To the Guest reviewer who asked about some of the events coming up (seriously, do sign in/up, I love chatting to people who ask questions): I've been planning something like the next segment all along. The Grimm Dragon is ancient, and I thought it would be appropriate if he needed several giant bangs to take down
"Oh fuck" I said watching as the Grimm Dragon struggled to take off
Initially, I was confused as to why the GD wasn't taking off to fuck us all over, until my eye was led to the spear, and I saw that it had pinned the Grimm Dragon in place.
Even my most generous estimates put the Grimm Dragon well over Vale by the time the Novax Canon had recharged and reloaded. Even with the pinning, I didn't hold very high hopes of the GD being anywhere outside the minimum safe no-fire zone when the Novax was ready... and, given the current state of the Grimm dragon's health, assuming the mountain hadn't shielded it, I didn't have anything in Vale that could hurt it.
Reluctant as I was, I was currently very desperate for firepower, and activated yet another project before it was 100% ready.
"Control, this is Reagent. Novax Lance was only partially effective, requesting immediate assistance, repeat, this is Reagent requesting immediate assistance-."
"Valean / Ordinance / Insufficient"
"I know that you dipshit, let me finish. Activate Sub-Project Princeps, send me a trio of Rambo patterns, now!"
I shouted my authorization code into the earpiece again, and, the watched for next few, very worrying, minutes as the Grimm Dragon attempted to escape its impalement. I was starting to get worried at how much wiggle it had attained when three deafening blasts heralded the arrival of my greatest war machines yet.
And what beauties they were. Twelve metres tall, bipedal, hunchbacked robots adorned in heavy armour, sporting a Battle Cannon on one arm, a twin-linked Vulcan Mega bolter in the other and a Heavy AAA Flak Cannon on its back
The Knight-class Titan Warmech was my most awe inspiring unit. Their true scale only becoming apparent as they stood up and attained their full height.
"Ruby, Yang, meet the Knight Titan: what happens when you let yourself dare to dream big. It takes an entire month to make them, and they are my Anti-Monsters, the mosnters we make to destroy actual monsters. Elder Grimm, Goliaths and their ilk shall be the ones to feel the might of such unbridled wrath."
I saw several people come running wondering what the noise was
They all stopped short as they saw the three mechanical colossi.
"Everyone! Cover your ears!" I shouted at the crowd
I then pointed with my remaining good arm
"Titans! Open Fire at the monster of Mount Glenn!" I bellowed, just as the Dragon freed itself
The Titans happily obliged, opening up with all their guns. The Rambo pattern was so-named because it was supposed to be a giant gunboat loaded with as many slugthrowers a possible, and meant to attack in a similar manner to their namesake. It became next to impossible to think with the sheer number of artillery-sized blasts happening not too far away.
Some time later, the firing stopped. Even longer afterwards, the ringing in my ears died down enough that I could begin to communicate again.
"That was freaking awesome…" I said after I drank a health potion to fix my ear drums.
Curious, I checked and saw that Ruby was, predictably, having something close to a religious experience so I decided it would be best to leave her be. A crowd arrived to see what was going on, and, to my incredible relief, I saw Pyrrha and Jaune come running from the opposite direction
A dust cloud still lingered, obscuring my view of Mount Glenn.
"Observer 4-1, can you confirm the kill? Did we kill it?" I asked
I was kept waiting for several, long, painful seconds... Unfortunately, my answer was not from Observer 4-1. Instead, I saw the Grimm Dragon winging it towards Vale.
"How tough is this thing to kill?!" I demanded as it quickly crossed the distance between Mount Glenn and Vale.
"Shit, what do we do?!" someone in the crowd asked, panicked
"Fire again!"
"He's too close, I'd take a crapton of Vale with us." I shouted in response
Lisica cleared her throat, quelling the panic.
"Cobalt…"
"What?"
"Have you forgotten so easily?" Lisica asked
"Forgotten what?" I asked in return
"That little thing Kyuubi are known for." Lisica said
"Which one, there's, like… nine or so things, ironically enough" I said
"The one about mixing ki."
My eyes went wide, before I smacked my forehead
"Of course. Fucking hell."
"What?" someone asked
"The Tailed Beast Ball" I said, laughing, before nodding at Lisica and shouting at the Knight Titans to shift so there was room
"What's a ball supposed to do?"
"You'll see"
Lisica hopped back as the Knight Titans cleared space and assumed her truest form
The Fox that resulted was over 15 metres tall at the shoulder, and dwarfed the Knight Titans
"See, Lisica's actually a gargantuan-sized nine-tailed fox… the size apparently comes with the tail count, she was normal sized when she was born." I said "And, as it turns out, Tailed Beasts share a signature move… the nine-tailed fox's version being the most powerful, even."
"Quit messing around and spit it out!" someone demanded
I smiled the biggest, widest, most shit-eating grin I'd ever smiled and said "The Tailed Beast Ball… the Bijuudama. For raw destructive power, legends and tales paint descriptions that make what I just did to Mount Glenn look tame. Lisica is about to unleash the power of the heavens, the wrath of the gods!"
As I said this, Lisica fanned her tails, which began to glow with gathered cosmic and life energies, before each curled forward, their tips pointed forward as the tails abruptly stopped glowing as a giant yellow-black ball of power formed in Lisica's mouth, sucking in lines from each of her tails.
Then Lisica swallowed it. She arced her head upwards before roaring at the Dragon
Only, it wasn't a roar that came out.
Briefly the evening sky above Vale was lit up a brilliant gold, and the fighting ground to a calamitous halt as all paused to behold the beam of unimaginable energy that lanced straight out of Lisica's mouth and blasted the dragon.
It lasted seconds; It felt like minutes, and when it was done, all that was left was the smoke of a dead grimm and superheated iron and tungsten vapor.
I stood in awe and fear of what I'd wrought. A (severely weakened) Elder Grimm, gone; A 600 metric ton Iron-Tungsten nail, vaporised…
I wasn't going to use the Bijuudama again in a hurry… It was practically the definition of something too powerful for any but the most extreme circumstances.
Lisica shrunk back down to her human form, the clothes macro preventing unintended exposure, and I rushed to catch her.
"That was amazing Liz." I said
"I feel like I just had Boris step on me" Lisica replied, pointing.
I looked to my side and noticed that someone had stencilled "BORIS" on one of the Knight Titan's feet.
I idly wondered when Lisica had done that.
"Nonetheless, you were awesome." I said helping Lisica to her feet, wrapping her arm around my shoulders
"It looks like, with that, we're hitting the crescendo. Think you can make it?" I asked
"I'll be fine. I just need to lie down for a bit." Lisica replied
"When you're good and ready" I said, helping Lisica over towards Yang and Ruby
"Since when could you do that?" Yang asked
"Since about… I think it was about five tails that we could perform something similar, but the charge times and mana costs for even a low-powered shot were just unfeasible… it's more of the usual Ki manipulation that goes into Lisica's unique magic." I said "And I've been keeping all the power moves and some of the more normal moves under wraps so Cinder didn't cotton on so I could wrench the noose around her neck like this… of all my abilities, I only have two moves that trump that one, however."
"What's that?" Ruby and Yang asked
"Give Liz a moment to rest, and we'll show you. They're tandem moves." I said "And I want you two to promise me one thing: After I've shown you it, I want you to find your way to a Thunderbird and get to safety. Can you promise me that?"
Ruby and Yang hestiantly nodded
"Cobalt… what was that?"
"A Grimm Dragon which would've spelled doom for Vale should Cinder have awoken it uncontested. It drops Grimm as it flies, like, sweating off drops of liquid darkness and stuff… and you saw what it took to kill the damned thing." I said
Blake slapped me
"If you really wanted to spite me, you'd use Yang's arm, Blake." I said, indicating the severed limb.
"Why?!"
"Because he hurt my friends. Because we protect our own. Because I don't want to lose another friend to this clusterfuck… Penny's dead and though I plan to do something about that, I can only do so much." I said
"You can do what?" Weiss asked
I produced a familiar-looking necklace
"I gave one of these to those people I consider special… This one is Penny's, and within its gem rests the imprisoned soul of the first synthetic human, automatically drawn into it when she died. I plan to free her and give her a new body." I said "the spell is highly experimental, the costs are astronomical, and I am the only person on Remnant who has even a snowball's chance in hell of performing this… miracle."
I saw a number of hands shoot to throats and chests where their own soulstone was clasped
"It is the greatest gift I can give... And I give it freely to you: Those I would call friend and Ally in all but the most troubled times... though, I am afraid I can only give it once. Use it wisely, stay alive" I said
This was, of course, punctuated by a loud explosion coming from Beacon Tower.
"What the- oh no, oh no… where's Pyrrha?!" I demanded
I could feel nothing but horror when I realised that Pyrrha was nowhere to be found
"No, no, no, no, no, nononono NO! You stupid fucking girl! Why would you throw your life away pointlessly! If you'd waited, if you'd asked, we'd have come running! FUCK!"
"What's going on?"
"Pyrrha's gone to confront the Fall Maiden on her own. She's gonna be destroyed!" I shouted
"We have to help her!"
"Cinder's too powerful, you'd only join her fate!" I said
"But you just said you could-" Blake started
"Once. ONCE! Don't just throw away my gift like that! It is a second chance, not an eighteenth! Just because I can bring you back doesn't mean that death is meaningless!" I said
Lisica was on her feet in a second
"Let's make this quick" I said
Lisica nodded in response
"What're you doing?"
"Achieving Unity" I said as Lisica and I stood several paces to each other's side, facing the same direction in a wide stance with our arms both pointed outwards. We walked sideways towards each other, bringing out arms overhead in an arc before bending a quarter turn at the waist and touching our fingertips together above our now-tilted heads
A Terran observer might have pegged it for a mockup of the fusion dance.
Our forms blurred together and began shedding incandescent light before both shot into one greater whole. A great wind blew across the plaza as Lisica and I became one being.
Then, from our shadows, Magnus came, appearing as a black liquid that arose from the ground and encircled our sphere. Magnus was as integral to this as Lisica was. As Magnus joined the light, the sphere stopped shining and became an opaque silver colour. The colour of steel.
Flames erupted from the ground and circled around us, casting shadows between dancing lights everywhere, eventually fusing with the orb.
The sphere then began to pull everything in towards itself, growing as it went until it had grown to almost twice its size. The sphere then exploded in an impressive display of force.
I caught myself as I landed in the crater this had created, and found that I was… me. I was whole once more… and I felt the three 'splits' in my soul that defined each individual were mere scars now, showing what had once been.
I looked at myself, and saw I was wearing mufti, of all things: a simple shirt and hoodie, cargo pants, hiking shoes… all simple, dull earth clothing, with no thought to colour co-ordination or anything 'because who do I have to impress?'. Though I looked completely normal, I was anything but: Gamer was going crazy. Cobalt, Lisica and Magnus' stats had all been combined, skill levels had all doubled, and I felt a… power thrum in my veins, like my every motion had the potential to cause something awe inspiring.
"Cobalt?" Ruby asked
"That is the name of one of my aspects, yes." I replied
"What?" ruby asked
"I'm just messing with you… I am also Lisica and Magnus as well right now."
"What?"
"The bond can only be maintained temporarily, the magic that produced Lisica is pushing against the union, and my Aura is attempting to force Magnus out, but, until the effects of Unity fade, we are as one… Individually we have grown strong; together, working as one being, that power is amplified many times… now, I have a flame-haired champion to save, and I will not forgive myself if I let her die" I said, not bothering to wait for a reply
I crouched, gathered that potential in my legs, and with a single bound, cratered the ground underneath me as I leaped straight to Beacon tower
As I flew, I noticed that my shoes had been obliterated, burned to charcoal and I saw lines of glowing orange as the power remained in my feet, ready to catch me after such an impossible leap.
I could feel the power running down to the very core of my being. Cinder had better have made her peace, because I was coming for her with a full tank of vengeance.
