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You see some skinny girl like this you have to beware their true strength. A hidden knife or their semblance or something else to even the odds. Or maybe, much like Ruby, a combination of semblance and skill that just left her good. You know? Some people were just good. And what was I going to do then? I was going to fucking die.

Her guns, so far, were plenty for the purpose of keeping me at bay. A little like Ren with his submachine guns. Further, whenever I would try and close the gap, she would switch styles and jab at me with the sharpest edges of her blades hooked blades.

She twisted in mid air, coming down on me with a flip and I bashed her into the ground. People kept trying that. They kept trying to flip over me. It kept not working. I had plenty of anti-air counter attacks to stop someone approaching that way.

"Got som'more in you." She rose to her feet before I could stop her. I wanted to chase her down and bash her before she could get up but I couldn't with my injuries.

"Do it again," I whispered in the burning candlelight. "Let's find out."

I was bluffing. I was at my limit but my semblance was seriously a long way away from being charged. I could feel it like water filling a bottle or a well. It was close to empty and I was already exhausted.

I blocked high and she just stabbed me in the chest with the other blade. I winced, my wounds aggravated. It made me choke on my own spit. I whipped my sword at her head and she ducked under it. Asd she did she delivered a sort of body hook with her weapon to my side. I shoved the sword into her face to drive her back. No contact, but I got some space.

It was enough space to quickly swap my weapon's form. The shield was what I felt I really needed. My long arms and the four foot sword would provide enough reach. Space meant she could shoot me too, though, and she did several times but it was small arms fire that I managed to shrug off with a shave of aura.

That was another perk of being a huntsman. Or at least a huntsman with my factors, I was largely immune to small arms. Her guns? Yes, sure. They stung and dropped a few percent but I could manage. Crescent Rose? Absolutely not.

She cartwheeled back into my range before I could finish maneuvering the shield between us. I wanted to block both this and her upcoming fire, however. Instead she kicked me in the stomach with both feet and I felt a stitch tear for real. I gasped and my hand dropped to where I assumed blood began to pour.

"I had no idea you were a fucking cripple already."

She loved to talk too, the bitch. Her ice blue eyes narrowed for a moment and I felt my injury slowly trickling my meter to full. A small stream but with the way this fight was going I'd get another Limit Break before the end. Whatever form that happened to take.

She jumped at me, scissoring her blades at my neck, I rolled back. I grunted from the effort of landing and rising again before in a single fluid motion she adjusted and she just kicked me in the stomach and red covered the front of my shirt.

"Are you like a step from death? I don't know if I can feel good about killing you, you know?" She giggled. "Like do I feel proud or just like accepting that I won."

Her eye flared and it must have been her semblance. Blue lights the same color as her eyes flashed to either side of her face and the paper mache lanterns, streamers, and flags froze solid and hung in the air. She whipped her outstretched hand at me and icy shrapnel flickered through the air towards me.

It pulverized me and knocked me flat on my back and into a house. I groaned and grimaced but I had my semblance off of that. It took the edge off the pain a little. I got to my feet.

I rushed her in a sapphire haze out of the crushed ruined house. I tried to smash her with my shield but she pivoted to the side and tried to trip me. I dexterously jumped and took two diagonal shallow slashes while in midair. I struck her hard with the four foot blade. It knocked her back with each blow two little steps. She spun with the second and knelt and fired at me but I held the 't' shaped shield and crouched behind it and let the bullets bounce off of it's surface.

I krept forward and I still burned with the light of my semblance. The inside of my skull was on fire in a pleasant sensation. From her kneeling position she stood easily and took another pot shot at me because it was free. I was free at this range. She could hit me and I couldn't hit her. We called that rough, buddy. It was, afterall the first rule of warfare: hold your opponent where you could hit them but that they couldn't return your damage.

I rushed her but my stomach still hurt from the stitches. I was really stretching them out and forcing them to the tearing point. I punched with the edge of my shield like I was trying to slice her head off with the edge of it. One of the points of the 't' went right for her neck. She swiveled out of the way and tried to stab me in the stomach with her left hand hooked blade. I pointed my blade downwards and caught it and pushed her weapon away. In a fluid motion I came back with a horizontal swing at her head.

She blocked with the right hooked weapon. Then she had to lift the other one up to match my strength. I spent my Limit Break right then on a shield bash. I hit her twenty feet back into a house. Blue light flared around me as I activated my semblance and spent the power I had accumulated.

Right away I felt the loss. If I felt good and strong with it, it stood to reason I was weak and felt like shit without it. The burning in my skull vanished along with that little pleasant pressure and my wounds ached. I nearly sagged to the ground without the extra energy reserve. I leaned on my weapon and fell to a knee. I raised my head to where Vernal was picking herself out of the wreckage I'd made. Somebody's home. They were probably dead now from the way Grimm were flooding the village and the bandits were cutting people to pieces.

A wave of pale blue light flickered over her. Her aura... I… I hadn't managed to deplete it. I'd hurt her for sure but she wasn't empty. She was still invulnerable. Her eyes flared again. She swept her hand forward and rather than ice there was a wave of fire.

I threw myself forward and out of the way. I rolled off the ground but the movement was clumsy and jarred my wounds as I tried to rise. The well that was Limit was totally and completely dry. I wouldn't be getting another one for the rest of this fight. I'd have to manage without it somehow. And Vernal's semblance seemed to be some kind of thermokinesis that allowed her to manipulate the wind, and freeze things solid, and summon fire. It was a pretty wicked power that I wasn't sure had many restrictions and a wide area of affect. A Shaker ability, then. With ranged Blaster attributes. I didn't have anything to counter it.

A call sounded out, an artificial bird call, and her head turned in the direction the sound came from, a curl to her lips as she backed up.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

She was smirking. "None of your business is here." I was fairly certain it wasn't good. That was the first rule of warfare, don't give your enemies gifts.

"What?"

"Go ahead, save the village. It's my calling card."

"You're Vernal," I muttered.

"You know me?" She asked.

Screams reverberated as the forge, what was left of it, was crushed when a massive shadow walked through it. Grimm were filtering through the village, snatching up children and adults with the same ease. The bandits had softened us up just right.

The fact was, when Vernal took off running, I pretty much knew what had walked into the village. Or at least I had a good idea. Second fact is, I was in no shape to do pretty much anything to the Nuckelavee. I was actually nearly passing out.

"Jaune how are we doing?" Ruby appeared beside me.

"Maybe a two, probably a one." I said honestly.

"What's it out of?"

"Ten. Probably a twenty."

She looked around and whined. "What do I do?"

The Nuckelavee was like something I'd seen in a dream I tried to forget. It reached out and ripped a civilian in half and suddenly the range Crocea Mors provided me made me feel inadequate. It's arms covered half a courtyard and several buildings in the process of snatching one of the grooms. Red covered the tye dyed shirt as he fell in two pieces.

It had dozens of spears and arrows pouring from it's back and they ruffled in a wave like a cat bristling as it moved. Suddenly the floor of it's den made sense. The swords which littered it's floor like so many stepping stones represented but a fraction of the times it had been wounded and had killed.

The monster walked through the forge like it wasn't even there. The horse it rode in on was equally nightmarish. It seemed to hold the same intelligence as it's rider. I wasn't sure how far that went but I knew it was smarter than it had any right to be after just one look.

It had a certain awareness to it as it dodged projectiles for it's rider and crushed people.

Someone should have killed it decades, if not centuries ago.

If Ruby was waiting for me to provide a magic bullet she would be waiting a long time. "How are you two doing?" It was Nora running up on us with Ren. She gasped and reached for Ren's hand. "It's here."

I was hurt. As in I was seriously hurt. I was going to be no good in a fight against this thing except as a strategist. But the way my vision kept fading meant even the odds of that were low.

Ruby stepped forward as though to fight and Ren grabbed her shoulder. "If we fight now, Jaune will die." His voice was certain.

"What am I supposed to do then." Some venom in her voice.

"Wait. Wait for the proper opportunity and fight it then. We can track it from here. GaiLong is gone, Ruby. It'll never recover. But you can get these people to Higanbana."

"Ren…" Nora whispered.

"Jaune what do you think?"

I was dabbing my cotton shirt at where my guts were falling out. "Wha-"

"Never mind. You're right, Ren. Everyone, follow us! I'm going to distract it." Ruby said the last part to us. She burst into petals and charged it. Meanwhile, Ren grabbed me and threw me over his shoulder with a grunt from both of us.

Nora called out. "To me! To me!" She fired grenades into a crowd of Grimm. And began to carve a path out of the village into the woods. "Into the woods! Come on!" She plucked a child into her arms and fought through an old looking Beowulf. Spinning her hammer with one hand, she crushed its ribs and then its skull.

Ruby was all over the big threat. She appeared behind the Nuckelavee and shot it in the back three times. It whipped around and gave this howl that shook the foundations of those buildings that still stood. I wanted to block my ears but my arms drooped helplessly.

I watched Ruby slice into its leg then vanish into petals when it swung at her with its long arms. I lost sight of her, however, because when Ren began to jog my vision began to tunnel. I passed in and out of consciousness with the rhythm of his movement. His shoulder was digging right into my chest and stomach from the fireman's carry he was performing.

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When I came to, I was in a stretcher with hardwood walls around me. I sighed. It was the hostel in Higanbana, I was familiar with the color of the lights and wood. The shape of the windows, in small rectangles, clued me in, too.

Ruby was on a chair in the corner, in the fetal position. She looked like I felt with tears streaking through the dust on her face.

"Ruby…"

"You're awake, thank gods." She stretched out of where she was curled up and walked over to me. She ran her hands through my hair, I wasn't sure who that brought more comfort to but I leaned into the gesture as always. "I was so worried..."

"Ruby..."

"When that girl attacked you... I didn't know you were so badly hurt or I wouldn't have left you."

"Rubes…"

"Higanbana is safe or as safe as safe gets around here, we got some of the civilians out and to here. Had to escort them. It took a few extra days but Higanbana was willing to take the refugees, so long as they don't stay and they move on to Mistral."

"It wasn't your fault," I whispered.

Her hands froze in my hair.

"I'm tired of everyone telling me that." She eventually muscled the words out. "Ren and Nora and now you keep telling me that. It's the first thing you say to me."

"You don't sound like you believe it."

"My mother believed in saving everyone."

"You couldn't have saved everyone; I...I lead us right into an ambush."

"So it's your fault."

"A little. But mostly it's Vernal's fault. She's destroying villages for fun. People are like cattle to her and she's hunting them for sport. It's her favorite."

"You know that?"

"She has no motivation to destroy so many villages so quickly otherwise. She likes it."

"My mother would have saved everyone." she whipped her eyes. "She was like that. Me, I hardly saved anyone."

"You saved my life again. I know it isn't much, really." She wanted to hit me, instead she rubbed my stomach and I groaned. "It's not. One day you'll see that I'm not one tenth as special as any member of team RWBY." I sat up, slowly. "Come here." I beckoned.

She did, pressing her head against my collar where I held her close and she shook as she sobbed. "It was like Beacon all over again. Time and time again I was too slow. Is my semblance only good for running away? Am I?"

I suppress a laugh. "Your semblance is not for running away. I can promise you that. Ruby your semblance makes you nearly invincible. That's who you are."

"Pyrrha-"

"But nothing about Pyrrha. She had her strengths but she can't burst apart and dodge any attack. You can. That's who you are. Look at how you suffer for people you've never met."

"People I've never met. I chose you. I had to make a choice, you or everyone else in GaiLong, was that selfish of me?"

"You couldn't have saved the people of GaiLong except on a slim chance. So maybe, but you'll have to make it again. Just like I'll have to kill again."

"That doesn't make me feel better," she sobbed.

"Well being a murderer doesn't make me feel good, but I'll have to do it again, and again, and again. When you make your decisions I can't question them and I'll be right beside you all the while."

"You're really bad at this." She hiccuped but she laughed a little too. "You're supposed to comfort a crying girl."

"Yeah, well, I'm not supposed to lie to you either. We can do this together."

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-WG