Shadow of the Grimm

Author's Note

If you have previously read the chapters Shadow of the Grimm I & II you do not have to read this chapter. There is no new content, I simply merged the two chapters into one.

As for why, it comes down to a change in release policy. I had originally intended not to release any chapters longer than 10k words to keep things vaguely even.

As I'm editing my material for Part Three I find myself breaking this barrier more often than not and would end up with several chapters split in half for size rather than context, which I'm not fond of.

Instead, I will split chapters only by context from here on out, which will lead to larger fluctuations in chapter size but more sensible splits.

Blake slumped against a tree, breathing heavily. She had underestimated the severity of their situation. A tactical retreat had felt like the right choice at the time, but things hadn't played out the way she had hoped they would.

The forest and difficult terrain should have given them plenty of ways to shake off their pursuers, and while the thick canopy had shielded them for most of the way, rendering the nevermore harmless, the deathstalker had posed a more immediate problem. No matter how many vertical drops they had scaled or how many densely forested areas they had crossed, it had always found its way back on their tail.

Grimm were said to have a sixth sense for negative emotions. Violence, fear, and anger were supposed to draw them in, but Blake had never seen any evidence of it. She had considered it a myth or, at best, a subconscious yearning that might draw a pack of beowolves in the general direction of their prey but not a sense as immediate as sight or smell. After all, she had sneaked past and ambushed plenty of grimm. If they had a special sense, her intention to kill should have given her away.

Things might be different with the older grimm. Blake's understanding was that the larger and more dangerous varieties of grimm—like an alpha beowolf—were simply older specimen that had had more time to grow and evolve. Hearsay and folktales, mostly, but it was all she had to go on. Few people outside the ranks of the hunters had any authoritative knowledge on the grimm, and, whatever the method by which they had been followed, the important part was that it had been effective.

Blake took stock of her companions. Most of them were winded after the hurried journey back and could do with a break they couldn't afford. Ren, Jaune, and Weiss were in particularly bad shape—they would do well to put in a couple of extra sessions of stamina training—while Pyrrha and Yang seemed entirely unaffected.

Not that it mattered much. Their odyssey was almost over. The group had taken cover at the edge of the forest facing the cliff for a quick breather before they would set out for the final stretch. The deathstalker would not be able to follow them up the sheer cliff wall, and once they would reach the top their initiation would be concluded and help from the faculty in dealing with the nevermore a given.

The problem was getting there. Roughly a hundred feet of vertical drop was bad enough, but what she had missed on their way out was the wide gorge that ran along the foot of the cliff. They had spent almost an hour trying to find a narrow enough space to cross over before they had caught a lucky break.

A long stone bridge spanned the gorge. Crumbling spires, cornerstones of ruined buildings, and stone statues eroded into nothing but rounded outlines littered the area on both sides. The style and material used reminded Blake of the forest temple, only more fortified. They had found what might have been an outpost of ancient Vale, acting as a gatehouse between wilderness and civilization.

History and archaeology had always struck a cord with Blake. Most of the rare non-fiction books she had read were historical textbooks.

The plight of her people could be traced throughout recorded history. Some used it as a justification to cause more violence while others advocated reconciliation and considered it a cautionary tale for future generations. Whatever the motivation, nobody with a vested interest in the faunus civil rights movement could avoid the study of history for long.

Blake made a mental note to look up the place in Beacon's database. History was among their required classes and chances were that the area surrounding the school would receive some attention, but there was no harm in taking a closer look at the places she had personally set foot in.

It wasn't the time to contemplate ancient, or recent, history, though. From a tactical point of view, the ruins were a terrible place to cross the gorge. They had to traverse a wide open area to get to the bridge, giving the nevermore a clean shot and the deathstalker a chance to outrun them. Once on the long, narrow bridge, they were sitting ducks. They couldn't run or hide. The deathstalker could mow them down with ease while the nevermore would be given a perfect approach to swipe them off. Not to mention that the bridge looked anything but structurally sound. Either one of the giant grimm might well be able to plunge all of them into the abyss at will.

"Right, is everyone ready?" Ruby asked.

"Do we have a, you know, plan?" Jaune asked.

"Run and hope for the best."

"Uh-huh, but what if things don't turn out for the best?"

"We improvise."

Yang stood up and walked towards the edge of the forest. "Works for me."

Blake smirked. Of course, it would.

"Remember, everyone," Ruby said as she joined Yang, "our goal is to reach the top of the cliff. Only fight if you have to."

The group charged the open field leading up towards the bridge. Whatever speed-based semblances were found among them had been forgone. They would all make it out together. Nobody was to be left behind. Or so Ruby had declared.

Not everyone present shared their conviction. They had barely left the safety of the dense forest canopy behind when Blake's ears picked up the familiar fluttering of giant wings. The nevermore must have lain in waiting for them and hadn't wasted any time making its move. It passed them by, circled the ruins once, and sat down on the tall spire that marked the center of the bridge.

Their charge broke. The group split in half and took cover behind the large stone pillars lining either side of the road.

Blake ended up with Weiss of all people. Much to her surprise, it wasn't being stuck with a Schnee that bothered her, but not being stuck with Yang. Just running wasn't an option anymore. They would have to go right through the nevermore, and the one person among their group she wanted at her side, the one person she trusted to have her back, had ended up on the other side of the road.

The raven-like grimm spread its wings and stood tall. An eerie screech accompanied the display.

"Well, that's great," Yang said to Ruby barely loud enough for Blake's ears to pick up.

As if on command, the deathstalker burst through the trees behind them with a wild roar.

So much for the option to retreat.

"Oh man, run!" Jaune yelled. He left his cover with Pyrrha hot on his heels. The pair was the first to move and caused the entire group to spring into action.

Blake wasn't sure if a dead sprint was the right move, but she was left with little choice in the matter. Being among the fastest members of their group, she decided to hang back and make up the rear guard.

With its prey back in the open, the nevermore took to the air and rained another barrage of feathers down on them.

"Nora, distract it!" Ren said as they broke from cover.

The girl dodged several projectiles, laughing gleefully, before she emerged from a roll with her pink grenade launcher in hand. She shot several equally pink projectiles at the nevermore. Her aim was poor, but the grenades packed a punch. One exploded in the grimm's face, point-blank. Its head was thrown back and the rain of feathers ceased as the nevermore broke away from the ruins.

The way ahead was clear for the moment, but their back was not. Nora, distracted by her attack on the nevermore, found herself face-to-face with the deathstalker, ready to tear her apart between its pincers.

Ren was on his way to step in, but he wouldn't be able to block both massive arms. Blake took the opportunity to start improvising and flung herself at the deathstalker. Each of them swiped away a pair of pincers, neutralizing the attack on Nora and bringing the grimm to a halt.

Weiss appeared out of nowhere next to Nora and grabbed her arm. A large snowflake rune formed at her feet before she jumped out of the deathstalker's reach, dragging Nora along.

Blake and Ren didn't waste any time and followed. The boy might lack stamina, but he was fast. Unfortunately, so was a giant deathstalker, and, in the open field, it was gaining on them.

The others had reached the bridge. Pyrrha broke her run as Weiss and Nora passed her by. She turned around, transformed her sword into a rifle in a swift motion, and started firing at the deathstalker.

Blake had little hope that she would cause any damage. Unlike Yang and Nora's weapons, which were loaded with powerful explosives, or Ruby's high-powered sniper rifle, Pyrrha seemed to be using a regular rifle and ammunition. No doubt highly effective against beowolves and the likes, but not the tank of a beast about to mow them down.

Ren jumped on the bridge and took position next to Pyrrha. What Blake had thought to be pistols with knives attached to their barrels turned out to be SMGs. A swarm of bullets zipped past her. Individually, they would have even less of an effect than Pyrrha's, but there were a lot them and they might be able to distract the deathstalker, maybe even get a lucky hit on one of the vulnerable eyes lined up on either side of the broad head.

Blake passed the two lone pillars that acted as a gateway between land and bridge. The hairs on her neck stood up as she could feel a pair of pincers swipe at her. Instead of flinging her off the bridge into the abyss, they returned a shadowy likeness back to the void it had come from.

Unexpectedly, the deathstalker stopped in its tracks. Their situation might be less dire than Blake had feared. The bridge was as wide as the grimm's body, but its legs stood out significantly further than that. It couldn't follow them.

Half their opposition was gone without having to find a way to penetrate its heavy armor while the other half had been chased off by Nora. If they could make it over the bridge before the nevermore returned, the worst would be behind them.

Blake passed Pyrrha and Ren, and fell in with the group. Ruby, Weiss, and Yang were leading the charge over the bridge with Nora and Jaune close behind them. As the wild dash continued, Blake noticed that Yang had started to fall back. Nora and Jaune had almost caught up to her.

She furrowed her brows. Yang was among the most athletic people of their class. Blake couldn't be sure if Pyrrha, Yang, or herself would win in a straight up race, but there was no way Ruby or Weiss—both more than a head shorter than Yang—could outrun her. Not without using their semblances, at least, and while Blake couldn't tell if Ruby was keyed to a fixed speed or if she could manipulate herself gradually she was certain that Weiss could only give herself short boosts in a straight line.

Yang couldn't be doing it on purpose to give her a chance to catch up, could she?

The corner of Blake's mouth curled up slightly as she felt her spirits rise. At some point soon, she would have to take a step back and figure out this disturbing hold her new partner seemed to have over her state of mind.

Yang, in many ways, felt eerily familiar. Like a specter from the past that had come back to haunt her. But where she could only remember a cold hand dragging her deeper into the darkness that had been threatening to swallow her whole in the past, what was tugging at her in the present felt warm and welcoming. Where one had honed her skills and encouraged her to become a tool for the cause, the other was trying to make her smile and pushing her towards having fun.

The ease at which Yang had managed to worm herself past her defenses still worried Blake, and the thought of giving up any semblance of control over herself scared her, but, at the same time, she felt like it might not be such a bad thing to let her in.

Blake watched Yang's curtain of golden locks sway as the distance between them was shrinking with every step. Maybe finding redemption as a huntress wouldn't mean that she would have to be all alone.

A sudden yearning to return to her partner's side overcame her. This time would be different. Blake would make sure of it.

Just as she was about to create a shadow clone to close the gap between them, a black shadow dropped from the sky and crashed into the bridge in front of her, plunging it into the shadowy abyss below.

Jaune groaned. He wasn't sure what had happened. One moment he had been running as fast as he could, the next he was flung through the air only to find himself face-down on the floor.

Gunshots were coming from all directions.

That's right, he'd been in a fight.

He got on his knees and looked around. His head hurt and his vision was still blurry—he must have hit the ground hard—but the red-and-black figure next to him was impossible to mistake.

Ruby was shooting at something in the distance. A black blob… The nevermore! It must have crushed into them… on the bridge!

Jaune squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed them with the palms of his hands. It seemed to do the trick. His vision had cleared up significantly.

Weiss and Yang were with Ruby, focused on the nevermore. Good. Nora was with him, watching the scene. Good. Pyrrha was… missing! His oncoming panic died down when he remembered that there were gunshots coming from the other direction, as well.

A large section of the bridge was gone and beyond it, on the side they had come from, were Pyrrha, Ren, and Blake cornered between the deathstalker and a whole lot of nothing. They had no way out.

Ren and Pyrrha were shooting the grimm from a safe distance while Blake was close up, swinging around something on some sort of rope or ribbon. She dodged a blow with a flip, but the grimm was too quick. It brought its arm back and swiped her out of the air. She hit the ground and tumbled back, coming to a stop inches from the edge.

Ren took her place in melee while Blake slowly climbed back on her feet. She wasn't injured as far as he could tell—that aura stuff really was amazing—but she was shaky on her feet and standing too close to the edge for comfort.

Jaune looked at Nora. "Man, we gotta get over there. They need help!"

Nora joined him at the edge of the bridge roaring to go. "Let's do this!"

"Yeah, but, uh…" Jaune tried to gauge the size of the gap. "I can't make that jump."

Nora grinned impishly. Both of Jaune's eyebrows rose up high. The look on her face had sent a cold shiver down his spine. Whatever she was up to, he was not going to like it.

Nora laughed and confirmed his fears when she smashed her grenade launcher into his abdomen. Jaune was knocked back a couple of steps and landed on his tailbone, painfully.

He could hear the mechanical sound of a weapon transforming. Looking up, he saw that Nora had jumped into the air. She was holding a massive pink hammer with both her hands over her head, ready to bring it down on the bridge.

"No, wait!"

It was too late. The hammer's head exploded in a cloud of pink smoke and lightning as it hit the ground. The bridge segment Jaune was sitting on tilted like a giant seesaw and flung him over the gap.

"No, no, no, no!"

Stupid!

Blake clambered back on her feet. She would feel that hit the next day, and she deserved to. Getting stuck in between the abyss and the deathstalker with no easy way out was bad enough, but she had been careless and underestimated her enemy. Twice.

Blake had switched to her ribbon and sickle combination, hoping that it would put her mostly out of reach of her enemy. It hadn't. The deathstalker might have gotten stuck at the foot of the bridge, but it wasn't without leeway. To make things worse, she had underestimated its speed and allowed it to strike her from a blind-spot. She might as well have turned her back on the grimm and asked to be stabbed.

Blake yanked her ribbon and recovered Gambol Shroud. She wasn't sure what to do next. Her attacks did little to no damage to the deathstalker and with the bridge cut, there was even less of a reason to engage it in a fight. She should just make her way over the gap and join the others, but she couldn't abandon Pyrrha and Ren without knowing if they were stuck or not.

An explosion followed by distressed screams caught her attention. Jaune was flung over her head and landed unceremoniously on the ground. A second explosion heralded the arrival of a pink blur.

Ren, who had taken Blake's place after she had been hit, disengaged their opponent just before Nora landed a brutal overhead strike with a giant hammer childishly punctuated by yelling "smash!"

The deathstalker's front legs gave way, and its head was knocked into the ground, but it was by no means disarmed. The golden stinger shot forward, aiming to run Nora through. A pink cloud of smoke and lightning engulfed her hammer, driving the grimm's head even deeper into the ground while catapulting Nora out of harm's way.

Blake had noticed too late that Nora had been sent on a collision course with her. The pink girl crashed into her and pushed her over the edge.

The area below the bridge was covered in thin stone columns and narrower bridges, most of them in ruins. They provided plenty of opportunities for Blake to keep herself from finding out, firsthand, how deep the gorge truly was beneath the ubiquitous fog that covered the bottom.

An ominous black shadow appeared over her. It filled the sky and blotted out the sun like a dark cloud.

She couldn't help but marvel at the sheer size of the grimm. Blake felt tiny and insignificant in comparison, and the idea of fighting a monster that size struck her as a fool's errand. If only they had a choice in the matter or at least the facultie's support, but the teachers seemed to be sticking with their non-interference rule even in a situation that was clearly beyond what should be expected of their students.

A barrage of red-and-yellow explosions lit up the dark outline of the nevermore and ripped Blake from her thoughts. She smirked. It was time she stopped lingering on what can't be changed and rejoined the fray where she belonged.

She picked a pillar and threw Gambol Shroud, firing its pistol for some added velocity. The sickle-shaped weapon spun like a boomerang, stabilizing its flight, and buried into the ancient stone.

As luck would have it, the nevermore had come down for another sweep through the ruins. Blake swung in a wide arc towards it. She reached her apex and released Gambol Shroud, hoping to fling herself the rest of the way.

She came up short. The enormous creature—its head alone was several times as big as Blake—was about to pass her by just outside of her reach. Blake wouldn't let that happen. A shadow clone acted as her springboard in the middle of the air. It sent her directly into the grimm's path of flight.

Gambol Shroud had returned to her hand and, in a well-trained motion, was returned to its sheath. The wide piece of metal was sharpened on one edge and turned the quick and nimble blade into a heavy cleaver. That alone wouldn't do, though. The nevermore might lack the full-body armor of the deathstalker, but it was several times its size and layers of feathers were bound to have a very similar effect.

She concentrated her aura on the blade and swung it in a wide arc, spinning her body to put in as much force as possible. A purple arc of light cut into the nevermore just a moment too late. Instead of the mostly unprotected side of the monstrous head, Blake had hit the heavy armor plate that covered its top like a bizarre tribal mask. The attack left a deep scar on the bone, but it hadn't cut all the way through.

Blake hadn't even come close if the nevermore's lack of reaction was anything to go by. It casually swiped its head in her direction as if it was trying to nudge an annoying insect out of the way.

Another clone dissolved as the nevermore's head went right through it. Blake had brought herself back into position to try again, with similar results. There was too much random movement to land a precise strike and, up in the air, Blake was like a fish out of water. Her semblance might not need solid ground to provide her with a boost, but it didn't make up for the nevermore's home advantage.

Blake changed her strategy. A third clone allowed her to land on the grimm's back. Any hope of finding safe footing and uncovering a weak spot was quickly dispersed as the flapping of massive wings made the entire body shake and contort, continuously.

She was reminded of Weiss's entrance at the temple. Clinging on and hoping not to fall off was the best she would be able to do, which wasn't helpful and would put her right in her comrades' line of fire. Neither Yang's flares nor Ruby's large-caliber rounds were something she wanted to be on the wrong side of.

Blake ran along the nevermore's back, slicing at it in the hopes of doing some damage while she had the chance. She cut off some barbs and broke some quills, but the grimm was covered in several staggered layers of feathers. There were too many to cut through in a single strike, and the violent movements in flight made it impossible to hit the same spot twice.

It was time for a change of strategy. Blake jumped off the nevermore's tail and swung herself towards the central spire where Ruby, Weiss, and Yang were making their stand.

Yang was starting to get annoyed with the giant chicken. Very annoyed. Having been harassed on the way back was one thing, but, over the last couple of minutes, it had overdone it.

Spent shotgun casings exploded from Ember Celica. She had just emptied another pair of ammo belts into the grimm with little effect. Bits of feathers were blown off with every hit and burn marks littered its body, but, in the end, Yang was about as much of a danger to the thing as a mosquito would be to her.

She grabbed two more ammo belts from the leather satchel at her waist and was about to load Ember Celica when a black-and-white figure popped up in the nevermore's path.

Yang smirked. Jumping right into it. She knew her partner had balls—in a fight at least—but she hadn't quite expected that.

The action was too far away to make out the details, but the glowing arcs appearing out of nowhere painted a clear picture: aura infused slices. Blake had some nice tricks up her sleeves. It wasn't exactly Yang's style but having a fellow aura manipulator at her side only added to the long list of reasons why Yang was convinced that she couldn't have gotten any luckier with her choice of partner.

Unfortunately, Blake didn't seem to fare much better with her attacks than she had.

Yang returned to loading Ember Celica while Blake made her way back, alternating between using her ribbons and her semblance to traverse the ruins and the abyss looming below with ease. A professional acrobat had nothing on her partner's cat-like grace.

Blake landed on the broken wall next to Ruby who was busy reloading Crescent Rose for the nevermore's next pass. Yang's mood perked up when Blake moved to her side without hesitation. It was hard to believe how used she had gotten to having her around during their short adventure. It was almost like part of her was missing whenever a certain purple bow wasn't within arm's reach.

Blake kneeled beside her and took a deep breath. Her eyes were glued to the nevermore. She was back to her serious self, but she would learn in time. Yang added returning her partner to her cheeky self to the long list of reasons to roast the stupid chicken for.

A monstrous shriek echoed through the ruins, foreshadowing another attack.

Blake stood up, her right hand hovering over her sword's hilt. "It's tougher than it looks."

Unfortunately, Blake was right. None of their weapons were doing much damage, but their options were limited as long as it kept its distance. If the thing would just get down on the ground and hold still…

Yang locked eyes with the grimm on its descent. There was one strategy that had always served her well. The loading sleds on Ember Celica slid back into place, chambering two shells with a satisfying double-click.

"Let's hit it with everything we've got!"

Nobody complained. Weiss and Ruby had taken their places on the wall shortly after Blake had arrived. The clicking of a revolver cylinder from one side and the familiar sound of Crescent Rose's heavy bolt action from the other indicated their approval of Yang's plan. Blake's pistol followed shortly.

It was time to wait. A second or two. Three at the most. Yang wanted to make every shot count. Ember Celica was powerful, but slinging projectiles by shadow-boxing didn't allow for the best aim, and her ammunition stocks were running dangerously low.

Crescent Rose acted as the starting signal. Ruby had by far the best aim among them and a weapon designed to tear beowolves in half while they were nothing but a speck on the horizon.

Blake and Weiss fell in shortly afterward, raining bullets and snaking, glowy projectiles down the range.

Almost. One more flap of its wings. And… Now!

She shot three flares in rapid succession the moment the chicken's descent had turned into a head-on collision course. The first hit it square in the face, the second and third caught a wing and the torso respectively.

Yang smirked as a monstrous shriek answered the barrage. She had her aim trained in and started unloading shells.

The nevermore dove through blasts of fire, ice, and hot lead, leaving a wake of broken, frozen, and singed plumage behind. Despite the damage they were doing, it continued its attack unperturbed, diving right at them.

Yang had kept her eyes locked with the beast the entire time. There was no doubt about it, it was coming straight for her. The massive stone pillar it would have to go through seemed to be of as little consequence to the beast as the bridge had been.

Stubborn and hardheaded. Two can play at that. Her smirk widened at the thought. She was playing chicken with a giant chicken and there was no way she would back down.

Yang continued her barrage. The grimm had come close enough to make its head an easy target. Movement in the corner of her eyes announced Weiss and Blake's departure. The absence of Crescent Rose's distinctive noise meant that Ruby had been on her way out as well. Good.

The last moments before the impact belonged to Yang and the nevermore. They came face to face as two pairs of red eyes locked. Whatever level of consciousness lay behind the glowing orbs of the grimm, it was as focused on Yang as she was on it.

A monstrous screech accompanied the grimm on the last few yards of its descent.

Yang fired again. She scored clean hits on the forehead and the unprotected side of its face. The head was thrown about and the chicken took a tumble downwards. Her attacks were finally showing effect. She planted another flare into its exposed neck, right behind the armor plate covering the head.

The grimm dove into the pillar a story or two below Yang. The entire structure shook. Carefully placed stones were violently dislodged. The pillars holding up the next level crumbled in a cascade as the floor Yang was standing on started to keel over and slide into the abyss.

The centerpiece of the ruins, which had proudly reached up into the sky weathering wars, grimm, and the forces of nature for centuries, crumbled like a house of cards.

A large piece of stone almost crushed Yang on its way down. It was high time to get out of harm's way. A burst of fire sent her towards one of the bigger pieces of debris raining down all around her.

She spotted a red blur vanishing over the edge of the still intact bridge segment. Weiss was close behind, using one of her fancy snowflakes as a springboard, while Blake was swinging out of the falling debris on one of her ribbons.

Everyone was safe, Yang thought with a smile on her lips as a large piece of wall came tumbling toward her.

Weiss's feet connected with thin air. A swirling, white snowflake was all that kept her from plunging into the misty abyss below. She jumped off the makeshift platform and eclipsed the height of what remained of the bridge. A twist of her body and a straight flip later, she landed in a crouch. Almost perfect form. Crumbling ruins and a couple of grimm were no reason to slack on the proper way of doing things.

Remnants of the spire were still standing tall, but it was only a matter of seconds before they too would vanish into the deep. Half the bridge had been destroyed. It was the very reason they had chosen this place, but if the fight continued the way it had there wouldn't be a bridge left for the others to follow on.

A dark shadow emerged from the fog-covered abyss. It looked worse for the wear. One of its wings wasn't moving as smoothly as it used to and there were broken feathers sticking out every which way, but it kept in the air all the same. It would be back in no time.

"None of this is working!" Weiss complained to Ruby, who had landed next to her.

There was no answer. Her partner was distracted by Blake, who had swung onto one of the remnants of a smaller bridge, which must have crossed the gorge, once. Of course, she would be distracted. Her sister was still missing. Weiss might have taken an instant dislike to the flashy, uncouth brute, but she knew what it was like to have an older sister.

"I'm sure the blond brute is just fine," Weiss said, hoping to console her partner. Their situation was bad enough without the younger girl falling apart on them.

"What?" Ruby looked at her genuinely surprised. "Oh, she's fine. Yang's, like, almost invincible."

As if on cue, the blond appeared between the last bits of crumbling ruins and landed next to them. She was covered in dust and debris, but seemingly fine otherwise. Then again, after the stunt she had pulled at the temple, Weiss wasn't surprised to see the girl without a scratch on her body.

"See?" Ruby said smugly.

Weiss was just about to put her partner down for her unbearable attitude when Blake popped out of nowhere. The girl had a talent for moving unnoticed. The only indication Weiss had as to how she had made her way over was the remnant of black ribbon that was snaking itself back into her hand in a way that looked almost organic. No doubt a trick achieved by using the girl's aura.

"What were you thinking!" Blake chided her partner, "You should have gotten out of there sooner."

Yang sighed. She had pulled her hair over her shoulder and gave it a good pat. A cloud of dust rose from it and bits of debris rained to the ground. "You're telling me. First shrubbery, now this! It's going to take hours to get all that crap out of my hair."

"Yang—!"

"Aren't there more important things to worry about than our partners' lack of common sense?" Weiss asked.

Yang pushed her hair back over her shoulder and laughed. She didn't complain or try to refute her. She just laughed. The blond's complete disregard for her own failings might be her most infuriating quality yet.

Blake was a different matter. Their eyes met for a split-second. Weiss had expected approval and understanding. After all, they both suffered the same cruel fate having been bound to the sisters. What she found couldn't have been more different. There was a dangerous gleam in Blake's eyes. A warning? To stay out of their business? Or had Blake taken offense to her comment despite Yang's cavalier attitude?

"You know, for a moment, I thought I had it. Sure looked like it was tumbling down, but I guess we just aren't doing enough damage pelting it from afar."

Yang's weapons spewed out their spent payload all over the place. Even the two bits of yellow sheet metal the brute had strapped to her arms and called a weapon were excessively flashy.

"Not that that will be an option for much longer, anyways. I'm running low on ammo," Yang said with a sigh.

"And whose fault is that?" Blake asked.

"Hey, don't complain. We wouldn't have met if I hadn't blown my first load having some fun," Yang said with a stupid grin on her face. "But whatever we do, we better bring it to an end soon." She pulled out two ammo belts. "That's the last of it for me."

"Actually," Ruby chimed in, "I have a plan!"

Oh no! "Your plan got us into this mess in the first place! That thing would never have found us if you hadn't gone riding on its back!"

"Unlike your navigational skills, it got us to the temple in no time, didn't it?"

"Listen you little—"

A monstrous screech in the distance cut her off. They were running out of time.

Yang faced Ruby. "So?"

"First, I need you to bring that thing down," Ruby pointed at the cliff wall directly in front of them, "over there."

Yang cocked her head. "You want me to ground the giant chicken in a single reload?" She waved the remaining ammo belts in her sister's face.

Ruby put her fists on her hips and raised a challenging eyebrow. "Well?"

Yang smirked and threw her ammo belts into the air. She held her arms out on either side and waited for them to drop into place. The heavy sleds protecting the ammo feed slid back as she balled her fists.

"Just make sure you're ready for it."

"You can't be—" Weiss watched Yang turn and run, ignoring her completely, "serious…"

Blake moved to follow Yang but froze after a single step. She was trying hard to keep her serious, neutral mask in place, but it was cracking. Confusion, anger, worry, even fear were shining through.

"You don't have to worry about her," Ruby said, bringing Blake's attention back to them. "When it counts, no one is more reliable than my sister."

Weiss frowned. There were many things she would call the blond, reliable was not one of them.

"She can do it. No," Ruby closed her eyes and shook her head. As she opened them again, they shone with admiration and pride as they focused on Yang, who was quickly scaling the ruins making her way towards the top of the tallest pillar still standing, "she will do it, and we need to be prepared to make sure that we don't waste her efforts."

Blake nodded. Her mask had slid back into place and she seemed determined to commit to whatever madness Ruby's plan would entail.

Weiss sighed. There was no turning back. "What are you up to?"

"We're going to build a catapult!"

Jaune found himself face down on the stone floor, again. He would have liked a moment or two to catch his breath or to contemplate his past actions in order to figure out what he had done to deserve to be treated this way. Even just having a second to find out if there was a single bone in his body not hurting would have been nice. But no such luck.

The ground was shaking. Not just shaking, tilting. He got back up on his feet quickly and tried to figure out what mess he had stumbled into now.

Cracks were running all over the bridge segment. The deathstalker's stinger—something he was familiar with on an up-close-and-personal basis—had buried itself into the ancient pavement. Whatever forces had been holding up the last lip of the bridge were no longer up to the task. They had two choices: go down with it or… "We gotta move!"

Pyrrha, Nora, and Ren were in agreement. They all set out in a dead run hoping to avoid their fate by… running straight at a giant deathstalker! It was stupid! Insane! Something no person in their right mind would do. It was the action of desperate souls, which was exactly what they were.

The angle of the bridge was getting steeper and steeper. There was no more time to consider the options. There were no alternative strategies. Fall or fight. He might be a coward, he might have nothing on his comrades' skills, but he wasn't entirely clueless either. He had survived growing up with seven sisters! He could do this.

Sword and shield ready in hand, Jaune fell in behind Pyrrha. The grimm wound back a pair of giant pincers and brought them down on the red-haired champion. She crouched and held up her round shield. The blow glanced off with little effort and exposed the vulnerable black underside of the grimm's limb.

Pyrrha's rifle transformed into a sword in a fluid motion. Putting her entire body into the swing, she cut deep, but not deep enough. Her sword couldn't even penetrate the thinner part of the grimm's armor. Not with a single strike anyways, but any attempt at a follow-up was thwarted as the second pair of pincers came for her open side.

Jaune acted instinctively. Before he knew what he had done, he found himself standing between his partner and the incoming blow. He had raised his shield, hoping for the legendary heirloom and his force field to keep him in one piece.

The shock of the impact ran through his body. All the pain he had accumulated on that horrible day was magnified. Pyrrha had made it look easy. Get in there, hold your shield up, wait for the blow to glance off. Only there was no glancing off in his case. He could see the tips of the massive pincers slide past his shield on both sides. Any moment now, the grimm would close them and snap him in half.

A red figure jumped over his shoulder and swiped at the arm. Jaune was released from the deadly grip, but the sudden loss of opposition made him stumble. He barely managed to keep on his feet only to find himself face-to-face with the opposite pair of pincers.

Gunshots cut through the air. Jaune caught a glimpse of Ren running at the deathstalker while spraying it with bullets. Whatever damage he might be able to do with his small rapid-fire pistols, it was enough to break the grimm's attack and force it back a couple of steps.

Jaune mirrored Pyrrha, each guarding one side against the next attack by the grimm's pincers, while Ren broke through the middle. Unfortunately, deathstalkers weren't just armored like tanks they also carried a wide assortment of weapons.

The yellow stinger shot down, trying to impale Ren. It missed by a hair's breadth. Instead of doing the sensible thing and getting out of there, Ren grabbed on to the stinger as it retracted. Jaune felt a bout of nausea return as he remembered his ride dangling from the grimm's pointy appendage. Not every kind of dangling was a good kind of dangling…

Ren seemed immune to the effects, though. He swung around, braced himself against the tail, and pressed one of his guns into the gap between stinger and the last tail segment. A spray of bullets cut through the tail, almost dislocating it.

The attack didn't go unnoticed. A pained shriek escaped the deathstalker. Its movements became more frantic, its pincers and tail were flailing wildly. Any attempt of a follow-up attack, however, was foiled, as Ren barely managed to hold on.

The grimm regained part of its composure. It roared at them menacingly before it brought both its claws forward, hitting Jaune and Pyrrha's shields hard. The monster's strength was immense and both of them were thrown backward.

Behind them, explosions announced Nora's entrance into the fray. Two pink grenades passed them by and hit the grimm in the face. It was the deathstalker's turn to be pushed back. There was no obvious damage, but it was staggering and its armored limbs had been thrown wide, leaving its head open and unprotected.

An opening Jaune had to let pass, as he had landed on his tailbone, again! Pyrrha, however, had remained standing. Her sword transformed into a spear and was thrown at the grimm in a fluid motion. It dug deep into one of the melon-sized red eyes, eliciting another pained hiss.

The grimm's movements became even more frantic. It whipped its damaged tail to the side with enough force to throw off Ren. He tumbled through the air, crashed into a stone pillar, and crumpled on the floor.

"Ren!" Nora yelled to no avail. Her partner remained prone on the ground.

Jaune got back onto his feet. They may be down a hand, but the deathstalker hadn't recovered yet, either. It was swaying left and right, trying to get its legs back under control. That was when he noticed the stinger, dangling precariously over its head. The grimm had raised its tail again, and the damaged joint would only need a little nudge to give way.

"Pyrrha!" he yelled, pointing at the heavy, yellow, and incredibly pointy bit of the deathstalker.

"Done!" His partner understood. She threw her round shield like a discus. It cut through what was left of the link and sent the stinger plunging down, piercing through the deathstalker's armor. Pyrrha's shield collided with a stone pillar behind the monster and somehow found its way back into her hands.

It wasn't the time to be impressed by the champion's talents, though. The stinger might have pierced the armor and dug into the top of the grimm's body, but not deep enough. Luckily, they had exactly the right tool for this kind of situation.

"Nora, nail it!"

"Head's up!" the orange-haired girl yelled as she jumped over Pyrrha who crouched down and raised her shield over her head. Nora landed on top of the shield, sitting on her hammer's haft like a witch on a broom. The stone floor around them shattered as Pyrrha's powerful legs and a pink explosion catapulted Nora high up into the sky.

Gleeful laughter could be heard as she reached the apex where another explosion turned her into a spinning projectile of destruction that hit the nail square on the head. The force of the impact didn't just drive the stinger into its former owner, it drove the entire creature deep into the ground. The pavement all around it shattered and the last remnants of the former bridge came up like a… seesaw. Jaune suffered a moment of déjà vu as he was flung over the hissing grimm.

His situation granted a great aerial overview of the fight, though. Pyrrha's spear somehow dislodged from the grimm and returned to her hands as she flew over it. Nora, perched on her hammer's haft in a handstand, fired another blast, sending herself their way while the deathstalker was driven even deeper into the ground.

It gave way and the grimm slid into the abyss, taking a good deal of stone and earth with it. Dead or alive, it wouldn't come back for them anytime soon.

The thought was of little consolation to Jaune as his tailbone connected with solid rock for the third time in minutes. He was convinced that he would have broken it several times over by now if Pyrrha hadn't unlocked his aura. A lucky break, in a way…

Jaune took stock of his makeshift team. Ren had gotten up. He was breathing heavily but seemed fine otherwise. Pyrrha had landed flawlessly, looking like she was ready to go again at a moment's notice. Nora had crashed like him, but she was laughing happily. Pain didn't seem to bother her, which was a foreign concept to Jaune. He had always felt greatly bothered by pain and had made it one of his life's ambitions to avoid it.

His eyes drifted towards the other end of the bridge where a yellow shape, standing high up on a pillar, was raining fire down on a black shadow circling the area.

Then again, some people seemed to be just invincible…

Yang watched a set of fiery clouds dissolve in the sky. She hated moderation, but she hated disappointing Ruby even more. She would just have to deal with it for the time being.

Her plan had seemed to work at first. She had put herself up as bait to make sure the nevermore wouldn't go after the others, but she had reached an impasse. The stupid chicken was toying with her. The last time it had gotten close, it hadn't fared well. Now, it was keeping its distance, circling her like a vulture and waiting for its chance to strike.

Yang sent another salvo of flares at the grimm. Every single one a clean hit, but the outcome was always the same. She wasn't doing enough damage to break through the layers of feathers that acted as the grimm's armor.

Time for a change of plan before she ran out of shells. She took her stance, ready to fire at any moment, and waited.

She had watched the nevermore all day. She knew its flight patterns. She knew how its body shifted in the air with every stroke of its wings. She knew its speed and how fast it could turn. She had studied the damn chicken enough to know where it was going before it knew itself.

Precision was the key to her predicament, she just didn't enjoy it very much.

She watched her opponent fly, waiting for her time to strike. She didn't just have to lure it in and bring it down to the ground, she had to do so in a very specific spot. Why, she didn't know, but Ruby was crafty and if that was what she needed to follow up, she would get it.

There!

Yang shot a single flare, returning back into her stance just in case she would have to try again.

There was no need. She was spot on. The flare exploded in the beasts eye, leaving it horribly disfigured. The stupid chicken had noticed that, all right. It let out a pained shriek and turned to come right at her.

Yang smirked. Ruby's target was in her back and whatever reason had occupied the grimm's mind had been overridden by pain and rage. The trap was sprung. All that remained was to drag it down to the ground.

Playing chicken with a giant chicken, round two. Only this time, there would be no escape.

The nevermore dove at her, its beak wide open, ready to gulp her down. Yang crouched and jumped. The beak blotted out the sky above and the ground below. A disgusting gray tongue reached for her while a wave of its wretched breath assaulted her senses.

She was about to disappear in the grimm's stomach, but Yang had other ideas. Her arms and legs found safe footing on the beak's rim. The nevermore tried to chomp her down, but Yang wasn't your average earthworm. She kept the beak pried open, exposing all the squishy, vulnerable bits inside. If she couldn't punch a hole through the thing from the outside, she would just have to use one that was already there.

"I—hope—you're—hun—gry!" Every syllable was punctuated by Ember Celica sending fire down the chicken's gullet. Singed flesh and boiling fluids magnified the already putrid stench, making Yang's stomach churn.

It was worth it, though. Her composure won over the desire to relieve herself of what little food she had managed to get her hands on during the day's ordeal, and the chicken was tumbling out of control on a collision course with the cliff.

Yang jumped out of the beak and landed in a crouch. The ground shook on impact, raining debris down all around her.

She smirked. Mission accomplished.

Ruby felt guilty. She knew Yang wouldn't mind, but her plan had sent her sister out, on her own, against a beast that the four of them together had barely managed to scratch.

As expected, Yang had taken an extreme course of action, but it was Ruby, who had goaded her into it, knowing full well how she would act.

Seeing her sister vanish in the grimm's beak had made her stomach churn. She should have known better even before she saw fire spewing from it, but fear and worry for the people one cared about never disappeared entirely, no matter how little reason for it there might be.

Yang reappeared in a crouch shortly before the nevermore got personally acquainted with the cliff. Ruby was too far away to make out her expression, but she knew exactly what she would find. Yang had formed somewhat of a personal rivalry with the nevermore and she must have enjoyed bringing it down. The blond's evil smirk was a sight to behold, especially while her scarlet eyes shone through.

The nevermore's crash into the wall was deafening. The ground shook and every bit of loose dirt, dust, and debris in the area was kicked up. Entire sections of the cliff broke free, causing rock avalanches along their way.

The lasting effect of Yang's attack, however, was nowhere near as strong as Ruby had hoped. By the time the raven-like grimm had reached the ground, it was already recovering. It landed on its feet and was shaking its head wildly. What used to be bone-chilling shrieks had turned into hoarse roars. Deep gushes littered the white face-mask, broken feathers were sticking out every which way, chunks of ice were clinging to its plumage, and there wasn't a single section of its body—inside and out—that wasn't covered in burn marks. They had thrown enough firepower at it to destroy a small army, and yet, it was still standing.

Not for much longer, though. Stage two of Ruby's plan had already begun. Weiss had moved out, sliding past Yang like an ice skater while the nevermore stretched its wings trying to go airborne. She was cutting it close.

Half a dozen or so steps were separating Weiss from the nevermore the moment it lifted off the ground. Ruby bit her lip. If it got away, her plan would be shot and Yang's efforts for nothing.

Weiss jumped. Her sword lit up in a white glow before she rammed it into the ground below the nevermore. A ragged flower of ice rose up to catch its prey. The hold on the grimm's tail feathers looked flimsy, but it was enough to bring it back to the ground. Perfect.

The nevermore, angry with the new arrival, tried to peck Weiss to death. A glowing rune appeared at her feet and she flipped out of the way. The massive beak easily broke through the pavement, but Weiss was long gone by then.

Yang arrived back just in time for stage three. It was time to assemble the parts needed for the grand finale.

Weiss had complained about Yang running off without knowing the whole plan, but Ruby knew that she could count on her sister to think on her feet. Blake had taken her place on one of the large pillars framing the bridge. Ruby nodded toward its mirror, which was all the directions Yang needed. She jumped there and caught the sickle Blake had thrown at her.

Ruby had called it a catapult, but it was more like they were building a giant slingshot. She still remembered the first time she had gotten her hands on one of them. She must have been six, seven at the most. Yang had come up with the idea and procured the materials, while Ruby had assembled it. She had always been more of a tinkerer than her sister, even at a young age.

They had spent the next two weeks hiding it from their father and spending every free minute coming up with things they could shoot. Bottles, cans, toy soldiers; nothing was safe from them. They had made up little games and competitions, always trying to one-up each other with even more crazy and fun ideas.

Everything went well until Yang had the idea to apply what she had learned from their father about a hunter's weapons and how they were infused with their master's aura to make them more potent. Ruby hadn't been able to use her aura yet, but Yang had a knack for it and had spent years in training already.

With their new plan in mind, they went for a test run behind their garage. The wall had been in need of a new coat of paint for years and a few more dents wouldn't raise any suspicions. It had served them well as a backdrop for their shooting galleries, but neither of them had had any idea how flimsy a solid brick wall would turn out to be once Yang would start using more than just pebbles as projectiles.

It had been almost ten years since then, but Ruby could still remember the excitement she had felt when Yang drew back the slingshot for the first time like it was yesterday. She was going to see something incredibly cool. She was going to see something she had built used like a hunter's tool. Best of all, it was her beloved older sister that would turn their toy into a real weapon.

And what a weapon it had become. The flimsy toy slingshot built by a little girl had punched a fist-sized hole through the brick wall. It had blown out the back and front window of their father's car, punched a hole through their metal garage door, broken the kitchen window of the neighbor's place across the street, and destroyed a shelf of butt-ugly decorative plates before it finally came to a stop buried in another wall.

The old woman had claimed that her plates were worth a fortune and tried to haggle the money out of their father, but Ruby hadn't fallen for it. Nothing that ugly could have been worth any money. The woman from the insurance company hadn't fallen for it, either. The prized collection of decorative plates the old neighbor had used to bore anyone who had entered her kitchen to death with for decades had turned out to be a collection of worthless souvenirs from some annual event or another.

It had done little to lessen their father's anger, though. She had never gotten into so much trouble before and very rarely since. Unlike Yang, who had a talent for keeping their father on his toes.

Now, almost a decade later, she was about to weaponize yet another slingshot. For a good cause, rather than just for the fun of it, but she could only hope that her father would never find out what she had chosen as a projectile or she may well spend the rest of her time at Beacon grounded…

Weiss rushed back to her position at breakneck speed. It was moments like these that made her wish she could create larger dust projectiles. Unfortunately, beyond a certain point, direct contact was the only reliable way to go. It was something to work on in the future if only to avoid running back and forth like an errand boy.

She was only deflecting, though. The entire plan was ludicrous. Having something to complain about helped forget, that she was about to ruin her grades and turn herself into a laughingstock by listening to her partner's ideas.

The insufferable maniac was taking lack of common sense to a whole new level.

Weiss could only blame herself, of course. She shouldn't expect anything rational or reasonable from the sister of a girl that had jumped in the path of a giant deathstalker's stinger and into the beak of an even bigger nevermore in the span of a couple of hours. Not that any amount of time in between these two events would have made her any less insane. Clearly, something was wrong with the members of their family.

Weiss zipped past Ruby, who was watching her handiwork with a satisfied look on her face.

There was nothing to be done about it anymore. Once it had become clear that Blake was going along with Ruby's madness, Weiss had stopped fighting it. Outvoted three to one, there was no point in continuing. She had considered Blake to be on the sensible and intelligent side of the spectrum, but her association with the blond brute must have ruined her already.

Weiss reached her designated position at the back of their formation and created a large white rune in the air. The rune turned black, signifying one that would impede movement rather than aid it.

Ruby jumped into the ribbon Blake and Yang had spanned across the pillars. It stretched until she was caught in the black rune. She stood on the blade of her over-sized weapon, with her hands on the firing and bolt-action mechanisms, ready to submit to her role as a living projectile.

It was all up to Weiss now. If anything happened to her partner, her grades would plummet. If the faculty found out that she had shot her to her fate, she might as well take her bags—there was nothing to pack since she hadn't even been allowed to unpack, yet—and leave.

"Of course, you would come up with this idea."

Reminding Ruby of her disapproval eased her tension. Given the situation, Weiss would take anything she could get if it improved her aim and helped them avoid disaster.

"Think you can make the shot?"

Weiss scoffed. Now? She chose now of all times to ask that? She should have worried about that before they had wasted their time and resources setting things up.

"Can I?"

"You can't?" Ruby asked, missing the sarcasm in Weiss's voice.

"Of course I can!"

Calm down, Weiss. There are more important things to worry about than your partner's lack of basic language comprehension.

She held out her arm in front of her, pointing two fingers at her target as makeshift sights, and steadied her breathing. The nevermore was flapping wildly, trying to get free, but her ice was holding. It had been confined to a small area, but the shot had to be lined up perfectly before she could release Ruby.

Satisfied, she brought Myrtenaster up in front of her, and rotated the cylinder to a vial of kinetic dust she would use to enhance her semblance's potency.

The glow started to spread from its chamber in the revolving cylinder up towards the tip of the blade. Even after having seen the effect thousands of times, she could still revel in her little indulgence.

Compared to many other weapons—certainly her partners scythe-rifle monstrosity—Myrtenaster was a deceptively simple design. There were no transforming shenanigans or gimmicky design elements. Myrtenaster was a classic, elegant beauty much like its mistress.

A revolving chamber, filled with vials of raw dust for flexibility and quick access, connected a simple handle and a sturdy square blade that had been tapered to a fine point. Simple, but it was built from the highest-quality materials available to the Schnee Dust Company and to the highest standards of craftsmanship in all of Remnant.

It acted as her sword and her wand, allowing her to combine fencing and dust in a powerful and versatile fighting style. It was a weapon that required skill to bring out its full potential, designed for a master in the use of dust.

The pattern of glowing runes along the blade was a personal touch she had added. By applying the various dust-bearing alloys used in the blade's construction in the shape of the runic writing adorning her semblance, she had made it possible for the writing to appear on the blade when charged, rather than lighting it up uniformly.

Maybe that was to be her future? After her partner had been turned into a bloody smudge on the cliff and her expulsion was all but certain, she could introduce a personalization option to some of her company's products based on her technology.

The final rune at the tip lit up. She brought Myrtenaster around with a flourish. The rune created by her semblance turned red as it opened itself to her partner's aura before turning white as the human projectile was released.

Ruby noticed the change and fired a round from her weapon. The combined force of the dust infused rune and the recoil of the high-powered sniper rifle was immense. The backlash ripped a several yards long, cone-shaped scar into the pavement, spraying everything behind them with rocks large enough to kill on impact.

Ruby flew off like a bullet. Her red cape fluttered wildly behind her, leaving a trail of rose petals in her wake. She kept firing her rifle in order to add more speed to her flight. Her trajectory was perfect, but it was too early for Weiss to congratulate herself. There was one more part for her to play in this mad scheme.

Weiss concentrated again, creating more runes. One black rune to lessen the impact and a row of white runes, running all the way up to the top of the cliff. They rose up high in quick succession, mirroring Myrtenaster's blade charging.

Creating that many runes took an immense toll on Weiss, adding to the exhaustion of the day. She stumbled halfway through and barely managed to finish her task before she fell to her knees, breathing heavily.

Ruby was closing in on the looming figure in front of her. Even severely damaged, the massive body was a sight to behold and being shot at it with little chance of altering her fate was not a feeling she enjoyed.

It wasn't the time for Ruby to doubt herself, though. Her makeshift team had used up almost all its resources in order to reduce the beast to its current state. They had put their faith into her and her plan. There was no going back.

Ruby closed in on the beast. Almost there. She stepped off Crescent Rose's blade to prepare it for its gruesome duty.

The nevermore unleashed a gargled roar and started to flail more wildly, trying to break free from its icy shackles. It knew what was coming. Bestial instinct or genuine intellect, whichever it was, it knew that the end was near.

Another shot echoed through the ruins. The nevermore tried to lift off the ground with one last flap of its wings. A mistake that perfectly exposed the soft underside of its neck to Ruby.

The red reaper rushed past the grimm's massive head. A jolt ran through her arms as Crescent Rose's razor sharp double blade hooked its target and cut deep. Whatever noise the beast had tried to make had died in its throat.

It wasn't enough. The blade got stuck without cutting all the way through. The second jolt almost ripped the scythe from Ruby's hands, but she had been prepared for it. Instead of losing her weapon and setting the massive creature free, she dragged it along on the last bit of her flight and smashed it into the cliff wall.

Crescent Rose had cut deeper, but it still wasn't enough. The struggles were ebbing down, but the nevermore wasn't done for, yet.

Time to use her final trump card.

Ruby landed as soft as a feather on the black rune, but that was only part of what her partner hat prepared for her. She broke into a running start, putting everything she had into her semblance.

The row of glowing runes running up the cliff seemed to change the laws of nature, allowing her to run up a vertical wall like she was on even ground. The experience was one of the strangest things she had felt in her life. She could still feel gravity pulling her down, but, at the same time, it had no hold over her anymore.

Between her semblance, the remaining bullets in Cresent Rose's magazine, and Weiss's runes, the nevermore stood no chance. Ruby dragged it along, all the way up the cliff, with its throat still caught on the scythe's blade. She could feel it cutting deeper and deeper.

The nevermore's resistance had ceased somewhere along the way. It might have died or it might just be unconscious. Either way, Ruby wasn't taking any chances. She taxed her semblance to its limits, burning through her aura at a pace that would leave her all but defenseless in a matter of seconds.

The edge of the cliff came into view. Almost there. Two more steps. One. She jumped, yanking Crescent Rose along for one last push.

Suddenly, all resistance disappeared. Ruby, free of tons of dead weight, shot up into the air, tumbling. She regained control and landed in a crouch with Crescent Rose supported on her shoulders.

She was exhausted. A short dizzy spell threatened to overwhelm her, but she managed to pull through.

A couple of heavy breaths later she looked up, trying to assess the situation. The last few moments as she had gone over the cliff were a blur. She couldn't tell if the nevermore had slipped off her blade or if she had managed to cut through its neck until she noticed a dead eye staring back at her. The nevermore's head sat in front of her like a gruesome trophy, black smoke already rising as it had started to dissolve.

Ruby got to her feet and walked towards the edge of the cliff. Her cape was fluttering in the wind. Remnants of her aura were whirling all around her.

It was finally over. They had won.

Down among the ruins stood a white, a yellow, and a black shape. All unharmed. Exhausted but unharmed. Their makeshift team had braved a deadly challenge far beyond what they were supposed to be able to handle, but, with tenacity and teamwork, they had made it through.

They had been awesome!

Blake joined Weiss and Yang to watch the aftermath of Ruby's plan. The girl in the hood had disappeared beyond the cliff's edge, leaving the massive nevermore carcass to slide down its wall.

The plan had been insane from the start. Seeing Yang face the nevermore by herself would haunt Blake in her dreams for the foreseeable future. Her heart had leapt into her throat when she had seen her partner disappear in the grimm's beak, but she should have known better than to assume that something as trifling as being eaten by a giant monster would slow Yang down.

Turning their youngest companion into a human projectile was equally crazy. It had worked, and it had proven that, whatever the precise circumstances, Ruby's admission to Beacon was well deserved. Weiss's runes had played an important part, but it was Ruby who had pulled it through. The younger sister was as exceptional and as unconventional as the older.

Blake took a quick glance at Weiss. She was leaning on her sword, breathing heavily. She was still far from comfortable in the heiress's presence, but Weiss had almost dropped from exhaustion braving the path for Ruby. Blake had to give her credit for that.

The nevermore's carcass hit the narrow rim of land surrounding the cliff and rolled off into the misty abyss at its foot as Ruby appeared on top of the cliff, scythe on her shoulder, cape fluttering in the wind, and rose petals littering the sky.

The other side of the gorge had gone silent as well. Nevermore and deathstalker, both opponents that should have been taken on by experienced hunters, had fallen to a group of trainees on their second day at school. It was difficult not to feel a certain degree of pride in their accomplishment, but, mostly, she was glad that their path back was clear and they could finally bring their initiation to an end.

The thought, as appealing as it may have been, also filled her with anxiety. She took a look at Yang, who had crossed her hands behind her head and was casually watching her little sister.

Their partnership had been a surprisingly positive experience, so far. It was beyond anything Blake had expected to find coming to Beacon, but would it last once the tension and urgency of a field mission were gone? They were exceptionally different people, and Yang's interest in her might wane quickly once her shiny new toy wasn't quite so new and exciting anymore.

"Well," the blond shrugged her shoulders seemingly unfazed by the experience, "that was a thing."

Author's Note

And it's done. Part Two: Initiation is finished. Part Three: School Life will commence whenever it is ready.

It's actually getting so big that I'm most likely going to split it again. Between here and the first day of school, there's already 47k words waiting with some scenes still missing. It's going to shrink by about 30% or so in editing but it's still big enough and it's a nice break point that should help shorten the gap between releases significantly. That being said, next up will be Part Three: Moving In instead.

Unfortunately, the scene order in this chapter has not played out the way I wanted it to. I really wanted Jaune to look towards Yang the moment she gets eaten but survives, which would have made the "invincible" comment a lot more fitting. However, there was no good way to break the JNPR fight and I didn't want to spoil Yang's big moment before it happens so we are left with the boring vanilla variant where she just shoots at the nevermore.

I had a similar problem with the very end. I wanted to let Ruby's final comment on their fight to stand as the ending remark, but I couldn't just ignore Yang's line, nor could I move the last scene up without having to split Ruby's, which wasn't going to happen.

Besides, Blake/Yang are my focus characters and the kitten deserved a chance to voice her thoughts in the end since she was essentially useless during the fight. Which, incidentally, was both accidental and deliberate. Canon handed me that version and it shows one thing very well: Team RWBY is diverse, they are all very good at what they do, but they all have weaknesses.

Blake is fast, nimble, stealthy, versatile, and deadly, but if you think about what the White Fang would have trained her to do, I think it's safe to say that it's not full frontal combat. She would have been trained to avoid fighting if possible, and fight smart if necessary. And she would have been trained to fight humans and the common grimm she might meet around a hideout. Very little reason for people not trying to hunt grimm to bother with the rare, big specimen.

It's the very beginning of her journey as a huntress-in-training, and she's just not equipped to handle a bird that makes a semi look like toy car in comparison, yet. That doesn't mean that she's weaker than the rest of the team, this just wasn't her fight.

Besides, she has Yang for that sort of thing. Hunters work in pairs, teams, groups, whatever. And out of all the canon pairs, I'd argue that Yang and Blake have by far the best synergy when it comes to monster hunting. I only mentioned that pack of beowolves they'd killed in passing, but I stand by that assessment. Together, they're equipped to handle pretty much anything the grimm can throw at them better than any of the other pairs of Beacon students.

Talking about Yang, I hope you liked my take on her state of mind during a (somewhat) impossible fight. It was the first time we got to see her fight from her own perspective and I tried to convey the sort of disturbing mindset with which she goes into combat. She's a daredevil, an adrenaline junkie, and she doesn't quite process risk for her own life the way most people would. It's not quite suicidal, but it is overconfident and dangerous, and might (will?) eventually come back to bite her in the ass.

I'm also strangely proud of the Ruby vs. Nevermore scene. I really didn't want to write that one, but it quickly turned into one of my favorite scenes so far. The last moments of the nevermore's life are not quite as dark and moving as the inspiration for this chapter, but I think it fits very well.

Speaking of which, if you don't get the (very obvious) reference hidden in the chapter title, please move over to the closest corner of your room, sit down, close your eyes, and die. Thank you very much.

On a less morbid note, do whatever you have to do to get your hands on a copy of Shadow of the Colossus. Preferably the PS2 version as, in my opinion, the washed out look actually enhances the experience compared to the crisper PS3 version.

"Why?" you might ask. Well, it was not only the inspiration for the title, but for the way the fight against the nevermore played out. Nothing shows the futility of fighting a several stories tall monster with a tiny toothpick of a sword better than Shadow of the Colossus.

Even if you only go after the first colossus, which is the most memorable in my opinion anyways, you have to do it yourself to understand just how ridiculous any other fantasy game truly is. Don't watch it on youtube. Don't read about it in a guide. It will ruin the experience. Go and do it yourself.

No game before or since, has managed to reach the level of immersion Shadow of the Colossus invokes. But make sure, you don't approach it it like the usual easter egg hunt rpg/adventure game you're used to. Don't explore every corner, don't get caught up in details or game mechanics. There is just you, a horse, a mostly empty world, and a dozen or so giant monsters you will learn to fear.

Actually, you will learn to fear the world too once you dive in a seemingly bottomless lake knowing that there aquatic colossi. You know they won't show up. It's not their turn. You know they probably don't even live in that lake, but god will you fear that dark, murky water you've fallen into accidentally.

I know it sounds pretentious, but just go with the flow and experience it and you will not regret it. It is one of the most moving and disturbing, yet beautiful games ever created. And that first kill is easily the one video game experience I will never forget for the rest of my life.

But be warned, you will never be able to look at the way other games make you fight giant creatures without rolling your eyes again. You cannot come back from killing a colossus and take the endurance matches that have you poke a dragons toes for half an hour while it squishes, fries, and chomps you down without leaving a scratch on you serious, anymore.

I don't think I did a very good job conveying the massive scale of the nevermore and how futile conventional attacks would truly be against it, but it being a bird and mostly out of reach didn't help. For those who wonder, in my version, this nevermore was a lot bigger than the ones Coco dispatches of with ease in Volume Two. There is a bit too much power creep going on in RWBY, which is something I'm not fond of and I'm trying to counteract.

Anyways… Why are you still here? Go buy the game, play it and then come back for more. Some things are more important than my story. Actually, almost anything is more important than my story, but I shouldn't say that out loud, should I?

That is all.