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Chapter Seventeen: Saber Kills Lancers
The sun was already high above the horizon as our lone airship flew across southern part of Lake Matsu. The bright turquoise waters and sunny skies reminded me once again that Remnant was a beautiful and diverse planet…if you didn't account for the numerous Grimm crawling around. I took a brief yet appreciative gaze upon the beauty of the area before letting out a troubled sigh.
I admit that I was a bit tense ever since we flew through Northern Anima earlier. That area was widely known to have heavy Atlesian military presence, which meant extensive military radar systems scoping for any stray ships. There had been a good chance that we could have gotten caught at anytime. Thankfully, our experienced pilot knew what he was doing and we were able to sneak past by without a hitch in our flight.
Weiss had earlier gone up to the cockpit to speak with the pilot, but I elected to stay behind to privately ponder over some matters. I was chewing over the possible events that may have happened since I had disappeared for several months after the Battle of Beacon.
Okay… let's start with the important RWBY characters.
Ruby and Team JNPR should be in Mistral by now with Qrow Branwen tagging along. This probably hasn't changed as the perpetrators' trail knowingly ends at Haven Academy and they aren't the type of people to sit around with that knowledge. Since Pyrrha was still alive in this reality, she would have likely joined her team on their journey once she had recovered from her injuries.
Yang is a different story. Sure, I may have prevented Yang from getting her arm chopped off by Adam. But it does not mean she isn't still traumatized by other events in the Battle of Beacon. The very fact that Blake still left her didn't really help matters. So I don't know if Yang had actually joined Ruby on her journey or stayed behind initially due to her depression and PTSD. But I have faith in that she will be able get through her personal issues sooner than later and her father is there to help her out.
Speaking of Blake, she should be in Menagerie with Sun and her parents at this point of the timeline. I don't expect too much deviation on her side as what happened to Blake was pretty similar to canon. As for Adam, I don't think I have made any significant changes to his plans despite of my direct interference. I still expect that he would seize control of the White Fang soon and later coordinate the attack on Haven Academy. But I could possibly have worsened his utter 'obsession' with Blake…
Ugh…yet another serious problem to solve later.
I haven't affected the circumstances of Ozpin's death at all, so he should be already been reincarnated into the next host, Oscar. They should be with Ruby and the others now, though I am a bit uneasy about the idea of throwing a mere teenager into the fray. As for Ozpin's secrets…I will also have to do something about that soon.
Cinder and her allies are probably in the midst of planning the fall of Haven Academy, which includes finding the Spring Maiden and retrieving the Relic of Knowledge. The Spring Maiden is certainly a lost cause by now. The current Spring Maiden, Raven, doesn't want to do anything with Ozpin. The headmaster of Haven, Leonardo, was already a traitor and probably already told Salem's lackeys that Raven has the Spring Maiden (according to Qrow's knowledge). But I would make sure the Relic of Knowledge won't fall into enemy hands at least.
Those are the things I know to be likely true…now for the things I am not so certain about.
To be honest, while I was initially excited at being summoned as a Servant, I do have some concerns about the implications of my summoning in Remnant. For one, Heroic Spirits (or Servants in general) were originally never meant to be used for the Holy Grail War. Heroic Spirits were originally supposed to be only summoned and used by the world to protect humanity/world from threats, especially those of alien origins. It is actually very rare for anyone to successfully summon a Servant without the use of a Holy Grail or other similar powers. It is true that I am a bit unusual as a Servant (and my summoning circumstances as well), but I strongly suspect that an outside force of some kind is responsible for my summoning.
But that makes me wonder…what kind of being am I supposed to fight against? Who or what dragged me out of my world? And most importantly… am I the only one here?
A tingling, warm feeling ran under my skin, causing me to abruptly break from my troubling thoughts. What was that? It felt as though it was coming from the outside...
I curiously peer through the windows again, where the appearance of numerous floating islands outside made me blink in surprise. My attention was then drawn to one of the larger floating islands nearby, where I could see huge black-purple crystals sticking out from the rock formation. Ah, these must be Lake Matsu's floating islands, levitated by raw gravity Dust crystals inside them.
You know, I personally find it funny to know no matter how the show insisted that Dust is not supposed to be Magic, its actual applications make it quite hard to distinguish between the two. After all, there isn't a single, clear scientific explanation of how these Dust crystals were originally formed or how they actually worked in detail. I even joked with Weiss that the origins of Dust were from the souls of dead mages in the past. She wasn't amused with my joke.
But… come to think about it…those floating islands…don't they hide some rather dangerous Grimm…?
Just then, I was slightly jolted around as the airship suddenly swerved sharply to the right. What was that? A moment later, my ears pricked up upon hearing a nearby explosion outside. Then I finally remembered something important in my memories.
That was an explosion of an airship crashing into one of the islands. It was caused by a Grimm attack. Weiss's airship was going to be chased by those same Grimm.
I immediately burst through to the cockpit to get a better view of the situation. Weiss and the pilot had horrified looks as they looked towards at the direction of the explosion. The pilot then cursed as he immediately switched back to the radio to dial for nearby transmissions.
"Was that an airship that crashed nearby?" I then asked them.
"Yes…but what could have caused that?" Weiss murmured.
"Don't know yet. But I have a bad feeling about this," The pilot grimly voiced out his opinion of the situation.
I then glanced at the right side of the cockpit where my eyes caught something afar. "…You may be right about that feeling."
Weiss and the pilot glanced in the direction of where I was looking at and gaped in response. A huge swarm of Lancers was pursuing a rather-battered Mistral airship. But it wasn't long till the large wasp-like Grimm decided to unleash their deadly harpoons upon their target, leaving it trapped and immobile at their mercy.
A distressed, unidentified female voice then crackled through the ship radio transmitter. "We're hooked! We're hooked!"
I looked at the Mistral airship helplessly as the Lancers started to pull the aircraft apart mercilessly. The wooden hull visibly buckled and groaned under the pressure.
"Everyone, abandon ship!" The female voice cried out in desperation. But it was far too late as one of the Lancers performed a suicidal dive bomb attack from above, causing the airship to explode into pieces. I winced slightly by the apparent deaths of the ship's crew and passengers, and Weiss wasn't doing much better at the sight. But we now had a bigger problem in our hands.
The Lancers slowly turned around to face us. We were their new target.
"Lancers, freakin' Lancers!" The pilot hastily scrambled over the controls to accelerate the ship away. I guessed he finally realized the apparent danger we were in now. "Alright, buckle up-Huh?"
But Weiss and I had already jumped down the hatch into the cargo hold. Those Grimm aren't going to give up easily, especially now they have their sights on us.
"What are you guys doing?" the pilot asked over the intercom as we got ready to combat the swarm.
"What we should've done in the first place," Weiss replied adamantly as she picked up her Myrtenaster nearby.
Meanwhile, I had cracked open up one of the large crates with the Schnee logo on it. High-quality powdered Dust vials of every color filled my sight. I immediately grabbed six of the vials and offered them to Weiss.
"Thank you, Gray," Weiss accepted the vials to load up her dust revolver.
"No problem," I said as I summoned out my invisible sword and armor.
"Be ready to open the rear door!" I called out to the pilot.
"Alright, but we're cutting it close!" the pilot yelled out as the ship kept on swerving around.
Weiss summons a black glyph underneath her feet to stabilize her stance, while I take my position somewhere upfront. Our swords were readied for the impending battle.
"Open it now!" I shouted out finally.
The cargo rear door slowly opened up, letting the cold lake air in and I was greeted by the sight of a swarm of very aggressive Lancers. One of Lancers near the front fired its harpoon at me, but I simply grabbed onto it and sharply yanked the opposing Lancer towards me. I immediately slashed it in half when it got into my range, disintegrating it.
Well, that's one down. Just a few more dozen left to go.
Weiss repeatedly fired out her various Dust projectiles; taking down quite a few Lancers. On the other hand, I kept on slashing and hacking any unfortunate Lancer that came too close to the airship with my sword. But our combined efforts were going a bit too slow for my liking.
Time to take things up a notch.
"Weiss, Flamethrower!" I shouted out as I redirected a small portion on my prana into Invisible Air. The condensed column of air swirled rapidly around my sword before I finally released it with a cry.
"Strike Air!"
A medium-sized stream of wind burst out and roared towards the approaching swarm. But that was just the beginning of their doom.
In the meanwhile, Weiss had affirmed my command as she ran her fingers down against the blade and a large fiery red Schnee glyph formed nearby. She then pointed her weapon and shot out a large fireball at the wind stream itself.
The fireball instantly ignited the wind…
…and huge firestorm collided with the swarm.
It was super effective. Scorched Grimm bits came raining down into the lake from the aftermath.
"Ha-ha! Nice one!" the pilot complimented us after seeing the severe damage done to the swarm.
Indeed, I was quite satisfied with actual damage that we did with our technique in real combat. This particular technique was just one of many combination attacks that Weiss and I practiced together during our training. We weren't just practicing hitting sticks against together.
But still it wasn't quite enough for these persistent buggers. There were still a few Lancers that managed to avoid it and quickly close in the distance between us.
The cargo ship suddenly rocked a bit.
"We're hooked!" the pilot exclaimed as the remaining swarm slowly surrounded us.
"We need to get our stowaways off this ship!" I cried out to the pilot as I deflected another harpoon shot at the airship.
"…I got an idea! Hold on!" the pilot answered back. "…Literally!"
Weiss and I immediately braced ourselves onto the ship as the pilot implemented his reckless yet effective idea.
The airship headed straight for one of the larger islands as the swarm buzzed after us. I could literally feel its gravity pulling on us as we got ever so closer. Then the pilot dived down in the last possible moment before we crashed, where the island's strong gravity pull tore off the hooked Lancers from the airship.
"Ha-ha!" the pilot cheered upon his success. What a crazy guy. But I do like his style.
Seeing the apparent success of the pilot, Weiss had an idea in mind. "Can you find a pair of islands we can fit between?"
"Kid, you are reading my mind!" the pilot replied after figuring out Weiss's idea.
The cargo airship soared toward a narrow passageway between the chosen two islands, where it trembled from the pressure of gravity between them. But we were mostly fine, thanks to our powerful engine thrusters and experienced pilot. The remaining Lancers, on the other hand, were crashing left and right as they were unable to resist the gravity pull.
Weiss helped out by shooting out a few well-placed lightning Dust projectiles on the upper cliff side. The result? A bunch of rubble fell down and crushed the remaining Lancers on our tail.
The airship finally rushed out of the ravine with a few scratches and dirt trailing behind us. But we were okay.
"Yeah! Great going, guys! We are in the clear!" the pilot celebrated aloud.
Weiss almost sighed in relief, but then I spoke out solemnly. "We are not out of woods, yet."
"What do you mean?!" the pilot asked over the intercom. Weiss also looked at me questioningly.
"A Queen Lancer," I answered grimly as the mentioned creature suddenly appeared behind the airship.
The Queen Lancer was many times the size of an ordinary Lancer. It was about the size of our airship with a notable larger abdomen and a long curved harpoon. Large overlapping armor plates covered its backside and it was deceptively fast for its large size; judging from how it is keeping up with our airship speed. This was not going to be easy.
"What?!" the pilot panicked upon hearing the said Grimm's appearance.
"We will take care it, work on getting us to the shoreline quickly!" I ordered the pilot.
Then the Queen Lancer opened its armor cavities and fired off its numerous bony projectiles right at us. I immediately leaped and twirled through the air with extreme speed and dexterity as I repelled the projectiles with my blade. I finally somersaulted on top of the airship with a slight frown on my face.
Destroying the Queen Lancer by myself is not really an option for me here. I would be risking leaving the airship defenseless against its attacks as I have to jump out to fight in close combat. Not to mention, it would be a tad difficult for me to get back into the airship. Invisible Air may be a viable option here, but I have a much better idea in mind.
"Weiss! Call out your summon now!" I called to her from above.
Weiss looked up at me in confusion before finally realizing my intentions. "…Right!"
As Weiss focused on her summoning, I solely worked on defending the airship from the Queen Lancer's attacks and buying Weiss some time.
Fortunately, Weiss didn't need a lot of time to summon, unlike in the canon. Her Arma Gigas had formed instantly, ready to charge into battle.
"Pull up now!" I yelled out to the pilot immediately after confirming her success.
Weiss and I braced onto the ship as it swerved sharply upside down. Then the white Arma Gigas ran outside and dived down right at the Queen Lancer. Its heavy broadsword materialized into its hand.
When it looked like they were about to collide with each other, the Arma Gigas abruptly disappeared, only to reappear behind the Queen Lancer. It then initiated a series of heavy slashes onto the Queen Lancer. However, the Queen Lancer had managed to fire off its harpoon in midst of the attacks.
The fired harpoon was heading straight towards our airship. The airship would have crashed from a heavy hit like that. But luckily, I was waiting for that moment.
"Ya!" I swung my sword at the approaching harpoon and managed to deflect it away in time. Just moments later, I saw the Arma Gigas give the final death blow to the Queen Lancer, where both figures dissipated soon afterwards.
We finally made it.
I deftly slip myself back down into the airship's cargo hold where the rear door was now closing up. Weiss was looked a little worn down, but had a smile on her face from our success.
From my initial assessment, we have done much better than I thought we would have. We didn't suffer a lot of damage from the fight and the airship didn't crash in the end. Weiss had managed to get another strong summon. We even saved our pilot's cargo. All in all, we did pretty good back there.
"Alright! We finally made it! Thanks for your help back there! Thought we were goners for sure!" the pilot cheered up again as we finally crossed the shoreline safely.
"There is no need to thank us. Just fly us to Mistral in one piece," I answered humbly as I checked up on Weiss. She doesn't seem to be hurt from the ordeal, but she definitely deserves some rest after this battle.
Now I think about it, I don't believe Weiss has gotten much sleep since we got out of Atlas…
"Weiss, try to get some sleep for now. I will wake you when we get there," I said firmly to her while dismissing my armor.
"What? Gray, I'm not that tired," Weiss objected. But her haggard eyes and unsteady footing told me a different story. She seriously needed some rest.
"It is essential for warriors to rest after battle is over. You will need it more than I ever would. I will watch over you in the meantime," I firmly stood by my point.
"B-but…I'm really fine," Weiss stubbornly asserted.
I could have waited till Weiss gave up at some point, but I decided to do something rather… drastic. I firmly grabbed onto her hand and hooked my foot around her ankle at the same time. Weiss yelped in surprise as she abruptly lost her footing when I pulled her towards me. But I caught her just in time and smoothly placed her head right onto my lap.
"G-gray, what are you doing…!?" Weiss stuttered out while being red down to her neck.
"Calm down, I'm merely giving you a place to rest your head on," I told her gently as I stroked her surprisingly soft hair. "And can't you just let me indulge on this for once?"
"…Idiot." Weiss quietly murmured as she finally gave up her struggling despite of her apparent embarrassment at her position. I only lightly chuckled at her response as my stroking hand started to work its magic on her.
Eventually, Weiss's eyes started to droop and her breathing grew even as I continued to stroke her head in a steady, rhythmic fashion. It wasn't long till Weiss finally slipped away into her dreams and her head closely nuzzling my lap. I stare upon her sleeping form with a feeling of mixed amusement and concern; the soft sound of her breath felt comforting in the midst of the humming airship engines.
Geez, what a troublesome Master I have. But I wouldn't trade her for any other Master.
So we have begun the Haven Arc with the airship chase over Lake Matsu. Weiss and Gray have made it out safely without too much trouble and ended up in a better position than canon Weiss. It is not a very long chapter, but it gets the plot going at least.
I also like to thank you readers for your ideas from the last chapter reviews and hopefully I can make this work out. And your continued support is always greatly appreciated.
A side note: The upcoming RWBY fanfic will be focused on Qrow Branwen, though with a few changes…
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