Jaune and Yang were standing across from the hulking creature in front of them. The Draco just stared at them with bloodthirsty, red eyes. They knew there was a good possibility that they'd be the ones to encounter the Grimm but seeing it now was startling.
Jaune let go of Yang and stood in front of her, glaring at the beast, "Yang, call the rest of your team and have Ruby call Glynda and the others." His hands went to each of his APSs and pull them from his belt in a reverse grip. He flipped them in his hand to hold them properly and the blades extended to their full length. "I'll hold it off while you do."
Yang nodded and quickly pulled out her scroll. That was when Jaune charged the Draco. He only made it halfway to it before it was on top of him. It had cleared the distance with a leap. It definitely was quick for its size. It roared and pulled its right arm back before throwing it forward, trying to impale him with its bone spike. Jaune sidestepped and crossed his swords on his left to divert the attack. He grit his teeth and his eyes shifted to red before he shoved the arm to the side with his enhanced strength.
The Draco titled its head in confusion before thrusting forward with its other bone spike. Jaune managed to parry it with his right sword before he brought his left blade on the halfway point of the spike, splitting it in two.
The Draco pulled its arm back and looked down at its broken spike. Jaune grinned and was about to capitalize on it but stopped when he saw black Grimm essence slowly rise from the cut spike. Next thing he knew, a new bone spike erupted form the half, fixing it. Now that was a shock, he had never seen a Grimm do that before.
It raised its new spike, intent on impaling him but it quickly stopped when numerous red buckshots collided into it. It stopped and looked over to Yang as she was bombarding it with Ember Celica. Jaune used the opportunity to create a dozen fireballs around himself and pelted it with them. As it was covered by smoke, he jumped back and landed beside his blonde girlfriend. "Ruby is calling the other groups and once she's done, they'll be heading to back us up."
With a roar, the Draco threw its arms to the side and the smoke was displaced. It stared at them but it didn't look any worse for wear, besides parts of its body smoking. "So, what do you have in mind?" Yang asked Jaune but didn't take her eyes off the Grimm.
Jaune just kept analyzing it, "I'm not sure yet. My offensive abilities have been lowered with Void gone so I can't just engage it straightforward. Especially, since I still don't know what this thing can do. It's definitely as strong and fast as a Drake. It's endurance as well." His eyes flicked over to Yang and her eyes me this own. "But that's all I know so far about this Draco."
"Draco?" said a deep but definitely not human voice. The two froze in shock and slowly looked over to the Grimm as it tilted its head to the side. It looked like it was looking at them with an intrigued look in its eyes. It started to move its jaw, revealing the row of sharp teeth and the same voice came from it, "Did you just call me a Draco?"
Jaune just kept staring as Yang slowly got out, "Did…did the Grimm just talk?"
The Draco turned to her and continued, "Yes, I did." It gave her a Grimm equivalent of a grin. "It Is always amusing to see the shocked faces of you humans when I do too." It let out a borderline evil chuckle, "Now what is a Draco?"
Jaune gripped his weapons tighter, "It's what I've been calling Grimm like you, the ones that evolve from the Drakes. Although, you're only the second one I've seen."
It tilted it's head to the other side in thought, "Draco." It said as if testing how it sounded. It then nodded, "It sounds adequate. Now, as a thank you for the name, I will devour you and you will help with my further evolution." It opened its maw and started to charge the same energy attack that the Drakes had displayed.
Not wanting to take any chances, Jaune tapped into his earth Semblance, turning his eyes brown. He quickly punched the ground and four stone pillars erupted from the ground at an angle in front of the Draco. They slammed into its chest and neck, pushing it back and causing it to release the beam out into the distance. They could see the top of the barn get destroyed by it.
The Draco turned back to them in annoyance before it roared and smashed the pillars with little issue. Jaune tapped into his lightning Semblance and as soon as his eyes were yellow, took off towards the Grimm in a flash of lightning. At the same time, Yang pulled her arms back, cocking them, and started to unload more ammo into the Draco as cover fire.
The Draco roared in annoyance again as the shots hit its hide and armor. Jaune flashed around it legs and back, slashing at it with his APSs but only leaving nicks in its armor and shallow cuts into its skin. He started to run from its left to its front when it brought its left forearm down where he would've been. He narrowly dodged the attack but he had little time to dodge its right bone spike from moving towards his face. He managed to just avoid it and it barely scraping his left cheek, his aura protecting it. That's when he was caught in its right claws.
The Draco smirked and raised him off the ground, squeezing him as it did. Jaune screamed in pain as he heard Yang shout, "Jaune!" His arms were pinned to his sides and he had no time to switch his Semblance to another element. In a desperate attempt, he channeled a large amount of electricity around his body before discharging it with another shout. The discharge was so bright, it blinded both the Grimm and Yang temporarily.
The light died down and Jaune was still held in the Draco's grip. Now though, it had its eyes closed and was thrashing its head around, "My eyes!" it roared before something slammed into its side and hard. It threw Jaune and he bounced off the ground, twenty feet away before bouncing off it. He managed to right himself and slid across the ground in a crouch.
He took in a few pained gasps of air and looked up with his originally blue eyes. He had temporarily exhausted his lightning Semblance and he would need time before he could use it again, at least that didn't change about his Semblance. He saw that Yang was holding onto its side and was punching it as hard as possible. He saw that the armor was starting to crack. The Draco roared in pain and fury, "You little-" It cut itself off as its serpentine head whipped forwards and snagged Yang in its jaws before she could react.
It tried to crush her but she was barely holding its top jaw from coming down on her with her arms but her aura was straining the entire time from her back being forced into the bottom row of teeth. "Yang, hold on!" Jaune shouted. His eyes shifted to brown before he slashed his sword across the ground and towards the Draco, creating an earth-wave towards the Grimm.
It slammed into its chest and even pushed it onto its hind legs. It's neck whipped upwards from the assault and Yang managed to pry it's jaws open enough to escape. She was flung into the air and at the height of her ascent, she managed to flip so she was facing the trapped Grimm. She reached over her right shoulder and pulled Kakiri free from its sheathe. She threw her arms behind her and discharged two simultaneous shots to propel herself back towards the Grimm, that had fallen to its side from Jaune's assault.
It looked up at Yang and opened its jaws, charging another of its energy attacks. It was distracted when an air blade cut into its side and it eyes trailed down, over the path of upturned earth, to see Jaune with his sword ready and his eyes now light green. He shifted its aim to him and Jaune began to swing with his left arm for another air blade. He was shocked when the attack came much quicker than expected; although it was smaller, more of a blast instead of a beam, and was moving much faster.
Having no way of dodging it in time, Jaune decompressed the air around his blade, shifting it from an air blade into a wide range air blast. His arm was just barely up and the air blast was released just as the energy attack was on him. The air slowed down the attack for only a fraction of a second before it broke through. The attack met his APS and it only lasted a few fractions of a second longer before it shattered into metal fragments. All of Jaune's survival instincts kicked in and he quickly pushed himself to the side with a huge gust of wind. The attack missed him, although he could still feel the heat from it, and hit the ground twenty feet behind him, creating a crater with a twelve foot diameter.
Jaune turned back to hear Yang screamed and come down with a two-handed swing with her broadsword, blade clad in flames. She was aiming for the point where the neck met the head, the fatal weak point of the Drakes, but the Draco moved its head at the last second to look back up at her. That caused her to cut vertically across it's right eye, destroying it and burning the eye socket and flesh around the eye. It thrashed its head around and roared in pain, so Yang kicked off its cheek to get away. She fired another set of blasts from her gauntlets and landed beside Jaune.
She looked at him in concern, "Are you okay?"
He nodded, "Tired but still standing." He looked down at his APS and saw that it was just a handle with three inches of the blade as jagged metal. He sighed in annoyance before he tossed it to the side, "I'm down a weapon though." He shook his hand slightly and worked his fingers to make sure it wasn't damaged from the attack.
"Any ideas yet?" she asked as she stretched her arms and back.
He looked over at her and seeing Kakiri gave him an idea but it was risky if they got too close, "Actually, I might. But do you have any way to shoot Kakiri's fire at a longer range?"
She raised her eyebrow at him before she smirked, "Lucky for you, Rubes made a few upgrades to this baby." She raised her right arm and pressed a button on the crossgaurd. The blade split right up the middle and each half moved to the end of the of the cross guard. The handle snapped into a compartment on her right Ember Celica, on the inner forearm, with the use of a magnet and the crossgaurd attached to the front of the metal section on the back of her hand. The gun barrel poked out of a section of the guard and the two blades attached to either side of her gauntlet, before they slid down to her wrist, forming a katar.
Yang gave it a few swings to reacquaint herself with the weapon. She then nodded and looked back over to the stunned Jaune. She smirked, "As much as I like the sword, I'm no swordswoman. Ruby designed this mode so it'd be more up my alley. It can also let's me fire the flames from a longer range. So, what's the plan?"
Jaune shook himself from his shock and held up his left hand. He rapidly started to compress air into it and soon there was highly compressed ball of air in his palm, it almost looked like a vortex was condensed into an orb. Yang stared at it, thoroughly impressed. "I'm going to shoot this at the Draco, right for the chest. I want you to shoot your flames at it before it hits it. This'll cause one hell of an explosion."
She nodded and pulled her right fist back, readying herself. Jaune did the same with his left hand and when he was sure of the shot, threw his arm forward. The air blast flew fast and gave enough recoil to make him take a step back. As the blast was closing in on the Draco, Yang aimed her shot and punched forward. As she did this, the two blades cloaked themselves in flames again and as she fired her shot from Ember Celica, the flames were pulled to it and fired off a more condensed fireball.
The two blondes stared in anticipation and time seemed to slow down. As the two attacks started to near each other and the Draco. The Draco just managed to get back onto its feet and the attacks looked perfect. Their timing was off though, the air blast hit first and quickly started to expand, the fireball hit just slightly after and ignited the oxygen. Next thing the saw was an eruption of fire swallow up the Draco and hide it from them. A wave of hot air rolled over them causing their hair and clothing to get ruffled by it. They both shielded their faces with their arms as they waited to see what happened.
They slowly lowered their arms to see an inferno where the Draco was standing. The flames glowing so bright that they couldn't see past them. "Think we got it?" Yang asked.
Jaune just stared into the flames trying to see through them. He was about to say something but at that instance, he saw a flash of red and his eyes grew in size. He quickly blasted Yang to the side with a burst of wind, to her utter shock. And as soon as he did, his eyes shifted to brown and the Draco's energy attack, the blast variant, was flying towards him. He crossed his arms and tried to raise a rock wall for some kind of defense but he was too slow. The blast tore through the half raised wall and his arm weren't even completely up before it slammed into his chest.
Jaune screamed as the attack hit him off his feet and sent him flying backwards, dropping his APS in the process. Jaune was carried away by the attack and flew into the distance pretty quickly. All Yang could do form her position on the ground was stare helplessly, "Jaune!" she shouted at the top of her lungs.
She was pulled from the sight as she heard a deep and grating laugh coming from behind her. She turned to see the Draco walking out of the quickly dying flames. It had several more burns across its body and it's bone armor looked to still be intact. Except for its bone plating on its chest. It had a lot of cracks running across it and the exposed skin was so burned, that the Grimm's internal red light could be seen through it. Made sense since the explosion happened right in front of it. Along with that was the heavily burnt and empty right eye socket. "That last attack of yours was very good. Too bad for you two you didn't aim for my head."
Yang glared at the beast before she stood back up and weapons at the ready, "Thanks for the tip. We'll try that once he gets back here."
The Grimm just chuckled again, "He's not coming back. That attack may not be a strong as my first since I didn't charge it completely but it is more than enough to deal with him."
Yang just shook her head, "You know nothing about him. He has survived worse than you, you overgrown Grimm. I know that didn't kill him." She got into her fighting stance with her katar at the ready. "So, all I have to do is beat on you until he gets back here so we can finish you off."
The Draco stared at her before it did its equivalent of a grin, "You can try." With those words, it lunged at her with its right bone spike. Yang fired from her left gauntlet to easily dodge the attack before she jumped onto its extended arm. She raised Kakiri and the blades were bathed in flames before she screamed and plunged them into the arm. Her heightened strength allowed her to get passed the bone armor and into the flesh underneath it.
The Draco roared and tried to snatch her up into its jaws like before but she just aimed her other gauntlet into its mouth hand fired several shots down its throat. The force behind them also pushed her back and off the arm, with her katar's blades cutting more into it before finally coming loose. As soon as her feet were back on the ground, she reared her fist back and fired another condensed fireball between its eyes. The attack forced it to pull its head back in pain and from the force of the impact.
With it distracted, Yang flicked her wrist a certain way and Kakiri reverted back into its broadsword form. She gripped it tightly before she fired off with both of her gauntlets towards the base of the skull again. She used the last of her Dust to light the blade on fire one last time as she flew towards her target. Unfortunately, the Draco managed to backhand her with its right forearm and knock her away. As she was flying away, she angled her sword and fired the flames as a stream that caught the entire arm of the Grimm but it wasn't as effective as she hoped.
She angled herself to land on her feet and skidded across the ground. When she stopped she stared at the Grimm as she took several deep breathes. 'This thing packs a punch. If I take another hit like that, my aura will be gone. But I think I have enough energy stored up to be able to get rid of that bone plating on its chest. If I do that, maybe we can kill it with one good hit.'
With that idea in mind, she prepared herself as the Draco turned its attention back to her and started to charge one of its energy attacks again. This time luck was on her side, it was interrupted when a white armored fist punched it on the side of its head. Stopping the attack from being charged. It didn't take kindly to that and shoved its right bone spike into the left shoulder of Weiss' Arma Gigas and pushed it back.
Yang was grateful and more so when her sister landed next to her with the help of her Semblance. "You alright, Sis?" she asked.
She sighed and grinned at her, "Better now that you girls are here." She got serious. "Jaune?"
She nodded, "He's banged up but should be fine. What about you?"
"I'm getting low on ammo and used all of my sword's Dust." She told her sister as she sheathed it back onto her back. "And my aura's almost spent. But I might have an idea on how to kill this thing. If you guys can distract it and give me an opening, I may be able to destroy the bone plating on its chest. Then Weiss can run it through with her Knight's sword."
Ruby thought it over and nodded, "I'll pass it onto the others." As soon as she said that, she used her Semblance to rejoin Weiss and Blake. As her sister was telling her teammates what the plan was, Yang took a few deep breathes to calm herself and to prepare herself to attack when the opportunity arose.
Yang watched as Weiss' Arma Gigas was now wrestling with the Draco. It still had it's one bone spike in its shoulder while the summon had its right hand on the Grimm's other arm so it couldn't impale it again and the other hand was gripping its throat so it couldn't blast it. The two were stomping around on the ground, trying to gain an advantage over the other.
Yang saw Blake and Ruby run towards the two and jumped onto it's back. She heard the reaper shout, "Ladybug!" and the two started to speedily cut into the back, sides and hind legs. The beast growled and its eye focused on the two irritating it. That gave Weiss the chance to have her summon drive its knee into its chest and lifting it off the ground. Ruby and Blake quickly jumped away from the two to not get caught up in the assault. It then slammed the Grimm onto its back as it roared in a combination of shock and pain.
Yang activated her Semblance at that moment and under her, she saw a Time Dilation glyph appear, curtesy of Weiss, her eyes flicked over to the heiress and nodded before she charged towards the downed prey. Her speed was higher than normal so she cleared the distance in no time and she jumped towards the bone armor, the ground shattering under her as she did. She pulled her right fist back and with a shout, drove it into the heavily cracked area of the bone armor. The bone plate spider webbed and shattered, the bone fragments flying around her as the Draco roared again at feelings its armor break and some pieces being pushed into its flesh.
Yang quickly leapt off the Grimm and next to Weiss as the Arma Gigas let go of the beast's arm and summoned its sword into its free hand. It twisted it into a reverse grip and drove the massive blade into its chest, killing it.
Or at least, that's what they hoped would happen. The summon was trying to drive the blade into the beast's chest but to no avail. The Draco's other bone spike was burrowed into its sword arm's elbow, only letting the blade shallowly stab into it. "Nice try." Was all it said as it tore its bone spike through the elbow of the knight, severing the arm from the body and the sword falling to the side. It then pushed itself from the ground and drove the same bone spike into the chest of the summon. The Draco pushed it to the ground, pinning it, and started to channel its weaker energy attack before firing it into the head of the Gigas. Ending it.
RWBY was shocked and just stared as the summon slowly faded away. The Grimm raised itself onto its hind legs and roared into the sky in victory. Yang and Weiss were standing on shaky feet, both exhausted from using their Semblances. Ruby and Blake ran to stand in front of their exhausted partners. None of them knew what to do now. They did everything they could and now they were down two members because of exhaustion.
The Draco looked back down at the four Huntresses-in-Training. It's remaining eye glowing with satisfaction as it opened its maw again. Energy started to charge but with the amount of time it was taking, it was the beam variant. They couldn't get away from its range in time, Ruby couldn't move all four of them with her Semblance and Blake's Shadow would still have them within range of it. "What now?" Yang asked herself and her team as a whole.
For those seconds he was in the air, he could feel the attack destroy his chestplate and trying to break through his aura and it would if he didn't do something quick. He was only in as good shape because of his earth Semblance increasing his endurance and there was no way he could swap now. He channeled his aura into his arms and his right eye shifted to red. His body started to glow with both red and brown aura before he gripped the energy blast, which was as tall as him, with his hands. He could feel his gloves burning but with a shout of pure desperation, pushed the blast off of him.
The blast was sent into the forest and he was thrown to the ground hard. His back collided with Remnant before he bounced and tumbled across the ground, hitting his shoulder, ribs, stomach before ending on his back again and sliding to a stop. He took several ragged breathes and was in so much pain. His aura was barely at an eighth and his eyes were back to their original eye color. He couldn't do anything but lay there as he hoped that the pain would subside enough for him to get to Yang before it was too late.
"Jaune!" he heard another voice shout before a flurry of rose petals landed beside him. He felt two hands slowly help him up into a sitting position. He looked into scared silver as Ruby asked, "Are you alright?"
He looked behind her to see Weiss and Blake arrive with the help of the former's Glyph. They ran to him and Blake knelt down on his other side. He popped his neck and spoke up, "Not in the best shape but I'll live." He looked past Blake and saw that Yang was engaging with the Draco a couple hundred meters away. "You three need to back her up."
"What about you?" Weiss asked him and he looked at her as she showed clear signs of worry for him.
He gave her a tired smirk, "I just need a breather and I'll join you all. Now go on." He motioned over to the battle with his right hand. Blake and Weiss turned to Ruby and she nodded. Blake and Ruby both gave him a brief hug before the three ran to join their last teammate, Ruby using her Semblance of course. Once he knew they were out of earshot, Jaune groaned in pain. "I never thought I'd miss those aura shots but I could really use one now."
Jaune watched in exhaustion as Weiss' summoned Grimm battled with the Draco. He saw a golden comet, which he knew was Yang, slam into its chest. He couldn't help but grin when the white knight slammed the black dragon into the ground and impale through the chest with its sword. That grin fell when he saw the Grimm pick up the Arma Gigas and reverse their positions and destroy it with an energy attack. It turned to the sky and roared.
His eyes widened in fear. 'I need to stop it. But how!? None of the elements are strong enough! Wait…' His right hand twitch in realization. 'Void. I-I can still access it. It could be enough. But…what'll happen to me if I use it again?'
That's when it turned to RWBY and started to charge another energy attack. That's when everything fell away and he was sprinting towards the Draco. His body reacted on reflex, fusing his remaining Aura with the five elements as his eyes shifted to that borderline black-purple. He threw his right arm to the side and the Void orb manifested. His eyes flicked over to it. 'This is the only one I can make. Can't risk it.'
He clenched his fist and the Void orb flattened into a disk a few inches wider than his fist. It then slid from his knuckles up to his elbow, coated his entire forearm and fist in Void. His speed started to increase from the little Void added into his system as he shouted, "Look over here, you damned bastard!"
The Draco and RWBY did before staring in shock. The Draco could feel something different about the human now. Something dangerous. Not wanting to take a chance, it fired its beam at Jaune. His girlfriends screamed at him but he couldn't afford to dodge it or he'd lose speed and he was running on fumes right now. So instead, he shuffled to his left as he ran and as the beam was fired, he raised his right arm up on his right side.
He could feel the side of the beam scrap along his Void covered arm. He could feel the intense heat and energy off the attack but the Void protected him from any damage, allowing him to keep running forward. Luckily, he was in its new blind spot, so it couldn't see him. The energy soon dissipated and Jaune used the last of his aura, that wasn't in the Void, to leap toward the Grimm.
As he was in the air, he pulled his fist back. The Draco turned its head to see him with its only eye and drove it's right bone spike into shoulder. Jaune grit his teeth in pain but quickly smashed his left forearm into it with a back hand, shattering the spike with his enhanced strength so it wouldn't completely impale him. With a shout, he drove his Void fist into the Draco's chest. He landed on the chest and held on as he was up to his elbow in the Grimm's chest. Without risking another second, he shifted the Void armor from the inner portion of his arm into a long thin blade that stuck out its back and swung his arm to the right. He freed his arm and almost sliced the Draco in two.
The five people and the single Grimm were frozen, not sure on if it was over or not. That was until The Draco tipped to the side and Jaune jumped from the falling body. He landed on his knees as the beast finally fell. He was breathing raggedly as he covered his arm in Void again, just in case it wasn't over yet.
He heard a weak chuckle coming from the fallen Grimm and he turned to see that it was moving its head to look at him with its eye, "You did it, congratulations. Too bad…you didn't hear what I said before. You should've…aimed for my….hea…" It couldn't finish its sentence. It's red eyes stopped glowing and turned black.
It's body started to dissolve as every Grimm did. Except the Grimm essence was converging onto Jaune, or more precisely, the bone spike still wedged in his shoulder. He could feel the remains of the Grimm flooding not his body through it and all he could do was scream in intense pain.
"Jaune!" RWBY shouted in sync and ran toward him. But were pushed back by the black smoke swirling around him like a twister. They could hear him scream and see him thrashing in pain. After what felt like an eternity, the smoke dissipated, leaving Jaune laying on his back on the ground. Before any of them could take a single step towards him, they heard him start to chuckle. They were confused until his chuckles turned to full blown laughter and he slowly started to get back to his feet. Once he was on his feet, he turned to them and they all froze at what they saw. He was grinning at them but his eyes weren't their normal blue. Not even the dark purple of Void. They were blood red and glowing.
"Looks like I found a real gem this time." Said the Draco's voice from Jaune's mouth.
A/N- Here's the next one! Now I know there are probably a few questions floating around now about the Drakes and Dracos, they will be answered in the next chapter. Now the bad news: It is going to be a while before I put another chapter out for TVS. It's nothing severe, so don't worry. My plan is to update Distortion next and then I want to focus completely on DVYL May Cry until it is finished, which should only be 5-6 chapters. Similar to what I did for Unraveling the Knight. Once I do that, I'll be back to updating my other stories again. With that said, I hope you can all enjoyed the chapter nad will be here for the next one. See you all int he next update!
Before I forget: the amazing Beta Reader for this chapter was Khor Evik Vlakhavlakh