RWBY: Light Extinguished
Chapter 22
oxoxoxo
The men watched as the red smoke billowed up into the air, thick and blotting the sun out from their view. Rescue definitely was coming, there wasn't a chance of that flare being missed. But what kept them on their toes was the inhabitants of the island being attracted to it. They did not have to wait long until one of the rotters stumbled out of the canopy towards them. Fantine was quicker on the draw than his comrades, pulling a throwing knife from his suit and flinging it at the Inferri, sticking it right in the forehead and dropping it flat on its back. "Well, damn, I was almost hoping for more of a challenge than that." Vlad chuckled.
"I wouldn't abandon that hope just yet. They're coming. Get ready for the fight of your life, boys." Erwin stated, looking off intently into the forest.
"We got tons of time, Erwin, you know how slow those things are. Only dangerous when they back you into a corner with their numbers."
"It's not them we have to be worried about," Erwin began, pausing for a moment to continue scanning the tree line, "It's the other ones that are a danger right now."
"Whatever you say, Frundsberg. We're reunited at last and you're picking up right where we left off. Paranoid and overthinking. You know what, that's the way you've always been, Erwin. Maybe that's why they all died that night, you got calm and now you can't let your guard down for a second, as if you did for any less before." Vlad declared.
"Vlad, stop it, we need to focus!" Fantine snapped.
"Focus on what? By the time they get here the ship will already have picked us up. Don't believe me? Watch," Vlad said, turning and cupping his mouth with his hands as he shouted into the forest, "Hey, you rotting idiots! We're over here! A tasty general, professor, and badass are ready for order! Bon apettit, you freaks!"
"Vlad, knock it off or I swear to God I will shut you up myself!"
Vlad spun around on a dime, beckoning the professor forward, "Bring it, Fantine, I don't mind beating someone with glasses as long as they can't see after I'm done."
Erwin remained oblivious to the squabbling behind him, he was much more fixated on the noises of the forest or, rather, the lack thereof. It was deathly silent, not even the wind or chatter of birds broke it. That was, until something sent a cool wave of fear over Erwin. It was a clicking sound, not much different from woodpecker on a tree but with almost an echo to it, even a snarl tapering off at the end of it every so often. It was then Erwin realized that it wasn't just one clicking noise. It was multiple sources for the clicks in the same general location. Directly behind him. Erwin spun to face his opponent, only to find nothing there. His eyes were caught, however, by what loomed around the still bickering professor and mad man. It appeared like tall, humanoid distortions had surrounded them, Erwin knowing his eyes were not playing tricks on him as he saw them slowly shuffle in. "Move!" Erwin could only manage to shout.
Fantine and Vlad both looked at Erwin in surprise and confusion, just in time to see the invisible beings move in on them. Erik dove in the gap between a pair of them, clearing it, tucking into a ball and somersaulting to land on his feet. The abandoned deserter could only spin in all directions to look at his foes be could barely make out. Suddenly, he reared back as the tearing of cloth, metal and flesh ripped through the air, a pair of jagged, long claws rammed through his back and out his chest only made visible by his own blood on them. Vlad slowly looked down at the blades in his body, trembling hand reaching for them as his breath grew just a shaky, blood beginning to pool in his mouth and cascade down his mailed abdomen. His body was thrown and shaken about violently as more of the unseen beings begin to impale him, through the stomach, chest, back, shoulder, forearm, and calf.
Vlad now stood limp in the center of the ambush, a scarecrow propped up by skewers. The beings that surrounded him began to fade into view. Their skin was a sickly, dark green and deeply cracked, as if they had scales. The claws that riddled Vlad projected out of their wrists in pairs. Their heads were far too large, their brows immensely high and flat. Atop their scalps lay several long, thick tendrils. Most disturbing was their faces. Their jaws hung open with far more of a gape than any human could possibly hope, their chins nearly touching their chests as they roared. And their eyes, purely black and sunken deep into their skulls.
Fantine and Erwin looked on in horror at the pack that had sprung upon their ally. Erik drew his rapier, getting only a step in as Erwin put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. The professor twisted himself free to look at a grinning Erwin, a finger aimed in the direction of the attack as he said, "Watch and learn."
(Author's note: Music begins here. Song: Tyrant by Judas Priest)
The Inferri that had stabbed Vlad through the chest leaned in with jaws open wide to inhale his head. Instead, however, Vlad swung his unimpeded arm around and throttled the beast before him. His grip so tight that it began to compress the Inferri's neck, Vlad placed a boot against its chest and kicked it with all his might, the body sailing away and tumbling to a stunned Fantine's feet.
Vlad proceeded ahead as if nothing were wrong, spinning the severed but still-living head on a finger as he dragged the rest of the pack along with him, claws still imbedded in his body, heading for his shotgun. He reached into his pocket and produced a silver shell from his coat pocket, working a toe under his shotgun and catching it, slamming the round into the chamber and cocking his gun. In an instant, Vlad had severed all arms that hung from him, Inferri soaring in all directions as he stood in the epicenter, the blade of his halberd dripping with crimson.
Gaining him some breathing room, Vlad removed the claws from his back, shoulder and stomach, but left the ones poking through his forearm and opposite shin where they were. The holes in his armor and clothing remained but the flesh closed in itself, smoothing out with no signs he had ever been wounded. His mouth was hooked down in a vicious snarl and his pupils were clouded over dark red. The Inferri slowly got to their feet, not even sparing a thought to their severed arms as another set of claws sliced out of the tops of their remaining wrists. Vlad's scowl softened to a sick grin as he saw this, muttering, "Let's see what you freaks got."
As if on cue, the pack descended on Vlad. Bringing his halberd back, he slammed the axe into the crown of the skull first beast to reach him, dropping it to its knees with blade still lodged in its head. Using it as a firing stand, Vlad blasted through the wide open mouth of its lunging companion beyond it. Using the polearm and corpse as a vault, Vlad somersaulted ahead, come down with an axe kick to the skull of another Inferri, spike impaling it and blood pouring down its eternally enraged face. Vlad swung his leg back and catapulted the corpse at the Inferri stalking him from behind, taking it to the ground. Another flanked him from his non-halberd side, claws swinging to remove his head from his shoulders. Vlad reciprocated the swing with his own forearm, the blade jutting through the bottom of his limb slicing through the beast's claws and cheeks, popping the top of its head into the air.
Erik continued to watch with awe, Erwin's arms crossed with a prideful smile spread across his face. "How is he doing that?" Fantine managed to utter.
"It's his semblance. The angrier he gets, the more damage he can tank. We call those things predators. Almost impossible to spot them, you just have to listen for them. They're also completely blind, they basically hunt you down with their other senses. Hard to believe you'd never seen them in your time here, Fantine." Erwin replied.
The member of the back that had been taken down by a corpse sprung to its feet, turning to the chatting duo and charging at them with a spine chilling bellow. Fantine ducked under its swipe but it continued straight for Erwin, arms still crossed. Just as its swing was being loaded over its head, Erwin reached for his dagger with a finger on the trigger. The general brought the blade up before his face and spun it on his finger, the claws meeting the broadside of the kukri and sliding off harmlessly in a flurry of sparks. Erwin regained his grip on the weapon and jammed the blade straight into the creature's mouth, the beast clamping down just as the entirety of the steel was in its orifice. A sudden blast inside the predator's mouth was illuminated by a flash of light through its snaggled teeth, the contents of the back of its skull pouring at as a dust round blew through it. Erwin kicked the corpse free of his blade and holstered it, turning to an impressed Fantine as he commented, "You two never cease to amaze."
"We're not done yet." Erwin said, pointing a finger back in Vlad's direction.
Vlad stood in the center of the pack that slowly closed in on him from all angles, halberd aimed ahead. The first move was made by a predator to his left, Vlad quickly meeting him with a backhanded swing of his spiked arm and nailed the corpse to his arm. His other flank was soon compromised, but Vlad brought his leg up and swung it back at the pair of predators charging him and separated their top halves of their craniums from their bottom halves. Vlad used the momentum of his kick to twist himself around, freeing his arm and taking his halberd in both hands in a blind swing, cleaving the head of one predator in half diagonally, bisecting its neighbor from shoulder to hip, and the one beyond that having its legs amputated at the thigh and knee. Vlad arched his body to the side to avoid being run through by the last intact predator. The beast flew straight past Vlad but face-first into the axe at his side, the momentum slicing it cleanly down the middle. The halves continued their path and the armed one skewered its halved but living comrade through the forehead on its descent. Vlad's last foe stood on its wobbly, uneven limbs, swatting its claws at him for in a rabid bid to kill him. Vlad smiled as he raised his halberd up in both hands, blade before his face, and drove the spike through the crown of the predator's skull. The beast instantly went silent and limp, Vlad pulling the trigger for good measure and making its head explode outward.
Vlad had barely watched the corpse flop back before he was met with a single bit of applause, the riled deserter turning to find his former superior clapping for him, cheering, "Well done, Vlad. It's been a while since I've seen what you're capable of."
"Don't think I'm done yet, Frunsberg, you're next!" Vlad shouted, pointing his staff ahead.
"Easy, Vlad, same side here."
"Gentleman, I hate to interrupt, but what's that noise I hear? More predators?" Erik inquired, pulling a pair of black gloves over his hands.
The two men quieted down and listened. It was minute at first, a rumbling in the distance. That was, until it grew near, the very ground trembling and vibrating with the force of what charged at them. "No. That's hopefully just one behemoth. You'll see why they get that name soon enough."
Frundsberg had no sooner finished his sentence before a massive beast so overfilled with muscle it had to maneuver like an ape came barreling into the clearing. Erik smiled as his fingers stiffened at his side, the glimmer of miniscule filaments revealing themselves as they radiated from his fingertips. As the behemoth crossed the distance between them and reached the halfway point, its was abruptly halted by the very same wires that Fantine had conjured. Growling in rage, the monster forced itself ahead, ignoring the wires that pressed through his flesh and sliced to the bone. Fantine's grin shrunk to a frown as it continued to push on, a wave of panic washing over him as one of the wires snapped inside its chest. Luckily, the behemoth pressed on as one of the wires pushed through its mouth, slicing its cheeks and ultimately its spine and neck, the beast standing tangled in the web. Erik promptly removed his gloves, pocketing them and freeing the beast from its trap. "Whoa, Fantine, nice little trick you hid on us! How'd you do it?" Vlad marveled, grunting and cursing under his breath as he slid the jagged claws from his arm.
"Don't expect to see it again so soon. That thing was so much stronger than I expected. It snapped one of the wires..."
"So what? You had plenty to take it down! Or is this some bs about not wanting to use your ultimate weapon to test yourself? Don't tell me you're that lame?" Vlad scoffed, removing the other set of claws from his leg.
"That's not the problem. That thing weakened them all. It must have. The wires that come off my gloves are very strong due to their forging. They can cut almost anything to pieces. But they don't have much tensile strength at all. We're lucky that snapped wire didn't come back and cut our throats open. I should have been smarter, they would have helped more when the rest showed up." Fantine lectured, scowling in his self-chastising.
The sudden stench of decay and moans of the hordes now wafted through the air. The first, scattered lines of the Inferri began to file out of the tree, the men putting their backs to each other in response. "So, this is it, Frundsberg? Or do you have some plan to somehow escape and disappear from your best friend for a couple more months?" Vlad quipped.
"Not the time. Our only hope of making it now is to do what we were supposed to do. Take down any and all in your sight. It's them or us, boys." Erwin ordered.
"As you wish, general," Fantine complied, drawing his rapier as Vlad muttered, "Suck up."
"Well, what are we waiting for? Hold as much ground as we can!" Erwin ordered, advancing ahead and firing his revolver-dagger into the hordes approaching them on his front.
Vlad began his own slow approach to the horde on his end, unloading shell after shell onto the rotting masses. Fantine lowered his head, shaking it with a smile on his face as he said to himself, "Guns? You gentlemen lack the finesse I've come to expect. Let me show you how its done."
Erik looks up and his eyes first meet the corpse of his first kill, spearhead-like throwing knife still erect from the skull it resided in. Erik threw his hand in the direction of the distant cadaver, a lengthy rope ending in a noose flying out of his sleeve and towards the weapon. The macabre lasso found its mark and, with a tug, tightened around the exposed steel tang and was ripped free. The knife flew back past Erik, zooming on past Vlad's head behind him and coming within an inch of hitting the mad man. The blade propelled straight into the forehead of an unfortunate Inferri and, with a heave, its head was ripped off of its shoulders, recoiling back past an awed Vlad and towards Fantine.
The skull zoomed ahead and cracked against another Inferri's, both exploding on impact. Erik retracts the blade, moving his head aside as the knife flies back at him, rope wrapping around his neck. The rope knife swung back around and slices into the skull of a ghoul, getting lodged in its head. Taking a section of the rope in both hands, Erik approaches the corpse before tugging the blade free. The instant he does so, he is swinging the rope blade overhead from shoulder to shoulder at high speeds, cleaving faces and skulls down the middle.
In the midst of his whirlwind, Erik finds himself being surrounded. He let the whirling blade wrap around his arm, flying backwards and up into the rotted-out nasal cavity of one behind him. Erik the blade free with a jerk of his shoulder, the weapon flying by him and into the eye socket of another ghoul. The professor whips the blade free, extending his leg to catch the rope with it and grabbing the bladed end as it hooked over in an arch behind him, slicing one more Inferri's face open. He caught the blade as it hooked over his shoulder, dangling the rope between his legs and watching as he was slowly encircled. The phantom hurls the blade with a sidehand throw, raising his leg to the let the rope lengthen and kicks it as he does, giving it an upward arc straight through the bottom of another Inferri's chin. Erik attempts to retract once more but the blade slips free of the noose, remaining with the corpse. With only his rapier in hand and a noose lying limp at his side, the Inferri closed in from all angles at Erik, his free ground ever-shrinking. Fantine closed his eyes.
In the darkness, bright flashes of metal glinted as they wildly slashed through the blackness, followed by the sounds of ripping and tearing. Fantine's eyes flung open, revealing numerous beheaded corpses lying around, their neck stumps all wrapped in over a dozen nooses emanating from the sleeves of his jacket. With a flick of his wrists, the ropes released the heads and retracted back into the recesses of his suit.
Erik then took notice to the Inferri further in the horde flying in all directions, a behemoth charging straight for the professor. As the beast neared, mid-charge, it lept up and rose its fist high into the air, crashing them down on Fantine and smashing him to a bloody heap. As the beast reared back, bellowing and beating its chest, it found itself surrounded my numerous clones of Fantine. The beast began to attack the phantom's facsimiles, swatting them aside so hard they exploded on impact, pounding them into the ground, or grabbing them and flinging them into one another.
Towards the epicenter that the horde convened on, an unscathed Fantine looked on with a grin as the beast continued to smash through its own ranks. As soon as the beast took notice to him and his comrades, Fantine hurled his rapier at the beast, skewering it through the eye, making it flop back and crush a few more of the undead. With a tug of the rope connecting him to the hilt of his sword, the weapon zipped back into Fantine's hand, looking over his shoulder and asked, "How goes it on your end, gents?"
"Not as fancy as yours, but it gets the job done." Vlad scoffed, working the pump and pulling the trigger ceaselessly.
"How many rounds do you have left, Vlad?" Erwin spoke, knocking the cylinder free and loosing all of the caps before slamming a ring of ammo into it.
"Not nearly enough, old friend. Same for you?"
"Unfortunately, yes."
"Things not going according to plan?"
"Not necessarily."
"Going to have to fight them up-close until we're overwhelmed?"
"That could happen."
"Oh, open your eyes, Frundsberg! This is the end of the line! As soon as our ammo runs out, our clocks start ticking."
More and more Inferri began to crowd into the ever-expanding rearguard, stacking the odds even more highly against the trio. One Inferri began to near the mass of moving, decaying bodies, only to be split down the middle like a log by a massive double-headed axe. The bloody halves crumpled to the earth, revealing a smirking Samantha hefting the weapon over her shoulder in one hand, either side were a pair of triggers and a forward-curving ammo clip behind them and nuzzled up against the axe blade's bottom, and the other fist on her hip. Her smile evaporated as she turned to face Ravencroft as she spoke, "Save your energy, Sam, looks like we've still got a lot between us and them."
(New Music: Night Witches by Sabaton)
Ravencroft pointed ahead at the mass of Inferri pouring ahead through the trees ahead, Theodora speaking up, "Just think. The finest military minds are somewhere in that mess right now, and Vlad Paler, too."
Sam let out a snicker as some of the Inferri at the fringes began to take notice to their presence. Ravencroft merely crossed her arms and said, "Samantha, why don't you give them a proper Team FRST welcome?"
"You mean where I run into the fray screaming at the top of my lungs and littering the ground with bodies and shell casings?"
"That's the one."
"I thought you'd never ask!" Samantha replied with a toothy grin, sprinting ahead with her axe clasped in both hands at her hip, a bloody war cry tearing itself from her throat.
Samantha effortlessly cleaved the head of the first Inferri to reach her in two diagonally, booting it into one of its comrades a few yards beyond it. She spirals ahead at high speeds, axe held out before her and mowing through the few Inferri in her way and cut several yards into the horde. She slowly spins to a stop, barely able to keep her balance in her dizziness. She shakes her head and regains her balance, finding herself being closed in on from angles. "Oh, no," she exaggeratedly pleads, back of her hand rested up against her temple, "what ever will I do?!"
She aimed the bottom of her shaft ahead, the top of the axehead pointing at her and holding the blade before her by the triggers. The shaft suddenly split down the middle, Samantha leveling her dual bullpup rifles parallel to the ground, axe blades facing towards the earth under the stocks which was tucked under her armpits. Samantha slowly began to turn herself around as she sprayed into the crowd surrounding her, guns kicking vigorously in her arms as she let out a battle cry. Soon, her guns ceased spewing out shell casing and instead let out empty clicks. "Dammit!" she cursed under her breath.
Samantha kept her fingers in the trigger loops but released her grip of the shaft, spinning them clockwise, underhand fashion on her fingers, slicing down through the skulls of a pair of Inferri behind her in the process. On the next revolution, the empty clips flew from their chambers, imbedding themselves through the faces of an unfortunate duo of rotters. She flipped her guns around and took them by the barrel end, charging headlong at the Inferri before her, axes brought back behind her.
The first Inferri in her path had its head sliced from its shoulders with a scissor-like swing of her axes, swinging them back in the opposite direction and cutting the mid-air skull in two. Following off the momentum of the backhanded swings, she brought her axes down onto a pair of skull crowns on either side of her. She booted an Inferri in the chest as she ripped her axes free, dodging the swipe of another Inferri with a spin before bringing her axes down into its upper back and the back of its skull. She lifted the corpse up before her and punted it at the line of Inferri lumbering after her, knocking them back as she charged ahead, stamping the skull of the Inferri she had kicked down in mid-stride, leaping up into the air off the stamp. She twisted and flipped herself around so that she plummeted head-first towards the Inferri below her, winding her arms up before spinning down at them like a tornado, arms outstretched. The windmill that was the soldier came down at the Inferri, mulching them and throwing their bodyparts about like they had gone through a lawnmower. Samantha quickly rose up from her kneeling position and sprinted ahead once again, axes flailing about as her arms swung back and forth in her run.
She slammed an axe down into the head of on Inferri, using its doubled-over corpse as a vault as she planted her boots into the jaw of another Inferri, sending it flying away as she landed back on her feet. Sensing herself as surrounded as ever, Samantha brought her axes over her shoulders and flung them ahead, slamming them into the heads of a couple Inferri not too far away. Reaching into a pair of pouches on either side of her and producing ammo clips in each hand. Those two were flung ahead and driven into the skulls of another unlucky pair of rotters, the ends facing her shining with the gleam of ammunition in the sunlight. She charged ahead and freed her axes from the kneeling corpses without slowing her pace, slamming them into the ammo-clip impaled corpses just beyond them, driving the clips into their chambers but also cleaving the blades through the temples of several Inferri in the path of the follow through. Another Inferri stumbled after her with a swipe of his claws, Samantha leaping over him and crashing down feet-first onto his back, pinning him prone to the ground. Samantha took a quick glance around at the ghouls around her before propelling herself forward atop her living skateboard. Arms extended out in opposite directions, Samantha began to fire her guns, making her spin wildly in her rapid path towards the center of the horde, blasting at everything that crossed her whirling point of view, and gleefully shouting and hollering, "Whoo-hoo-hoo, yeah!"
Theodora and Ravencroft looked on with crossed arms and smirks of amusement, Theodora breaking the silence as she spoke, "She's going to enjoy herself too much, you know?"
"Well, it's not every day she doesn't have to hold back," Ravencroft began, more of the rearguard of the horde creeping towards them, "But who said she gets to have all the fun."
Ravencroft uncrossed her arms and rose her fists, revealing a pair of leather gloves with long, steel talons at the end of each finger, only lacking on her thumbs. Her eyes trailed from the Inferri to the shadows that preceded them before her feet, looking up with a larger, darker grin as she slowly sunk into one that reached her feet. Just as she dissipated from sight, Theodora shuttered, muttering, "I hate when she does that."
Ravencroft abruptly rose from the chest of an unwitting Inferri, bringing her fist back with her fore and middle finger extended. She jammed them through the creature's eyes, the undead moaning as its head reared back. Flames shot down the exposed steel before the Inferri's impaled eyes, its head exploding outward to reveal the flames had fully engulfed the claws inside its head too. Ravencroft sunk back into the shadow over the corpse's chest as it teetered back, rising up from the shadow on the ground of another and slicing its skull open from chin to hairline with an uppercut of her fiery talons. She turned on her heels and clammed her spiked fingers through the temple of another ghoul closing in behind her, blasting it apart with a fiery burst on impact. Ravencroft turned herself around to find herself being closed in on from all angles, crossing her arms and looking up to the sky with disinterest, mocking, "You just don't know how to behave around a lady, do you?"
Just as she was about to be engulfed, Ravencroft was sucked down into another shadow cast over her, shooting back up once more with her back to the Inferri casting it, her risen hand skewering it through the chin. Ravencroft hurled the corpse over her shoulder, the ragdoll taking down a comrade in its path, the Inferri around the downed rotter looking down at it for a moment and looking back at Ravencroft, who had once more disappeared. She reappeared, looming being an unsuspecting ghoul until her hands were clasping each temple, a harsh twist coinciding with a harsh snap. Soon, from the melding of the Inferri shadows around her, Ravencroft was vanishing and reappearing rapidly before or behind Inferri, snapping their necks, skewering their skulls, or slicing their brains apart. When she finally rose to her own feet, she stood in the midst of a pile of dozens of corpses, their puncture and slash wounds cauterized by her burning talons.
Watching her comrade with a hand on her hip and rolling her eyes, Theodora held a sword at her side with multiple orbs containing dust every six inches or so. The wind picked up at her flank and blew her hair in her face, the huntress carefully moving her long, flowing brown hair from her face and scoffing, "She always has to show off that little talent."
As Ravencroft vanished further and further into the horde, the inferri nearest Theodora began to take greater interest in the temptress, shambling and moaning after her. "Ah, finally, a girl can get your attention. Well, boys, let me show what I can do."
Theodora brought her sword far out to her side, swinging it ahead and the blade lengthened out before her, each section with its own orb and separated from the next segment of steel by elastic chains binding them together. The extended blade shot through the air like a bolt of lighting, the tip skewering the rotted nasal cavity of an inferri. The inferri suddenly began to convulse and smoke from its mouth, until its head burst from the voltage running through it head like a watermelon of gore. With a flick of her wrist, the blade retracted to its original form at her side in an instant.
An inferri lumbered at her with a swipe of its hand, Theodora leaping high into the air out of its reach and twisting herself around, landing on its shoulders. The undead being stumbled around under her weight, its dislocated shoulders leaving it helpless under her. A trio of inferri stumbled at the pair, only for Theodora to slash down at them with her whip sword, slicing their cheeks and jaws open to the spine, the tops of their heads flopping back open like trash cans under a geyser of spraying crimson. Theodora brought her sword up before her and drove it down into the skull of the inferri between her feet, then rose her still-imbedded sword up before her and extended the blade. She somersaulted off the miraculously standing corpse, her landing on a knee throwing it over her and, coupled with the momentum and weight added to the blade, a section of blade halfway between her and the hooked corpse sliced an inferri in twain from crown to crotch.
The corpse became dislodged on impact, crushing a comrade under its forceful crash. She suddenly rose her sword overhead, the blade whipping back at her and around her back, entangling the back of an inferri's neck behind the kneeling temptress. She caught the tip of the blade in her free hand, rising with the top of her head crashing into the chin of the ghoul, the force driving the inferri back and decapitating itself on the blade in its spine. Theodora swung her blade before her in a long swoop, the extending sword cutting a swath through a crowd of inferri before her, the electricity aiding in cutting through them like butter. She brought her sword up next to her face, sparking with electric jolts now, with both hands on the hilt, ready for the inferri to close in once again.
She got no such chance, as Samantha came barreling in through the crowd far off ahead of Theodora like a bowling ball through pins. The soldier grinded to a halt before Theodora, absolutely caked in gore and a manic smile, the inferri she rode about on ground down to the point it lacked limbs or a chest, only its very back and head intact until Samantha stomped it in. "So, how's it goin' on your end, Theo?"
"You know I don't like that name. And you certainly know how to spoil a girl's good time." Theodora replied with a thin grin, batting her hair out of her face once again.
"You girls certainly do know how to make a mess of things," Ravencroft sarcastically chastised, rising up from nothing behind them, "Not that I'm complaining. We now have all we need to clear a path to the boys."
"We do?" Theodora and Samantha replied in baffled unison.
"Certainly. The field is now running thick and slick with the blood of our enemies. The thunder has crushed them, how about a little bit more lightning to precede us, Theodora?"
"It would be my pleasure." Theodora chuckled, stepping before her to the precipice of the sea of blood at the end of the untouched section of grass.
She rose her blade before her face once more, glowing by this point with electricity, and jammed it into the blood soaked dirt. The blood instantly began to glow a sickening neon red, the inferri all in its path, and even further beyond they could see, spasming randomly and uncontrollably. Many of the corpses began to smoke and even catch fire until, eventually, their skulls began to burst in random groups, large or small, like grotesque fireworks. Theodora retracted her blade, dull once more but continuing to smoke, and the corpses fell in droves instantly in response. Though not all had fallen, a wide path was cleared for them, a trio of stunned figures standing in the middle far ahead of the clearing. "Well, girls, lets pay our boys a visit." Ravencroft insisted.
The women gracefully strolled over the mound of bodies they had created, Vlad and Erwin looking on with awe and dropped jaws. Fantine, meanwhile, merely smirked and chuckled, stating, "I told you they'd find a way."
"I think I'm in love." Vlad muttered.
The girls stepped off the path of death before the men, Ravencroft looking them over before setting her eyes on her comrade, quipping, "Well, this is the first time I've ever seen you get your hands dirty, let alone the rest of you."
"It's good to see you too, Ravencroft. I'm sure you know of my comrades in this situation, Erwin Frundsberg and Vlad Paler."
"We'd love to introduce ourselves, too, but we still have some company." Ravencroft retorted, turning to face the conglomerate of the dead that was closing in.
"And we better act fast, Julia is coming this way, and she's destroying the island from above." Theodora added.
"Yeah, she said we had a bit of time to get you guys and we'd know when she was here. Uh, Fantine, you've got something on you." Samantha pointed out, aiming a finger at her companion's shoulder.
Fantine looked at his shoulder, finding a thin, red beam of light rising up from his shoulder and into the sky. He and the other soon took notice to the perfectly circular ring around them. The light abruptly began to move in on their center. Erwin's eyes shot open wide, shouting, "MOVE!"
Erwin burst through the group towards the incoming undead, the women and Fantine in hot pursuit. Meanwhile, Vlad merely meandered towards them, shoulder shrugged and cupped hands raised before him in confusion, demanding, "What's the big deal? Where the hell are you guys going?!"
(New Music: The Second Stone by Epica)
His answer was met as the light formed a much tighter circle, a massive red laser spewing down from the heavens and striking the earth, an identical one doing so at the opposite end of the inferri ranks. Though the madman managed to avoid the initial laser, the blast hurled Vlad end over end ahead, screaming in shock. The blast dislodged huge hunks of earth and rock, the force of the quake throwing everything, alive, dead, or undead, into the air. The group found themselves on a large slab flying high into the air, many other rocks smaller than their own ripping through the air. "We have to get out of here or we're going to be smashed or blasted to oblivion!" Erwin ordered, Vlad careening onto their rock with a charred back and groaning in pain.
Erik hefted the madman's arm over his shoulder, helping him up to his dazed feet as Ravencroft echoed, "He's right. We have to get out of here before everything comes crashing down on our heads."
Just as her words exited her mouth, a dozen figures dropped onto the rocks they stood on. The pack of lurkers glared up at them, their horrid red eyes burning through them. One of the ghouls reared back and roared in fury, the rest of the horde dispersing around it and right for the humans. "Everyone, split up and meet up once everything is clear!" Erwin ordered, turning and high-tailing it off the rock with Fantine dragging a slow Vlad after the general, all leaping down and out of sight..
Theodora took off ahead of her comrades, whipping her sword ahead and imbedding it in a still-ascending boulder above her, and, with a yank of the sword, she ascended up to it rapidly. "Come on, Theodora, that's not fair!" Samantha whined as she and Ravencroft skidded to a stop at the edge of the rock.
"Let's even it out then, Sam." Ravencroft rebutted, embracing her from behind.
The long, feathered cape at her back suddenly split down the middle, two erect wings parallel to the ground at her shoulders. They crooked in the middle at a 90 degree angle, giving her wings a dark, angelic look before she turned to face the charging inferri. "Ravencroft, are you out of your mind!" Samantha cried out.
"Sit tight and trust me!" Ravencroft responded, teetering back and falling off the rock.
The inferri skidded to a stop at the rock's end, its ascent halting just for a moment before all the rubble began to plummet to earth. An abject blurred before them, the beasts looking up to find Samantha and Ravencroft, her wings flapping with long, swooping gusts, flying into the air higher still. The beasts took notice to the men hopping below them and Theodora above. Like a stream around a boulder, the undead poured off in two directions, half leaping up the pathway of rocks to the temptress and the others descending on the men.
Erwin looked back to see what the women were doing, only to find the lurkers bearing down on them. "Keep moving, men, and keep those things as far behind you as you can!"
Without giving the inferri so much as a look, they continued to hop down from rock to rock large enough to hold them all. The lurkers grew closer still but one was taken out mid leap by a flying rock slamming into its back and driving it down towards the ground. As they landed on another rock, Erwin turned to fire at the nearest inferri, blowing through its forehead and sending it flopping into the chest of its nearest ally, taking them both off their rock and into the sea of falling rubble all around them. "Keep moving, you two. I'll fend them off." Erwin called out.
"Don't be dumb, Erwin, you know just as well as me you aren't getting out of here unless you keep moving." Vlad snapped, Fantine looking on with concern.
"Just trust me, I'll be fine. Now move!" Erwin reassured.
With no choice, Fantine dragged Vlad away, the madman shouting back, "You better not play dead for the next few months again, Erwin! You still owe me a few war stories, ya know?"
With that, Fantine and Vlad escaped further into the canopy of stone, Erwin holding his blade in a combat pose before him. The three remaining lurkers split up among the rocks and enclosed on Erwin from all angles, who remained stoic and unmoving. The lurkers at his flanks lunged at him simultaneously, only for the general to duck under them and let them crash skull-first into one another, collapsing into a heap behind him. He quickly shot up as the last lurker of the pack sprung onto the rock before him, hunched and ready to pounce. The beast charged at the general with a wide-open, frothing mouth, swiping for his throat with its jagged claws. It caught only air as Erwin dropped down once again, sweep kicking it in the shins and taking it off its feet. As the beast was flopping to the ground, Erwin inverted the grip on his blade and wheeled his kukri out to the side, jamming the blade through the back of the lurker's head and out its mouth. The beast crashed onto the heads of its dazed comrade's, the Hydra digging through their skulls as well and shish kabobing the trio of undead at once. Erwin had little time to recuperate as he withdrew and sheathed his blade, a boulder smashing the corpses to pulp and cracking is own rock in two. His eyes darted around for an escape route, his semblance in overdrive until his body reacted faster than he could think and leaped to a rock beneath him just as another humongous slab smashed into his former island, smashing it to bits. Erwin now saw his path to the edge of the crashing rubble before him, nimbly leaping from rock to rock as quickly as he could without interruption.
Theodora continued to swing from rock to rock with the aid of her whip sword, gaining huge amounts of distance faster than the lurkers could cover to catch up. The temptress found she had made it to the edge of the falling rock wall, only to find she had risen far too high to descend safely. What truly took her breath away was the island, or lack thereof, before her. The ground was charred and devastated, no forest or even grass to be seen to the island's end. Julia was taking it to task to lay waste to every square inch of the island and she was doing a damn good job of it. Her hesitation allowed the lurkers to catch up, the screech of their nails on rock bringing her attention back to her current situation. "Settle down, boys, there's plenty of me to go around." she jibed, sword aimed out ahead of her.
Just as the pack was ready to slam down on her, the repetitive blast of gunfire sounded off, the inferri quickly being blown to pieces and off the rock. Theodora shielded her eyes and looked up at her saviors, Samantha raising her smoking axe rifles while being held in a flying Ravencroft's arms. "You girls really know how to ruin a moment. That was very anticlimactic."
"Hey, it gets the job done, screw finesse!" Samantha rebuffed.
A guttural roar turned all of their attention as a behemoth plummeted down on them, grasping Samantha by the leg and dragging her and Ravencroft down with it. The duo slammed a crater into the rock, Ravencroft nearly out of it and Samantha in barely any better condition. The behemoth pushed itself back up to its lumbering stance, raising its fists up high to crush the women. A blade suddenly ripped into its chest and the beast froze, roaring in pain as the wound began to smoke and burn. "Girls, move! I don't know how much longer I can keep it like this!"
Samantha shook her head of the fog that engulfed her, quickly springing to her feet and throwing Ravencroft over her shoulder, the professor folded over limp. Samantha charged to be by Theodora's side, the temptress thinking aloud, "What now?!"
Samantha set Ravencroft on Theodora's shoulder, joining her hatchets together to form the giant, double-bladed axehead once more, coldly stating, "Get to safety. I want this big guy all to myself."
"Sam, are you crazy?!"
"Is that a rhetorical question?" Samantha replied, looking back over her shoulder to reveal her crimson eyes.
Theodora snickered to herself and cracked a smile, snapping her wrist and retracting the blade from the enraged behemoth. "Well, I'll let you two kids have some fun. Just make sure you go easy on him, okay?"
"I'll do my best." Sam reassured, Theodora hopping down lower and lower still on the levels of rock, hoping to get to a level that was safe to exit the asteroid field.
Samantha strolled up to the furious inferri, beating its chest as she hefted the axe on one shoulder and put her free fist to her hip, grumbling, "Well, come on, big boy, let's see what you got."
With that, the beast threw its fists down at her, the huntress leaping out of harms way as the blow further drove a crack in the rock. Samantha took advantage and shot back at the behemoth, slamming her axe deep into its chest, and received and enraged roar in response. The beast crossed an arm across its body and backhanded at her, only for Samantha to leap over the swing and plant both boots in its face. She flipped back over herself with axe in-hand, the beast stumbling back from the blow. As soon as Samantha touched down, she was back at the behemoth, who met her with an uppercut. She lept up before the blow so that it caught her feet, rocketing her high into the air, her arms and legs curled back behind her. As she plummeted down to her foe, she swung with all her might at its shoulder, cutting through its thick bone and halfway through the limb in general but found herself lodged in the wound. The beast nailed her in the gut with an uppercut from its other arm, sending her sailing off the rock and the blade with her, exiting its body with a sickening sucking noise. The beast dug its hands into the crack of the rock before it, heaving and growling with straining before it snapped the rock in two, hurling the huge portion in its hands up at her.
Samantha continued to tumble into the air, blood filling her mouth and a slim stream of crimson running down her chin from the corner of her mouth. Sam's ascent slowed and reached its zenith, able to finally right herself in the air and see the slab rocketing up at her. Her face contorted with rage, nearly biting through her lower lip as she took her axe in one hand and brought her free fist back. She swung it around with all her might, the connection of fist and rock resulting in both a harsh snap and the instant stop of the rock's momentum. Samantha gritted her teeth through the pain of her shattered hand and pushed with the rest of strength she could muster to send the rock flying far faster down at the behemoth than it had come up. The beast spread its arms out to catch the slab, but it was hit far harder than it could anticipate. The beast was taken clean off its feet, the momentum of the massive projectile firing it into the ground below and crushing like paste. The adrenaline ceased to run through Samantha's veins, the unbearable pain of her hand making her lose grip of her consciousness and she fell to the earth like a ragdoll.
Just as she nearly was splattered across the charred earth, an object swooped her out of the air, a recuperated Ravencroft, scooping her up in her arms and looking down at her with her usual unfazed expression. "You never cease to amaze, Sam."
The faunus woman kept the two of them aloft with her wings and gazed about the skies of the Abyss. All around them, the stones they were fighting on were falling to the ground as Julia's path of destruction burned across the island, the beams annihilating anything they touched. The raven haired professor watched as Theodora made her way back to solid ground and reunited with Erik and the boys as the boulders they had fought upon crashed to the gorund behind her. Seeing a clear space to set herself down, Ravencroft gave her wings a mighty flap and flew towards the rest of her teammates.
Erik watched as his partner made a graceful landing, her feet barely making a sound as she touched down, immidiately laying the unconscious form of Samantha Patton on the ground. "The three of you never fail to make an entrance." The phantom commented. Ravencroft simply shrugged in response. "Will she make it?" He asked, tone growing more serious as he looked over Samantha's form.
"She's hurt, but she still has a pulse," Ravencroft commented. "I checked it on the way down."
The phantom nodded and looked out over the burning island as Theodora lit the blue flare that would signal Atlas to pick them up. His face bore a somber expression as he watched the island burn. He remembered the first time he and his team had set foot on this island, following a large flock of Nevermore that landed here, on this uncharted island. It wasn't long before he and his team realized that uncharted was not a synonym for uninhabited, as the inferri soon made themselves known. It took two days of running and hiding, low on ammo and running out of rations before Ozpin brought their rescuers.
"Lien for your thoughts?"
Erik looked to the source of the voice to see Erwin, the young general, battered and bruised had sheathed his kukri at his belt. "It feels like a hundred years since I first landed here with my army. I figured my being stranded here was my punishment for... what happened to them..."
"No one deserves to be here at all." Fantine commented, looking off into the distance. "The plans of the council were doomed from the start, but now," Fantine hesitated as he looked over the charred and blasted landscape where lush forests once reigned. The only sounds now were the echoes of the lasers that still bombarded the island, the only sights being the massive warship that loomed over the land like a great beast, its might crushing the once fertile island into rubble. "The plan was once to settle this island after your men killed the inferri, but now, now it will likely be centuries before anything lives here again. The light of this island's future has been extinguished."
"But what would have been worse?" Erwin asked. "This island was once a place of death and decay, the creatures here killing anything unfortunate enough to land. Now, well, maybe the ghosts of the past can rest easy. Maybe thier souls can be at peace now that their bodies are truly dead."
Fantine looked the general in the eye. "Does that include the souls of your men, General Frundsberg?" The phantom asked. "I know you still feel responsible for their deaths."
Erwin sighed deeply and looked to the ground. Fantine suspected he would have cried, but it seemed the general had shed his tears months ago when his army was killed. Fantine took a step back, thinking the general could use his space, and looked out into the distance once again. Looking to the sky, he could see the approaching shape of the bullhead that would soon pick them up. Though he could not get off this island soon enough, Erik took a moment to once agin look over the island again. The once blossoming forest may have become a great crater, but it still only seemed right to look over the land that had nearly been the death of him not once, but three times. As he looked over the blasted and rocky land, the gleam of metal caught his eye. Fantine looked to the source of the gleam to see a small metal object embedded in the earth. Though the land had been devestated around it, it seemed it had barely moved from where it was.
Intrigued, Erik decided to investigate, walking in the direction of the gleam. when he got closer, Fantine recognized just what he saw. Embedded in the stone was a sword, a short, forward curving blade of a falcata. It was battered, but he could see that the edge was still sharp, as it was plunged into solid rock. Carved on the side of the blade was a single word: Drakon.
"I never thought I would see this again." Erik turned to the source of the voice to see it was Erwin once again. "That sword was given to me after the Faunus War, in recognition of my actions as a general. When I escaped the White Fang, I considered going back to get it from the camp, but," Erwin hesitated as the events of that ngiht came back to haunt him. The smell of flames, the sound of screams and gunfire, and the feeling of loss as his men were cut down in droves. "But after my men were killed, I thought I wasn't worthy of carrying it."
Fantine folded his arms and looked at the blade. "It's clearly a fine sword." He remarked. "It survived all these months here, as well as the bombardment."
"But does a failed general deserve to wield such a blade?" Erwin asked. "My strategies may have propelled Vale to victory in the Faunus War, but my failure here will always haunt me, a stain on my record and a nightmare to remember forever."
The phantom frowned. He took a step forward and pulled the blade from the ground. "I think you should still take it." He said, handing the sword to a stunned Erwin. "It's too fine a blade to remain here."
Erwin stammered as he took the blade with shaking hands. "But... But what about the men and women who died here? They were under my command, and died under my watch! I can't carry an award like this after a failure like that!"
"Then don't carry it." Fantine said. "If you're so convinced that you don't deserve to wield this weapon, then take it back to the kingdoms, and find someone who does. Find someone worthy of wielding this blade, if not for yourself, then for those who followed you."
Erwin's hands stopped shaking as he held Drakon's handle, the sword's familiar heft both comforting and painful at the same time. Sighing in resignation, Erwin took the sword by the blade and relinquished the handle entirely. "I'll take it with me, but I refuse to wield this blade ever again."
The sound of engines made both men turn as the bullhead touched down, the others calling to them to board it. "Then come, let's get back to Vale and choose your blade's new weilder."
oxoxoxo
And with that, I bring this story to a close
I truly hope everyone who read this and stuck with me while wrote this story enjoyed it as much as I did, and since I intend to continue this series, as RT is, I hope that everyone who read this story will stay with me in the future.
I'll say more on my future plans in a bit, but first, I'd like to give a very special thanks to a few people in particular. First and foremost, a special thanks to everyone who read and reviewed this story. You guys are the reason I write, and knowing you enjoy my work is what keeps me going.
Second, a special thanks to everyone who let me borrow characters and concepts to use in this story. To Madninja324 who allowed me to use Team INGO, Team VOAJ and our villain, Derek Blanch. I'm sure you can tell I have plans for Blanch in the future, and let me assure you, VOAJ and INGO will be back. Special thanks as well go to undaed15, who allowed me to use The Axman, Taipan and Aedan, all three of whom will be back as well. Last, but certainly not least, a VERY special thanks goes out to DeadAliveManiac, my frequent collaborator and partner in crime, who allowed me to use Vlad, Erwin and Ben, as well as The Abyss and the inferri. In addition, he also wrote both this chapter's battle, as well as the massive "Impact" battle with the inferri. If you enjoyed ANY of what they gave to this story, then check them out as soon as possible. Preferrably, as soon as you finish reading this. Seriously, go read what these guys have made, it's great stuff.
Now, for what I'm sure you've all been waiting for: Volume 3
Team EMAD heads to the Vytal Festival, ready to test their skills against the best hunter students Remnant has to offer. Meanwhile, Ben Aparte leads his vigilante force against an anti-faunus cult. Behind the scenes, plots are hatched to take the whole world by surprise. Can EMAD and their allies save Vale from those plotting against it?
Find out in the next installment: RWBY: Glowing Embers