Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY, Zelda, Kid Icarus, Pokemon, Final Fantasy, or any other franchise alluded to or included in this work (I don't own the background music either). All I own is this work and my OCs (these include Aris, Oleana, Nash, and any Grimm ideas I come up with).
Back in Kuroyuri, Aris, Ruby, Cloud, and Jaune were just about to leave when three pairs of footsteps could be heard moving in their direction. They turned around to see Nora, Ren, and Tifa running towards them, Pit flying overhead. The trio stopped, and Pit landed.
"What're you guys doing here?" asked Cloud.
"Did you hear that noise?" said Jaune. "What was that?"
A panicked Ren had tears welling up in his eyes as he fell to his knees. "No..."
"Ren!" Ruby cried. "What is it?!"
A footstep. A massive one.
"Wait," said Aris. "Did anyone else hear that?"
Ren hung his head. "No..."
"Ren?" Nora said, worried about him.
Standing a few yards away was a Grimm. One that bore the appearance of a demented, maniacal horseman.
BGM: Molgera Appears - The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Suddenly, a tremor shook the ground beneath everyone's feet. No, it wasn't a tremor, it was a small earthquake.
The group dropped themselves to the ground, putting their hands over their heads. All around them, the already destroyed buildings began to crumble even further.
Aris noticed something strange. The vibrations in the ground seemed to be fluctuating. Sometimes they intensified, and then would suddenly lessen. It was as if a giant worm was burrowing beneath his feet.
Giant worm, Aris realized. Surely this wasn't what he was thinking it was, right?
Wrong.
A sand-colored behemoth with the appearance of a worm or snake burst through the ground and flew through the air, its massive jaws flapping as it unleashed an earsplitting scream. As the beast burrowed back underground, Aris's blood started to run cold. This was a beast he knew all too well: the Molgera.
End BGM
The horseman Grimm faced the party of students, the humanoid part of it roaring. The Molgera partially emerged next to it, letting out a roar of its own. Teams RNJR and ALPS drew their weapons.
"Leave the Molgera to me," Aris said to his comrades. "You guys deal with the wannabe Lone Ranger over there."
Tifa stood by Aris's side, raising her fists, upon which rested her Mythril Claws. "If you fight it, I fight it, too."
Cloud stood on Aris's other side. "I'm coming as well. Whether you like it or not."
Aris sighed. "Someone needs to get Qrow to safety."
Pit stood by the injured Huntsman's side. "I'm on it."
Aris looked to team RNJR. "Think you can deal with Lone Ranger?"
They nodded. Pit addressed the party, "I'll stay with Qrow, so yell if you need me."
Ren cast his Semblance on Pit and Qrow as the angel carried the injured Branwen to a safe haven.
Pit set Qrow on the ground behind a building as Ren's Semblance faded away. The angel readied his Beam Claws and stood on guard.
Meanwhile, Ruby, Nora, Jaune, and Ren began to fight the horseman Grimm.
Aris, Cloud, and Tifa readied their weapons to battle the Molgera.
BGM: Molgera - Hyrule Warriors Legends
The worm-like behemoth screeched at Aris and his two companions before burrowing underground. Aris, Tifa, and Cloud stood on guard, waiting for the beast to emerge.
And emerge it did.
The Molgera burst from the ground with a mighty boom, flying up into the air. Aris drew his bow and began to fire Shock Arrows at the monster. A few of them were hitting, but not all. Cloud fired Blade Beams from his Buster Sword, not hitting the Molgera as often as Aris was. Tifa had no means of ranged attack at all.
The Molgera burrowed back underground. Cloud looked at Aris. "How do we kill this thing?"
Aris shrugged. "We keep hitting it like that!"
"Then what am I supposed to do?" said Tifa. "Is there, like, some sort of way we can stun it and then create an opening to attack properly?"
"Lemme try something," replied Aris, loading a Bomb Arrow into his bow.
When the Molgera reemerged, Aris fired the explosive projectile right at its head. A direct hit. The Molgera went back underground.
"Well, that didn't work," Aris deadpanned. "Now what?"
"Let me try," said Cloud.
As the behemoth emerged from the earth, Cloud jumped up high, raising his Buster Sword over his head. This was an attack he'd named "Climhazzard". The attack hit, leaving a decent-sized gash in the Molgera's side. The beast roared, retreating back underground.
"And, that didn't work either!" Tifa exclaimed exasperatedly.
In front of them, the Molgera was reemerging, but it stopped. Only its head protruded from the ground. Its jaws gaped wide open, and its long purple tongue swayed like a palm tree in a hurricane.
Aris snapped his fingers. He remembered something!
Aris ran at the Molgera, one of his Clawshots appearing in his left hand. He aimed the Clawshot at the tip of the Molgera's tongue and fired. The claw grasped the tongue and pulled it back towards Aris. The Hylian swung the Master Sword up at the tongue, eliciting a cry of pain from his adversary. The Molgera's jaws fell to the side, the beast being stunned.
"That's it!" exclaimed Cloud. He and Tifa rushed after Aris and joined him in hitting the Molgera with a flurry of attacks. Cloud swung his Buster Sword into the Molgera's flesh again and again, wielding the colossal blade as though it were but a stick. Aris left a series of slash marks in one of its jaws, the wounds releasing a sticky green substance that was the Molgera's blood.
The normally desert-bound behemoth came to its senses and seemed to realize that someone-Aris-was within chomping range. The Molgera got back into action, snapping its jaws shut around the unsuspecting Hylian as Cloud and Tifa cried out in panic. The beast flew up into the air as Cloud attempted to free Aris by sending Blade Beams its way.
Aris was inside the Molgera's mouth, a dark cavern dripping with saliva. He remembered having been in this situation before, and knew exactly what to do in order to get out of it. He reared his sword, facing the jaw he'd been slicing up, and swung the Blade of Evil's Bane with all his might.
The Master Sword cut clean through the jaw, giving Aris an opening to outside. He squeezed out of the gap and jumped to the ground, his green tunic sopping with saliva and blood, and his golden aura flickering over his body as it healed some of his smaller wounds.
The Molgera screamed then, an earsplitting, blood-curdling roar that might've had the potential to bust some eardrums. From the ground around it, smaller worm creatures emerged. These were the Molgera's larvae.
"Did this thing just summon its babies for backup?" Tifa said, sounding a little grossed out.
"Whatever it did," said Aris, "you and Cloud take out the larvae. Leave the ringleader to me."
Cloud and Tifa nodded, and began eradicating the larvae. One managed to knock Tifa to the ground, only to suffer a set of Mythril Claws through its brain and skull. "Get off me!" Tifa seethed as she impaled the runt's forehead.
Aris fired a Bomb Arrow at the Molgera's head again, once again causing the beast to retreat underground. This time, instead of emerging entirely, it only popped its head out. Just like before, its long purple tongue was exposed.
"Monsters like this may be powerful," Aris said to himself. "But their brains are more useless than a protective case for a Nokia phone."
He fired his Clawshot at the tongue, hooking it and giving him the chance to slash at it a second time. The Molgera fell into a daze, allowing Aris to unleash another flurry of strikes.
BGM: Boss Clear Fanfare - The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
The Molgera came to its senses again, but this time, it didn't attempt to snap Aris up in its jaws. The beast simply flew up into the air, screaming in pain and agony. Lime green blood poured from its many wounds, like a series of fountains. Finally, the Molgera stopped in midair, and faded into purple smoke clouds, which blew away in the breeze.
End BGM
Aris looked over at team RNJR, just in time to see Ren decapitate the horseman Grimm. Aris noticed that Ren had seemed rather stoic in the process of decapitating it, as if it had personally wronged him in the past. The Hylian started to piece together what that meant.
He realized that this village-Kuroyuri-it might've been Ren's childhood home, maybe Nora's, too. Its destruction was the work of the horseman Grimm, which had potentially killed someone Ren deeply cared about. Like his parents, or a sibling. Or, maybe it had hurt Nora.
Putting his thoughts aside, Aris led Cloud and Tifa over to team RNJR to regroup. Nora tackled Ren to the ground in a tight, caring hug. Aris saw Ruby run away, in the direction Pit had flown with Qrow. He followed her, running as fast as he could to catch up. When the two of them got there, they were relieved to see Qrow, still breathing, with Pit, Pikachu, and Rapidash standing guard.
Qrow spoke. "It's quiet," he breathed. "Good job, kids."
Jaune's voice. "Guys! I think I hear something!"
Ruby smiled down at her uncle with pride. Aris promptly hugged his girlfriend and planted a kiss on her cheek. "Good job out there, honey."
Ruby replied as she and Aris went back to the rest of the group. "I should be saying that to you."
"What do you mean?"
"What do I mean?!" Ruby said. "I'm talking to a guy who almost got eaten by a giant worm thing, and then proceeded to hack and slash his way out! And said guy happens to be my boyfriend, mind you."
Aris laughed. "I've fought the Molgera before, back in my homeland of Hyrule. It was plaguing the Gerudo people, in the southwestern desert region. I fought the beast with Loretta at my side, and it actually full-on swallowed her. I had to cut open its stomach after I killed it to get her out. She barely survived."
"I guess that would explain why you started behaving like Ren when it showed up," Ruby pointed out.
From the skies above, two aircraft, both of which had the appearance of old-fashioned wooden pirate ships (they had various parts such as wings and propellers for flight), flew in and landed in the center of Kuroyuri's ruins. Both ships had the crest of Mistral on their fins.
Aris was overjoyed. Teams ALPS and RNJR, plus an injured Qrow Branwen, were going to be rescued from this hellhole.
Two people in strange suits and breathing masks carried Qrow onto one of the ships, laying him down on a stretcher. Ruby followed her uncle, watching him all the while.
Ruby, Jaune, Aris, and Cloud stayed with the injured Huntsman on one ship, while Nora, Ren, and Tifa rode on the other. Pit had elected to fly on his own.
"How'd you find us out here?" Jaune asked the masked man.
The Mistral pilot replied, "We were on patrol and saw the smoke, as well as a flying worm thing. Nobody's been out here for years, and we thought something might be wrong."
Ruby was clutching her uncle's hand. "What if we don't make it in time?"
"Throw that question out the window, sweetheart!" Aris said jovially as he pointed.
Ruby looked out of the open cargo door to see a picturesque mountain town, with a waterfall flowing down the center. It was the kingdom of Mistral, their destination. She looked down at her uncle with an ecstatic smile and tears of joy. "We made it, uncle Qrow."
Meanwhile, on the other airship, Ren and Nora took in the beautiful view together, Ren's waist-length black hair flowing in the breeze. His eyes shifted to Nora, the hyperactive, ginger-haired, hammer-wielding, pancake-munching girl he'd known his entire life. She, too, was enjoying the view. Ren gently set his hand on hers.
Nora turned to look at Ren, squeezing his hand as he returned the gesture. The ginger scooted closer to her childhood friend, leaning her head on his shoulder.
Some time later...
BGM: Postwick - Pokemon Sword & Shield
Ruby entered one of the bedrooms in the house that would serve as a base of operations for teams RNJR and ALPN. On one of the beds, her uncle Qrow lay sound asleep, Tyrian's venom having been removed from his bloodstream. All that was left was for him to get some proper R&R-that is, rest and relaxation.
Ruby set the folded-up Crescent Rose on a table next to the doorway, and slowly tiptoed towards her sleeping uncle. Qrow was fast asleep, a contented grin on his face. Smiling wistfully, Ruby placed her hand on the side of his head.
A yellow figure jumped onto Qrow's bed. Pikachu. Ruby was about to pick up the Pokemon and scold her, but then she saw her curl up next to Qrow's chest and fall asleep. Still in a state of slumber, Qrow wrapped his left arm around Pikachu and held the Pokemon close to him. Pikachu made no hint of protest. "Pika..." yawned the Pokemon as it fell asleep in Qrow's embrace.
Ruby looked up at the doorway. Aris Atreides stood there, beaming with pride. Not in himself, but in Ruby Rose, the girl he loved.
Ruby silently walked over to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and draping them over his shoulders. Aris's hands gingerly gripped her waist as he moved his face closer to hers. Their lips met in a tender, loving kiss.
They eventually pulled away for air. Ruby stared into Aris's blue and green eyes, resting her forehead on his. "I love you," she whispered.
"I love you too, dearest one."
