Sorry for the long wait guys! I had trouble with figuring out the dialogue. I hope you all enjoy it and think it's slightly funny at the very least! Enjoy!
Carly stared in disbelief at the situation before her. Sam was still pinned by the Grimm that attacked them while training, but the oncoming attack that the Grimm attempted on Sam had been stopped by some sort of…shield?
Carly remembered thinking, with an intense ferocity, that she had to protect Sam. And then an orange shield had suddenly appeared in between the Grimm and her friend, detailed in a way that matched Carly's emblem.
Whether the Grimm was smart enough to make this connection or was just looking for something else to attack that wasn't blocked, Carly didn't know. Either way, the Grimm shoved Sam to the side as it turned and roared at Carly, rushing to attack her.
Carly let out a short yell and raised her hands, trying to figure out how to form another shield to protect herself. She had to act quick or she would be in the same serious trouble as Sam was in before. If she couldn't figure out how to conjure a shield in a matter of seconds, she was going to have to be prepared to attack or defend herself in another way.
Unfortunately she had yet to form another shield by the time the Grimm reached her. It leaped into the air and raised its claws to strike her.
Instinctively Carly turned her head, closing her eyes as she raised and crossed her forearms over one another in a desperate attempt to protect herself. She let out a scream and wished she could shield herself like she had Sam earlier.
When no attack came, Carly slowly opened one eye, then the other and looked up to see the same kind of shield in between her and the werewolf Grimm. This one was bigger and was pulsing with orange energy with each hit the Grimm dealt to it.
Shocked, Carly quickly racked her brain trying to figure out how she had conjured the orange barrier. She didn't know how long she had before the barrier disappeared, so she was going to have to figure out how she activated it, and fast.
Thankfully the barrier remained in place as she tried to think. The Grimms assaults increased both in quantity and strength, seeming to become agitated that it was unable to attack its prey.
Carly braved taking her focus off the Grimm to look behind it, searching for Sam.
"Sam! I'm gonna need some help here! I don't know how long this thing is going to last and I don't want to be a human sandwich for this Grimm!" Carly yelled to her friend, flinching at a particular rough hit to the shield from the Grimm.
"On it!" Sam yelled back, and the next thing Carly heard was an arrow flying through the air. A half second later Carly saw an arrow land in the back of the Grimm's head. It roared in pain, throwing its head back. Seeing an opportunity, Carly grabbed her hobby horse to attack and was pleased to see the shield vanish, giving her an open shot to strike the monster.
She leapt up into the air and pulled her hammer back to strike. And for a moment, everything felt as if it was slowed down as she saw the Grimm open its jaws, hate in its eye. Behind it, Sam was readying to fire another arrow.
Then as quickly as it happened, the moment passed as Carly whacked the arrows imbedded in the Grimms eyes, sending them straight through its head. At the same time, Sam released the arrow she prepared and it landed a direct hit to the back of the skull, hitting hard enough that the tip of the arrow was prominently showing through the Grimms forehead.
As Carly landed, she turned, watching as the werewolf Grimm began to fall to the ground. It started disintegrating before it even reached the grassy terrain. Carly stared at the fading black and white form, catching her breath raggedly as Sam came up next to her. The two friends were silent until the Grimm corpse was completely gone.
When the black dust faded into the air, Carly and Sam looked at one another and gave each other tired, proud smiles. Carly spoke in an exhausted voice, "You okay?"
"Yep, thanks to you," Sam breathed, "I would have been shredded if you hadn't unlocked your semblance."
Carly let out a breathless laugh and said, "Don't thank me, that was just luck! I'm not even sure how I activated it!"
Here she paused before she looked at her friend and said, "You've really gotten the hang of that bow! You were the one who practically took down the Grimm! You were landing some critical hits!"
Sam blushed slightly and smiled before saying, "You were doing damage too! And you got right up into the Grimms face! That takes a lot of courage!"
Carly blushed herself and scratched the back of her head.
Suddenly Sam's head turned sharply to her and she said excitedly, "Oh! So I have to tell you! I unlocked my semblance too!"
Carly's eyes widened in surprise and she asked, "Really? How did that happen? What is it?"
"When you were shielding yourself from the Grimm, I was trying to get my bow and as I was reaching for it, it teleported to my hands!" Sam explained, a smile on her face.
Carly felt her jaw drop before she exclaimed, "Really?"
"Yeah! It was a few feet away and it just disappeared and the next thing I knew, it was in my hands!" Sam said excitedly, gesturing with her hands to emphasize what had happened.
Brushing some hair out of her face, Carly smiled at her friend and said, "That's awesome!" She put her hand on her hip before continuing, "Now we can add mastering our semblances to our training. I don't know about you, but I think we've got some pretty handy semblances! They'll really come in handy in the future situations!"
Sam chuckled nervously as she replied, "Yeah, we've got a lot to get prepared for."
Carly felt something unpleasant stir within her, her smile falling from her lips at a passing thought. She pushed it down after a second and forced a smile onto her face, saying to her shorter haired companion, "Let's head back to the others. I'm starving and in need of a break."
"You guys were gone for a while. Was everything okay?" Jaune asked, both concern and suspicion in his tone. His companions all looked up upon the two older females returning back to their campsite.
Upon seeing their exhausted expressions, Ruby asked with a worried look, "Did something happen?"
Sam and Carly plopped down onto the makeshift chairs the team was able to make from some fallen logs, at the same time Carly answered, "We, unfortunately, ran into a Grimm and, because we're rusty, it took us some time to take it down."
There was a collective exchange of gasps and worried looks before Ren asked, "Do you have any injuries that need to be tended?"
Both brunettes shook their heads and said with proud smiles, "Nah, we're a bit bruised but we're all good."
Jaune walked over and handed them a portion of the meal as the younger members of the group began discussing amongst themselves.
The two brunettes sat in silence, thinking over their Grimm encounter. Carly didn't know about Sam, but she felt proud of herself for being able to survive and helping to take down the abomination. She still couldn't believe that they had encountered and fought off a Grimm. The fact that they survived brought pride to Carly. She let herself bask in that feeling instead of thinking about how close she came to death facing such a creature. There would be time for that later.
The meal went by with pleasant conversation and content air as the fire provided a gentle warmth to the soft breeze rustling through the night.
Carly swung her hobby horse hammer with as much force as she could despite her arms feeling incredibly weak. She was able to do a decent blow to the trunk she was targeting, but she still needed more practice if she was ever going to be able to stay alive in this universe. She couldn't afford to get tired or she might not survive.
That singular thought had been haunting her ever since the Grimm encounter. Even if she and Sam trained as hard as they could, would they be able to last in this world? Could they survive long enough to eventually return home?
Were they only getting in the way?
These dark thoughts plagued her mind and had started a negative spiral of other questions to run through her head that Carly couldn't avoid thinking. What if they weren't strong enough? What if they couldn't handle the oncoming situations team RNJR would have to face?
Were they going to die?
Carly let out a groan and put all her negative energy into hitting the tree. Her limbs screamed as she struck the trunk, and she had to take a moment to catch her breath. She looked over her shoulder to see Sam practicing some physical hits she could do with her bow should she run out of arrows or be in a similar situation like before. Her blue eyes were focused and seemed to show no signs that she had identical thoughts that Carly had.
Carly wanted to voice her thoughts to her friend, but was worried that talking about the subject would bring answers she didn't want to hear, or worse, create more negativity that another Grimm would locate them. After their earlier encounter and the excessive training, Carly knew she wouldn't be able to take on another Grimm at the moment.
Maybe, instead of partaking in the fairy tale, they should be looking for ways to exit it…
Maybe they didn't belong here…
Carly let out a breath and raised her hobby horse hammer. She couldn't think about that right now. Right now, she had to train and then get some rest. Perhaps tomorrow she'd bring up these thoughts with Sam and they could figure out what to do from there.
Despite her exhaustion and the worry in her heart, Carly forced herself to focus on her technique.
It was all she could do for now.
The next day found the small band of travelers enjoying a sunny day with a gentle breeze brushing around them to keep everyone at a comfortable temperature.
So far the day had been very pleasant with a calm air about and no signs of Grimm. Even Carly had to admit that she slept well last night despite feeling incredibly sore from the battle with the werewolf Grimm and excessive training.
And yet she couldn't help but have a nagging thought in her mind that kept her from truly enjoying the day.
That thought being that perhaps her and Sam didn't belong in this "fairy tale".
But how would they get back? How they even got here was still a mystery. There had been way of figuring out what had happened, and it had all occurred so fast that it was difficult to remember any particular details that they might have needed to recall in the future.
Carly took a glance at Sam, who was happily chatting with Ruby, and wondered if her friend was having the same thoughts at any point or time. She wanted to talk about it with her, but Carly had to admit she feared what answers they might come up with.
Her thoughts were interrupted when Jaune said no one in particular, "I'm surprised we haven't reached the next village yet." He was examining the map with a squinted expression.
"Maybe you're reading it wrong again?" Nora teased with a mischievous smirk, stretching her arms to put them behind her head. Carly felt a smile pull at her lips at the comment.
Ruby chuckled and said, "Try turning it upside down, maybe that will help."
This caused everyone to let out a few chuckles themselves, aside from Jaune. He seemed to be pouting with a glare at Ruby. He said defensively, "No! I'm reading it right! We should have seen something by now," he returned his gaze to the map and tilted his head, as well as the map, from one direction to the next as if that would somehow solve his confusion.
"It's possible that they moved because where they were planning to originally set up might have initially been problematic. We're close to some rocky ledges that look pretty damaged and will probably break easily. So perhaps they wanted avoid any issues like rockslides and decided to relocate," Ren explained.
Carly looked to her right and noticed that there were, indeed, some rock ledges that just reached up above the trees. And they also, to Ren's point, did look like they had seen better days.
As if proving her point, a decent sized rock crumbled from the side and rolled down.
"I hope that's the case and we're not just lost," Nora replied, her arms falling back as she let out a groan to the sky.
"You and me both," Carly agreed, still examining the small rocky ledges.
After thinking about it, Carly spoke to the team, "You know, Sam and I could climb to the top of those ledges and try to see if we can find any towns in the distance."
Everyone took a glance at the mound that Carly was referencing before Jaune responded with a concerned expression, "Do you think you'll be safe to climb those? Ren's right, they look pretty unstable."
Carly brushed some hair that had gotten loose from her ponytail out of her face and offered a smile, "They do, but they should still be able to handle at least two people for a short period of time. Besides, they're not that high up. If we fall, we'll be fine."
"She's already landed on her head enough that she can't go any crazier than she already is," Sam bluntly said.
This caused everyone to laugh except Carly, who gave Sam a half-hearted glare before replying with, "Hey you're not exactly all there either, you know?"
"I never claimed to be," Sam rebutted with no hesitation, resulting in everyone to let out some more laughs. Even Carly broke into a smirk at her friends' quick response.
"Alright, we'll wait here for you while you two take a look. Just be safe, we may not have seen any Grimm, but that doesn't mean that they're not out there," Jaune said once he was able to contain his laughter.
"When I volunteered to do this, I did not…" here Carly paused her sentence, taking a moment to catch her breath before continuing, "…expect the slope to be this steep! I thought the climb up…" She had to pause again, breathing heavily, "…would be a little less difficult!"
Her and Sam had finally reached the top, to which Carly was very happy to see. She was not much of a climber and her initial thought was that the ledges would have a gradual incline. However, it seemed she was completely wrong.
The ledges had only slopes that were not only steep, but very slippery as it was mostly covered in gravel and loose rocks. Sure she had known that the ledges looked damaged, but she thought that they wouldn't be literally falling apart!
Sam, who was already way ahead of her and gazing out into the distance looking for the town, turned to her and said, "You should know by now that not everything is as it seems."
Carly was too drained to give a better response than an exhausted, "Yeah, yeah," complete with a small wave of her hand. While Carly was pretty much panting her lungs out, Sam hadn't even broken a sweat, looking as if the steep climb had done nothing to her energy. Carly couldn't help but be a little jealous of her friend for that.
A moment of silence passed between the two friends as Sam turned back to the horizon and Carly caught her breath.
It was at that time that Carly wondered if she should bring up her thoughts about their place in this story with Sam. They were alone, and not training, nor fearing for their lives because of Grimm, so perhaps now would be the best time to approach the topic.
Instead she said, "It's a beautiful view…"
It was true; the ledge was just above the tree line, allowing Sam and Carly to see the entire landscape. And as the wind passed, all the trees shimmered like a green sea.
"It sure is. And I can see the next town over there!" Sam exclaimed, pointing in a certain direction.
Carly walked closer to her friend to see where she was pointing and, to her relief, was able to locate the town she was indicating to.
"Oh, yeah!" Carly confirmed, noting that the town was a decent size and didn't seem to have any suggestion that it was like the previous village. From what they could see, it looked like it was bustling with villagers and lively to a degree.
It was in that moment that Carly couldn't hold back the question that had been plaguing her since last night.
"Sam, do you think we were meant to be here?"
Sam turned to her and gave her a slightly confused look. Carly knew it might have sounded random compared to their previous chit chat, but Carly had to discuss this topic with her. It was if it finally sank in to Carly that they were actually here, in the RWBY universe.
"I mean, do you think we're going to be any help to Ruby and her team? Why were we brought here? We were seriously struggling last night to fight off a Grimm that the others could take down in half the time and effort we did! How are we supposed to fight off things like the Nuckelavee?" Carly asked in a worried tone. She wasn't panicking, but there was concern in her tone.
How were her and Sam going to help the others if they couldn't even defend themselves? Why were they here if they couldn't really alter the storyline by telling the others about the future? Or was there no reason at all and they were just some randomly picked persons to be involved in this crazy fairy tale?
There was a moment of silence as Sam seemed to be taking in her question and searching for something to say. A few seconds later Sam said in a strong tone, "If we weren't supposed to be here, then we'd be watching the next season back at my place!
"And besides, we haven't been training to be huntresses all our lives, so of course we aren't even close to their level. We're still learning. But that doesn't mean we can't get better and help them out when the time comes. I think the fact that we even survived that Grimm last night says we are on the right track," Sam concluded.
Carly smiled at her friend, thankful of her positivity and honesty. Perhaps Carly had been thinking about this whole thing all wrong.
"Yeah, I guess you're right. But we do need to start thinking about how to get home. There's only so much we know that's going to happen. And who knows what is going to change because we are interfering with the story," Carly stated.
While she loved seeing characters from her favorite show, they still had family and friends and their own lives to get back to.
Before Carly could even start thinking about that problem, Sam put her hands up around her mouth and shouted, "MIIIIIILLLLLEEESSS!"
What.
Carly blinked in concerned confusion for her friend as Sam continued her shouting with a, "KEEEERRRRRYYYYYY!"
Maybe Sam was losing it?
Did the Grimm fight from last night actually knock a screw loose?
"Uh, Sam? You okay there?" Carly asked nervously.
Sam turned back to her and explained, "Oh! So Kerry and Miles are some of the lead creators of the RWBY show! I figured they'd be the best thing to call out for help on the matter."
Carly blinked. Then blinked again.
She supposed that made sense to a degree.
Especially since the two brothers of creation and destruction aren't a part of this world anymore, Carly's mind supplied.
But instead of Miles and Kerry, Carly turned to the distance and shouted, "GOD? GOOOOOOOODDD? YOU THERE? CAN WE GO HOME NOW?"
When no answer came, Carly tried shouting out for the two brothers, despite them most likely not answering or even being able to hear her, "HELLLLLLOOOOOO? BROTHERS?"
Another pause passed the two females before Carly shouted, in a last ditch effort, although slightly quieter than before "MOON?"
"The moon isn't a celestial being, Carly," Sam said to her, putting her hands on her hips.
"I ran out of things to shout out to," Carly replied, letting her hands fall to her sides.
When no response came to them, no surprise there, both brunettes decided to head back to the others and inform them of the town that was not too far away.
As they reached the bottom of the ledge, Sam said to Carly, "Maybe we don't fit into this world, but that doesn't change the fact that we're here. So let's do our best to make the best of it."
The smile that Sam gave Carly was too infectious not to smile back at. As her lips formed their own smile, Carly said, "You're right. And we'll get the hang of our fighting skills eventually. We just need to keep practicing," she paused a moment before saying sincerely, "Thanks, Sam."
"No problem, buddy."
"Hey we heard some shouting in the distance a while ago. Was that you guys?" Jaune asked when they got back.
Oh boy.
Thankfully he was talking to Sam as Carly was a few steps behind her friend. The combined walk and hike had exhausted her to a degree.
"Probably was just a bird or something," Sam deflected, waving her hand.
Anything that was said after that, Carly didn't hear as it was said in a quieter tone and she was still hobbling over to reach the team.
"Well, did you see anything up there?" Nora asked in an excited voice.
"Yep! We're on the right track! It's just a little farther away in…" Sam paused as she lifted her arm up; trying to figure out which direction she needed to refer to.
Carly finally caught up to her friend and put her hands on her knees, panting, as she said with exhaustion, "North…east."
Team RNJR all looked at her with surprise, noticing her panting her lungs out. After a moment, Jaune asked, confusion etched into his face, "Is everything okay? You look worn out."
Carly was still trying to catch her breath so she couldn't provide a response, but thankfully (or maybe not so), Sam answered Jaune's question.
"The slope was pretty steep and she isn't much of a climber. You should have seen her at the top of the ledge. She looked like the wolf from the Sword in the Stone movie after chasing Wart and Merlin," Sam explained, chuckling to herself at the image.
The rest of the team just stared at her in confusion.
"They don't get that reference, Sam," Carly informed her friend, finally able to form a sentence.
"Oh," Sam's embarrassed look made the others chuckle.
About an hour and a half later the others could see the town the map referenced up ahead. Nora and Ruby ran up ahead in excitement at the variety of shops, some having dust bullets and small weapons, others portraying delicate pastries and sweets of all flavors. Ren and Jaune seemed to be looking for an inn to stay at for the night, and Sam followed Ruby and Nora.
Carly smiled, happy to see a bustling town after landing in the sad remains of Shion.
A squawk behind her caused her to turn around.
The same ash black crow she saw in Shion was sitting on a branch a short distance away from her. It held her gaze with its garnet eyes, not even ruffling its feathers.
Vaguely Carly wondered if that bird—and the person it possibly was—had heard her conversation with Sam on the ledge. This brought Carly back to the thoughts she had during the hike back to the group after talking with Sam.
'If we're really stuck here,' she turned back to the town and began walking to catch up with her friends, 'Then I'm gonna do my best to help these kids and help them stop Salem.'
"Ruby! Nora! Don't go spending all the lien on sweets!" She shouted out to the two girls.
Authors note: This chapter was longer than the others because I wanted to include a lot of things in it when I considered putting it in another chapter, it just didn't come out right. Also, I promise you the next chapter will include the crazy nutcase, Tyrian, and our favorite bird man, Qrow!
Side note, the wolf reference Sam made is from the Disney movie, Sword in the Stone, where the wolf is panting at the top of the hill. That scene cracks me up and fits Carly's expression perfectly when she's at the top of the ledge and regroups with the others. Hope you liked it!