AN: Not much can be said other than I was on writer's block due to plot designing (I was trying hard not to write this into a corner or maybe I'm being too tough on myself), but this short chapter is the finale of the Beast of Vale arc, where the teams battle the main antagonist of season 1 of Somewhere Beyond the Sky.
And no, season 1 ain't over yet. Just only a few more chapters to go then we'll be in for a new season...
Shock is an emotion that leaves you in a very surprised state, but sometimes it can be quite a traumatic emotion that any kind of individual can face at any given time. It could be from either discovering your lover cheating on you behind your back, it could be from learning that you were actually adopted, it could be from you killing an individual by accident...
Or it could be from the fact that a trusted friend of yours just did one of the most unspeakable things ever; murdering many innocent people in front of your eyes... at least from your point of view.
And now, RWBY, JNPR, and CFVY had experienced this kind of shock. Observe.
Jaune was close to fainting. Velvet, meanwhile, stayed as far away from Noah as she possibly could, with the rest of her teammates surrounding her to protect her.
Ren hugged Nora in his arms, not wanting to let her look at whatever was left of the massacre and the one responsible for it. Pyrrha couldn't help but stare at the boy in disbelief. Both Blake and Weiss both simply glared at him with a 'You-better-explain-yourself' look. The two of them looked like they were taking what they bore witness to fairly well.
Yang was tempted to losing it. Her teammate, especially one who she thought was cool (and could somewhat relate to), had just willingly murdered a small army of soldiers. She was both angry, upset, confused, and also worried all at once, trying hard to restrain herself from strangling him.
Ruby, oh poor Ruby, took the blunt of it out of everyone else. Her eyes rained tears like a pair of waterfalls, she was gripping the collar of his shirt, shaking him.
"Why would you kill them?!" She shouted. "How could you?! You could've just knock them out and arrest them!"
Noah was conflicted. How was he going to explain himself? Perhaps reasoning? Or better, once they return to Beacon, he could show them the video footage he handed to Ozpin a few days prior to this but that'll have to wait. Right now, he had to defuse the metaphorical fire he just ignited.
"Why?..." Ruby continued, finally stopped shaking him. "Why did you do this?"
"They tried to kill us." He argued.
"Still! There was no reason to do it! We're all Huntsman and Huntresses! You're a Huntsman too! They were normal people!"
"They were anything but normal, Ruby-"
Yang stepped in and cut Noah off, lifting him up in the air. Her red eyes filled with a fiery rage and burning hair.
"You MONSTER! What is wrong with you?!" She growled, ignoring her sister's pleas to stop.
"I was doing what had to be done."
"Had to be done?! How is killing people something that had to be done?!"
"What would you do?"
Her grip tightened. "Like Ruby said, knock them out and toss them into jail! Not kill them like-like sick animals that have to be put down!"
"You don't understand. Prison would've been way too good for them." He responded.
BOOOM!
Before anyone else could question him further, there was a sudden violent explosion that interrupted them, catching everyone by surprise. This made Yang drop Noah to the ground.
"What was that?" Jaune asked.
ROOOOAAAARRRRRR!
They could hear a bone-chilling roar from outside. It didn't sound like any kind of Grimm the people of Remnant knew about but it scared them to the core.
"It's here..." Noah muttered, now showing a frightened look on his face.
Stomping was heard. There were growling noises, all coming from the opened door, where everyone could see a red glowing eye and a lizard eye all at once. It was like they weren't glaring at the teams, but glaring at the teams' souls.
WHOOSH!
BOOM!
The figure crashed down on the metal floor, creating a shock wave and a dust cloud. When the dust settled, they could finally see the Beast of Vale, the monster that terrorized northern Vale for a week. The dinosaur looked up at the teams, its eyes filled with blood lust and hatred. It then saw Noah looking back at him with a face of determination and two eyes that spoke fear. Just seeing the Son of Terror-Billy made it tremble in anger.
"Hello, Red Baron*." Noah taunted, loading his Assault Rifle in his arms.
(Spinosaurus by Jurassic the Hunted)
The creature, named the Red Baron, roared back in response, enough to get Velvet and Blake to cover their ears.
"Everyone, split up!" He yelled and they did.
Yang was to first to attack the monstrosity, punching it on its side and caused it to skid on the floor before the Red Baron fired several rockets that locked onto her heat signature. These projectiles were shot down thanks to Blake and Ren. Ruby's turn came in when she hacked and slashed and shot the creature. But the beast had a solution for that.
You see, the Red Baron was more of what you would call a cyborg than a dinosaur. As a part of its weaponry, it had a sophisticated calculative system implanted in its brain. It could see where Ruby was going to warp to next. It waited for the perfect moment to let out a jet of fire to her direction, the flames directly coming from a flamethrower that was, I kid you not, surgically added in its gullet. How was this possible? We may never understand the Nazis.
Back to Ruby, imagine her surprise when the Beast of Vale nearly lit her on fire. Looks like fighting this robot-like reptile was going to be far more challenging than she thought.
"Di-did it just predict my movements?!" She realized fearfully.
Nora decided it was time to fight fire with fire and shot off a bombardment of grenades, she was backed up by Noah and Yang, the latter seeking to avenge her sister but their attacks just did very little damage. The Beast, in retaliation, blasted a bombardment of its own back at them, this time with incendiary rockets.
The melee units of the teams thought it would be perfect to get up close and personal with their own weapons, trying to do some damage on its hide, even Jaune gathered up enough courage to try to stab it right in its arse. This proved to be very ineffective as the Red Baron's turret on its back turned directly at the knight-in-training and shot a single normal rocket that hit him in the chestplate while the creature was dealing with the other people that dared to attack it.
When Pyrrha attempted to block its sickle-like metal claws with her shield, the creature's talons pierced right through it with ease and even damaged her aura.
"Weiss! Freeze it now!" Ruby ordered her teammate.
The SDC heiress stepped in and conjured a glyph around its mouth, forming a cluster of ice to shut it up. This made the Naziraptor go on a rampage when it fired all three seemingly endless amounts of rockets it had: normal, heat-seeking, and incendiary.
To put it lightly, the attacks made everyone about lose a good percentage of their aura. Whilst its automatic turret did the dirty work, this allowed the Red Baron to target Noah, who was fighting it with a Sturmgewehr and a hatchet ready for melee. It pushed him down and began to maul the resisting boy like a bloodthirsty bear, dealing heavy blows to the Son of Terror-Billy's armor and even pierced the flesh. And to add the final touch, it headbutted the kid a few meters away. It eventually walked up to the wounded child soldier to finish him off.
"Dear GOD, this bastard's even stronger than I remembered!" Noah hissed in pain, covered in bruises and fresh cuts. Every attack from his hatchet only gave the creature minor scratches. Every bullet wasn't enough to penetrate its armor and only left minor wounds on its thick hide.
A body then collided with his, as the place he used to be at was replaced by the flames of several incendiary rockets. He saw that his savior was Blake, whom helped him get back up. Despite the injuries, he was still willing to fight till his last breath.
"Thanks..." He sighed.
"...Don't mention it." Blake replied.
A furious roar made them turn back to the Red Baron, that just used its flamethrower to melt the ice off of its jaws, not even caring if its own tongue got even burnt to a crisp. It was turning its anger and pain into horrifying strength.
Coco brought out her signature minigun to try to mow the creature down. The Baron decided to take the time to fall back, running from the storm of devastating bullets. It turned its head to the heavy gunner and shot a powerful red laser from its cybernetic eye at her; a trait of its upgrades inspired by the Laserhunde. Before it could hit her, Coco dodged out of the way and was forced to turn her gun back into the handbag it was.
"Nothing's working!" Velvet exclaimed at the sight of its power. "It's way stronger than we thought!"
Ruby got involved again by using her signature rifle to shoot the charging Red Baron when it turned its head to her.
POW!
The Baron shoot a bullet to its side. It shrugged it off as if it was nothing.
POW!
Another round hit it on the side of its head, but it did nothing. It looked like the bullet was lost in its flesh.
POW!
A third bullet hit the monster right in the mouth but had the same result. Right as the Baron was about to grab Ruby, the riding hood used her semblance to get farther back from the creature.
She was replaced by a ticked off Yang whose semblance was activated and the brawler punched the dinosaur square in the face, earning a sick crack and sent it flying back. However, the creature landed back on its feet and glared back at the blonde teenager.
The two clashed again, with Yang holding up pretty well except that her attacks were only seemingly tickling the creature. At one point, she was nearly decapitated by the beast's claws, the metallic weapons only slicing a small thread of her hair. Instantly, Yang was furious and wanted to brutalize the monster for doing such an unspeakable thing to her. The Beast didn't care. All it had to do was fire eight rockets at once on her body at once to knock her out unconscious, ending with Ruby having to run to her rescue.
Weiss and Noah teamed up to freeze the creature's appendages, the former with her magical glyphs and the latter using Cryo Rounds on the Schockhammer X, immobilizing it. This gave JNPR a chance to attack it with everything they had, with Pyrrha using her gun while the others went after the Baron like a pack of wolves.
The creature simply allowed its turret to act like a machine gun, firing one rocket after the other and repeat. The first to fall was Jaune, taking several more rockets before having his aura depleted, following next was Ren who took a barrage of heat-seeking explosives. All of this happening while the Baron freed itself from its icy prison with its flamethrower. Nora, angered because of Ren getting hurt, went full boar on the monster.
She pulled out her war hammer and delivered a powerful blow to its left side of its face, giving it a big black eye...
But the Baron STILL didn't go down. The attack only gave it a massive headache. Enraged, the (somewhat stunned) Red Baron showed no mercy when it pounced on Nora, ruthlessly mauling her. Then it picked her up in its mouth and threw her hard at Pyrrha. The spartan lookalike didn't give in as easily however, as she got back up and did something that was unexpected.
She brought out her hand and it was then covered by a black radiation that outlined her appendage. The remnants of the Planet Gate portal were also surrounded by this outline before the metal chunks were thrown at the Red Baron, trapping it in a small pile of rebar and steel.
"Not even our strategy's working from the start!" Pyrrha exclaimed. "We need to regroup while we have the chance!" She took note of the monster struggling to get out of the trap it was in, roaring in anger.
Everyone else didn't hesitate to quickly grab the injured allies and rush out of the portal room, cursed by the Red Baron's screeches.
Noah looked back at Pyrrha. "What did you back there?" Even Ruby was curious.
"Well, Ruby has her speed, Weiss has her glyphs. My semblance is polarity." She answered, still keeping an eye on the corridor behind him in case the Baron broke loose.
"Ah."
"So you can control poles?" Ruby asked curiously.
"What she meant was that she has the power to control magnetism." Noah answered her, sparing her from an annoyed Weiss.
"Oh... magnets are cool too." She muttered quietly.
The teams reached a dead end where the the halls had split into two; The door that was locked by the control pad and the other that was where they all came inside the compound from. Much to their horror, their exit was blocked by piles of debris and rocks coming from the ceiling.
ROOOOOAAAAARRRRR!
The thunderous roar made them know that the monster was now coming after them again.
"We're trapped!" Jaune panicked again. "We're so dead!"
"Not yet, we're not!" Noah stepped out of the group towards the control panel on the other way out of their situation. He broke the panel's cover, took the wires and began to hotwire it until the door slowly began to slid up, granting them another way. "It's open! Run for it!"
They all darted into the corridor but it was something none of them expected to find.
There they stood in an extensive cavern, on the metal bridge above a ravine. Down below was a wild river of water, running at a fast pace and a few sharp stalagmites in the river that were ready to stab anything that fell on them. The ceiling was illuminated by clusters of crystals that were in all sorts of colors; Red, yellow, blue, green, orange, purple, and so on. They were Dust crystals. On the said bridge, were crates, some empty and some filled with Dust. There were also a few work lights that stood and on the other side of their path, there were also rocks that blocked their way.
"A Dust vein..." Weiss muttered.
"Guess the Nazis didn't just find Grimm..." Noah saw all the scenery, even seeing a few bodies of what he guessed were miners and some explosives, including ammo for his weapons and his new addition, the Kampfpistole.
"Just great. The plan didn't work and we're trapped with no way out of here! Now are we dead?!" Jaune sarcastically asked.
The plan was to immobilize the Beast of Vale with Weiss's ice glyphs while the rest of the team gets the chance to annihilate the creature, but the monster was far more wrathful and stronger than they thought it was. Now they were going to have to improvise a way to defeat it.
And speak of the devil. The creature stood there at the doorway, its mouth drooling a mix of saliva and blood, ready to feast on the teams.
It was going to be a hectic fight and only one side was going to win tonight.
(End of the Line by Broforce)
The Red Baron roared before it leapt onto the bridge, charging at the teams whilst shooting rockets at them none stop. Everyone managed to get out of the line of fire but only Noah stood with the Assault Rifle and fired off a rocket of his own, hitting the cyborg dinosaur directly on its face.
"How do you like the taste of your own medicine?!"
The monster growled and fired a few powerful lasers in retaliation, scoring a hit on the boy and making him land flat on his back onto the metallic bridge. Not willing to allow the Son of Terror-Billy to get back up, the Baron pounced at him with the intent to bite his head off. Thankfully, Noah shielded himself in time with his Assault Rifle to block the attack, making the Baron bite the gun instead. A recovered Yang pounded the beast off of him. The monster could only snarl as it broke the Assault Rifle in its jaws.
Yang kept punching the dinosaur's face in frustration.
"Don't you know how to die?!" She roared in extreme anger. The Baron simply swatted her away in annoyance.
Ruby and Nora teamed up to give the Beast everything they had, from explosions to high caliber bullets. Little did they know that the blasts of the explosives of Nora's weapon were causing the Dust crystals above them to vibrate slightly. Even Weiss, Blake, and Ren were taking turns at stabbing the monster from all angles, narrowly dodging the lasers, fire, and rockets sent everywhere.
BOOM!
A stray rocket hit a cluster of Dust that triggered another explosion similar to the one from the first day at Beacon. Several surviving crystals fell on the bridge, also blowing up and causing the teams to shield themselves. Noah took a glance at the Red Baron and saw some glint in its eyes. The type of glint that meant it had an idea.
It aimed the rocket launcher at the clusters and began firing at them, causing more crystals to rain down on the bridge like hail. Some of them landed on the Dust filled crates, triggering even more detonations powerful enough to turn parts of the bridge into chunks of scrap. It was trying to force them off the bridge.
Jaune was nearly blasted away by an explosion but he held on to the rails for dear life. That was until Pyrrha took this chance to save him, hoisting him back up but he ended up landing on her body by accident. The two blushed from the... suggestive position they were in and they immediately stood back up.
"Um, thanks for the help, Pyrrha..." He quietly spoke, looking away in embarrassment.
"You're welcome, Jaune." She replied, still blushing. Something spoke in her eyes that she kind of liked it.
Back to the others, they all struggled against the seemingly impossible monster that was impervious to their attacks. A rocket detonated a Dust crate that just happened to be where Noah was at. Taking a deadly hit by an explosive force, he crawled behind several more crates to treat his injuries. Yatsuhashi charged towards the monster to strike it down, only to ultimately miss as the Baron vertically leaped before coming back down, creating a shock wave like a meteor. This indefinitely depleted some of the samurai's aura and he was close to being sent away by the sheer force.
While those who could still fight kept attacking the Beast of Vale, Noah somewhat healed himself with painkillers and bandages. He kept on trying to think how they were supposed to hurt this monster, even going far to remember the only two times he managed to beat the Red Baron out of luck and glancing around for ideas.
"None of our attacks are stopping it. The first time I killed it, the London Monitor did the trick, but there's no giant robot here now. The second time I killed it was forcing it off the Kolosse..." He mentally trailed off when he had a brief memory of the monster falling seemingly to its death. He had an idea when he glanced back to the stalagmites at the bottom of the bridge.
(Warrior's Truth by God of War: Ascension)
He grabbed the nearest ammunition for the Sturmgewehr, loaded his gun, and fired at the organic eye of the creature in the midst of chaos after several missed shots, making it half-way blind.
The Red Baron roared in agony as its rage built up to the max but before it could make another move, Noah pulled out the Kampfpistole in his other hand and fired at a nearby Dust crate, making the dinosaur stagger back and blowing up a section of the bridge's rails.
With the Jaune and Ren stepping out of the way, Noah was able to detonate more of the crates and allow more Dust crystals to rain on the Beast, causing to get closer and closer to the edge of the broken bridge. Even one rocket managed to destroy its cybernetic eye, depriving it of its sight and laser ability.
Quickly realizing what was happening, the now blind monster desperately tried to stay alive, using its flamethrower and rockets to save itself.
BOOM!
A rifle bullet found its way to the loading cylinder and caused the rocket turret to blow up, rendering its primary weapon useless. You can thank Ruby for that.
"GO! TO! HELL!" Noah ran forward and shoved the monster hard off the bridge. The Baron could only roar loudly as it fell down to the bottom of the ravine, but was instantly silenced when it got impaled on the stalagmites like a soft kebab mouth first.
Finally, the Beast of Vale was dead.
There was no time to celebrate or comment as the bridge groaned from the damage it had taken. It was more unstable than a tower of cards, evidenced by the far end of the bridge starting to collapse. Thinking quickly, the teams ran for their lives back to the door.
Much to Yang's horror, she tripped over a work light that fell in front of her. The blonde young woman desperately got back up to her feet but the destruction of the bridge was just a foot away. Just as she too was going to fall, a pair of hands grabbed her arm and pulled her.
Time seemingly slowed down for her as she turned to see who lifted her away from her demise.
It was Noah.
And now, the crumbling bridge caught up to him and he fell before he could join her. As he descended down into the ravine, all he could hear was the sound of the wild river, announcing that he might either survive or die. It was too loud to hear anyone screaming out his name or who was.
SPLASH!
(End of the Line Victory by Broforce)
*The Red Baron: "A hybrid dinosaur, and the only one I might add, born from the artificial insemination between a male T-rex and a female Utahraptor and further enhanced with extreme combat training. I remember encountering him at the London Nautica with Blazkowicz when the both of us took on the London Monitor. I thought it was dead when we left for Deathshead's Compound... but I was wrong the moment I met it again in Africa several times in a row, only to find it reborn with cybernetics, giving it a more horrifying appearance and a more unforgiving personality. Thank God, I won't have to worry about seeing that monstrosity ever again. Good riddance..."
- Species: Naziraptor (Tyrannosaurus and Utahraptor crossbreed)
- Diet: Carnivore
- Alias: The Beast of Vale (only on Remnant)
- Weaponry: Sickle-like metal claws, cybernetic-reinforced jaw strength, night vision, 8-barreled rocket (normal, heat-seeking, and incendiary) launcher, robotic eye capable of firing lasers, flamethrower surgically implanted in the throat, great strength, great speed, intelligence, inhuman endurance, calculative systems, incredibly thick armor, hide as thick as a giant crocodile's
- Role: Ultimate War Hybrid
(AN: This comes from the Last Stand DLC of Dino D-Day but is highly modified)
AN: RIP Noah's Assault Rifle 1960... it'll be missed. By the time he reunites with the Remnant party, there will be a long series of explanations.
Now here's something I wanted to talk about. Since we got the no-kill rule in RWBY and the cast would rarely if ever truly kill (with the exception of a few of the dreaded antagonists), this kind of high morality would make it impossible for the teams to take a life of an individual, even if they aren't good. But now that we confirmed that Nazis are starting to enter the world of Remnant, and if you've seen enough movies and played enough of Wolfenstein, you'll know that the Germans will give the deadly middle finger to the no-kill rule with zero hesitation.
Back to canon RWBY, you have the rare times where this rule had to be broken in exchange to stay alive, like what we have seen in volume 6, where Adam Taurus finally got what he deserved. In any normal situation, it wouldn't be necessary to kill but when it comes to a matter of life and death, it's anything but normal. If there was a bloodthirsty psychopath who would want you dead, would you let him/her kill you or would you put aside morality for the moment and fight back, even if it costs the killer's life?
My point is, the teams will indeed have a lot of moral conflict, with Noah reminding them that the Nazis aren't like the typical bad guys they have to fight and telling them that jail time would be too good for the Germans. Maybe the mature people would somewhat understand, but not the younger individuals like Ruby Rose.
Eventually, they'll have to face the reality of the situation; Nazis are not people to be spared. What I was forgetting to say last chapter was that there's bound to be some character development in the future and, no doubt about it, tons of moral conflict to come.
Little sneak peek for next chapter; I'm preparing a little surprise for you readers. That's all you got to know.