H-Holy S-! For the past few chapters, I've forgotten to even look at this fic's stats and now that I've finally remembered to look… I'm just blown away!
872 favorites and 1,058 follows as of this writing! Holy shit, never would I have imagined the numbers ever reaching this high! Seriously, I love you guys! And I'm happy that you all seem to be enjoying the fic so far as well. I'll keep on doing my best to make sure that the quality never falls!
Not much else to say beyond a resounding THANK YOU!
Now onto the chapter!
Chapter 25
In mid-movement, Jaune could only pause.
For in the midst of an attack, he had suddenly sensed something wrong. Something wrong enough – if such a word can even apply to this situation – to make him divert his attention away from the Grimm around him.
"Jeanne?" he muttered before even he knew what else to think.
But before he could ponder this any further, an Ursa feebly roared as it tried to attack him, causing the blond man to focus back on the matter at hand.
With a flash of genuine anger suddenly welling up from within him, Jaune turned to face the clumsy Grimm just as it tried to swipe at him. But with a simple catch of its arm, Jaune twisted the limb until it broke with ease. Then when it screamed with pain, he simply shot forth his other fist and reduced its entire head into little more than mulch.
As the Ursa's body promptly began to dissolve into nothing, Jaune let out an uncharacteristic growl, a mixture of emotions racing through his very being.
It's been little over a minute since he'd arrived to the breach point and it had been with some surprise on his part to see team RWBY frantically trying to fight their way out of the fray without any of their weapons.
Thankfully, his appearance onto the scene had aided them significantly since his presence had already begun to partially destabilize the mental states of the surrounding and ever oncoming Grimm, enough to allow the all-girl team to better get their bearings and fight off the now far more easier-to-deal-with Grimm.
On a random side note, he had to say that they've come along fairly well so fair in their unarmed skills; if this had been them from before his classes, they would've already likely been mauled to death by Beowulves. Well except for maybe Yang thanks to her own fighting style, though she would've been much more hard-pressed than before thanks to the lack of her weapons.
However, things weren't quite letting up just yet. While his growing authority was messing with Salem's own over the Grimm nearby, that still didn't change their numbers nor did it lessen their ferocity once they recovered from the effect his presence was having on them.
This was shown through his Aura Vision as one Beowulf in particularly went for a mad lunge at the normally quiet Blake, who promptly used her semblance to let a clone take the hit before following up with a practiced roundhouse kick that knocked the wolf-based Grimm away.
Speaking of which…
"Knock it off!" Jaune couldn't help but somewhat yell in oddly growing rage when a Boarbatusk tried to ram him from his right. Moving in between its tusks, he lashed out with an open palm strike that pierced directly through its left eye. Thanks to its own momentum, it wasn't until Jaune's arm was nearly buried up to the elbow in its skull before the now dead Grimm dissipated.
Only for nearly a dozen more Grimm to now take its place in the form of a small flock of Nevermores from above.
From somewhere behind him, someone cried out: "Look out!" Ruby, from the sounds of it.
Jaune supposed the young silver eyed girl had some right to utter such words despite her own predicament, for just as soon as she yelled out her warning, a Nevermore roughly half his own size came divebombing towards the ground only to then slowly pull up as it neared. This placed at roughly the same level as his head, its beak 'looking' ominously sharp through his Aura Vision, its form lit up by all of the aura traces left from Vale's population.
The damned thing intended on impaling him. A shame such a thing wouldn't work. And oh how darkly entertaining it was for Jaune to promptly dodge the sharp beak as it neared, outright ducking in time for the large Nevermore to start passing over him. But he wasn't going to simply let the Grimm go.
As he lacked any ranged attacks, he would have to figure out a way to get to the other Nevermores up above, after all. So without any further thought, Jaune abruptly reached out with both hands and grabbed a firm hold of the Nevermore's left wing. He tugged hard and ripped off the entire wing with complete ease.
Ignoring the pained death-cry the Nevermore let out before the pain and shock overtook it, Jaune tore a number of the razor sharp feathers the wing had and took them in between his fingers. He didn't have much time to do this – the Nevermore was now going to begin dissipating any second now and once that happened, the feathers would disappear too.
So looking up and taking stock of the other Nevermores' flight paths, he grunted as he then threw all of the feathers he had just grabbed. He watched for all of a split second before each one then made contact with their targets, that being the heads of the Nevermores. It was then with a victorious smirk that he watched as the entire flock now began to fall out of the sky, the feathers having pierced right through the skulls.
However, he wasn't out of danger just yet.
The Grimm were slowly yet surely beginning to move with the same level of purpose again towards him. If he had to hazard a guess why, it was likely because Salem must be slowly increasing her level of influence over them, overriding his authority just by a little bit.
It would certainly explain the otherwise inexplicable flanking maneuver that a few Beowulves now began to try on him.
But he wasn't about to let this sudden change of events – assuming this was the case – slow him down.
With a light jump, he easily went right over the nearest of the Beowulves, kicking at it in midair with just enough force to send it smashing into the other ones. Then as he landed, he flipped to avoid a charge from a noticeably large Boarbatusk that had just arrived through the breach.
Without another sound, Jaune then immediately ran over to team RWBY, seeing through his Aura Vision that they were once more being surrounded and packed in ever more tightly. He even saw Weiss take a nasty hit to her leg from a low moving Beowulf.
"Are you all holding up okay?" he asked them as he waste no time moving to their side, barreling right through the pack of Grimm that had appeared all around them.
"We've – seen – better – days!" Yang quipped rather slowly as she threw slow yet heavy punches at a massive Ursa that was trying to overwhelm her with its sheer size. With each punch she landed, the bear-type Grimm was knocked further and further back yet refused to be actually knocked down.
A quick leap overhead followed by an elbow to its jaw immediately rectified that on Jaune's part, the blind young man feeling the Ursa's jaw outright break under the blow he dealt.
"I can tell…" he muttered in response to Yang's words right as he landed beside her, then throwing out a stomp to the downed Ursa that smashed right through its torso, killing it instantly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Yang do a full-bodied flinch.
His sudden bout of anger now came to an end and was immediately replaced with worry. He could tell by the way their aura was dimming and outright disappearing that the team had taken some nasty hits so far. If this kept up, all of them would quickly be running on zero aura and would therefore be far more susceptible to grave injury.
Well, like hell he'd let that happen on his watch.
Stepping forth, he proceeded to essentially run laps around team RWBY, acting as a moving barrier between them and the small group of Grimm that tried to get at them. But this was far from efficient, he had to instantly admit; he couldn't stop every attack that would surely come their way nor could he efficiently doll out attacks of his own whilst on the move in such a small amount of space. As it is, he'd have to be careful not to bump into the girls themselves.
Nonetheless, he had to do something. But that aside… "Where are your weapons?!" he asked of them as he somewhat frantically tried to keep all of the Grimm at bay as he threw out simple jabs at random to knock them back. He was partially successful in this endeavor as some of his hits landed and knocked the Grimm it struck back while the rest missed by varying margins. Some of the Grimm pressed onwards and tried to claw away at him, but his authority was still working somewhat as he could detect them slowing ever so slightly in their movements.
"The Grimm actually knocked them all away!" Ruby cried out, her voice filled with nothing but amazement and even horror.
Her words were enough to make Jaune click his tongue as he now came to a stop, filling a little dizzy from the circle he'd been running in. Damn, so much for that idea. At least he'd bought the girls several seconds of reprieve. It was evidently enough to make a difference, for Weiss had used the time to create a glyph several yards away that started to pull back a few Beowulves.
"Damn… did they at least knock your weapons somewhere close by?" he asked of the girls.
"They took them to somewhere a few blocks over!" Surprisingly, Blake had been the one to answer his question. And here he thought that she hadn't quite liked his presence… oh wait, she still didn't – he could see through his Aura Vision that her body was a little tenser than it had been before his closer proximity to her.
He sure hoped that her instinctive 'dislike' of him wouldn't impact her combat performance. With this many Grimm still around, it'd only end up working against her. Thankfully though, the waves of Grimm seemed to slowly be coming to an end with fewer and fewer of them appearing by the minute.
That aside, he still needed to do something about the Grimm in this area. With this many still around here, sealing up the breach in relative peace would remain an unlikely option. But at the same time, he couldn't afford to leave team RWBY without their weapons either; while they were certainly doing much better unarmed than they likely would've a few weeks back, they were still at a massive disadvantage due to how reliant their fighting styles were on their equipment.
A plan would be needed…
Briefly taking a minute to charge forward and confront the Grimm, Jaune finally came up with something as he dodged a claw from a Beowulf and retaliated with a vicious low kick to its knees, breaking them like twigs. "Ruby! Weiss! Both of you go and find your weapons! Don't stop for anything until you get them!" he suddenly yelled. He took another step forward, boldly confronting a small Ursa that stood up on its hind legs to attack. He stopped it before it could even do anything, grabbing it by the throat, hefting it up and then choke-slamming it onto two other Ursas that had been coming up from behind it. "Blake! Yang! You two are with me! We're going to split up all of these Grimm and push them back!"
"Right!" all four of the girls said in unison. Their lack of hesitation in their response made him crack a small smile. Then the smile disappeared as he suddenly reached out and grabbed the tusks of a humongous Boarbatusk that had remained in the back of the group until now. It was very heavy, much more so than any of the other Grimm he'd tore his way through thus far today, but not heavy enough to pose a problem. Hoisting it up into the air, Jaune turned and threw it in the direction Ruby and Weiss had started to run off in, the Boarbatusk's huge form impacting against the five fairly small Ursas that had tried to intercept the R and W of team RWBY.
Watching for half a second as Ruby and Weiss made it past the knocked down Ursas without a hassle, he pivoted back around to deal with the remainder of the Grimm. He noted that they'd stopped attacking as much now, all but sensing them trying to hang back and analyze the situation.
He couldn't allow that. And he wasn't about to let himself handle this task alone.
"Yang, knock back that large Beowulf!" he suddenly commanded.
The blonde brawler was quick to carry out said command, dashing forward and delivering the mother of all haymakers to the unsuspecting Beowulf in question. As her bare fist connected with its side, the Beowulf was launched several feet to its right and it went crashing into the wall of a nearby building that had been teetering on the verge of collapse. The subsequent crash had been the last straw and what had once been a simple department store proceeded to fall in on itself, sending stone and wood and dust flying everywhere.
This happened to include where they were fighting and the dust that now briefly coated the battleground proved thick enough to evidently blind the Grimm, if their confused howls and roars were anything to go by.
But to Jaune, who saw by aura, this proved no problem. Nor would it prove much of a problem either to Blake.
"Blake, if you would be so kind… aim for the back of the legs of that Ursa!" he then said.
The B of team RWBY dashed forward without so much as a grunt of acknowledgement and proceeded to slide low across the ground, going right in between the legs of an Ursa that was currently standing on its hind legs, the Grimm likely trying to see if it was possible to spot them if its head was up high enough above the dust cloud. Just when it had appeared to nearly spot him, Blake struck with her feet as hard as she could and Jaune watched as the Ursa, already a clumsy type of Grimm, stumbled and fell forward, its balance thrown off when Blake struck the legs just now.
But that alone wouldn't have been enough to deal with the massive Grimm, so just as it began to fall forward, Jaune went up to meet it. Then he grabbed hold of its arm and judo-tossed the Grimm right on top of a crouching Beowulf that had been unable to keep up with Jaune's speed.
Grunting slightly in exertion as he slammed the Ursa down, Jaune was rewarded with a near deafening crash that immediately killed the Ursa and the Beowulf it had landed on in addition to dispersing the dust cloud and cratering the ground.
This also ended up naturally alerting the remainder of the Grimm to his location, but during these brief few seconds, Yang hadn't simply been standing idle. She'd merely been waiting for a target to attack.
The instant he felt the dust cloud disperse, Jaune spotted the blonde kick another Beowulf with full force in its gut before delivering a powerful punch that cracked the white mask-like mass on its face.
He hummed slightly in acknowledgement of this. With just a few key commands, it looks like they've already made a bit of a difference here. But they couldn't afford to take things too light still.
So without another word uttered, Jaune leapt once more into the fray.
Adam hadn't quite appreciated the fact that some blonde girl had just come falling from the sky a moment ago. Less so when one of his men had ended up alerting said girl to their presence by demanding to know who she was.
On the outside he might have played it cool, but on the inside he'd been fuming a bit. The girl clearly hadn't known they'd even been there up until her attention had been grabbed by the man's sudden words.
But he supposed it honestly hadn't made much of a difference; he'd been intending on killing the girl the second he saw her since he didn't want to take any additional risks.
It's why he'd wasted no time in drawing his sword and swinging it directly at her neck with all of his strength just now…
…Only for his decisive strike to have been blocked just as it had been just few inches away from the blonde's delicate neck.
And by what looked like some kind of thermos of all things.
With a grunt of frustration, Adam withdrew his sword and backed up a bit. From beside him, he could hear his group audibly tense up. They hadn't noticed the new arrival's presence until just now, it would seem.
And what an odd looking person the new person was as the man stepped forward from behind the all but frozen blonde. He looked like a disheveled salaryman with a lanky physique and messy hair and glasses to match.
Adam's grip on his blade shifted a little, ready to swing without a single instance of hesitation.
But then the man spoke. "White Fang… I see. To think you'd use this ongoing tragedy to continue your own equally tragic agenda," muttered the odd green haired man.
"D-Doctor Oobleck…" the blonde girl now said, her voice little more than a whisper. Whether this was because of her close call with death just nor or simply fatigue was unknown to Adam, not that he really cared.
"Ah, Ms. Arc. Looks like I'd stepped in just in time," spoke the man – Oobleck – as he oh so lightly turned his gaze to eye the girl. "…Go. Get out of here. I feel these people aren't too keen on talking things out."
And now it was time for Adam to quickly glance at his own forces too. Of all the people that had come with him into Vale, virtually all of them were tightening their grips dangerously on their own weapons, their stances shifting into full on combat stances.
Looking back, Adam saw the girl look ready to protest, but a stern gaze from this Oobleck guy was enough to make her apparently reconsider. Then without another word, the girl simply stumbled as she turned around and ran off.
Leaving Adam and his men with this Oobleck character.
"…You didn't attempt to attack her as she left. Thank you for that," Oobleck said as he hefted his own weapon now.
Indeed, Adam didn't. He could've, however. He could've easily just lashed out just as the girl turned her back to him and cut open her shoulders, but he hadn't done so. Nor did his own forces bother to fire at the girl as she ran off either.
The reason why they'd held their ground was simple: this man before them was too dangerous to fully take their focus off of.
But Adam wasn't about to let his newfound worry show. "Hmph, don't think I did so out of some kind of mercy. Following through on another strike simply would've been a hassle, but we will take care of her later."
The man standing before now shift subtly, causing all of Adam's forces to tense up even more, ready to fire at his orders. The only reason why they haven't done so already is because something about this man simply screamed danger.
"You know," spoke Oobleck suddenly as he hefted his odd looking weapon. "I've studied your group extensively over the years. The 'old' White Fang has nothing but respect from me. I even took part in some of the protests they did. To hate one another over what amounts to extra body parts… it's something that honestly saddens me."
"If you think flattery will keep us from taking you out, then you're in for a rude awakening," spoke Adam in response. He cared not for what this man said. All that mattered was that he was a threat and was directly before them, stalling them in achieving their goal, not that the man knew what their goal even was right now. Adam readied Wilt. "Now feel the fury of the 'new' White Fan-."
He didn't even get to finish his final sentence when the lanky man made his move.
Faster than he'd have expected, Oobleck had already closed the gap between them, swinging his odd club-like weapon directly at his mask. He was too close for him to draw his blade, so Adam had to settle for blocking the strike with his blade still in the sheath.
He grunted and tensed up as Oobleck's weapon impacted against Blush. The man was much stronger than he looked. But there was more to battle than just strength alone. So after blocking the blow, Adam withdrew his arms and attempted to slam his sword's hilt into the man's stomach.
Only to hit nothing but air.
"What?!" he uttered in a low voice. Hearing movement to his right, he turned and looked just in time to see Oobleck move onto another rooftop nearby. He couldn't help but tsk. The man was insanely fast. "Open fire!" he ordered.
And then gunfire erupted from practically all around him as his soldiers obeyed his simple command. Armed with modified assault rifles that could also launch a few grenades as well, the small group he had at his command shot round after round at the lanky man, only to fail to so much as graze him.
Adam remained where he was at, watching as Oobleck raced across the rooftop and leaping onto another one, avoiding the hail of bullets with seeming ease, something that infuriated Adam.
His group now began to march forward across the roof they were currently on, passing up Adam and spreading out as they tried to box the oddly dressed man in.
And when this appeared to be working, Adam finally made his next move.
Dashing forward, he girded himself and jumped with moderate force towards Oobleck. When he neared, he finally performed his infamous iai technique, withdrawing his blade and slashing faster than the human eye could normally see.
But this man could apparently see the attack coming quite well, for Oobleck swiftly moved his head back to avoid what would've been a dangerous hit to the neck, aura or no aura.
A follow up attack from Adam forced the man back even more, allowing Adam to land safely on the roof and begin an assault in earnest.
Keeping his blade full drawn, he swung it several times with as much speed as he could muster, trying to aim for his opponent's limbs and neck. But to his ever quickly growing rage, the green haired man swiftly dodged each strike and then returned the favor with a few strikes of his own.
Grunting, Adam felt the initial attack graze him along his right arm, nearly making him drop his weapon. But he held strong and redirected his blade to deflect the next strike. And the next one and then the one after that.
Just like that, he'd suddenly been forced onto the defensive. So fast and furious were the sudden flurry of attacks coming from the lanky man that Adam couldn't even actually see what form the blows were in. All he could see were blurs and nothing more.
With gritted teeth, Adam instantly realized that engaging in close quarters wasn't going to end well for him, so without another second to spar, he immediately skipped back a few feet, switching his sheath into its gun form and firing four quick rounds.
Four quick rounds that were ultimately proven useless as Oobleck simply swung his club-like weapon and knocked away each bullet.
That was when some help finally came to Adam as his men appeared to either side of Oobleck and began firing once more. Oobleck, having been in the process of stomping forward to close the distance between him and Adam, was forced back to avoid the barrage of bullets that had all but appeared right before his eyes.
And then Oobleck suddenly switched gears, leaping towards the gunman that lied to Adam's far right and elbowing him hard in the jaw. Adam could actually hear the bone fracture from the hit and could only watch as the man went sailing off the rooftop and onto the street below. It proved to mercifully be a short drop from the glimpse Adam caught.
But at the same time Oobleck had physically struck the man, he'd also pointed his weapon at the exact same time towards the other flanking gunman and before Adam could so much as issue a warning, flames shot out from the thermos and reached the now terrified gunman just as he coincidentally ran out of bullets.
Adam watched in shock as the second gunman caught fire and began to scream and flail around. The last thing the bull type Faunus saw of the gunman was him stopping and rolling along the ground for that was when Oobleck redirected his attention once more to him.
The lanky man charging at him with that same impossible-to-see speed, Adam was forced to jump back onto a different rooftop to avoid being knocked off to the ground below. But Oobleck followed right after him, the momentum he built up so quickly allowing him to reach Adam in mid-jump.
But he'd managed to execute another iai attack just as he saw Oobleck swing that weapon of his and the two weapons clashed for the briefest of seconds in mid-air, sparks flying for several feet as metal met metal.
In this one exchange, Adam's own strength and speed proved to be able to partially overcome the pure momentum Oobleck had put into his own attack and successfully knocked the man back. As Adam safely landed, he hoped the man would crash into the wall of the building and fall harshly to the ground below. But this didn't happen. Instead, he watched as Oobleck flipped around and touched the wall feet-first, kicking off of it.
But rather than engage Adam again, Oobleck went sailing well over his head.
He was going directly for the rest of his men.
As this realization hit him like a brick, Adam swiveled and took aim with Blush as Oobleck nearly reached the position of the other White Fang members. Locking on, Adam opened fire.
But by then, it was too late. Oobleck landed and all but blurred out of Adam's eyes. All he could see were his men being knocked literally into and through the air like pins at a bowling alley, all of them crying out in varying degrees of pain as their guns were destroyed before being struck.
Adam, growing ever more enraged by the minute, sheathed his blade and began to tap into his semblance. The red highlights on his clothes and hair began to glow ominously as an all too familiar sensation of pure power filled his very being.
Oh how quickly things had begun to fall apart. He'd landed in Vale with a plan in mind and with the small army to carry it out, but before they could have reached the point to split up and begin hunting down the council members in full, that damned girl just had to drop out of nowhere and stall them just long enough for this man to make an appearance.
As these thoughts raced through his mind, Adam's rage grew even more, which in turn fueled his charging as well and rapidly so. While the strike that he would unleash would be inferior to the one he had used on that Spider Tank right before… she… had left him, it should still prove more than sufficient in dealing with this green haired man.
His charging reaching what he deemed to be an acceptable point, Adam took a deep breath… and then swung.
A wave of unfiltered power erupted from his blade as it audibly sliced through the air, the wave momentarily dyeing the entire air itself briefly crimson red. It traveled at lightning speed towards Oobleck's location and obliterated the entire rooftop upon striking it, traveling onwards and slicing through two tall buildings that lied on the other side of the street.
As the wave of power now began to die down, so too did the glow in Adam's red highlights as the man slowly sheathed his sword and waited for a few seconds to see the aftermath of his strike in full.
Those few seconds stretched on into a full minute and as some of his men groaned and slowly began to get back up from where they'd been knocked to, Adam finally began to allow himself an instance of satisfaction.
He'd nailed that bastard.
Or so he thought, when he heard movement from his left.
With wide eyes hidden by his signature mask, he turned his head just in time to see Oobleck's club merely inches away from his face.
And then his world erupted in pain as the blow struck true.
As her feet gently touched the torn up ground below, Amber gripped her staff tightly and continued to glare at the entity before her, the one who she'd been sensing all this time.
And now that she was on the ground and standing just several feet away from it, she must say that it was fairly large.
As the entity now seemed to stand its full height of eight foot ten, she surveyed its form. It was humanoid in appearance and incredibly muscular despite its overall slim figure for its size. Its skin was pitch black, blacker than any of the other Grimm she'd ever seen, though it lacked any of the white bone-like substance that Grimm normally had. Instead, it seemed to have only a few red markings on its body, specifically its upper chest and the sides of its shoulders.
But what grabbed her attention the most was its head. It seemed only vaguely human in shape, but at the same time it curved a little outwards, giving it a quality that only marginally made it look draconic. Or wolfish. Or gargoyleish. Or… honestly, Amber couldn't tell. Trying to pinpoint the exact animal-like characteristic it had was impossible; it just seemed to somehow have a bit of everything despite its vague shape.
In fact, the longer she seemed to look at its face, its eyes nothing more than large red glows, the more she seemed to feel disoriented in turn.
The maiden immediately shook her head almost violently just as she felt herself fall into an odd trance-like state. Apparently looking at this thing's face can cause some kind of mental effect.
Then she took up a combat stance, gripping her staff in both hands just as she skipped back a few extra feet, wary of the entity's height and greater reach. She was already coming up with something of a plan in her head – attack from ground level a little, get a feel for its full capabilities and then attack from high and afar depending on what she learned.
Nonetheless, in spite of this plan, she kept her power as the Fall Maiden active, feeling an all too familiar warmth flood her entire being, strengthening her in a manner akin to how actively using aura can enhance one's physical abilities.
The entity didn't attack, didn't even move from where it was at. It just seemed to patiently wait for her to do something. Feelings its red glows for eyes locking onto her intensely, Amber readied to attack-.
-Only to be interrupted by the most shocking of things.
The damned thing spoke. Physically spoke.
A mouth that hadn't been there on its face before simply appeared, opening up to reveal large and sharp teeth not unlike that of a shark.
"Maiden," it began suddenly, its voice far deeper than any human's and carrying a level of power that would've made Amber freeze in place if the fact it was speaking at all hadn't done so. It raised one arm in a nonthreatening manner. Idly, Amber couldn't help but notice the spike it had popping out of where the elbow joint was at. "I do not wish to battle with you at all. I am here to help."
Its words were said calmly, too calmly for Amber's opinion. And somehow it was enough to make her start moving again.
Moving again to attack, that is.
With incredible speed, Amber dashed towards the entity that was Grimm-like yet not simultaneously. As she neared, she leapt and swung her staff with all her might. The attacking end of it smashed hard against the side of the entity's face, hard enough that it made a shockwave that blew away part of the ground beside it.
But the entity remained seemingly unfazed even as the strike turned its head.
"I understand your feelings towards me. And I apologize if my actions much earlier today had irritated you-," it said before Amber attacked again. Enhancing her weapon with her aura, she jabbed it into the entity's stomach.
This time, there was a bit of a reaction. While her blow failed to so much as pierce an inch of its body, the attack successfully sent it skidding back a few feet, its body lurching a little in the process.
But the entity just kept on speaking. "-But I had my reasons for doing so. I wish for-."
Amber didn't give it time to continue yet again. A part of her mind felt like screaming at her to act rationally, to at least hear out what this thing had to say if only because it had yet to so much as react defensively to her. This same part of her mind wished to try and locate that power-stealing thief as well, who she knew for sure was at least an actual active threat.
But this rational part of her went ignored. Instead all that most of Amber's mind was focused on the impossible fact that this creature – this powerful and very much unknown yet dangerous creature – was capable of intelligent speech. Who knew just what else it could do then? Who knew how it could apply this intelligence of its own?
But there was more to her sudden assault than just this. That same rational part of her mind that was being stifled could feel it. Literally feel it; her maiden power was somehow acting on its own to an extent, influencing a good portion of her mind and body to move, to attack, to kill this thing before her very eyes.
Why? Why was her own damned power acting this way? How could it even remotely act this way?
Regardless of the answer, whatever it may be, her body all but acted on its and continued her assault.
Strike after strike was let loose, hitting the entity all over its body from its shins to its neck. Infused with ever increasing amounts of her aura and even her maiden power, the strikes were eventually able to push back the unknown creature even more.
Yet it would seem to still remain unharmed.
What's more, whatever it had been saying before had gone unnoticed by her rational mind as it had been too busy trying to rein herself in. And now it merely surveyed her in intrigue.
"…I see," the thing suddenly spoke. It let out a sound that was probably a hum, but was far too deep to be a human one; the debris on the ground closest to it even shook a little from the sheer force of it. "The power he gave you truly does seem to retain at least some of his memories and feelings… that is why you're being so hostile."
The thing sounded… sorrowful? Why?
Then it suddenly disappeared from her line of sight just as one more attack had just been about to be delivered to it. She looked to the ground to see a huge shadow looming over her from behind and her body once more responded on its own, pivoting to face the creature yet again.
Only to find its right hand lifted to her head level, its index finger being held back by its thumb. And then it flicked her right in her forehead.
Her vision immediately went black for a moment, thought becoming an impossible thing during this short timeframe. Eventually her vision restored itself and she was able to think.
She tried to move, but stopped as pain wracked her entire body. Not to mention that it felt as if something was somehow weighing her down.
And as it turned out, this actually was the case. Feeling as if she was lying back at an angle, Amber looked down to see her body partially buried underneath rubble.
"W-What…?" she muttered, more like slurred out. Becoming alert now, she looked around to see what had once been a building, some kind of small shop to be more precise, with various articles of underwear and bras lying all around her.
Seeing this, she couldn't help but laugh a little in pure disbelief. She, a maiden, had been knocked into a god damned lingerie store.
But her disbelief was two-fold. Her new location was merely one thing that had brought about her sudden laughter. But the second cause for her laughter was as she now looked forward through the hole she'd made on her crash here.
Or rather, through the multiple holes, so many that she couldn't even see where she'd once been at. But she'd become a good judge of distance during her travels alone, allowing her to accurately estimate how much ground she's covered even if she'd been otherwise unconscious.
And what this sense of distance was now telling her boggled her mind.
That creature had just, with a finger flick, knocked her through two entire city blocks!
And now that very same creature was approaching her, its massive form walking with deceptively light steps through the many holes it made.
Then its form blurred out of sight for an instant and reappeared only a few yards away from her downed form.
"It would seem your power has calmed down somewhat. Now please, listen truly. I wish for your help on something-." It was once more cut off.
The very second it had closed the distance like that, Amber felt her Fall Maiden power flare up once again, her mind feeling a compulsion to attack yet again.
And attack, she did but not with her staff this time.
Instead, tapping directly into her maiden power itself, Amber summoned a powerful gust of wind that tore up the entire lingerie shop as if it were made out of wet tissue. Not even the other stores directly around the shop were sparred, flattened within a split second.
As for the mysterious talking entity, it was actually finally lifted off of its feet and thrown out to the street. It landed on its back hard, cratering the ground but it rolled with an unnatural grace backwards so that it ended up in a crouching position.
Amber used her power to levitate ten meters into the sky, which allowed her to see that the creature had two additional spikes on its upper back that curved upwards. Good thing she'd seen that because had she followed through on her rush towards it, it might've tried putting those spikes to good use.
So instead, she opted to keep her distance and commanded the powerful wind she'd created to circulate directly around her foe.
Foe? Was that really the right word? Her mind was beginning to feel clouded now, more so than it had a minute ago.
Shaking her head, she now narrowed her eyes as power poured out from around them. With nothing more than a gesture and pure willpower, storm clouds reappeared in the sky above far above, bringing with it thunder that roared all across Vale.
And with the thunder… came the lightning.
The lightning storm she'd generated earlier to wipe out the Grimm and grab this thing's attention had been but only a taste of her power.
And now she was putting all she had into this.
A multitude of lightning bolts that couldn't be counted poured from the clouds above directly towards the localized tornado she'd just made. And with her will directing them, she made sure that as they neared the tornado, they'd be pulled directly into the wind itself.
The tornado expanded in size, tearing apart other thankfully empty buildings in the process, to try and accommodate the torrent of lightning it was receiving. Even Amber herself had to further retreat to avoid being dragged into her own creation.
But she succeeded in what she had set out to do: she'd gone and made a lightning tornado.
With a grunt of pure effort, she forced the tornado to shrink in size, compressing around that enigmatic creature. Holding it closed for a moment, with the lightning bolts still bouncing around wildly within the wind, Amber waited until it had finally reached a bursting point… and then she let it all out.
The lightning tornado that she'd suddenly managed to compress into a pseudo-dome now lost its form completely, blasting upwards to the sky as it dispersed violently, with the lightning she'd combined with it shooting all over the city. Thankfully, due to how far out she and this creature were, the only ones that would be unfortunate to be hit by the lightning would be structures and the rampant Grimm.
Amber felt a smile threatening to split her face appear. Surely, that must have heavily damaged that entity – shit, no it didn't.
As the debris and dust cloud came to an end, she could see the entity stand up slowly, displaying no difficulty in doing so. It didn't even look like it had suffered any real damage.
No, wait – she could see some scratches on its body… and now they just faded away.
Then she felt its eyes on her and she had to do her best to keep from shivering uncontrollably. It wasn't the same intrigued stare of before, but rather something else. Not quite anger, not even annoyance, but definitely no longer something peaceful.
But whatever said emotion ultimately was, Amber felt it would do the thing no good, not when she was now levitating ever higher into the air. She was now around a hundred and twenty meters up in the air and backing away, trying to plan out her next move-.
And that was when the thing appeared right before her very eyes. With just one simple jump that she'd just barely managed to glimpse, it had matched her altitude.
Its left fist was reared back. Seeing this, Amber raised her staff to guard in advance. She tensed her entire body, pouring as much aura as she could into both her weapon and herself in order to bolster their durability.
That had been when it punched her square in the gut.
She didn't know how, but she'd somehow been able to retain her consciousness even as it felt like a mountain just rammed into her at twenty miles per hour.
Towards the city she flew, her entire stomach feeling as if it had been knocked right out of her body. The punch had packed megatons worth of power in it and her entire body, not just her gut, was feeling it even as she rocketed into the ground.
Groaning out some choice words, Amber could only scarcely notice when the ground rumbled a second after her landing. The entity had followed after her, it would seem, if only judging by how her ability to sense it was blaring in her mind.
Disoriented and in incredible pain, it took all the maiden had just to turn over and begin standing up. And it was only now as she began to recover that she finally realized that she and the being weren't alone here in this particular spot.
She knew this even before looking up as a gasp filled her ears.
An odd sensation overcame her as soon as she heard that gasp, her entire body twitching in a way as if to move well away from the source. And now looking up to see said source, Amber saw that two young girls carrying a small assortment of weapons standing little more than several yards away.
One of them was a girl dressed in white with icy blue eyes. The other was an even younger girl dressed in black and red.
And with silver eyes.
Miles away from the breached wall of Vale, the four Goliaths marched on with neither rush or lethargy, their huge legs moving forth at a steady pace.
The behemoth sized Grimm huffed every now and then in a display that could possibly be mistaken for a sense of annoyance.
Their fellow Grimm, ranging from Beowulves to Nevermores, had long since gone ahead, leaving the four of them behind to slowly catch up. It was certainly an odd kind of feeling for ones such as themselves, who could be considered as more self-aware Grimm, to be left behind in the dust when usually out in the badlands the younger and smaller Grimm deferred to them.
Nonetheless, this was hardly something to be so focused on in and of itself; it was all part of the plan that their 'Mind' had concocted, with the younger Grimm going in first to soften up the city before they can go in and trample what was left.
If only the city itself still didn't look to be so far awa-.
The four Goliaths slowed ever so slightly in their massive steps in a moment of complete suddenness.
Something was approaching them. Or rather, someone. They intuitively sensed this before actually seeing the person in question.
A man from the general looks of the figure, still a little off in the distance.
The Goliaths all squinted their already narrowed eyes. Outside of the city walls, there wasn't as much plant life out here, making the area more akin to a wasteland than anything else. And the wind that constantly blew through the area generated a small cloud of dust that obscured the man's appearance.
Oh well, not that knowing what the man looked like would make much of a dif-.
One Goliath suddenly trumpeted in pain. The other ones immediately turned their large heads to look and see what the problem was.
Only to see that a large vertical gash had somehow appeared on the left side of its face, resulting in its left eye being rendered a complete mess. It was only then, after seeing this, that the others detected the difference in the wind.
It could've easily been written off initially as a simple change in its direction and speed. But now the Goliaths knew what had happened.
The man they had just spotted had generated enough wind pressure to reach one of them from here somehow.
The Goliath that had been injured snorted twice now, the first time in realization of what had happened and the second time in pure rage. How dare it be struck like this! Their original purpose alongside their brethren aside, being so suddenly attacked by an unknown was something it wouldn't stand for!
The injured Goliath, the apparent leader of the quartet, trumpeted out a battle cry.
And then all four of them began to charge.
Peter Port grinned maliciously, victoriously.
With but one swing of Blunderbuss, he'd already been able to deal some damage to one of the Goliaths. Now he had their undivided attention.
Good.
Having been walking forward until now, the man paused and took the time to survey his rejuvenated form.
Gone was the shorter and aged form of an old man. Now in its place was the body of strength itself.
Standing at a height of six feet and eight inches, Peter would easily tower over his former self. Large and extremely dense muscles strained tightly against his clothing, so much so that he'd done away with his jacket to reveal the waistcoat and dress shirt he wore underneath. With the sleeves rolled up, every single individual muscle could be seen bulging with even the simplest of movements in his forearms as his right hand gripped the mighty Blunderbuss firmly.
His face had once again regained the sharper and rugged features of his youth, his mustache trimmer and more fitting in size in regards to his face. His hair, still white in color, had lost its combed appearance and had become much more wild and messy in style, giving him something of an almost barbarian quality that contrasted with the gentlemanly appearance of his clothes whilst complimenting the power his body now contained.
His semblance, activated in full, had restored him to the absolute height of his prime.
He chuckled mirthfully, even his voice sounding deeper and more booming than his older self despite how quietly the action had actually been.
Ah, just when was the last time he'd actually been forced to use his semblance like this? He honestly couldn't remember. He'd really missed this feeling, this invigoration, this former power of his!
And now it was time to unleash it in the name of Vale upon these foul incoming beasts of darkness!
"Have at thee, beasts!" he yelled to the heavens as the Goliaths neared him with speed that didn't suit their large frames. He held his arms open as if to welcome them into his wide embrace. "Entertain me for a while then perish!"
With his golden eyes wide open and locked solely onto his prey, Peter then charged forth into battle.
With the current grin he sported, he looked no different than a man who'd just discovered his calling in life.
As he launched himself at the closest of the Goliaths, Peter inwardly thanked them from the bottom of his heart.
He could finally be himself for a while.
Over 8,000 words! Wow, makes me wish I could squeeze in a bit more to meet the 9,000 mark, if only to make the classic joke, ha ha ha. But doing so would probably be pushing things a bit depending on how I'd even write it, heh!
With this, the Breach event already reaches its turning point! There's still plenty of more to come before it's over though, so don't think it'll be ending just yet! Hope you will enjoy what else I have in store!
And again, just thank you for all of the favorites and follows! I will continue to do my best for you all! Until next time, everyone! Take care!