunnels were shown.
Nymph looked back at Weiss, "You really have a big mouth you know that?" was all she said before kneeling and placing her hand on the ground, leaving Weiss red faced and Ruby giggling. Until Weiss snapped her head back glaring daggers at Ruby and straightened up trying to withhold her giggles.
"I'll try this again."
Just like before an ethereal white light started moving across her body highlighting her veins, eyes, her wings formed and the energy pulsed again, filling everyone with the same warmth of tranquility, empowerment, refreshment. This time though, it left as quickly as it came and Nymph stood up, dusting herself off she walked towards one of the many passages trying to peer through the darkness.
"Whats wrong?" Ruby asked, as she walked up and stood beside her, Weiss following as well. "This path right here is unscrambled, but it leads to a dead end and the rest are completely blocked off by the crystals scrambling properties." Ruby and Weiss were confused, if it's a dead end then they shouldn't enter it, what is wrong with that?
"I'm sorry Nymph, but I don't get it? I don't see a problem we'll just enter one of the others." Ruby said, as she walked to the next tunnel and trying to peer through the darkness.
"No, we should go down this way. The 'dead end' " She suggested as she began to walk down the hall, Ruby shrugged and followed not really sure what she wanted to see at the 'dead end'
Weiss was a different story, she didn't budge an inch, causing Ruby and Nymph to stop, and turn around, "Weiss are you coming?" Ruby asked.
"No, I am not." She said in a simple, defiant tone causing Nymph to look at her questioningly. "Why?"
"You just said that way is a dead end, why would we go to the one that's a dead end if the others aren't? It makes no sense to go down the path, it will just be a waste of energy."
Nymph rolled her eyes, "I don't think that dead end is really a dead end." Weiss gave her a look that said 'Explain'
"Look, when I was sending the pulses it was immediately absorbed into the middle of the room. I want to find out what it is."
"So we're going to go down a dead end to find something that may or may not be dangerous. Not only that, but can freely absorb our aura and there is nothing we can do about it. Yes, Nymph that's a perfectly good reason to go there." Weiss replied sarcastically, she could not believe idiocy of her plan. They are in no position to go exploring an uncharted tunnel.
"Well when you say it like that, it sounds stupid."
"It is a stupid idea!" Weiss yelled.
"Hey you two, I'm taking Nymph's side on this."
"Why? this is clearly a bad plan!" Weiss could not believe how reckless Ruby was being, actually, scratch that, she can. Regardless, even Ruby should see how bad of a plan this is. There is just too many unknowns.
Ruby shrank a little, but stood her ground, "Well, I think we should see what is absorbing it and determine if it's dangerous. Then if situations calls for it destroy or kill whatever it is."
Weiss realized she had a good point, but that's not the point. They are in no condition to be fighting something that can absorb aura, especially her. She heavily relies on her Aura and Dust to complete her fighting style and as much as it irks her she'll be more of a liability than actual help. "Ruby… if it proves too powerful for us to take on in our weakened state, than what? What happens, we die? For going in practically blind? You made good points Ruby, but as it stands we're going into something that could prove more difficult than we think."
"That's a risk I'm willing to take." Weiss would have said something to Ruby, but Nymph decided to speak first, "Weiss is right…" Ruby looked at Nymph like she was crazy and Weiss didn't believe what she just heard.
"What?" Nymph sighed, "Weiss is right, I'm not going to pull you two into a possible dangerous situation to suit my own curiosity."
"So we're going a different way?" Weiss still unsure what she just said, "No" Weiss was extremely confused, "I'll go alone." That's all she said and walked down the cavern.
Ruby was quick to snap out of shock and followed her, "I'm not letting you go alone…" Nymph stopped for a second and tilted her head a little before she continued not saying a word.
Ruby got the message and sped up to catch her. Weiss sighed in annoyance, "Dust, why did I run into the curious ones…" she too, ran after the duo, chanting in her head 'This is stupid, This is stupid'
It wasn't too long after the trio left crossroads that they came across the room that Nymph was so invested in exploring. Strangely enough upon arriving they noticed a huge door made from crystal, much like that crystals that were disrupting her scout ability, but the crystals were not two toned, but one solid color, seafoam green. It didn't seem to be disrupting her abilities either. That wasn't strangest part, it is what was on the door that was strange.
The door had three pictures on it, two were giant dragons of different design, the west dragon's head was facing the east, its neck is narrow and sleek, that led into a round body connected to huge webbed wings and a short tail. It's counterpart, the east dragon, it's head faced the opposite dragon and it's more snake like, a slim body and wings, though not as pronounced at the west's. In the middle was a huge mass land, odd enough it looked like Remnant if it were one with the other continents.
Nymph pushed on the door and surprisingly it opened with relative ease. She followed through and pushed the door open fully, several gasps of shock and wonderment were heard as they looked into the room.
This cavern was remarkably different from the rest of the cave and it's underground tunnels and was much more open, big enough to fit a good majority of Beacon in it. The first thing noticed by everyone was the room was not made of rock and dirt, but pure crystal same as the door, running along the walls were several veins of dust, liquid dust.
It ran around the entire room make intricate, complex, and elaborate pictures of people, Grimm, Dust crystals with no apparent color, almost as if it were telling a story, the crystalline pillars were the same, but the most intriguing part was all the veins led towards the floor, spiralling into the two dragons that were seen on the door, but without the single mass of land. In the center of the spiralling dragons is a pedestal. On top of it was a small glowing orb, flickering between all the colors of the spectrum.
"Oh my dust, what is this?" Weiss questioned no one in particular, she walked further in, taking in the sight before her. She could not believe something this beautiful is under Emerald Forest and no one(to her knowledge) knew this was under the forest.
Ruby could not come up with an answer as she was awed by the sheer magnificences to. Her eye flickered around the entire room, struggling to stay focus on one thing. "I-is that liquid dust?" Than something clicked in her head, "Nymph?" she looked around not seeing her new-ish friend. She looked around, but stopped when she saw a particular set of images, "What the?" she whispered under her breath.
The image showed two titanic dragons, the eastern looking one had a huge white spot on its forehead that looked as if it was dust crystal, the western dragon had crystal on its forehead, but it was black. They were fighting over a single mass of land, surrounding the east dragon were little figures that looked like humans and the west dragon was surrounded by what looked like deformed creatures, "Grimm…"
The next showed, a series of humans bowing before the black crystal, they were covered in a haze. "What are they doing?" She looked to the next image and saw that the humans were raised in front of the dragons head with the crystal glowing, it looked like an ascension of sorts. She looked further down the image in the place of the humans were Grimm, but not like the animals they had human like qualities. "No way… they can't be…" She saw the men were directing the other animal like grimm.
She looked at the next, but this time it was the view of the eastern dragon. There were humans and animals surrounding the dragon, ranging from the smallest animal such as a rabbit to the dominate Dragon subspecies, these were much smaller than the titans of destruction. The eastern dragon was in the same stance as the western dragon. The humans and animals were glowing. The next image showed humans, but with animal like qualities, ears, tails, and the ever rare wings.
"Faunas… were created by… a dragon? This doesn't make sense."
They were fighting along the humans, against the west dragon's grimm forces. The room began to rumble and Ruby looked away, to see if anyone else felt it. She spotted Weiss, but Nymph was no where to be seen. She ran to Weiss who was looking at the orb in the middle.
"Weiss have you seen Nymph?" she looked to Ruby and Weiss shook her head, "I thought she was with you?"
Ruby shook her head in response, "No, I thought she was with you because I didn't see her with me…"
Weiss looked around seeing if she could see the faunus, but the cavern was so huge it made it difficult to see. She tried seeing further down, but only came up with hazy images in the distance. Did the faunas girl just leave them? She knew she couldn't trust a faunas! This is the last time she-
"Weiss, Ruby! Come here I think I found something!" The sound of the girls voice, put everyone at ease especially, Weiss.
Ruby looked around to see where she yelled from, she couldn't find see her, but then Weiss pointed over to an area, to her it looked like a blank wall and Ruby looked at Weiss confused why she was looking at a wall, but that changed when Nymph's head popped out from behind the wall with her pigtails swaying behind her.
It took the duo a good while to walk to her position, since the expanse of the room was so unreal and the fact that the rumblings were becoming more frequent. Upon reaching their destination, Weiss spoke, "What did you find?" Nymph waved to them to come behind the wall, they did so and saw strange text on the wall, written in an even stranger dialect that they couldn't decipher.
"I think it's an old type of dialect, something from long ago probably wrote this…" Nymph tossed in her idea what it might be, she ran her hand across the remarkably smooth writing. She couldn't quite place it, but she swore she seen this writing somewhere. It wasn't in Vale it was her time in the White Fang.
Flashback
It was a snowy evening in the Northern area of Atlas, the lakes were frozen and the trees look like they were made of snow. Only for the occasional piles of snow dropping off branches and leaves that could no longer hold the weight of the snow kept it from fooling anyone. Another cause for the drops were four figures jumping from tree branch to tree branch at a consistent speed to keep them together and traveling at a decent pace.
The person in lead carried a thick purple scarf around his neck showing off his red and lavender hair and cold gaze, he looked as if he were somewhere in his teens. On his left is a girl with long pink hair that flowed behind her as she moved through the trees keeping pace with her lead, her eyes were emotionless and apathetic, a chilling sight on someone so young. To the right, was another girl with long hair except her was Predominantly silver with green streaks, who was keeping pace as well with their lead her eyes were not cold or apathetic. Instead, they had a seductive glint in them, something that should not be on a girl not much younger than their lead. Behind the group was a smaller girl, maybe a couple of years younger than the other two girls, her aquamarine pigtails bounced as she hopped from tree to tree, her eyes held an untold rage of hatred and sadism. A truly frightening sight on the young girl who looked like she haven't even hit her teens yet.
The group began to slow down as huge broken temple covered in moss and snow became present in their vision. Landing in front of the clearing with his team, just before the temple courtyard, he looked to his group his eyes never changing. "Our mission is simple, the Alpha…" the leader said the title with so much disgust and hate that it made his team shiver a bit, "...has gained some info from a reliable source, that there is an object held within this temple that could generally give our cause a huge power boost, but the problem with this is that temple is said to be heavily booby trapped with some rather complex trap designs and is ranked High Risk operations for anyone lower than Mid-A Rank stealth skills." He said his tone commanding and cold.
Everyone nodded but the silver haired decided to speak, "So he asked us, to retrieve this. What was the pay Ladon?" her voice was extremely seductive. Ladon looked over to her with his usual stare and said, "Roughly, one-hundred and fifty to two-hundred and fifty Lien, depending on the condition of the object, Gaia."
Gaia shivered at the huge amounts of Lien, "I am so… going to enjoy this paycheck." her voice was sensual, almost a moan. The pink haired girl looked to her in disgust, "Keep your clothes on, learn some control, greedy Nymphomaniac." She said, disgust evident on her face, but somehow kept her eyes emotionless.
Gaia would have retorted but the youngest raised her voice, "Would you two shut up! Odissia we're on a mission! Keep your petty squabbling for non-mission days! Then you can go about telling each other off Gaia!" Ladon nodded towards Nymph, she just huffed and walked next to Ladon.
"She's right. So shut the hell up and stay focused on the mission lets go. Same formation." He turned around and started running for the entrance of the temple. The two shared one last glare and took off after him, Nymph fell into position behind the idiot duo.
Flashback End
It was during that mission, that they ran into a door that had the same etching as this wall, "Hey, you two we need to go, now! This place isn't safe we don't have the strength to fight anything major right now." The two of them looked back at her bewildered by her sudden outburst.
"What do you mean? We're not fighting anything." Ruby questioned Weiss agreed with her. Plus this place looked really nice and it has a story on the wall she's been wanting to read.
"Clearly, there is nothing here. What is it you're worrying about?" Weiss asked her snob side making itself known.
"I've seen this before…" They looked at her questioningly, Nymph eyes started looking around frantically seeing if anything appeared yet, nothing. That's good, she looked backed to her temporary team and they still had their eyes trained on them.
"Okay, remember when I said I felt something absorbing my abilities?" They nodded, "That artifact in the middle is the absorbing and once it reaches a certain point it beacons for something to arrive, I never understood why, but it just does."
"You know this how?" Weiss asked, her arms crossed under her chest and her looking at her suspiciously.
Nymph was in full on panic mode as she didn't know how to explain she was part of the White Fang to Weiss without her blowing up on her. She tried thinking but nothing was coming to mind.
"Well? I'm waiting." Weiss raised her brow and tapped her foot in impatience. Ruby was looking between the two not sure what was the big deal, albeit it's strange that she knew what this was, but it is possible she could have travelled before and explored some old ruins before. She's been to the snowy forest just south from Vale so it's not too far of a stretch.
Nymph decided to tell a half lie a half truth, "My sisters, brother and I spent a lot of time traveling and one particular evening in Atlas we stumbled upon an old temple and decided to go inside it for shelter." Ruby's eyes widened, "You've been to Atlas before? That is so cool!"
"Not as cool as you might think Ruby." Nymph said, but didn't go any further than that. Ruby looked at Weiss, "Atlas has a huge Anti-Faunus support Society." Ruby looked away and said, "oh… sorry."
Nymph just shook her head, 'It's fine anyway, the temple. We travelled through it a bit until we found this door the door was different it had these exact same characters on it." She waved her hand towards the strange dialect. "We decided to ignore it for the most part, though Ladon and Odissia seem to know what it was the most because they spent the most time on it. We eventually went through door it was much like this except it was destroyed, dirtied, and it was made from a type of marble. At the center of the room was an orb, not colorful but constantly switching between black and white."
Weiss was getting impatient, "Get to the point." Ruby wanted to hear the whole story, but didn't voice those thoughts.
"Fine, the point is, that it was unknowingly absorbing our aura from us even though we weren't using it because we were sleeping. We were woken up in the middle of the night by a flash and the next thing we knew we were fighting for our lives."
Ruby's eyes widened, "Oh my! How did you guys get out of there!" Weiss didn't let her speak, "If that was the case than why did we come in here if you knew that!"
"I had to be sure! I didn't want to, but I had to there was an exit in the room and I hope this one was the same!" The room started rumbling continuously, "Oh no, oh no! We spent too much time in here!" The rumble became stronger and cracks started forming around the cavern.
"We've got to go!" Weiss yelled as she rolled to the side avoiding the fallen debris, Ruby nodded but brought up a question, "We still haven't found an exit! How are we supposed to- ahh!" She hopped back avoiding the debris, "supposed to get out!"
"Uhh… I think I can get a quick scan in but if I use my scan that Beacon will get that much stronger! Possibly making this cavern, cave in!" Nymph yelled to the others as she constantly dodged the falling debris.
Weiss looked around hoping to see an exit in all the destruction unfortunately she came up with nothing. She looked towards Ruby, who pulled out Crescent Rose and began evading the falling crystals and destroying the ones she couldn't. Ruby finally took notice of Weiss and met eyes with her but Ruby shook her head, "Do it! And do it fast!" Weiss yelled to Nymph as she shot a rather big piece of rock with her dust revolver.
"If you're sure than I need you to cover me I need to concentrate and I can't do that with this place falling apart on top of us!" Ruby heard her request and jumped to her position, destroying a rock in the process. "I've got you covered get started!" Nymph nodded, and began to channel as much of her aura as she can before it was absorbed by the orb.
Weiss jumped towards the duo activating her glyphs to block the falling rocks, "I'm here as well!" Her glyph shimmered, Weiss eyes widened as the glyph shattered, acting fast Ruby shot the rock before it could do any real damage. "That orb is weakening my glyph's durability!" Weiss yelled in annoyance.
"What if we were to destroy it!" Ruby asked Weiss, she shook her head, "I don't know! Only Nymph would know, but she's focusing on finding an exit!" She said as she redirected a falling rock with her glyph.
"I'm going to try!" She said and dashed towards the orb.
"What?! No we don't know what might happen!" It was too late Ruby was already too far from her. Ruby was dodging rocks and slashing through the ones she couldn't. She reached her destination and jumped high in the air. She switched Crescent Rose to it's rifle mode, focusing her aura she she activated it's dust ability, Charge shot. Ruby pointed the barrel towards the orb, the end of the barrel started collecting energy from the dust, lighting the barrel hole with a huge white light. Once she felt the full charge she released the trigger.
"NO!" Ruby looked to see who yelled, she saw Nymph running towards the orb, Ruby began to panic, that shot was fully charged! The splash effect would damage Nymph if she got too close to it. She noticed Weiss was directly behind Nymph, "Guys back awa-" the shot collided with the orb and a burst of aura flashed the entire room blinding everyone. The final sound, was a scream of pain. Than white filled everyone's vision.
Ozpin & Glynda
There was a huge rumble that was felt on the very cliff that the duo were standing on. Ozpin glanced towards the east side of the forest and noticed a thin beam of energy shooting into the sky piercing the clouds than a visible shockwave that washed passed him and Glynda.
"It would seem, our students have found a rather interesting ruin." He took a sip of his coffee. Glynda walked up to him, "Professor what is that?"
Ozpin looked at her briefly, "That, Glynda, was a burst of focused aura energy. More than likely from an old ruin, we have yet to discover, but unfortunately no longer attainable."
Glynda's eyes widened in disbelief, "Headmaster, shouldn't we have warned the initiates about such dangers or had the local Archaeologist dig there?" Ozpin didn't respond he took a sip of his coffee, looking at the beam of energy emitting from the forest.
"No, I couldn't have." Ozpin finally replied, he looked at his scroll and typed a message.
"Why couldn't you?" She asked, her professional tone cracking as her frustrations began overpowering her need for professionalism.
"Simple, I didn't know it was there." That was his final response to her, he looked back out to the forest, "These are about to get hectic in that forest." Glynda didn't say a word and began going through the established partners already.
Unknown Location
The area was dark there were several people standing around a datapad, with various numbers and notes. One was standing behind the table and two of them were standing to the sides of the person covered in darkness.
The man in front of the table had his arms to his side and a hand over his sheathe, "There has been an enormous spikes of energy in the Emerald Forest. You are to go there and see what these energy readings are and report them to me and recover the source if possible."
The man looked at her and spoke in a calm deep voice, "Emerald Forest ma'am? That's right next to Beacon Academy. You're sending directly into the clutter of Beacon Forces."
The woman raised a delicate brow, just below the questioning figure, several dark fluffy tails slivered up his body, and wrapped around his neck and tightened. "Is that a problem, Adam?"
"No ma'am." His calm voice trembled a bit, the dark tails loosened and snapped in his face. She pulled them pulled back behind her with the other seven tails, "Good, now go." Her blue eyes began to glow in the darkness, "One last thing, if you rush it you might run into some old friends there." His mask glowed for a moment, "Kill them, if you get a chance. They're a disgrace to their kind." she disappeared along with her lackies and the datapad.
Adam's mask glowed with bloodlust and he disappeared.
AN: Hey! Did you people enjoy the chapter?
Anyway, How'd you like that? Adam is ready for action! Prepare for a battle!
Oh! Finally for those of you who submitted an OC, prepare for their appearance in the upcoming battle! It's going to be hectic! I don't know if I will be able to write it clearly enough for you guys, but I'll try to the best of my abilities!
Yes, there is an unknown villain working in the shadows(quite literally) and is her employee!
How'd you like that little tidbit about the West and East Dragons?
Now don't think you got the whole picture because I left tons of information out!
My story actually coincides with canon, volume 2! Damn, I'm lucky I kept the story loose for tweaking just in case I messed up something.
You have no idea how much this story excites me now that I'm really moving into my story and not canon's.
Time for Grimm Labeling...
Abomination-D class Humanoid Grimm
Native Habitat-Vale Forests
Description- Just imagine a deformed human or creature and bam! You got an abomination! They's usually black, no armor and pretty weak. They're harmless unless in big groups, like a damn zombie. They do have abnormal strength enough to pin down an ursa, but all in all you keep them away and they're harmless.
Did you Like it? Love it? Hate it? Indifferent? Tell me in the reviews!
ShadowPony12, signing out!
