Edge of life
Chapter ten
Recognized
There were lots of things Solus didn't like in life, but one thing he hated above almost everything else was not knowing secrets. Its not that he liked to hoard information or anything, it's just that he knows that if people die if they don't know the things that they should.
That's why Solus had a hunters radio with him most of the time, normally there wasn't anything terribly interesting, the occasional chatter and banter. But right now? there was something which both amused and pissed off the merc to no end.
Solus was just cruising through the decimated towns on the outer edges of the kingdom when a familiar voice rang out inside the jeep "mayday! Mayday! This is trainee hunter teams PRWN and RSYB and we- *sounds of an explosion and gunfire* -elp! Our bullhead was shot down and there's-" the transmission is covered by static for a moment "Kysar and-" more static "Kraken!"
Solus slammed the breaks of his jeep sending dust and dirt into the air. "Kysar!?" the merc thought incredulously to himself "I sold that bloody bullhead on the black market, it should have gone to one of the other kingdoms not some puny little island in the middle of nowhere-" the thought was cut off abruptly when he realized what must of happened "that filthy slaving scum bought the bullhead!" the hunter exclaimed aloud.
That lead Solus to two possible conclusions: one, the slaver had somehow captured them and set his 'pet' on them as sport. Or two, the young hunters to be had disrupted his operations enough he had decided just to run away and let the Kraken deal with the problem.
Either way, not good for Solus.
This wasn't what Solus had in mind when he'd sold the bullhead, he had thought that the young hunters would just have a huge wast of time by doing a world trip looking for him, but this? This wasn't what he planned.
And as amusing as it would be to just leave them to die at the hands of the SS class Grimm would be, Solus just couldn't do it. Its not because he cared for any of them, no nothing quite so petty, its because he had finally realized why he had felt intrigued by Ruby when had started seen her. its because he recognized her. or more precisely, he recognized her eyes.
And Solus always repaid his debts. Always.
So he can't just leave them (her) out there to die at the hands of that overgrown squid.
Solus slammed his foot down on the accelerator, but he swung the jeep around and headed towards the nearest place he could get a bullhead.
This was not how Ruby had wanted her first mission to turn out, it was supposed to be her and the others heroically going off to save the injured Solus and upon finding him they were meant to come on back to beacon where Solus would be happy and grateful for their help.
But reality reared its ugly head at the girl as she noted that the mission had turned out nothing like that. At all.
It had started out so well too, drop in, beat up a few crooks and beat the bad guy, but then that bearded bastard had to go and set a massive Grimm on them then fly away. There was absolutely zero chance of them killing this Grimm, it was an SS class, the highest calibre of Grimm. Nevermores and deathstalkers were only C class, and compared to this monstrosity they were Childs play.
They couldn't even escape anymore, Ruby had called for evac from their bullhead they arrived in. but the pilot had gotten a fraction too close to the water and had been smashed by the Kraken. So all Ruby could do was call (scream more like) over the radio for help. And that had been nearly an hour ago, and no help had come. Things were looking pretty bleak for Ruby and her fellow trainees.
The assembled teens dodged franticly as a monstrously large tentacle made a mad swipe at them, all the girls found footing atop one of the slimy appendages but Ren slipped as he landed and flailed helplessly for a moment, he was just about to fall when Pyrrha grabbed him by his expensive looking overcoat and lifted him atop the tentacle to stand beside the others, well attempt to stand on the moving appendage anyway.
Ruby felt a little guilty when Pyrrha took command of the whole group leaving the younger red head left out "okay everyone stick with your partners! Try and find a weak point that we can use! And just stay alive until help arrives!" It wasn't a bad plan; not really, Ruby only disliked it because it left her alone.
Everyone scattered when Pyrrha finished her commands, even Ruby, but while the others moved about the beast like flies, Ruby moved away, she needed distance for her sniper.
So with semblance enhanced speed Ruby jumped from tentacle to tentacle moving back towards the island, as she landed on the final tentacle before land the beast jerked all its appendages violently which sent poor Ruby face planting on Kysar's surface. The Kraken, seeing its chance to kill one of the annoying humans sent one of its slimy appendages crashing to the ground where Ruby is.
Ruby was too dazed from her fall to see the danger coming, so she just sat there. But just as the beast was about to crush and kill the girl a sudden explosion next to her sent the red head flying out of the kill zone and just out of the Krakens reach. When Ruby finally regained her senses she looked around to see who shot her *cough* saved her. all the girl saw was the others uselessly trying to fight the massive Grimm.
Going back to her previous plan Ruby started using her precious scythe to help her climb the base of the mountain. When she got to about 20ish meters up she stopped and knelled down as to use some rocks to steady her aim.
It only took a second of the girl looking through her scope to feel utterly dismayed, not only by how the ridiculously but not unexpectedly one-sided battle was going, but by her fellow hunters-in-training.
Pyrrha and Ren, their moves going seamlessly together to create effective teamwork, the normally stoic boy shooting on from afar and the champion acting as a distraction and taking the heavier hits.
Nora and Weiss, despite their horribly clashing personalities they knew when to get their crap together and work hard. The ever exited hammer wielding girl mercilessly hitting away at the beast so that the frosty heiress could find a weak point with her precise rapier.
Yang and Blake, regardless of contradicting natures, were fighting as if they've been partners for years, the buxom blond would charge in and try to smack the Grimm around a bit, and the mysterious ravenette would dance around attacking the openings Yang created.
"but what do I have?" Ruby thought miserably "I wasn't even good enough for my partner! He just up and left because I was so bad!" it was all her fault, her fault Solus left, her fault they came to this island, and her fault they'd die on this island.
Ruby just felt so… useless, she thought she'd be good enough for beacon, that she could become a hunter and slay Grimm like a hero.
But she couldn't. every time she's been in any kind of trouble Solus has been there to bail her out, when she'd first met Weiss and was laying dejected on the ground Solus had been there and (albeit somewhat unwillingly) led her to where she was meant to go.
When she'd been pinned by the Nevermore and about to be killed by the Deathstalker Solus had come to her rescue- getting gravely wounded in the process. And when she and the others had been trying to take out the Nevermore, Solus had just blasted out of existence like it was nothing.
But what had she done? Almost nothing, she'd bugged him and followed him around like a lost puppy.
And now her sister and all her new friends would die because of her failures.
With tears gushing from her eyes Ruby peered down the scope of her beloved sniper scythe once again, within seconds she started firing the high impact rounds into the Kraken, shooting at whatever targets presented themselves. Mostly it was the beasts beady little red eyes in the center mass of the Grimm, this seemed to do the most damage.
Infact it seemed like Ruby was the only one causing any damage at all, it appeared that all the blades the huntress's in training were using were doing little to nothing, only tiny cuts marred the beasts tentacles, even Nora and Yang's impressive weapons were doing next to nothing. And none of the others firearms possessed the armour piercing effect that Ruby's did.
And Ruby was the only one whom could get a clear shot at the head of the Kraken, all the others were occupied with the abundant amount of slimy appendages trying to crush or impale them on the sharpened white bone each tentacle had at its tip.
suddenly Yang was slapped at least 15 meters into the air by one of the tentacles, this wasn't really a problem for the blond, or it wouldn't have been a problem if Blake was battered aside, leaving her unable to aid her partner, and a bunch of the slimy appendages clumped together with the razor sharp bone tips pointed upwards ready to impale the blonde as she landed. There was no way she could escape, Yang was doomed to die.
Ruby saw all this through the scope of her darling sniper rifle, and realized she was the only one who could save her sister. "I gotta save her!" girl thought furiously.
Ruby leapt out of her sniper perch, and with semblance enhanced speed the young reaper unfolded her scythe and sprinted towards yang leaving a few rose petals to float gently to the ground behind her.
Just as Yang was about to meet the bone spikes, Ruby leapt in and hooked the clump of tentacles with her scythe and using the centrifugal force swung around them, in the process dragging them just far enough for Yang to fall into the water below and not find an early death.
Ruby kept swinging and swinging around the tentacles until, finally, the scythe sliced right through the appendages, something none of the others had been able to do as of yet.
The beast thrashed around in the water and let out a terrible roar of pain, the sound was enough to dismay anything living in area, including the young hunters.
The Kraken lifted itself higher out of the water, its center mass and 'face' becoming more prominent as it did so. All the hunters to be were forced to jump off the moving mass of tentacles as it did so, putting them all on the beach of the island.
The Kraken slowly opened its mouth, at first it looked like nothing was happening, but all of a sudden a glowing ball of black fire took shape, then with yet another terrible roar the fire shot forth, not as a ball, but as a solid beam of fiery death.
Everyone scattered, Ruby didn't have time to track where they went, she was to busy trying not to be roasted alive by the hellfire being shot towards her. And hellfire it was, everything the flame touched was instantly turned to red hot glowing glass, if even a few flecks of this fire touched any of the young hunters in would burn through their aura like tissue paper and then kill them almost instantly.
As Ruby was moving she thought she heard a sound, a familiar low droning kind of sound, but she couldn't quite place what it was. Disregarding it as irrelevant, the girl re-focused on the task at hand.
Ruby looked beside her, Nora had moved in the same direction as her, and was running as fast as possible away from the beast "Nora!" Ruby yelled "come on! Lets hit in the mouth it so it cant shoot like that again!" Nora looked at the young reaper for a moment and then started strafing towards the Kraken while carefully avoiding the fire, Ruby followed suit, charging at the beast with all her might, if she could do this she could save her friends, she could make up for leading them into this death trap in the first place!
But fate was not on her side today, the Grimm saw the girls coming, and slapped them back onto the beach hard enough to leave both red heads dazed and confused.
When Ruby's senses returned to her she looked up and saw only a wall of black fire approaching her, there was no time to move, this was it. This was the end of the line for Ruby. The fire moved ever closer, but it all seemed to be in slow motion, Ruby's closed her eyes and her entire life flashed before her, from being such a small child who loved cookies and strawberry's being dotted on by her mother Summer Rose, to growing up with Yang, going to Signal the first time, meeting her friends there, stopping the robbery and getting into Beacon, initiation, loosing Solus, coming to this dust forsaken island, and finally charging the Kraken.
A small smile appeared on her face, if this was her end, then Ruby Rose would die smiling.
A/N
Cliff-hangers suck ass I know, but I just had to do one at some point, I mean what Fanfiction writer doesn't?
Finally we're getting to the parts on how Solus recognizes Ruby! There wasn't much on it this chapter but the next two chapters will touch on it a bit more. And does anyone care to guess how Solus feels indebted to Ruby?
So im starting to get the feeling that most people don't read through the notes at the end of every chapter, meaning they don't get my reply's to their reviews. So as of this chapter I will send a PM to everyone (that I can) who reviews and answer any questions they may have asked. Although I'll probably still answer in at the end of chapters as well.
Anyway onto reviews…
NinjaFang1331:
When I first started writing this story a came to a bit of an impasse, I quite like Jaune's character, but I wanted to write a story that is in sharp contrast with many if not all of the other Jaune central stories on this site. Something ive been trying to really force on the readers is that in this story Jaune isn't a hero, if someone is in trouble and needs help he wont care. If someone dies he wont care. He is a self serving amoral asshole that only fights for himself. To be frank, at no point will Solus ever make a complete 360 with his attitude. With where he is now as a character he hardly even remembers that he used to be Jaune arc.
Nik41:
Answered by PM.
daved134:
getting a bit ahead of ourselves aren't we?
Green Gustavo:
the fight did indeed get a little fishy! Eh? Eh? Yeah you get it!
Anyway um… no, to be frank, Yang has literally zero chance of being able to beat the Kraken. At most id rank Yang and the others around D or E class hunters, with Solus coming in at B+ or A- class. Im not trying to make her underpowered or anything just proportionate, the nevermore from initiation was C class so it stands to reason that Yang and the others would have to be lower ranked since they had to work together to take it down. Unlike Solus who basically just bitch-slapped it into oblivion.
The American Wolf:
Yeah your right, I think the original version of this story got to about chapter 13 or 14.
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So let me know what you think! Leave a review, send me a PM, doesn't matter which.