UPDATE: Chapters have been named
Chapter 16:
"Gods be damned I knew this idea was absurd!"
Two heavily armoured figures shifted through the halls of the Strange Folk temple with a surprising amount of agility, considering the bulkiness of the armour they were wearing. Their armour bared similar looks to the appearance of the statues that team RWBY had found themselves troubled with, only bearing more intricate and fancy looking designs. Another addition was the pair of large gas tanks they wore on their backs - pipes snaking from the top of the tanks and into the back of their helmets - and also the fact that their hands were not replaced, the blade instead extending out beneath their metal plated right hand and a futuristic-looking pistol in their left.
"It was accidental!" Shouted the first of the armoured men in reply to the other, his voice muffled by the helmet over his head, "That wasn't meant to happen!"
"But it did!" The second figure's tone turned fierce, his voice also muffled, "And now we are tasked with dealing with this abomination!"
"We have no chance against that! It is impossible for two of us to take down that thing!" The two figures came to the main chamber of the temple, but something was different.
The torches were lit. And they didn't light them.
The first figure growled, "We have intruders…" He snorted, his blade readied, a thin blue coating overcoming the blade.
"Humans?" the second man questioned
"Who else." He didn't state his reply in a questioning tone, instead bearing an aggressive tone with venom tipped words.
Death flanked through multiple narrow passageways, trying to find his way to the storage chambers. He was rather unsatisfied to find out that the layout of the various temple passageways had changed considerably. He expected as much, but still found himself unpleased with the change in layout.
The storage chambers would hold something that peaked his interest greatly, though it would mean veering from his originally mapped plan. He was willing to take a detour every now and then - be that detour large or small – and would occasionally twist his path when something intriguing sprouted up in his mind.
His mind had only now decided to bring up the memory of a certain… weapon, one that clung to his mind and refused to release it when it made itself present in his thoughts. The last he saw of the blade, the Strange Folk tossed it away into a crate in one of the smaller storage rooms that lay within the temple, leaving the blade to dull and rot away in some forsaken crate amongst an army of similarly unmoving metal boxes.
The Reaper would spend the full length of precisely eighteen minutes and thirty-nine seconds searching for that room before he finally wandered upon it. His satisfaction was short-lived though, as he failed to discover what he had been in search of. He dismissed the shame in being unable to find the blade and instead focused his mind on the unsettling shifting of the temple stones beneath his feet.
Ever since team RWBY accidentally locked themselves behind the energy barrier, Death could always feel the strange presence of the unsettled stone walls and floors around him, almost as if they each had a conscience, as if they were calling out to him or reaching for him with invisible hands. He would hate to admit it, but he was slightly unnerved by the odd presence of the stones, even more so when he felt so weakened.
It was as if the whole temple had come alive as soon as that energy barrier activated. But this was not a happy, joyous life, this was a pained and aged life, a life that had seen too much for any mind. He felt the presence of the temple as it called out to him in an unheard voice… and it sounded like it was begging, begging to be put to rest, just like The Messenger had begged for in that same unheard voice.
Whatever was going on, it was new and Death didn't like it at all. Whatever was happening to Ruby Rose and her posse of fighting feminine friends, it was about to get so much worse. Hell, Death might even find the end of his own dejected existence in such a newly unknown place.
The temple shook and loose stones fell free, raining a storm of small pebbles upon team RWBY's head as they fought decisively against the Guardians of the temple.
Yang Xiao Long was getting the upper hand on her opposing statue, her explosive projectiles proving to be more effective than the bladed assaults driven by her fellow teammates. The Guardian she was faced with had trouble keeping up with the girl, the blonde's movements proving too quick to counter or block effectively. Furthermore, her explosive weaponry was staggering the stone Guardian, reducing its guard to near to nothing as it was continuously pounded with explosive attacks. The statue finally got a chance to regroup when the girl halted her attacks to inform her teammates about the Guardians' apparent weakness.
"Their weakness is explosions!" She yelled, ducking to avoid a slow strike from one of the Guardian's stone blades, "This one can barely fight back!"
"We don't have any explosives!" Weiss roared back over the constant clatter of metal against stone, their weapons barely chipping away at whatever rock the statues were made out of.
Weiss, on the other hand, was having an unpleasant experience during her battle. Whilst she showed clear expertise in manoeuvring about the immense stone Guardian, she was always caught out by fast, precise attacks the Guardian would retaliate with at precisely the perfect time.
Weiss Schnee had some experience fighting large, lumbering opponents, her final combat examination before Beacon pitting her against an oversized suit of armour. Yet she had issues fighting what seemed to be an almost identical opponent , only appearing to be slightly smaller in size and wielding dual blades that seemed to be part of the statue. Upon further examination, the Guardian was a great deal more nimble than the armour had been, though barely moving to dodge attacks and only showing ludicrous amounts of speed whenever it attacked, and that was only on rare intervals.
The Guardian showed to struggle more against Weiss than the others did with Ruby and Blake, choosing only opportune moments to counter Weiss's fancy acrobatic-like combat style. The heiress eventually made optimal use of her limited supply of ice dust, freezing the Guardian's lower limbs and attacking hastily, though she had trouble isolating and freezing the statue's arms.
Ruby Rose was getting swatted about like a fly, her high-speed attacks being intercepted by sizable stone blades that dwarfed her entire body or even just getting sidestepped when she had the perfect attack lined up.
Ruby much preferred fighting against multiple smaller enemies rather than just one large brute of an opponent that outranked her in both strength and size (by a significant amount, the Guardian standing at nearly three times her height and width). The only larger enemy she could recall facing was the Nevermore during initiation, but that was a one versus four situation whilst this was four versus four. Sure, she may have delivered the finishing blow, but decapitating that Nevermore would have been impossible without the assistance of those who she now called teammates.
In the current situation, she was dealing with an opponent more agile and better-sized than the giant Grimm Nevermore and better versed in melee combat in a very limited space. Blake and Weiss could rely on their semblances to bounce around the stone giants, but Ruby only had her speed and a gun-scythe to face her opponent with, only able to use the limited space that the walkway provided. There was no way she would survive another minuet against this thing.
Blake Belladonna was certainly having her own issues when facing the Guardian. Her agility and semblance seemed to confuse the stone Guardian, the stone brute constantly searching for the defiler and repeatedly attacking mere clones of its target.
Much like Weiss, Blake was well versed in fighting larger opponents, remembering the fight she and Adam had with the Spider Droid. This opponent was very different to the robotic spider though, the Guardian soon switching its attacks from slow, lumbering, and powerful strikes to more precise swings and jabs with its stone blades, though still barely able to catch the cat-girl before she darted away and only catching her on rare occasions.
Regardless of her combat prowess over the stone Guardian, the statue never seemed to fall, stagger, or even show any signs of being hurt or damaged in the slightest.
Realising that this battle was going nowhere, Blake searched for other options as she nimbly evaded the constant swings of her opposing Guardian. Even Yang was starting to have issues with her Guardian, the stone statue simply refusing to go down as Yang grew tired and her attacks began to seem sloppy, a thing very uncommon for the blonde brawler. Perhaps it was the fact the expedition had run past midnight and was most probably heading through to 1:00am.
Blake thought back to when Death had curiously dropped a small rock into the murky water around them and she had watched, diverting her attention from her teammates and to the abnormal man whom they had agreed on a field trip with. She remembered her sensitive hearing picking up on the harsh sizzling that sounded when the stone touched the water and she remembered watching the stone quickly sink into the greyish water, soon disappearing entirely from view.
"The water!" She yelled to her teammates as she continued evading the countless attacks from the stone guardian, "Push them into the water!"
Yang was the first to act upon the faunus girl's advice, finding a new, invigorating energy within herself as she pushed her larger opponent towards the water's edge with a successive chain of explosive shotgun shells, each one shifting the Guardian gradually closer to the water's edge. As the stone Guardian set a rocky foot in the murky water, it quickly retracted its lower limb, staggering forth and almost falling into the blonde brawler as it toppled forward in what seemed to be anger.
The Guardian swung wildly at Yang, but it's now sloppy attacks were easily evaded by the blonde girl. It tried desperately to land a hit on its opponent, as if it knew the danger the murky water posed to it. The Guardian's foot quickly disappeared, devoured by the hungry grey waters, still proceeding to chew away at the colossal statue. Soon there was nothing left of the statue but a murky grey residue that took its place where the statue had lay as it shrivelled away into nothing.
Yang shrugged her shoulders and moved on to help her sister.
The rest of team RWBY tried their best to follow Yang's lead and push the statues into the water, but to no avail.
Upon catching the words of Blake Belladonna, the girl's opponent shifted its head to sight the murky, grey water next to the walkway before continuing its attack on Blake, though this time it seemed more cautious and even faster whilst reducing the amount of attacks it decided to throw. Blake tried with all her might to stagger the stone colossus, but whatever she tried the statue refused to budge. Her blade hit the stone countless times, but each time the stone remained unscathed.
The Guardian threw a horizontal attack, followed by a vertical attack with its second blade, the second attack catching the faunus girl off guard and throwing her against the ground. The Guardian aimed the tip of its stone blade for the girl as she lay in pain against the stone walkway, Blake only able to narrowly avoid the tip as it came crashing down on the walkway where she lay just before manoeuvring away from the oncoming attack.
The searing pain that shot through her body was an obvious warning that her aura was no more. She surely wouldn't last another minute if the statue kept its new faster, more aggressive offense up.
Ruby Rose was on the verge of loss and, undoubtedly, death. She had thought about the strange man who had suddenly appeared in her life the first day she arrived at Beacon. She wondered who he really was and why he seemed so detached, only speaking to them when he was prompted to. She wondered why he showed more kindness towards her than her teammates.
She shouted out of her thoughts by the likes of her sister, Yang, who had somehow managed to back the Guardian Ruby was faced with into the water, where the stone statue simply stood in wait, waiting patiently for its petty existence to end.
That was when she saw Weiss.
Here she was, Weiss Schnee, laying on her back, facing the expressionless helmet-like head of the stone statue that would be her death. The statue raised its blunt stone blade as it stood above her, towering over her with the height of a small building, the height of fear.
There were many things she wished she could have done in her limited life. She wanted to apologise to her father and make herself noticeable in the stern man's eyes. She wanted to speak with her brother and sister, to actually acknowledge them rather than stay cooped up in her own world of troubles. So many things she wanted to do… none of them included dying though, as was the cruel fate she was faced with now. She didn't want to, her body revolted, but she eventually closed her eyes, lay back, and waited for the end to come. But it never did.
And her mind simply flooded with fear. Of what, she did not know.
When she next opened her eyes, two hefty hands were hauling her to her feet. She almost had too little time to jerk her legs to life and support herself before the hands released their iron grip on her shoulders. Confusion rattled her mind for a moment as she scanned the area around her, trying to compose what had been happening. She saw a familiar figure next to her, staring to her with golden eyes, skull painted mask twitching ever so slightly as the figure produced words from its covered mouth.
"Still shocked, Miss Schnee?" The figure spoke with muffled words, its shape still slightly blurred by her fearful mind, "Just like me, Miss Schnee… Just like me…." The figure shook itself off as it turned and walked to the water, crouching down to retrieve a curved blade from the water, flicking liquids from its edge and running a thumb over it.
Then she came to full realisation of who was talking to her… that… thing.
But then her vision was overcome with more colours - red, yellow, black - they all flooded her eyes and it almost hurt.
Her ears were flooded with words; she understood none of the sentences screamed at her, but only one calmly spoken sentence that spoke so quietly and calmly it overruled every other sound that flooded her eardrums.
"Not today, Miss Schnee. Your death is not today."
He didn't even know why he was opting to save the children. What did they ever do for him?
For some unforeseen reason, something urged him to help them. It was a stupid idea that his mind had conjured up, he wasn't even sure if he would survive in his weakened state. In the end, his body was unable to disobey his mind and he managed to pass by the door and hook famine into the neck of the Guardian that was about to bring Weiss's death about her, somehow finding the strength to stagger it back into the water, though failing to retrieve Famine as it did
Lucky thing that Death's signature brand metal was impervious to acidic substances.
Something about the temple had changed dramatically, and not just the layout. The Strange Folk temple disturbed him, ridiculed his presence, yet welcomed him in an uncomfortable manner. The temple wanted him to leave, he knew it.
Giving his decisions further thought, it would be good that he stopped the death of Weiss Schnee. He felt the presence of… something else in the temple. Something different, unlike anything he had felt before.
And it almost scared him, the power of this strange new presence. But he welcomed it with open arms, and he wanted it for himself. Yet he was not stupid, he needed to escape without leaving any traces of death behind for this new presence to discover. Worse yet, if this new presence was of Strange Folk origin then it was needless to say that a corpse would most displease the remnants of the Strange Folk and would bring about… unforeseen consequences for the world above.
Then he spoke to Weiss Schnee, once again riddling her with his cryptic language, yet speaking simple enough for the girl to decipher his message. He spoke to her a lot, he told her that she was something special.
Truth be told, she was. He wasn't stupid, The Messenger couldn't sneak anything by him.
But then he drew his attention to a more urgent issue…
Where did Blake go?
Now… I understand this isn't really a fight scene, and that is because I suck serious balls at writing actual fight scenes. So that means you'll be stuck with this until I decide to finally pull my head out of my arse and write a proper battle.