Embers of Autumn
Chapter Nine
Yang is perched on the top bunk, situated near a vent and sneaking a cigarette when the alarm blares through the airship alongside an intercom barking about Grimm. Without really thinking -too concerned with Ruby seeing her with it- she grinds out the embers on her thigh with a silent but hard cringe. On the upside she feels the pain flare against her aura in a way she hasn't felt in months and kind of likes it. Ruby jackknifes upright in the bunk beneath her, the minimal blanket slumping to the floor just before her feet swing over the side.
"Don't think I didn't smell that," Ruby snips loudly as she pulls on her boots.
Yang slips down to the floor, face scrunched as she offers up a dismissive chuff. Bending down she pulls her backpack to her feet, one foot pressing down on the corner to give her the stability she needs to pull the zipper back.
"What are you doing?" Ruby pauses just long enough to ask, Crescent Rose halfway to its harness on her back.
"You're not expecting me to sit this out, are you?" She's elbow deep in her bag now, searching. With her tongue between her teeth she straightens, holding the solitary cuff of Ember Celica.
"Yang, you-"
"Don't tell me I can't, Ruby." she shakes her head, wild blonde hair tossing as she tucks the cuff beneath her abbreviated limb to hold it steady. "Don't say I can't because I might believe you. Now either I'm going to kill a Grimm today," she shoves her hand into place, flexing the fingers until she finds that perfect fit, "or I'm going to have another cigarette." and she looks at her little sister with as much sincerity as she could muster. Yang has been toeing the perilous line of doubt and confidence for what feels like months, needing only a word from Ruby to either pull her back or shove her over.
Thankfully, Ruby smiles and nods. "Come on." She knows damn good and well that Yang is going to do what she wants, no point standing in her way.
They help Ren out of bed, snatching up Magnhild and Crocea Mors as the three of them hurry through the barracks. Ruby is sandwiched between the two of them when Yang suddenly stops at the door, making way for several crew members that go sprinting by, and she squirms with a grumble muffled by her sister's back when she can't get loose right away.
"Oh good, you're all awake." Weiss sounds pleasantly surprised. Nora and Jaune file in behind her when she stops, Jaune squirming through the final adjustments of his armor around his chest, his backpack hanging from his arm.
"How bad is it?" Yang asks as she passes forward Magnhild and Crocea Mors respectively, seeming to ignore Ruby's insistent shove as she squeezes from between her and Ren.
"Nevermore from what we can tell. Captain Erikson has already hailed the nearest outpost and is altering our course to reach it, but that could be another twenty minutes. They're sending more ships, but,"
"Twenty minutes, right," Yang nods, "long enough for this little POS to be grounded if the Grimm are moving fast enough."
"So to speak. This ship has minimal defense capabilities, it would only take a large enough force to bring it down."
Yang chuckles, "Is it large enough?"
"If the captain isn't willing to stand her ground and fight, then yes, likely it is and with interest." And Weiss is not at all surprised to see Yang and Ruby make the same face, one of quiet excitement. "But we're to stay in the cargo hold until it's safe again."
"What? Why?"
"What little armor the ship has is concentrated there."
"Fine." Yang just rolls her eyes and starts to move, everyone filing in behind her.
Jaune is at the back of the line and is jerked to a stop by an unexpected hand on his arm, his sneakers squealing against the floor. Anxiety flashes through him when he comprehends Ren's searing and inquisitive expression, his eyes cutting to Nora just down the corridor and then back to him. Jaune knows what he's going to ask before he does it, putting up his hands in mock surrender and promising they would all sit down and talk about this later.
In the cargo bay, Billy doesn't wake to the blaring screech of the alarm, instead their eyes snap open to the harsh jerking of their head in Tag's hands. Full awareness makes their body jump, their big hands curling around Tag's wrists as they stagger through. "What is going on?" The bison faunus barely gets to their feet when the ship lurches hard, its nose tipping upward and its back end dropping, throwing several of them to the cold steel floor of the cargo bay. As troubling as this is, the real concern doesn't begin to manifest until they realize that the ship isn't stabilizing and the engines roar in resistance as it's somehow pulled to a halt. Concern that morphs into something palpable when the craft's once steady levitation transforms into an insistent, downward pull, the entire hull groaning with some invisible force.
Weiss stabilizes herself at an angle, ankles cautiously locked as she balances on her heels and moves for the wall. Bracing with her hands she moves towards the panel of keys that works the cargo bay door. Completely ignoring Billy's panicking pleas not to do it, Weiss smacks the largest button on the panel and holds white-knuckle tight to a recessed loop of solid steel typically meant for securing lading as the door drops out of sight with a great hiss of hydraulics. Air rushes outward with decompression, pulling on everyone for one panic-stricken instant. Billy is almost hysterical now, just shy of begging for the door to be closed as they look out into a vista made up partly of half-dark sky and the darkness of the sea beneath them.
"There's something down there," Weiss has to shout over the roaring of the air and the engines no longer muffled by a layer of steel. "I can't make it out from up here."
Ruby mimics her partner's earlier steps, moving along the wall and taking care to approach the gaping opening. Without a word Weiss grips tight to Ruby's ammo belt with her off hand, better bracing herself with one foot as she takes on her partner's weight and Ruby leans closer to the sucking emptiness. Ruby slips Crescent Rose from its harness and lines it up against her shoulder, looking down the scope and focusing on the surface of the sea. At first she sees nothing out of the ordinary, then catches a passing glimpse of a high rolling and v-shaped wake. At its source she can make out the shocking pallor of bone plates and the dim glowing of brimstone eyes that are so wide set that Ruby has to entertain the possibility that this Grimm either has an enormous head or was incredible all over; the latter of which seeming wholly more likely when she comprehends the form of Manticore perched atop the plates that seem to line its back that disappears beneath the waves. She swallows unconsciously at the gripping gesture of its clawed hands towards the ship, feeling a shiver that even works through her aura.
"What is it?"
"I think it's the Grimm knight Jaune told us about."
"How did it follow us?!" Jaune's voice breaks a little over all the noise.
"It's calling the ship down into the sea!" Billy is trying to push themselves into the wall. "Shoot it! If that strange weapon of yours is also a gun then shoot it! Kill it before it drowns us all!"
Ruby hasn't looked away, undistracted by the shouting around her, reflexively narrowing her senses on the shot.
Weiss' grips Ruby's belt a little tighter. "You can do it, Ruby."
She takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly as the cross-hairs level on the center of the Grimm's chest. Inhale. Exhale.
Just as her finger begins to squeeze the trigger the ship pitches again, the resounding crash of impacted metal shudders through the hull as a trio of Nevermore feathers rip through the ceiling. Weiss feels the bristle of pinfeather fibers scrape between her shoulder blades, making her go rigid.
"If that thing down there doesn't knock us out of the sky, the Nevermore will!" Yang barks. "We've got to get this ship moving!"
"I can't get a steady shot," Ruby shakes her head.
Forgoing the risk of losing balance while walking, Tag moves on all fours with natural grace, low to the deck to reach the open hatch and peer over the edge.
"T-Tag, what are you doing?" As much as they want to, Billy can't pry themselves away from the wall. "Tag!"
Without a response she crawls back a short ways only to take a bounding leap off the edge. Still Billy can't move, rigid with fear, and only manages a choked scream as their Maiden's form disappears. Ruby continues to watch, no longer spying through the scope as she tries to stay focused on Tag who becomes more and more like a dark speck as the distance between them grows. But the dark speck sparks into a bright green glow, the faunus descending towards the sea like a star out of orbit. There is no sound, only the visual of her impact with Manticore and the collapse of the creature beneath it, and all are swallowed up in a vortex of whitened, churning water.
The ship lurches again, leveling out with all hands aboard jerking as it picks up sudden momentum.
Roiling water pushes into the otter's ears, momentarily dulling her senses as she feels herself spinning, weightless. The impact was hard, even with her magic working to cushion the blow Tag still feels her bones protesting against any move she tries. Opening her eyes she finds herself upside down, staring into the spanning, endless dark of the depths below and brimstone flickers of the massive Grimm she had seen from the ship. Tag quickly rights herself, pulling the flint dagger from its sheath beneath her shield and gripping the leather wrapped handle in her teeth to keep her hands free. No sooner did she have her jaw set did she feel claws catch into the meat of her shoulders.
Manticore remembers. It remembers the abhorrent pulse of life that is inherent to Spring that's rolling off the faunus, having last felt its heated friction nearly two decades ago when the previous Maiden unwittingly came into its jungle with the Witches and the hunters. It remembers killing the foolish woman with one heavy swipe of its claws -claws much bigger and deadlier than the clumsy and neutered human hands it's forced to work with now- a blow that snapped her neck like a twig. It had felt the itch of bright life in her then and still has this horrible hunger to rip it out of this one now. It's what had drawn it out, baited it after having emerged from the mirror like fresh blood to a starving lion. It had followed its trail for days until it came to Mistral's coastline, forcing it to reach out to its fellow Grimm to continue the hunt.
Bright green sparks flicker beneath Manticore's claws as they drag across Tag's body, across her aura. She twists in response but gains little advantage as the Grimm holds tight to her. She catches a glimpse of the barbed tail, the diminished light at this depth just enough to make it flicker. A whip of her own tail fends it off as she pulls against Manticore's arms, forcing her fingers between the Grimm's in an attempt to take its gripping power away. Tag tucks her legs close to her chest once she's able and kicks back with both of them, catching the Grimm in the pelvis while simultaneously kicking off into open water. While her lung capacity far exceeds what is considered average, she can't hold her breath forever and takes off like a shot for the surface. Behind her she feels the pulling, swelling presence of both Manticore and the massive Grimm coming up from beneath her.
Two large Nevermore have perched atop the airship and have started pecking away at the hull like common ravens with a snail's shell. The first thing the massive birds do is rip out the two cannons, rendering the machine defenseless, and though the armor and thick glass of the cockpit has been broken and blown out, the craft maintains altitude. Captain Helka Erikson and her two specialist officers protect the pilot as if they're the only thing standing between them and certain death.
In the cargo bay one great obsidian beak juts through the ceiling, writhing with hard jerks of the creature's head to widen the breach until Yang gives it three hard punches to the hinge of its mouth to make it retreat. Ruby snatches Weiss about the waist, pulling her without a word to stand under the new opening and pushing upward through it as a red blur with a burst of rose petals.
"Nora, come on, give me a leg up," Yang gestures with her hand as she moves beneath the rift.
"I'll come with you." she nods, folding her hands together atop one bent leg to give Yang the platform she needs.
"We'll stay and help the crew." Ren knows he's not fit to go toe-to-toe with Grimm this big.
Nora only nods once, her bright turquoise eyes cutting to Jaune for a split second before she disappears through the roof with a unified push of her legs and aura.
Jaune shivers through the pressure of Nora's accusatory glance, shaking his head and turning his attention to the faunus. "We have to go, Billy."
"She jumped," the bison's head moves back and forth. "Why did she jump?"
"Listen, I'm sure Tag's all right, but we have to get the Grimm off the ship before we can go back for her. Come on, we need your help."
It takes a moment, the ship shaking again before Billy will look at him, swallowing noticeably hard before nodding. "All right...all right. Lead the way."
A Nevermore falls away and its body collapses along the precise incision left behind by Crescent Rose. The second is consumed by the white flash of triggered Dust, a heavy shell of ice solidifying about its neck and shoulders. Unable to fly away it can't avoid Magnhild's volley of shells that crash one after another until its talons rip free of the hull and it plummets to the sea below. But more of the winged Grimm circle over head, and once the ship is free of them, three more dive for the aircraft at breakneck speed. Ruby calls for a glyph and Weiss obliges, the bright light of her family crest blossoming beneath Ruby's feet as she bends her knees and braces for launch. In the next instant she's airborne, cool wind cutting against her face and roaring in her ears. Her dark silhouette blurs crimson and rose petals scatter, the distance between her and one of the Nevermore closing in the time it takes to blink. Steel shimmers in the early morning light and Ruby passes between the growing emptiness between the Grimm's head and neck.
Two more Nevermore are still diving for the ship. Weiss calls another, larger glyph that shimmers to life on the airship's starboard side and pushes the craft several feet out of position. One Nevermore misses its target, screeching in dismay as it scrambles to avoid crashing into the sea. Weiss unconsciously counts the solid discharge of shells from both Ember Celica and Magnhild into the third Nevermore, watching as gold and pink smoke streak the air as the massive Grimm continues its wild descent. Though the monster takes several solid hits to the skull, it follows through and rips into the ship at full speed. The craft begins to spin, the engines struggle against failure and the nose drops.
Tag watches the forced landing of the airship in passing instances, catching sight of it only when she surfaces to breathe as she propels herself beneath the water with all the speed and grace of anything that calls the sea home. Watching it fall makes her heart skip a beat, but the panic is secondary to the mounting dread she feels gnashing at her heels. The massive Grimm is still behind her -trailing by mere yards- and she has still yet to make out what it is. An inky blackness clouds around its head, the darkness billowing from its mouth and around the pearly flickers of fangs, concealing its full appearance and true size. Manticore still clings to its back and Tag can feel the vibration of its powers against her aura as it tries to pull her to it.
When she surfaces again there's a flash of light, a wave of white energy that washes over the sea and buffers against her aura with a cold, hard shudder. Even the overall temperature of the water around the faunus fluxes, dropping sharply and almost too cold to stand. Tag focuses through it, doubling the effort at the distant and low rumble of the massive Grimm gaining on her. Surfacing once more she can see the airship still above the water, resting on what looks like a thick sheet of ice. There is smoke from the wreckage but the craft is mostly intact. In that brief instant she can hear the crack and pop of gunfire, the sounds actually bringing her a strange sense of comfort. They survived. With that worry out of her mind Tag changes her thoughts to keeping the Grimm and Manticore away from them as long as possible, pushing her hands out in front of her to change her rapid course and dive. Down, down, until all that's visible of her is a faint green glow. Before the massive Grimm continues its pursuit of the faunus, its great maw opens up wide with a rolling surge of black ink, a host of brimstone eyes bursting out of it.
This body is meant to breathe, so Manticore cannot follow Spring. Instead it throws itself into the dark cloud, and allows its monstrous kin to hunt the faunus while it sets its ambition on Winter.
His head pounds, feeling swollen. The first thing he registers is the dull roar in his ears and the lingering spinning feeling in his guts. Once he's able he curls his toes in his shoes, unconsciously making certain he still can. Jaune pulls his body inward, muscles protesting. His jeans are ripped and he feels the jagged edges of metal through the breached denim. Pain crackles through his palms as he pushes them flat against a steel panel, lifting himself up. He lifts his heavy head and opens his eyes.
The roaring in his ears dies down, allowing him to comprehend the echoing cracks of gunfire and the distant shrieking of Nevermore. He can almost sense one great, opaque shadow passing over him as he pushes to his feet.
"You okay, Jaune? Gimme your hand,"
"Yeah, I'm okay." He recognizes Yang's voice though he hasn't looked up far enough to see her reaching for him. Ache prickles through his neck as he does, and he sees the bright red ribbon rolling down the side of her face and neck. "You're bleeding!"
"This is nothing." she laughs, taking his wrist and pulling him out onto the ice. "I feel great! The best I've felt in months." Her heart is pounding, adrenaline rails through her and gives her goosebumps, and her aura is flaring around her as it transmutes pain into power. It feels like living.
He swallows, making himself just take her word for it. "What about the others?"
"Everyone's accounted for except Billy. Did you see them before the crash?"
"They were right behind me," he turns his head one way and then the other, finding no evidence of the faunus anywhere. He means to go back into the twisted remains of the ship, but the nails-on-a-chalkboard sound from overhead diverts his attention. Both of them snap their heads up, looking into the storm of gigantic pinfeathers whistling towards them.
Only now when she feels ice beneath her hands does Weiss accept what she did. She hadn't been able to focus before, not with the world spinning and the panic twisting her insides in knots as she sensed the distance between herself and the sea closing at an alarming rate. There was no clarity to use Dust or her glyphs, leaving her instincts to dig deeper than even her aura in the desperation of act or die. As she clung for dear life to a jagged edge of the sundered hull, rent steel biting into the skin of her palms and drawing blood, a wayward swing of Myrtenaster had sent the magic spiraling towards the water where it touched down and transformed into a great sheet of solid white ice.
However that had only served to bolster her panic, albeit briefly. How on earth was a solid object safer to crash into than the ocean?
The ship struck ice on its side, one wing snapping off as it bounced once, making a last complete roll through the air before skidding to a stop with a wake of bright yellow sparks. Bodies and Grimm scattered across the ice as well, but thankfully all the humans kept moving.
But anxiety is still working through her. The impact had caused her to lose grip of Myrtenaster, and through her still uneasy vision she can't seem to find it. Grimm still circle overhead and she's unarmed. She tries to stand and can't, unable to shake the feeling of the earth moving beneath her.
"Weiss, are you okay?"
Weiss feels a certain comfort come over her at the sound of Ruby's voice, the accompanying warmth of her presence. With an unsteady nod she lifts her gaze and takes the hand Ruby offers to help her stand.
"That was amazing, I saw everything!" Ruby bounces on the balls of her feet, gushing and watching Weiss as she retrieves Myrtenaster with a breath of relief. "I can't believe you-"
"Stay focused," Weiss snips, stilling Ruby's excitement while pushing the creases out of her clothes.
"Weiss, I saw this huge Grimm beneath the water," Ruby's brow pulls with worry. "I've never seen one like that."
"We can worry about it when it shows itself, right now we need to stop the Nevermore."
With a nod Ruby takes Weiss about the waist before becoming a white and crimson blur with a push of her semblance towards the smoking wreckage. Had they lingered just a moment more they might have caught sight of the cutting, jet black dorsal fin as it breaks the surface of the water and surges towards the edge of the ice, Manticore gripping it with one clawed hand at the base. One dorsal fin that quickly becomes a dozen.
Like the deer in Mistral, Tag reaches out with her magic to the life she senses in the darkening depths, the soul-deep vibrations bouncing off the massive Grimm -and several smaller ones now, birthed out of the foul black ink- still chasing her like a bitter echo. Her ribs are tight with the restrained reflex to breathe, her heart pounding at the refusal of oxygen, but she can't surface yet, not when her desperate summons are just starting to receive an answer.
Out of the colder northern waters emerges a team of seals, their once dark brown eyes flickering green with Spring's influence. Theirs ranks break apart as Tag swims between them, and then come back together before rippling into the horde of smaller aquatic Grimm with their jaws open. This initial assault doesn't faze the biggest one, but it isn't meant to. Crackling over the low rumble of the largest Grimm are the clicks and whistles of a pod of orcas, ten fully matured members strong. They move on the saurian monster as one incredible wall of force, crashing into its side with jaws working against its plated hide. Its bellow rattles through the water and a fresh cloud of darkness surges from its gaping maw.
Once she's certain it's no longer concerned with her, Tag breaks for the surface. She bobs among the meager waves for a moment, turning at sharp angles to get her bearings straight as she gasps for air. She spots the column of smoke and feels a charge of dread work through her. The distance between her and the others seems so great, but not so far that she can't see more Grimm emerging from the sea, some of them crawling up onto the ice two and three at a clip. And there was the bright bloody red of the Lion's mane as it jumps from some Grimm's back and starts scrambling across the ice. With a determined knit of her brows she takes another deep breath, deep enough to make her lungs pinch, and puts the knife back between her teeth.
Just in time for something to snatch her by the thigh and pull her under.
These strange Grimm are the size of a large dogs but chitter like rats and are covered from stem to stern in bleached bone plates streaked in red. They have multiple spindly legs beneath a broad and armored tail which makes up most of their bodies. Tucked under their barreled torsos look to be a pair of balled fists made of solid bone. They feel their way around with long jerking antennae as the soft-ball size bulges of their eyes look to be full of nothing but snowy static. They're beginning to crowd the ice by the dozens, waves of them closing in steadily on the humans.
Initially no one really knows what to do; for most this is the first they've ever seen them, they don't even know what to call the damn things. They are mostly kept at bay by calculated shots from Atlesian rifles and the young hunters' firearms, but one manages to scurry close enough. Nora is quick to offer up a grand swing of her hammer, sending the awful crustacean flying back into the sea. A second takes it place, wriggling between blasts from a specialist's rifle before it's at his feet, its carapace folding as the Grimm rears back and throws the tucked bone mallets outward against him. There is a whistle of cutting air, a SNAP, and a choking, wet gagging noise as the mallets strike him soundly in the sternum and blow the contents of his chest out the back of his once pristine white uniform. After that it didn't matter what they were or what to call them, all that mattered is that they were dispatched as quickly as possible.
There's a unique and incredible fear that comes with facing the unexpected, and this is doubly true for someone as regimented as Weiss. Everything has a pattern, a formula, a modus operandi that allows her to plan several moves ahead and act accordingly. With the appearance of these unfamiliar Grimm, that confident familiarity is already starting to rattle at the hinges, the uncertainty only swelling when she watches one of them smack Ruby hard enough to send her rolling towards the edge of the ice. Weiss is sure her aura took the brunt of it, but knows by the sluggish way that Ruby gets back to her feet that it still hurt.
With a push of aura Weiss takes to the air, glyphs starting to form in a circular barrier around the skittering horde. The seals spin and shift from white to black, their combined energy pooling together and pushing on the Grimm, forcing them into a scrambling heap. Weiss watches as Ruby fully rights herself and lunges into two swift, sweeping assaults through the throng of Grimm. Weiss reaches the top of her jump and summons another glyph, feeling its pressure building above her as Myrtenaster's mechanism spins and clicks into place. The glyph fluxes and slings her back towards the ice, the edge of her saber shimmering bright yellow with sparking arcs of energy. The air collapses and then pushes outward in one great wave when she touches down, lancing one Grimm through the soft spot where the torso meets the tail, and besetting the rest in the riot of light and sound that emerges from triggered Dust. Some of the Grimm coil up, rigid and dead, others swell and pop as their carapaces break apart. The Grimm she has pinned to the ice writhes and screeches madly before expiring.
There isn't time to enjoy the little victory. They immediately shift their attention back to reaching the others.
Weiss takes three long strides before sliding to a stop, feeling something prickle hotly against her aura. Before she can turn towards what she senses as the source, a dull vibration buzzes through her sword hand just before an invisible force jerks the blade against her chest and pulls. Like being hooked up to the tow-cable of a runaway truck she's ripped through the air and across the ice so fast she can barely breathe. Her jaw works but words don't form, and even when they do they break up in her mouth as she goes from horizontal to perfectly vertical -up and then down again to smack the ice hard and flat on her back. The world is black and silent for but a second, then she's torn back to awareness by the sharp and crushing pressure on her chest as it pushes the air out of her lungs. Pressure exerted on her body by Myrtenaster.
For a brief, frantic moment she can't focus, can't see, but then everything centralizes with one great big downward push and the distinct, shuddering crunch of the ice beneath her. Her heart sputters in her chest and a cutoff scream claws its way out of Weiss' throat at the horrifying chill of water welling up underneath her and bleeding through her clothes. Her jaw clenches, her entire body tensing like a steel trap as her palms slap against the ice in a desperate attempt to brace herself. The light of a glyph flickers beneath her, never fully forming as her mind simply cannot will it to. The light dissipates completely when Weiss looks up into savage set and toxic green eyes, Manticore looming over her with one hand steadily coiling into a fist. Once all five fingers closed, Weiss would be pushed through the ice and into the water with her own sword dragging her down, down.
At around twenty feet her ears would pop. Sixty feet and the weight of the water would threaten to push the last bit of precious oxygen out of her lungs. And her mind thrashes like a frightened animal at the prospect of what would happen by the time the sunlight disappeared, long before her body would actually reach the bottom.
Another push, another horrifying jolt of breaking ice. Finally she finds the means to scream "RUBY!"
Weiss registers the keening echo of her own voice and feels a powerful ripple of magic burst forth just as the ice gives way and the water swallows her.
For the first few seconds she can't open her eyes, too focused on trying to stabilize the ripping panic in her mind and to resist the knee-jerk reaction to scream again. Weiss can feel herself being pushed deeper and deeper, the pressure in her ears already starting to build up. When they pop she shudders, a small cloud of bubbles escaping and her eyes snapping open to watch them flutter for the surface. It's just as dark down here as she thought it would be, and above her is the sheet of ice steadily getting smaller.
Then suddenly the pressure lifts and Weiss rights herself, wasting no time in sheathing Myrtenaster so she can use both hands to help her ascent. As fixed as she is on reaching the surface and drawing breath, she can't keep her attention from being divided to a host of brimstone eyes. Enormous shadows move beneath the ice above her; some look to be more of those awful crustaceans, others appear to be sharks, and then she feels the presence of the massive saurian Grimm before she sees its incredible body blot out the whiteness of the ice. Weiss has to tear herself away, redoubling her efforts to surface. Her ribs feel like they're starting to pull apart as her ears pop again, every vein pulses hard enough to hurt, and her brain is screaming for her to exhale but she bites her tongue against it.
Almost there, just a few more feet.
Fresh air is a hard, cold slap in the face that she gladly accepts, sucking in great mouthfuls of it after an initial choking sputter. Before she can get her bearings straight she feels something gripping the back of her dress and lifting her up with a firm jerk.
"The water isn't exactly safe enough to swim, Miss Weiss." Tag laughs flatly, pulling the human up to stand beside her.
Weiss grips Tag's arm to keep her balance, her heels having a hard time gaining traction on the soft and slick hide of the whale the two of them are now perched upon. Her first thought is to ask how, but then she decides against it. She knows the answer she'll get.
"Are you all right?"
"Much better, thank you."
A curt nod. "How much longer until your ships arrive?"
"I'm hoping they'll be here any minute, because I don't know how much longer we can hold off this many Grimm."
"We'll surely fare much better once we return to the fight. You ready?"
"Always."
The orca eases into a swift turn, making its way towards the ice. Anxiety blossoms in Weiss' chest as they draw close enough to solid ground to jump from the whale's back; she can't see Ruby anywhere. For a moment she focuses on the absolute bedlam of what remains of the ship's crew and the others pummeling their way through the horde of Grimm, unable to make out so much as a single rose petal in that chaos. As she stabilizes after sliding a little upon landing, she forces herself to look towards the source of the ill-at-ease that shudders over her.
This time she finds no fear or apprehension at the sight of Manticore, finding the humanoid Grimm wrestling tooth and nail with a massive, dark red shape, its barbed tail snapping against it and bouncing off an aura with a shower of sparks. Weiss' features steadily stretch, gaping as she makes out snapping jaws, heavy paws with claws that could easily match the Grimm's, and bright silver eyes.
A wolf has Manticore in its teeth and is jerking it around like a rag doll.
Author's Note: Holy crap, this chapter was hard to write, and look at me being a jerk and leaving it like this... I'm terrible. And I never meant for this to take two weeks to finish, but work and life have been crazy so, you know. As a consolation, once the next chapter is finished I'll post it, never-mind my usual one week grace period; those of you who have stomached this hot mess this far deserve that much. As well as a little more WhiteRose in the next couple chapters. I want it to be something of a slow burn, hence the touch and go. Besides, they're still young and still have their collective baggage, so slow and steady seems to be the order of the day. Hope to see you next chapter, questions and critique are always welcome.