Notes: Yes, I know this was delayed. I meant for it to come out last week but it go way longer than I intended it to be. Good news is that it is a very long chapter. So you get a little extra for the long wait.

Proof Reader: MartunaMajor.

Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY.

ROR Part 10: The Emerald Forest Part 3

Alpha Wing: Path of the Precursors

Jaune wasn't really sure what to expect when he saw Nora marching past Snow Angel and straight into the area where the magical trap was supposedly set. The first actual thought he was able to come up with was that perhaps the trap had already been deactivated and that she was testing it, but that theory went out the window the moment Snow Angel snapped at the girl.

Then not a moment later a portal of some kind appeared in the space above Nora and a strange specter like creature flew out of it and right into a stone statue. After watching the specter phase into the statue and disappear, the statue began to move and stood up to tower over them. He also half expected for Nora to say it was all a big mistake and apologize. So when she cheered gleefully, Jaune had a terrifying realization. He realized that Nora had not only set the trap off, but she had done so intentionally.

Jaune just couldn't understand what kind of person would willingly walk into a booby trap like that on purpose. Though in retrospect, maybe he should have seen this coming. He may have only known his guild leader for a few days now, but basically every interaction he's had with the girl so far has set off warning bells in his head. Sure Nora was a nice enough girl, but she was also completely crazy. So he should have at least been prepared for her to do something like this.

So thanks to Nora's impatience, she was now locked in a staring contest with a stone golem nearly ten times her size. And if only because the golems lacked the facial features required for blinking, it seemed to be winning. Though, that fact didn't appear to bother Nora in the slightest, rather it only seemed to make her more excited.

While showing a wicked grin, Nora twirled her maul around her body a few times before allowing it to rest on her shoulder and then she addressed the golem. "So, you're only an Elite monster, huh? Well I guess you will just have to do for a warm up. Just try to entertain me for a little while, will you?" She declared as she took on a far more proper fighting stance.

"Try not to sound so disappointed." Jaune muttered. Really he wasn't sure what Nora was so disappointed about. A quick glance up at the golem's display was all he needed to know that this wasn't going to be easy. The monsters display read as: Geist, Guardian of the Forest; Level ?; Heroic Raid Elite Monster.

Jaune had actually heard of Elite Monsters before, but this was the first time seeing for himself. Based on what he knew, they were a special type of monster that would normally only appear inside of raid dungeons. Just like the dungeon they were in right now in fact. They were a kind sub-boss. Though, in most cases these types of sub-bosses were either completely optional or simply part of some other raid boss's encounter, like a bodyguard or something similar. So while they were fairly tough on average, they weren't usually on the same level as a real boss.

Though there was one thing Jaune found to be odd about this Elite Monster. Even despite the fact that the monster was in close proximity to his party, it didn't seem to be making any move to attack them.

Normally when you got within a few feet of an aggressive monster, it would attack you right away. This one however was just looming over them menacingly. And it looked like Nora had gotten bored of waiting for the monster to attack her and relaxed her stance before addressing it. "Hey what's the deal, you going to fight or what?" The pink cad warrior asked in an irritated tone.

Then after a moment of the golem remaining silent and motionless, Nora decided she was going to speed things along. "Don't want to make the first move, huh? Scarred perhaps? Well don't you worry big guy, being the benevolent queen that I am, I will give you a handicap. The first shot is free." She taunted as she tapped the side of her face with her open palm and activated her taunt ability.

Nora's taunt seemed to do the trick since the moment it was issued the golem finally snapped into motion. It moved at a speed that seemed nearly impossible for a creature of its size and weight. In a fluid motion, its armed was pulled back and then thrust forward with clear intent on striking the pink clad warrior just as she had instructed.

Nora however, made no effort to avoid or even block the incoming attack. Instead, her grin just widened as the stone limb slammed into her. The force of the blow was strong, so strong that it knocked Nora off her feet and sent the girl flying across the clearing before slamming into a tree with a bone popping thud.

"Ouch, that's got to hurt." Jaune wince as he watched the gruesome scene play out. Even though the amount of pain a person can experience in ROR was rather minuscule, even on the highest of settings, the fact was that you could still feel something. And the human brain was good at filling in the gaps from there. So he wasn't surprised when Nora didn't get back up right away, heck if Nora's avatar had been made of flesh and blood instead of pixels, there was no doubt in his mind that such a blow would've killed her on the spot.

Jaune was surprised however, when Nora finally did get back up onto her feet and began dusting herself off. It wasn't the action itself that caught him off guard, but rather the smug expression on her face and the fact that her health bar was still well over the halfway mark.

"That wasn't too bad, it actually kind of tickled." Nora mused as she hoisted up her maul and instantly broke into a sprint towards the golem.

The golem quickly mirrored Nora's charge and began making its way towards the berserker. However, it was at that moment that the rest of the Crusaders decided to enter the fray. Weiss and Ruby, being the primary ranged fighters in their party, their attacks were among the first to land on the golem.

"Spirito del regno dei ghiacci, io ti invoco. Che tu cada sui miei nemici! Storm of shards!" Snow Angel chanted as she activated one of her elemental spell abilities and proceeded to bombard the golem with lance-sized shards of ice.

Snow Angel's lances were primarily aimed towards the golem's legs and upon impact, each lance would shatter and send out icy shrapnel in every direction before solidifying into a blanket of ice to slow the golem's movements.

Meanwhile, Ruby was busying herself by taking pot shots at different places on the golem's body. Though to the untrained eye, her shots may have seemed random and unfocused. However, they were actually just experimental prods. Each shot struck at different points of interest, such as its joints, chest, head, and basically anything else that stuck out as a possible weak point.

However, much to Ruby's dismay, none of her attacks seemed to be doing much to the creature. "This thing is sturdy. I can't find a weak point!" She declared.

"Keep trying, it has to have one somewh-" Snow Angel had to stop and internally curse herself when she noticed that the golem had veered off course. This not only allowed the golem to avoid running straight into their maul wielding guild leader, making the girl in question curse and accuse the monster of cowardice, but it also put it on a direct course for Snow Angel's current position.

"Watch out! You pulled agro!" Pyrrha warned her white clad spell caster before momentarily turning towards Jaune to address him. "We got to go help!" With that said she broke into a sprint to intercept the golem.

"I'm right behind you!" Jaune quickly announced as he followed his friend into the path of the golem.

With the long strides of the behemoth golem it didn't take long before it was bearing down on Jaune and Pyrrha. However, it didn't show any signs of stopping which meant that it was still focused on their healer. They couldn't very well allow it to reach her, so they both activated their taunt abilities to pull its attention.

The golem looked disorientated for a brief moment as its attention was suddenly pulled away from the spell caster by Pyrrha only for it to be yanked from her not a minute later by Jaune. Figuring that it could just crush the both of them, the golem cocked its arm back and lowered its stance so that it could sweep the limb across the ground.

Seeing the attacking coming, Pyrrha readied her leap ability. "Incoming!" She issued a quick warning to Jaune before she jumped over the stone limb as it past.

"Wait, what?!" Jaune muttered before raising his shield in desperation. While his shield did take the brunt of the attack, it did little to defuse the weight or momentum behind, it causing him to be knocked half way across the clearing.

Jaune could hear Pyrrha calling out to him as he was sent flipping through the air, but he was more focused on his health bar which had just had a decent chunk ripped out of it. On top of that, fall damage was a thing in this game and he was well over the safe fall threshold. So if he didn't come up with a landing strategy soon, he might find himself exiting this fight a bit early.

Luckily for Jaune, Jade must have noticed his distress and literally jumped into action, as a moment before Jaune would have impacted the ground, she seemed to appear out of nowhere to catch him in mid flight. Then she activated her Feather Fall ability to slow their descent and allow them both to land without taking any additional fall damage.

Once Jade had set Jaune back down on his own feet, he breathed a sigh of relief before addressing his savor. "Thanks Jade, I owe you one."

Private Message From Jade Lotus: "Not a problem, though I would recommend that you should try avoiding this guy's attack. Trust me, he is as strong as he looks and you won't want to be too low for the next phase."

"Yeah, I will try to do that." Jaune replied awkwardly. "Wait, what do you mean by that?"

Jaune's question went ignored as Jade's focus shifted towards Snow Angel who was now only a few feet away from them, which really put into perspective how far he had flew. The girl in question was still reciting incantations and shifting between casting ice spells at the golem and healing spells at the other party members. Then Jaune could only assume that Jade had messaged her since she suddenly stopped and turned towards them. "What now Jade, new guy can't wait his turn?" She inquired.

Jade just shrugged in response and motioned towards the space above Jaune's head where other players would be able to see his health bar. After stealing a quick glance the spell caster quickly conceded and began reciting another incantation. "Spiriti della terra, io vi invoco. Donate le vostre essenze a questi mortali e concedete loro la vostra forza! Rejuvenation!"

Jaune waited patiently while Snow Angel recited these words. Though, he didn't have much experience playing with casting classes in ROR, one thing he had learned about on his own was incantations. Of course they weren't actually necessary to cast your spells. If they were, it would just be far too bothersome for most players to deal with while grinding levels. However, performing an incantation before casting a spell will amplify the spell's effectiveness.

Also the words used to cast the incantation don't even need to be anything specific. As long as the caster speaks while the spell is being cast, it will count. Though, there are many who like to put their own personal flavor into their incantations. And since Jaune couldn't understand a single word Snow Angel was saying, he wagered she must have been one of them.

When Angel's incantation ended, Jaune was enveloped in radiant green energy and he soon noticed that his health bar had been almost completely restored. On top of that, he also had a new buff place on him that would continue to heal him over time.

"Thanks Snow Angel, you really helped me out." Jaune declared gratefully.

"Just doing my job, I am the healer after all." Snow Angel stated before quickly turning away from Jaune and returning her focus to the battle. Then after an awkward moment or relative silence she spoke again. "Speaking of which, don't you have a job to be doing?"

Snow Angel's question caused a confused expression to take over Jaune's face for the briefest of moments before realization struck him. "Oh, r-right!" He stuttered as he glanced back towards the center of the melee.

The golem was faring a lot worse since the last time he saw it, with its health bar now down to about fifty percent, and based on all the cracks beginning to form along its stone body it showed. It also wasn't hard to guess the cause of all the damage either, because while he was distracted Black Cat and Yellow Dragon had made their move.

Black Cat was flipping and cartwheeling all around the golem like a trained acrobat, all the while unleashing a greatly varied series of different attacks and abilities. She blasted it with fireballs, she hit it with throwing knives, and even delivered a roundhouse kick to its jaw, but nothing seemed to be doing much damage to the goliath. Luckily that was mutual, because Pyrrha was doing a good job of holding its attention, and for each time the golem would actually direct an attack in Black Cat's direction she would meanly vanish in a puff of smoke, only to reappear behind the beast with her daggers in its back.

Yellow Dragon on the other hand seemed to be doing a good job of laying the smack down on the golem. Where Black Cat was evasive and unpredictable, Yellow Dragon stayed true to her class and took the golem head on with brute force. With each swipe of her gilded claws, she would carve out deep gashes from the masonry that made up the golem's body. And with each chunk of stone lost, a nice chunk of the golem's health bar would go with it. However, not even Pyrrha could completely keep the golem's attention with Yellow Dragon dealing so much damage, causing it to lash out at the yellow clad berserker.

Unlike the Assassin/Ninja Black Cat, warriors weren't generally known for their maneuverability in combat, and Yellow Dragon was no expectation. She didn't have nearly enough evasive abilities to reliably avoid being hit, and unlike Pyrrha and Jaune she couldn't wield a shield to absorb the impacts either. Luckily as a Berserker, that wasn't really a problem. With each hit she took she was able to hit back even harder. So as long as she could take a hit and not die, it was all good, and since their healer was doing their job, that wasn't much of a problem either.

Aside from those two, Ruby was still sniping from afar and it seemed that the Monkey King had joined her and was focusing on keeping the team's buffs in place. The golem for its part didn't seem to be paying either of the two any mind.

Nora still had yet to reenter the fray. This was because of how difficult it was to actually block one of the golem's strikes, forcing Pyrrha into a hit and run strategy, effectively kitting the golem all over the clearing.

Then there was Jade Lotus who had already caught up to the rest of the party and was engaging the golem. Jaune wasn't sure how she had managed that. Just one minute she was right next to him, the next she was clear on the other side of the meadow, but he wasn't going to question it. It was likely just an Assassin thing after all.

"I'm here guys!" Jaune declared with a slight pant in his voice as he finally managed to regroup with his party.

"About time, don't tell me you got lost on the way!?" Yellow Dragon joked right before the golem slammed its stone fist down on top of her. Though, she took a fairly good chunk of damage from the blow, Pyrrha had acted fast and gave Yellow Dragon a defense buff just in time. And now that she was a little more than annoyed, she shoved the stone limb off of her and caused the body it was attached to to stumble backward. Then she activated her leap ability and sprang forward in an attempt to slam her fist into the golem's face. However, the golem raised one of its arms up to block the blow, but the force proved too much and caused the limb to shatter into pieces.

Before the yellow clad berserker could do any more damage, the golem swatted her away with its one remaining good arm. Though, before it could do anything else, a manically gleeful voice called down to it from above. "I finally caught you!"

This caused everyone's attention to be drawn upward towards its source, which turned out to be their pink clad gild leader who was currently coming down from the sky with her maul caught back in the smashing position. "Now it's my turn!" She roared as she slammed the maul down into the head of the golem, and just like with the wolf from earlier the damage was ridiculously high. And with that blow the golem's health bar vanished and the body crumbled to pieces.

Reality: Room of Nora Valkyrie

"Booyah, that's what happens when you mess with the queen!" Nora cheered as she held her hand over headset's microphone. Then after taking a moment to breathe and allow the adrenaline to bleed out of her, she released her grip on the mic and began to speak again. "What, he's broken already? I didn't even work up a sweat. How boring." She said in mock complaint.

"You have no right to complain! If you just listened to me, then we wouldn't have had to fight that stupid thing in the first place!" Nora heard Snow Angel hiss.

"Oh, would you calm down Weiss, it's over now." Nora heard Blake come to her defense.

"Thats right, it was Weiss." Nora mumbled to herself as she remembered that Weiss was actually Snow Angel's real name.

Weiss Schnee, Nora believed. It would sometimes slip her mind, because despite both of them going to the same school, having several mutual friends, and being part of the same guild, Weiss and Nora really weren't all that close. Worst of all, Nora really wasn't too sure why. It certainly wasn't for lack of effort at least.

Ever since Nora had met Weiss, she had made several attempts to get closer to the girl, but it was to no avail. No matter what Nora tried, Weiss always seemed to shy away from her. Which seemed odd since Weiss didn't really seem like the shy type. Reserved sure, but never shy.

Also it didn't seem like Weiss was afraid of Nora either. After all, she never had any trouble verbally abusing her while they were in game. Though perhaps Weiss could only speak so freely precisely because they were in game.

That thought caused Nora to take pause. "Hmm, but if that's the case then why would she be so put off by me IRL?" She pondered. Then when she finally reached a conclusion, her head slumped onto her desk and she let out a rather depressed sounding sigh. "It's the damn chair isn't it?" She asked herself. It had to be, it was the only explanation she could think of that made any sense.

Nora has met more people than she cared to count who felt awkward hanging out with her. Not because they didn't like her as a person, but because they were too afraid of messing up. They were afraid of saying the wrong thing or be caught staring. At the end of the day though, they were really more worried about themselves than Nora. Very few actually stopped to consider how Nora would feel before they started to distance themselves.

With that being said, Nora wouldn't blame Weiss if it were true. What right would she have to do so? It was her life and Weiss should be able to live it however she wants to. Besides, it wasn't like Nora could do anything about it. You can't guilt trip someone into being your friend. It was also worth noting that the stakes were much higher for Weiss then most other people.

Weiss was a Schnee, and that meant she was an heiress to Schnee Pharmaceuticals. Her actions would reflect on her family and their company, and despite her calm and cold demeanor, Nora knew first hand that the girl was stubborn and ran hot.

Nora and Weiss have had more than their fair share of screaming matches, or debates as the heiress had called them, but that was online where it was safe and nobody but their friends knew who they really were. However, real life wasn't as simple. If anyone saw them engaged in one of their more heated debates, Nora was sure it would be front page news the following day.

Nora could see the headlines now, 'Schnee heiress harasses the handicapped.' It would say in big bold letters. The funny thing was that she wasn't sure what would bother her more. The fact that they used her to attack the character of somebody she cared about, or the fact that they referred to her as handicapped. Both thoughts kind of pissed her off actually.

Nora was finally dragged out of her brooding by the sound of a Weiss' voice entering her headphones. "Nora, Remnant to Nora. Are you there?"

Realizing that she had completely spaced out, Nora quickly adjusted herself and made sure she didn't mess up her head set with her little face plant a moment ago. "Yeah, I'm fine, sorry."

"What was that about? You went all blank face on us for a second?" Weiss inquired.

"It was nothing really. I just needed to check on something." She explained and before she could inquire further, she tried to change the subject. "By the way was there any loot?" She asked.

"No, there was not even a single coin." Weiss grumbled in annoyance.

"What, that's so lame! Then why did we even bother!?" Nora roared in complaint.

"I wonder why." Weiss deadpanned as a hand came up to grip the bridge of her nose only to be blocked by her helmet.

Then a very startled version of Pyrrha's voice cut through the air. "Guys, I don't think we're done here!"

Following the sounds of movement and Pyrrha's voice, Nora soon found herself staring at the same specter that had animated the stone statue only a moment ago. The specter was now hovering over the statue's crumbling remains and was staring back at her with an almost curious interest.

Nora for her part only felt a touch of annoyance at the monster's survival. As much as she liked surprises, she preferred the things she smashed to stay smashed. "Stubborn, are we? Alright, I guess I won't need to hold back this time!" She declared before she gave her maul a quick twirl and she kicked off the ground towards the phantasm.

"Nora, wait!" Weiss tried to call out to her leader.

Weiss' warning came too late however, as Nora was already upon the monster and swinging her maul at it with reckless abandon. Much to the pink clad berserker's ire and confusion, none of her attacks seemed to be hitting their mark. Each time she would take a swing at the specter, it would simply drift just out of her reach. It was treating gravity as more of a guideline rather than a law. Though many would suppose that in a virtual world such as ROR, it was.

"Your Queen commands that you cease your squirming and let her squish you this instant!" Nora roared in frustration as she activated her leap ability in an attempt to lessen the distance between them. Much to Nora's surprise, the specter seemed to actually heed her command and allowed her to get in strike range. "Your loyalty to the crown has been noted. Now your Queen shall reward you with a quick death!" She declared as she took her shot.

When Nora finally did bring her hammer down on top of her target, she was startled to realize that she had hit nothing but the air. It wasn't that she had missed necessarily, but rather her trusty war maul had passed right through her enemy's body. On top of that, the usual damage notification she would get after landing a blow didn't appear, instead all she got was the word 'immune'.

Nora had just made a rookie mistake. She should have realized that this Geist was a part of the Spirit monster category. Monsters in that class especially at higher levels tended to be incorporeal, and therefore they were completely unaffected by most physical attacks. However, once she realized her error it was too late. Nora's momentum from her attack had taken control and had sent her barreling forward, right through the specter. Upon passing through the phantasms body, it seemed to cause a ripple effect similar to that of a rock skipping off water before leaving Nora to tumble back down to the ground with nothing more than a new curse to show for her efforts.

"Nora, you got yourself cursed you dolt. Maybe if you would listened when people talk, this sort of thing wouldn't happen!" Weiss said as she rushed over to her leader.

"Yeah I get it, I messed up, but there's no time for pointing blame right now!" Nora replied before she quickly checked her status. The curse was nothing too major, just a minor stat debuff along with a small damage over time effect added to it. It wouldn't be enough to take her out of the fight, at least not anytime soon. That was certainly a good thing since it looked like they were going to have a tough one ahead of them.

Right after Nora's little blunder, all eyes were on the specter as it had begun casting some sort of spell. The monster spoke no words, it only moved its arms around in a circular pattern while they trailed a dark purplish energy. A moment later and the spell was complete, forming some sort of spell circle. Then the monster threw its arms wide and ripped open a wormhole that was not unlike the one that it had appeared from originally. From the hole in space, two more specters were released. Now joined by its kin, all three specters set out in different directions to possess one of the many statues that still remaining in the clearing.

"This doesn't look good." Jaune commented as he readied himself for battle once again.

"One of those things was tough enough. Now we have to take on three at once!" Black Cat complained.

"I think we can take 'em." Monkey King commented.

"Yeah, that's the spirit!" Yellow Dragon declared as she gave her fellow blond warrior a friendly punch in the arm. "We can do this!" She cheered, causing the others to shrug and follow suit.

As soon as the statues were up on their feet, they had begun to charge towards the Crusaders. Their footfalls were heavy and thunderous, echoing across the landscape. If one was listening from afar, they would likely assume it to be a stampede of elephants. Though those who stood at the epicenter knew it was something far worse than a few spooked animals.

Knowing that their enemy would be upon them soon, Pyrrha turned towards her comrades to address them. "I don't think I can hold all three of them. I will take the two at ten and two o'clock. Jaune, think you can handle the one on our six?" She inquired while motioning towards each golem in question.

Jaune was silent for a moment as he looked back to examine the golem approaching them from the rear. In truth, he didn't think he would be able to handle it on his own. He couldn't even distract the first one for more than a few seconds, and that was with Pyrrha's help. So tanking through one of those things without any aid would be more than a little difficult, but he knew that he couldn't back down here. This was still a test after all, and they were only just getting started. If he couldn't handle this then he would be thrown out. He had to at least try.

"I will do my best." Jaune finally replied with a nod.

With that, Pyrrha gave Jaune a quick nod right before she heard Nora's voice cut through the air. "Alright, guys you heard them. Pyrrha is on point, Jaune has our asses. These things are tough so we'll try to focus them down one at a time! I will set up markers now!" She declared as she opened up her interface and quickly clicked through a few menus. After a moment, a set of three symbols appeared above the heads of the golems. "We will start with the one with the skull marker, then the triangle, and then the circle! Are there any questions?!" She asked, and before waiting for anyone to reply she spoke again. "Good, now take positions!" She commanded, causing everyone to move to a defensive formation with their healer and ranged fighters in the center and their melee warriors up front.

Thanks to Pyrrha and Nora everyone was now ready, and it wasn't a moment too soon either as the golems were now barreling down on top of them. Without delay, Jaune and Pyrrha burst into action by activating their taunt abilities to draw their enemy's attention. "Over here!" They both shouted while they put some space between themselves and the rest of their party.

Much to the whole party's shock and bewilderment, even with their taunts active, the golems didn't seem the least bit interested in either Jaune or Pyrrha and pushed right past them into the second line of defense.

"Look out!" Pyrrha warned when she realized the golems weren't going to be stopped.

"We know!" Weiss shot back as she readied her attack.

The first to reach the Crusader's formation was the lone golem that Jaune was assigned. Once it was only a few yards away, it launched itself up into the air towards them and brushed off a wave of throwing knives and ice shards on its way before it slammed down in the center of the group. Though the golem did not strike any of the members directly, the impact of its landing was strong enough that it released a shockwave that was similar to that of Pyrrha's Meter Strike ability in both form and function.

Many of the lighter weight characters were blown off their feet by the attack while the heavier and more durable warrior class characters were only slightly staggered by the blow. As Blake tried to regain her composure, she noticed that the golem had already gone into another attack. Its focus seemed to be completely on their pink clad guild leader. That of course wasn't an odd thing given her high damage output, but something seemed off about it. The golem wasn't letting up on Nora, it was striking her again and again in quick succession, and it left the girl very little room to do anything other than block and evade. Meanwhile, Blake's other comrades were already launching a counteroffensive. As Yang and Sun were both warriors, they weathered the shockwave rather well. So now they were both hitting the golem hard from both sides, but it didn't seem interested in them.

Blake's thoughts were interrupted as she felt a body slam into her, pulling her to the ground. "What, who!?" She shirked as she tried to wiggle her way free from her attacker.

"Blake calm down, it's me!" Blake's attacker declared, causing her to glance up and see that it was none other than Pyrrha. Then looking past the girl, she saw the massive form of another golem passing over head. She had been directly in the path of the goliath, which at least explained why she had been thrown aside. This also raised a few other questions in her mind. She didn't understand why the golem hadn't attacked them while they were down.

The AI in ROR did operate on an agro system, which meant that the enemies would usually go after the most threatening players. However, they were also opportunistic and would usually make exception for a closer player if they were valuable.

"Here, I got you." Pyrrha said as she shuffled back onto her feet and held out a hand to help Blake back up.

Blake quickly accepted her comrade's help and was quickly back on her feet. "Do you have any idea what's going on?"

"I think I do, look." Pyrrha said with a nod as she directed Blake's attention back towards the battle.

Blake did as instructed and found herself stuck by what she was seeing. All three golems were now in the fray, but their focus wasn't the least bit divided. Rather it was all directed at one person. "They are all after Nora, why!?" She inquired in bewilderment, sure Nora had smashed the first one, but monsters didn't usually hold a grudge.

"The curse, it has to be." Pyrrha replied. "It's the only thing that I can think of at least."

Blake gave a nod of understanding. It was true, that would explain it. Nora had been cursed right before the monster had opened the wormhole. Maybe it was waiting for somebody to attack it before casting. Whatever the reason, Nora needed help, and she needed it now. "Let's go!" Blake declared before she disappeared in a shadowy mist.

"I'm right behind you!" Pyrrha declared as she ran to aid her friends.

"Ouch, crud, dang it, would you just, rahhhh!" Nora shouted in annoyance as she ducked, dodged, weaved, parried, blocked, and occasionally took a blow straight on. "Come on, is that all you got!?" She roared after nearly being flattened by one of the golem's attacks. She had managed to block the downward thrust of the golem's rocky limb, but it had so much force behind it that it nearly caused her knees cave in. It was at times like this that she didn't mind having such little feeling in those limbs.

The golem responded by hoisting its massive limb back up for another strike, but before it could release the attack another golem decided that it was a good time to take a shot at Nora itself. This attack came from behind and Nora had little time to react to it, but she did. Nora activated her whirlwind ability, allowing her to spin in place while she held her hammer out to knock her attacker's limb off course.

Then as the first golem tried to bring its arm down on top of her once again, Nora hopped off the ground. Since she was still spinning, she allowed her hammer's momentum to carry her out of the attack's path. She then spun her way under the third golem's legs, striking at both of its knees as she passed and causing it to topple over. However, the stone work monsters showed no signs of giving up their chase and the two that were still standing bounded over their fallen comrade to continue their attack.

"Persistent whelps, aren't you!?" Nora hissed as she braced herself. However, she was surprised when Blake suddenly appeared on the back of one of the two golems with her blades firmly planted in the stone. At the same time, Yang and Sun had caught back up to intercept the second one. Not a minute later, and Jaune and Pyrrha rushed by her to give them aid. This left Nora to sigh in relief. "It's about time, you guys! Can you tell me why these guys have it out for me!?" She asked in mock complaint.

"It's the curse, you dolt." Weiss declared as she came up to stand beside Nora. "It seems to be generating a very large amount of agro." She explained further.

"Oh, that would explain a lot." Nora said as she took another look at her status. In retrospect it seemed obvious once she read the name of the curse. It was called 'The Mark of the Damned'. "Can you remove it?" She asked.

Weiss shrugged. "I could try, but you know that Holy Magic really isn't my thing. I don't think I will be able to cleanse such a high level curse with the way I am specked right now." She replied.

"Well can you at least give it a shot?" Nora deadpanned.

Though Nora could see Weiss' eyes through that helmet, it was clear she was rolling them. "Fine, but don't blame me when it doesn't work." The white clad spell caster warned before she began chanting an incantation. "Spiriti della luce santa, concedeteci la vostra benedizione affinchè ci sia concessa l'assoluzione dalle nostre impurità. Cleansing Light!"

Once Weiss had finished her incantation, a white light enveloped Nora, and the pink clad berserker soon found that her hit points were being quickly restored. Though, much to her dismay, her comrade's words had been proven right. The curse was still firmly in place and the golems had now pushed through their line once again to attack her. "Well this is going to be a pain." Nora declared.

"I once again, feel the need to remind you that you are to blame for this. We could have just let sleeping spirits lie and we could have been at the new boss by now." Weiss said in a less spiteful yet more tired tone.

Nora just shrugged. "Perhaps, but this is also fun in its own right. If we didn't want a challenge, we wouldn't have even come here. Besides, I think I just got an idea." She explained.

"Do tell." Weiss asked curiously.

"Well, stay with me here. By the way it seems, those things have no choice but to follow me, right?" Nora asked and when Weiss gave her a sideways glance, Nora shot her a wicked grin. "I think I have a way of using that to our advantage."

Jaune groaned in pain as he was once again knocked aside by the rampaging golem. No matter how many times he attacked or taunted it, it wouldn't stay still. It seemed that they really were dead set on taking out their leader, which he supposed wasn't such a bad thing. Nora was certainly a lot better at handling these things than he was, but it still hurt his pride a little to know that he wasn't even considered worth their time.

Though Jaune could at least take some comfort in the knowledge that his other comrades were proving no more successful at drawing the golem's attention then he was. In their defense they were still doing far more damage then he was. Heck, they nearly had their main target down already. The golem that was assigned the top priority marker was now sitting at about thirty percent of its maximum health and was beginning to look quite shabby as a result. The second priority golem was also quite beat up and was at about sixty percent, but the last one was basically untouched and had over eighty percent left.

This fight looked like it was going to last a while, but at least Snow Angel seemed to be doing a good job of keeping the party in good health. Though, Jaune had to imagine that was easier when literally only one player was being attacked, but that also made it far harder to keep said player standing. And Jaune didn't want to know what would happen if Nora went down.

"Over here, blockheads!" Jaune snapped to attention when he heard the sound of his leader's voice in the distance. It looked like Nora had broken off from the group and was now luring the golems away, but to what end. "That's right, come get me!" She taunted as she reached the edge of the clearing and jumped on top of one of many remaining statues surrounding it.

A moment later and one of the golems slammed into the motionless statue, shattering it to pieces. But by then Nora had already jumped back off and was heading for the next. "What the heck is that girl doing?" Jaune pondered.

Then he was startled slightly when Pyrrha appeared beside him huffing in over exertion. She took a moment to gather herself before she replied to his question. "Look at their health bars." She told him.

Jaune shrugged and did as he was told. He watched as Nora led the golems along and allowed them to barrel through a few more statues. At first he wasn't sure what he was supposed to be seeing, but when he noticed that the golems were taking damage it began to click.

The body of the monsters and the statues they were colliding with were both made out of the same material. It reminded Jaune of something he used to see in a lot of anime and cartoons, the characters had this strange ability to use steel weapons to cut through steel armor and even other weapons like butter, but in reality it didn't work like that. If you did smack two swords of the same material against each other, usually one of two things would happen. One they would deflect off each other and neither would take damage, or two they would both take damage. Similarly, if you were to slam a granite statue into another statue of the same size and material, one statue isn't going to beat the other just because it's being controlled by a spirit. Sure there were methods it could employ to repair the damage it takes from the impact, but such methods could only go so far. So if it kept that up, something would have to give.

"She is wearing them down." Jaune finally stated.

Pyrrha gave him a nod before speaking herself. "Yeah, but it's not just that. Earlier when that first golem had been defeated, the spirit left its broken body to possess another statue. This monster is as new to us as it is to you, so for all we know it could do that again. However, if there are no statues left for it to take over."

"It will be our win." Jaune finished for Pyrrha, earning himself another nod from the girl. "Wow, two birds with one stone. Who came up with this plan? Was it you, Snow Angel perhaps?" He inquired.

Pyrrha just smiled and shook her head. "You give me too much credit. This is was all Nora's idea." She said proudly.

Jaune didn't really know what to say to that, so he just remained silent and continued to watch as Nora kited the golems around.

By this point, she had almost done a full lap of the meadow and had managed to widow down the golems health significantly. On top of them slamming into nearly every statue in the meadow, her comrades had been taking pot shots at them the whole time while she kept them busy. In that sense, she wasn't acting much different than a normal tank would. The only difference is that she didn't have to worry about the monsters losing interest in her, allowing her a lot more freedom than a tank would have.

Though being the center of attention was fun, it also meant that Nora had basically no time to relax, but that wasn't really her style anyway so it worked out alright. She liked to get things done after all, and at the rate she was going it wouldn't take much longer now. After all, they were down to the last statue and she was already making a beeline right for it.

The only problem was that the golems currently had her encircled. One golem was still trailing behind her, while another had cleverly doubled back in an attempt to cut her off and was now directly between her and her objective, while the last had been tripped up by her party members and fell behind, but because of this it was left in the perfect position to flank her now. However, Nora wasn't going to be detoured.

She dove in between the legs of the golem that had been blocking her way forward and allowed the one that had been pursuing her to collide with the other. Then without missing a beat, she hopped back up and continued to haul ass towards the last statue. That was when the last golem had finally caught up and had taken a swing at her, but she had seen it coming and raised her hammer to block it. The blow was lighter than the ones before it. Perhaps she was just getting use to their heavy strikes, or that they were just wearing down.

"Back at you, buddy!" Nora declared as she pushed back against the golem's fist with all her might, sending it to crash into its own head. "Yeah, take that!" She boasted before she was struck hard in the back and sent careening into right into the statue hard enough to take a large chunk out of her health bar and leave a Nora shaped dent in the stone work.

"Ouch, that hurt you jerk!" Nora barked as she glanced over from her position pinned in the statue to see that the other two golems had recovered and that one of them had kicked her. Suddenly feeling irritated, Nora began to struggle to pull herself free to no avail. "Dang it, when I get out of here I'm going to-" She didn't get to finish that sentence as the last golem slammed its fist into Nora, punching her right through the statue and causing it to crumble to rubble.

Nora landed with a bone crunching thud before breaking into a roll to defuse her momentum. Though after a moment of this, she managed to bring herself to a stop, but she couldn't completely recover before another golem landed on top of her, pinning the girl in the dirt. Then the second golem jumped in and began punching wildly, and finally the third came in and promptly started to stomp its feet on her as well.

Nora could hear the gasps of her companions, she couldn't blame them. A normal girl would have been killed instantly by something like this, and to be fair her health bar wasn't looking too good. But she wasn't a normal girl, and she wasn't Nora Valkyrie either. She was the Violet Valkyrie, the leader of the Violet Crusaders. She was the Queen, and the biggest, baddest berserker of them all. And she was going to show them why.

Right as Nora's health bar had reached the red zone, she felt her blood begin to boil as a familiar surge of strength shot through her veins. Her whole body felt like it was on fire and if she didn't move it right now she really would combust. So she did.

Nora surged to her feet so fast and with so much force that it sent the golem pinning her down flipping into the air before crashing down on the ground nearly thirty yards away. The other two golems didn't seem to be bothered by this and simply continued their attack, but it was all meaningless. Nora didn't even try to block or avoid the attacks now. Each one just triggered an 'immune' popup to appear. And with a wicked grin, Nora dusted herself off before she casually retrieved her hammer from the ground. Then with two quick swings of the mighty maul, she shattered the pestering limbs to pieces.

Losing a leg caused one of the golems to lose its balance and tumble over while the other staggered backward in what seemed to be surprise. If the spirit controlling the thing could actually feel such things was unknown to Nora, but it didn't matter. She didn't have much time left, so she had to finish this quickly. So she kicked off the ground and slammed her hammer right into the chest of the standing golem, causing its life bar to empty and the whole thing to shatter. However, she didn't stop there. She then kicked off a piece of falling ruble and slammed into the chest of the golem that had lost its leg, and like the last one it was obliterated on contact.

Now there was only one enemy left in her way. The golem she had sent flying had now returned to its feet and was charging towards her. She gave her war hammer one more experimental twirl before she pointed it towards her opponent and spoke. "Don't worry, I shall see you to Valhalla myself!" She declared before she became a blur of motion and the golem became nothing more than dust in the wind.