Chapter 7

Into the Tundra.

Even with the BARC speeder provided by Dr. Polendina, it still took the Beacon huntresses days to search through the mountain range, the constant grimm incursions did not help their progress. The search was as exciting as it was frustrating the young huntresses had speeders which allowed them to travel across the land very quickly, and they had grids that they had been systematically clearing.

Ruby's tactical mind had come up with new strategies on how to fight on them thanks to.

There were some fights that they chose to avoid, because it was very obvious that they were outmatched. Such on the first day when they spotted as a herd of megoliath migrating through one of the mountains passes that the huntresses had also planned on going through. There was a unanimous agreement to go find another pass. And on the second day when they saw a pack of Sphinxes being viciously attacked by polar bears protecting their cubs.

As they were young and eager young huntresses, excited by their first mission well before any other first year team, they were full of excitement, they didn't unnecessarily attract grimm, but they still came across plenty of them.

they were forced to stop and deal with soulless monstrosities. They majority of what they fought were Gigawolves, Sabers, and some overly territorial Griffons.

By the beginning of the third day, the huntress could see that they were on the edge of the storm. The girls had each shared that they each were unnerving how unnatural it felt when they were under the shadow of the storm.

/ =-=-==-=-=-=-=-=/=-==-==-=-=-=-=-=/

As the huntresses were packing up their makeshift camp, Ruby approached her team leader, "Weiss, we need a new strategy, if we keep going with this plan, we will never find him and he will disappear again."

The Heiress turned had done her best to accept her silver eyed teammate as Pyrrha had done, but this was the first time Ruby had approached her while they were out here.

"I would be willing to change our strategy for the search, if you have a more competent plan than going through with the search grids that Winter has set for us."

"What I have in mind is a gamble. You remember how many of the stories and rumors about the Winter Knight say that he appears out of a storm? Or a storm follows him wherever he goes."

The Heiress nodded and listened as Ruby continued,

"What if he uses the blizzards to hide himself when he travels… Atlas is assuming that he is traveling and behaving like a normal person; normal people need to take breaks after some time trudging through knee high snow, who hide when they sees grimm, have to make camp if they gets caught in a blizzard."

Luna overheard this as her speeder was the closest and had just finished loading her equipment onto it, piped up. "Ruby you are five steps of us, where are going with this?"

"What if he is unaffected by the weather? In Winter's report, Azula stated that the freshly fallen snow seemed to become hardpack in front of them before they walked over it.

"If that is the case, then he is probably much farther away than any of us would have speculated." Weiss thought for a moment. "It does make sense, but if that's the case, then I am pretty sure the thermal scanners would have picked up his heat signature in the storms though."

Luna correct her on this, "Actually, it depends on how large storm the storm is and if his body temperature was normal like ours. The depth of a thermals scan can see so deep, especially with the fluctuating winds, and if he is allowing ice to build up on his clothes like before, then it would hide his heat signature."

The champion also had something to add to the conversation.

"The one issue is that we don't know how he thinks. We are assuming he is headed directly east because he wants to get through the mountain as quickly as possible, but the terrain of the mountain pass there is the most difficult and dangerous parts." she shrugged, "It is a possibility that he could have also gone North, it is a longer journey, but it is a much easier route with greater visibility. But I could not guess which one he would choose."

Ruby nodded before turning back to her leader, "We probably have only one shot at this Weiss, we can either shoot North and hope to catch him on the valley floor before nightfall, or chase the storm and head east through the mountain pass. Ultimately your call as team leader, but I very much believe that we need to chase the storm."

The blonde Arc kept shifting her weapon Stalhrim, from shotgun to axe mode as they were talking. She wasn't trying to be threatening, she was doing it absentmindedly, going over their scenario in her head. She holstered her weapon when she came to a conclusion. "I really want him to go north, but he is probably trying to avoid being seen, so he will go through the mountain pass. It is what I would do. Going through the valley to the North will likely cause him to run into many more grimm, but going through the pass will mean that he will run into a few, but much stronger grimm."

Weiss thought about this for a bit, "I think Ruby is right and we need to take this gamble. Even he still has to eat and sleep, but since he is alone, he would likely try to get through this area as quickly as possible. The mountain pass is probably the safer option assuming he is powerful enough to kill go any grimm that decides it wants to eat him. If he ran into trouble he could probably find or possibly make a bottleneck or just block areas around there so that they can't follow him. I'll contact Winter to let her know what we are doing…"

The Heiresses opened communication on her helmet coms, she amplified the signal using the communication booster equipped on the BARC, the booster came with an identification code that allowed the call to go straight through to their Mission Coordinator Officer, Winter.

"Winter, come in, this is team WRPA leader checking in with an update on our progress."

A male voice replied over the coms, "Your signal is clear Weiss, by the way it's Clover, I am temporarily relieving Winter for the moment. She will be back soon and I will give her the update. Go ahead on your update status?" Clover responded.

"We are forgoing the search of the valley grids 3-1 through 3-3. We headed for the mountain grids 2-7 and 2-8"

"Understood Weiss, be careful though, once you enter the area of the blizzard in the mountains we will not be able to send you any form of assistance until it subsides or you leave the storm. There is also a high likelihood that we will not be able to receive signals should you attempt to call."

"Thank you for the warning Clover. If that's the case, can we get a resupply of dust, we used more than expected in the last two days."

"Can do, sit tight huntresses it will take a bit for the crates to get to you."

About 20 minutes they heard the sound of rockets overhead, they could not see them because of the clouds. Two blue cylindrical crates landed near them, marked with the symbol of the Atlas military. They were practically the same as their rocket lockers from Beacon, with just the shape and color being different. The two crates held dust ammunition for all of them: .375 cheytac, high velocity rounds for Ruby, cartridges of all types of dust for Weiss, .308 rounds for Pyrrha, and a variety of shotgun rounds for Luna from #000 buck to high brass slug rounds.

Something that Ruby had noticed and points out over the few days that they had been searching was that the storm had seemed to dissipate and reform at random intervals, however each time it reappeared, it seemed to be a little farther than the start of the previous. The strength of storm also varied drastically. Luckily they spotted the signs of the storm reforming, again. They turned, secured their helmets and googles and headed east to chase the storm.

/=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-==-=-= /

Winter was walking down the halls of the Atlas Academy after finishing a quick breakfast at the mess hall; she was feeling refreshed after a decent meal and being able to take a breather from the stress of being the mission coordinator officer. When she returned to the Command Clover briefed her on the new strategy her sister's team chose. She was just relieving When she settled back into her position where she as mission overseer, a call icon appeared on the holotable screen in front of her, it was from her communications officer, she answered. A female soldier with yellow stripes on her uniform appeared. She saluted the white haired Specialist before delivering her message.

"Lieutenant Schnee, there is a call on the line and you have been asked for, the source ID is scrambled but the authorization codes provided indicate that it is a call coming from the Atlas Council line."

"Thank you, Private Kaikaina, if you would forward it through to this terminal I will take it." Winter ordered. The Private nodded and ended the call and forwarded the call through her terminal.

Winter assume that it was General Ironwood calling and that he was unable to use his personal scroll for some reason. The Council chambers did have several landlines, a few of the lines that would screen the identity and state it as Council member.

The top half of Ironwood appeared on the screen, his uniform had wrinkles and no longer looked sharp, his face now had a light shadow from not shaving, and bags under his eyes really exposing how tired he was.

"Winter, I don't have much time to talk so give me a quick update."

"In the three days the team has been in the field, they have covered around 70% of the area, none of the members have suffered any injuries, and they are currently on route to a farther search grid now in an attempt to catch up to the Winter Knight."

"That's good Winter, I trust you and Clover to continue to keep an eye them."

"Of course General, permission to speak -"

"Just say Winter, I am not in the mood for formalities."

"Sir, You look exhausted, have you slept since the Council met three days ago?"

"I look exhausted Winter because I am. I have slept at most 6 hours, I think I have eaten four full meals, and I know that I am in the best state out of all six of us…"

The Atlas Council had was supposed to have 7 seated members on the Council, but since James Ironwood held the position of both the General of the military and the Headmaster of the Huntsman Academy, he held two of the seats. This did not give him the final say on decisions made, but he held a very powerful influence with his own vote as well when other members appealed to him for votes to push through specific legislation.

"I had to make an excuse of using the lavatory to have enough time to make this call…" He paused trying to refocus himself on the conversation at hand and not the nightmarish "discussion" that consumed the Council chambers.

Winter was shocked by his confession, "General what is going on with the Council?! How could they all be consenting to what they are doing to each other?"

"At first it was to get everything done in as quickly as possible, however I won't bore you with explaining the number of roadblocks we kept running into. Most of the members out of some twisted version of pride refused to end the meeting without believing that they accomplished something, so they continued on."

"That is purely asinine, and an even greater waste of time!" Now Winter felt her outrage building.

"It is and I have had enough. If this doesn't get resolved in the next few hours, I will invoke the filibustered clause stating that in all the time that we have used we either accomplished enough or nothing at all and force an end to this Council's meeting. Brothers know I need to sleep."

The Specialist was relieved that James wasn't going to allow this to continue, "That is good to hear General, when will you be back?"

"Carry on Lieutenant, you won't see me until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest, which means Admiral Yularen will still be in command of the Atlas defense until I get back. I am thankful to have you by my side Winter, good morning… evening… whatever the hell time it is."

"It is morning sir," She saluted him as he ended the transmission.

She looked back at the screen and saw that the icons of team WRPA were headed straight for a newly forming storm, this one looked as large as the one that prevented the huntress from landing in the Valley on the first day. They were just entering the mountain pass as well, which meant that if they ran into grimm, they would have little room to maneuver.

/==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=/

General Ironwood sighed as he ended the transmission, he was not ready to go back into the Council's Chambers just yet, but that option was taken away from him considering the person who was walking towards him.

"Sir, the Council is waiting for you to return to the chambers," The security officer stated as he approached. He was a faunus, snow leopard if James remembered correctly, he a second pair of spotted ears visible on the top of his head. The officer also wore a badge on his uniform that identified him as chief of security,

"I know Sémillion, I am just dreading going back in there." He sighed again before steeling himself.

The officer nodded and gave him a sympathetic smile. "I'm sorry sir, but if it makes you feel better, a few members look like they can't last much longer."

He walked with Sémillion back to the Council's chamber, and right before he pushed the door open, he stopped.

The Chief officer waited and when it became clear that the General and Headmaster was not going to open the door asked, "Is there a problem sir?"

Ironwood glared at the door. "Yes there is. This session needs to end now before they start making illegal legislation to push through. You need to come inside the chambers with me, and if any, and I mean any individual in that room collapses, falls asleep, or starts showing signs that their mental stability has made them a danger, IMMEDIATELY, and I mean, don't give anyone else a change to do anything. Declare the meeting adjourned for reason of medical emergency and endangerment to safety of the Council members, call a medical team, and have security escort me the hell out of here."

Sémillion gave him a puzzled look, "I will do that General, is this that serious of an issue sir?"

"I am at the point where I believe that this is a national security crisis." James stated bluntly.

The General looked around the room at the other five Council members in the room. He had to admit to himself that he was tempted to shoot two of them for how much they were getting on his nerves. Fortunately, Sémillion had been holding onto his hand canon since the meeting had started.

He took a breath, he just needed to have a little more patience. The head of security was right, a few of them were clearly on the verge of either exhibiting a mental breakdown or collapsing from exhaustion, and when one of them did, he would be free.

As he took his seat, he started speaking slowly trying to remember something about what they had been talking about before he had slipped out of the room. "Ehem, now Councilmen, as we were-"

There was an audible thud. One of the members, Councilman Burgundy, a man in his late 50s wearing a brown suit, who had been leaning with his head on his elbows since the General had walked into the room, slumped forward out of his chair and hit the floor, unconscious.

As Sémillion took control of the room, and James was escorted out, he smiled and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Oh thank you mighty Oum, for the small miracles such as these."

/=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= / Back in the Tundra

"Team Warpath, be advised, the reports we are receiving from the drones indicate that there is a sudden spike in storm."

"Thank you for the warning Winter, however, we are headed straight for it because we believe that is where he is going to be."

"Then be careful, that area is now considered a dark zone, we will have inconsistent communication and we can no longer monitor grimm activity."

They gunned their speeders and started scaling the side of one of the taller mountains plateau in the mountain range. Surprisingly, they had found a trail about 20 feet wide that led up the side of the plateau.

As they were traveling up the side of the sloping the narrow path, Weiss lead them at the front, followed by Pyrrha, with Luna as third, and finally, Ruby took place at the back of the group, her cloak flapping in the wind. The Huntresses kept a distance of 30 feet behind each other so that were about

They were nearly half way up the plateau when they heard loud screeches from above them. As they looked up, a number of aerial grimm, mostly Teryx and griffon, started to dive at them. The huntresses kept their speeders close to the mountain side to force the grimm to come from one side.

Weiss poured a large amount of her aura into a single glyph as she used the entire cartridge in Myrtenaster of lighting dust to fire off a powerful arc of electricity into the air in an attempt to kill and deter the aerial grimm from getting close to her team.

The lightning strikes and kills two griffons, a Teryx, as well as incapacitating several other aerial grim causing them to fall, but the many others that were unaffected still dove to attack them.

When her attack fails to keep the grimm back, she frowns before switching to ice dust. "I can't keep them away! Get ready." Weiss orders her teammates.

The Heiress creates a ramp out of ice dust using the side of the mountain, and floors her speeder up it. She is launched above a majority of the grimm. Myrtenaster glows red before another glyph is used to unleash a wave of fire dust on them.

Her move incinerates several more grimm, but there are still many more for her to deal with

One that flies right next to her she stabs it through the bottom of the jaw before gravity pulls her BARC speeder back down. Weiss growls, she knows she is being very wasteful of her dust, but it is necessary since this is not a good spot for them to be fighting.

Luna and Pyrrha are also able to wield their weapons while riding their speeders. While the BARC speeders

Luna open fired with her SPAS, one handed while Pyrrha switched Miló into its carbine form. The Arc is able to keep the grimm at a distance with her heavier buck shot rounds as they shred the wings of most of the aerial grimm. Fortunately for her, Stalhrim has a modified ammo tube, so it holds a many more shells than a normal shotgun and she doesn't have to worry about reloading if she can pace her shots.

The spartan also used her semblance like an auto stabilizer, keeping her rifle on target and reducing the recoil as she shoots.

Pyrrha spots one of the more aggressive griffons as it drops onto the path and lands in front of her. The Champion smirks as she times her move perfectly as she leaps from her bike. Holding Miló in its javelin form, she impales it through the head, under the beak. She fires it, forcing the head to snap aback, followed by the body. The spartan uses the momentum this creates, along with the sharpness of her blade, to push her spear upwards and cleaves the grimms head in half.

Pyrrha launches herself off the grimm before the body starts to dissipate and land back on her speeder that had continued to move forwards and passed underneath the grimm. She shift Miló back into its carbine form and gunned her speeder forwards.

Ruby loved driving the BARC speeders, she understood from driving them why Yang loved riding Bumblebee. However, she did not enjoy fighting grimm while driving her speeder, especially if they were flying grimm. She couldn't shoot them with Crescent Rose because she had no way to mitigate or use the recoil like she could on foot. That was one of the first things that Weiss had made them test when they started the journey. The Heiress was curious on what their fighting capabilities while operating on the BARC speeders was.

One Teryx dives down and charges Ruby's speeder head on. Ruby pulls the trigger on lower handlebars. The BARC's twin 30 caliber machine guns barked and cause great damage to the flying grimm, the rounds missed its head, so it is not killed, but they did shred through its wings. Effectively wingless, the grimm hit the snow and tumbled. The reaper saw that the grimm wasn't turning into ash fast enough so she was forced to pull her speeder to the side to avoid colliding with its body. She pulled herself away from the to the mountain wall of the trail. As she did that another Teryx dropped down next to her. Ruby braked, to try and get the grimm in front of her so that… But the grimm expanded its wings and performed an air brake!

Ruby pulled her speeder more to the left to avoid the large wings, the dodge forced her to maneuver towards the center of the path. The Teryx the appeared again flying next to her, it was matching her speed. Ruby realized that she had to make a gamble if she was going to kill this slightly older grimm. In a flash the red reaper drew Crescent Rose from its holster on her back and kept it shifted in its compact sniper mode. She slams and braces Crescent Rose in its sniper form against the side of the BARC speeder and fires, hoping that shooting at such close range will make up for the fact that she is quick draw firing. Even though it is effectively a hip fire, Crescent Rose's shot hits right where Ruby was hoping, and it goes directly through the grimm's eye and into the brain. Killing it instantly. However, the speeder is not able to handle the recoil of her sniper, and she and the speeder are pushed off and over the side of the cliff.

Her plan was to use the entire speeder as the base to absorb the recoil. The problem with her plan was that she forgot that the BARC hoverbikes use a gravity repulsion system, so that they 'hover' off the ground.

What that meant for Ruby was that her speeder had nothing grounding it in place as it didn't really absorb the recoil more so, it was pushed back or to the side from the recoil.

The reaper is jolted off the bike and loses her grip on Crescent Rose. It falls to far out away that she can retrieve it. She uses her next option: get back to the speeder and ride down the mountain.

Ruby uses her semblance in a short burst blaze down the cliffside faster so she can catch up to the bike, and when she gets in line launches herself onto bike.

As the currently scytheless warrior grabs the handlebars, it hits a boulder and spins out of control.

Ruby is again thrown off the speeder realizes that without either, she is going to have to have an improvised landing strategy. 'Well at least Initiation was good for something.'

Ruby grabs the ends of her cloak and pulls it wide and makes a tiny parachute. If anyone heavier were to try it, it probably wouldn't have worked. She saw the BARC speeder hit the ground and cause a column of snow get mushroom around it.

As she lands, she cheers. "Score another one for Ruby! Take that Yang, I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself without Crescent Rose until I get it back!"

Unfortunately nobody else was there to congratulate or agree with the reaper. Ruby deflated a little and looked towards the crashed speeder.

"That's not good, but not totally bad either" but her speeder had not survived the fall. The main body was completely mangled, but fortunately, Crescent Rose had landed right next to the hoverbike. Its blade is sunk deeply into the ground and it seems to be pinned by the broken bike.

She walks up to the wrecked BARC speeder to see what else she can salvage. As she moves the bike, she accidently revs the motor.

The dust in the engine and fuel tank ignited.

And the whole vehicle explodes.

Ruby is launched back. Thankfully her aura protects her, but it takes quite a hit and her clothing takes more damage than her. Her dark blouse receives two long ugly tears on the left side of her body. They were deep, they even cut through the cold weather suit she wore underneath her black long-sleeved blouse.

As she is getting up off the snow, she does notice the tears.

"Ow, Ow, Owie," The reaper's aura heal started to work to numb the pain and bruising. She walks back over and pulls Crescent Rose, out from the frozen ground with much effort. She shifts it into its compact form and then holsters it. She hears a sound being carried in the wind. The sound of grimm howling, but in didn't sound like grimm on the hunt, it sounded more like an animal that is frustrated and in pain. She pulls what she can of the main body of the BARC speeder and points it eastwards, as well as carving an arrow pointing in the same direction. Then she heads off following the sounds in the wind.

/-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-==-==-=-=-=/

As Ruby trudged through the snow, she realized that she was lost and that her scroll was not working properly, it looked like she could still receive calls, but for an unknown reason, her scroll couldn't make any calls. She might as well try the old fashioned way to communicate.

"Guys! Where are you!?" Ruby shouted into the blizzard, "Is anyone out there?!"

The reaper looks around franticly, but she can't see anything but white. Hell, she can hardly see her hand in front of her face with the intensity of the wind blowing sleet and snow in her face. She starts to walk in a manner that kept the wind on her left side.

As a team they had been traveling eastward the entire journey and that meant that the wind had been blowing from their left side, which meant that the wind was blowing from the north. It made sense to the reaper at the moment, except the problem was that she is in the middle of a blizzard where wind does not always blow in a single direction. Wandering around until she hears more snarling and screeches of more Grimm, as well as what could only be described as boulders breaking. The screeches sounded like Saberteeth, but what were they fighting? She could also hear the Gigawolves howling in the same area as well.

Is it my team? Yeah, it's probably Weiss and the others fighting. Only Weiss could attract so many grimm out here. And with that thought, she headed towards the sound of howling and screeching grimm.

"Pyrrha! Luna! Weiss! I am coming!" Although Ruby only heard the screeching of Grimm. The only upside was that the storm seemed to be weakening around her, it almost seemed like she was entering the eye of storm. But that didn't make sense, blizzards are not as strong as hurricanes, they did not have a central eye where the storm was calm, sure some parts of the storm wouldn't be as harsh as others, but that was mostly because of terrain, storms wouldn't just stop in an area unless…

It was then the reaper saw two human figures fighting a large group Grimm a little distance.

One was constantly on the move and seemed to be almost dancing around the grimm and leaping away, while the other never moved from the spot he was standing. He only would look around and move his upper body, but he kept his feet planted. The dancer would rush head on towards a Sabertooth only to dodge at the last moment and slice at any openings.

From the distance Ruby was still at, it looked like the person's hands were weapons was, all she could see was that it was short, wide, and obviously very sharp. If Ruby didn't know any better, she would say the weapons looked like a Mistralian hand fans.

The two worked well together, the running around was using themselves as bait for the grimm while the partner would create ice obstacles to make sure the grimm would never catch the other.

the runner had a pattern that lead in wide circles to herd the grimm together. Once a group of grimm were herded into decent numbers, they would be bombarded by ice lances or ice spikes coming up from underneath them.

Wait a minute; ice spears, ice spikes, calm space in a blizzard, and a guy, this must be Glace!

As she got closer, she could tell that the one standing still was a man while the one dashing around was a woman.

Suddenly the woman bolted away and disappeared into the storm.

"Wait!" both Ruby and man shouted. Then he saw her.

"Shit. Kid! You need to keep moving!" Glace shouted.

"I am not a ki- Woah!" Ruby jumped back as a the grimm let her know that they also saw her.

The ground to her left erupted and a Centinel launched right at her. The reaper quickly jumped away with her semblance and darted to where Glace was standing.

That's why he wasn't moving, but his partner never stopped! As the team tactician, Ruby could piece together that he had put together a strategy that purposely designed to be used for crowd control. This strategy also took into consideration facing a variety of grimm all at once.

Even though it was made in the moment, that only added to the fact that it was a smart strategy, keeping one from being detected while being able to support the other, while the other acted as a skirmisher by constantly utilizing her superior mobility to keep whatever opponents they were facing off balance and unable to go after either target effectively.

He was the support of the strategy since he was calm and was stationary. His partner was the skirmisher since she

The reaper saw that since he was calm, the grimm underground weren't able to hone in on his nonexistent negative emotion. Then he could openly use his semblance to support his partner.

But there was an important question that she came to her. Why had his partner abandoned him? He needed her to fight and she left him.

There were a lot of questions to ask, but they would be asked later.

Centinels are grimm that resemble large centipedes that burrowed through the underground and make surprise attacks from below their victims. Their other is ground dwellers. They were very sensitive to vibrations and used it to identify when and where their targets moved.

"Keep moving around and don't lead them towards me!" Glace yelled as he jumped away, his language changed from instructional to a string of cursing, any of those words that would have caused her father to spank her butt redder than her cloak if he heard her say any of it. With the break in his concentration, the Saberteeth charged in.

"Sorry!" Ruby squeaked.

Glace quickly formed several platforms of ice and jumped on one before shouting to the red cloaked girl. "Get to me!"

Ruby dash over to him and jumps, he catches her and raises each platform as a solid pillar a dozen feet in the air. A Saber crashed into the pillar and dropped to the ground, stunned.

The grimm closed in and gathered around pillar, one Gigawolf stayed further back than the others, it was not an Alpha, but it's behaviors obviously showed that it was older than the others.

Glace looked at Ruby. "You need to do what my partner was doing, keep running around and keep the grimm moving. You've proven that you're fast, use your speed. There are ground dwellers here but they won't be able to get a bead on you and if you pay attention, the sabers won't be able to trap you."

"I can't outrun them forever, can you support me?" Ruby, all her awkwardness gone. It was time to kill grimm.

He replied quickly, "If you can herd them together and then I can take them out in groups, and If not I can create obstacles for them."

"Perfect, let's do this!" Ruby leaps down and fires her scythe behind her to propel her forwards. "It's grimm slaying time!" she shouts as spins, her scythe carving through two sabers before she takes off running, using her semblance to stay ahead to the grimm panthers.

There were a total of 30 saberteeth and gigawolves left since Ruby had arrived on and they weren't ground together close enough for an effective group attack and he seriously doubted that the definitely-too-young-to-be-a-huntress could take all head on.

He starts raising more pillars, giving the red cloaked girl cover to dodge around and hazards to slide under. She raced through them with ease, keeping the needed distance from the entire pack.

The reaper would turn and cleave limbs and heads off a couple of grimm at a time before taking off running again.

Crescent Rose was damaged, while she had had been able to fire two rounds, it then began misfiring and jamming. Ruby suspected that the firing pin was broken. Falling off a cliff had not done her weapon any favors, she carried a few extra parts like an extra firing pin in case of situations like this, but it would have to be fixed after the fight. Ruby was mentally kicking herself right now for not checking her baby after landing. She could have taken care of the entire pack with relative ease if her baby could shoot.

But to be fair, she did get thrown off a cliff. Stupid flying grimm. Blown up again, also not her fault. And she heard grimm fighting in the distance, which is how she found Glace. Suck it Weiss! And her stupid search grids.

The Winter Knight saw her bolt into the open, so he created a making a long line of walls maybe 15 feet high that acted like a cone to funnel the grimm into the condensed space. The grimm were starting to run into each other and get tangled up as the space around them was lessened. They were blinded by blood lust to kill the speedy red aura user. There instincts screamed that she had to die! And then suddenly she was gone through a tiny opening and they were trapped.

He was feeling a little strained, it had been a while since he had performed this much constant work at one time, but it wasn't too bad. He reached out and focused on the area, the grimm were starting leave and he couldn't allow them to get out.

He felt control and shaped it to his will and the area became a field of death. Dozens of spikes made of ice but as strong as steel erupted from the ground to and impale the clustered up grimm before they could flee the area.

He fell down to a knee breathing hard. It was over, got them all in one attack, now he and red riding hood were safe.

Glace was wrong.

He heard a roar to his right and saw the figure of the Gigawolf, the one that had stayed out of the fight. Until now.

A scythe quickly flashed followed by a trail of rose petals, and sheared the last the grimm wolf in half.

The Legend knelt there shocked, he hadn't notice it sneaking up on him, but she had seen it, she had put everything on the line to get back to him and kill it. She truly was a young huntress.

As Ruby caught her breath, lowered Crescent Rose, but she did not put it away. "Is that the last of them?"

Glace scanned the landscape a little longer, waiting for any more grimm to appear, he didn't see anymore.

"Yup." Glace jumped off his platform. "You, uh, you're really fast! I didn't even see you get back!"

"Well I have to keep you safe until the rest of my team gets here."

The storm died down until it was a passing breeze.

Glace just stared at her. She had some bad tears in her clothes, but she didn't seem to be cold. Obviously she was a huntress, but she looked a little bit young to be one. Ruby stared back for a bit before awkwardly breaking eye contact and looked around. Well, I found him, but now I'm lost and separated from my team. What to do now? She looked back at him to find that he was still staring at her. Finally she decided to break the silence, "soooo, you're Glace."

No response.

"Well, I'm Ruby. I was sent to find you. I mean not just me of course, but with my team as well, but I kind of got lost and ran into you. So that's kinda a win and a loss, but I think it evens out."

Glace looks nervous and confused, "Ok… Well, I think you should come with me. We need to leave this area, other grimm have an odd trait where they to tend to come back to places where other grimm were killed, so… let's get walking."

She was interesting to talk to, but that's what made it awkward for him in turn.

"Ok, umm, just, uh, give me a moment." The silver eyed huntress scrambled looking for her scroll as the Legend started to walk away.

Glace started to walk away. About twenty steps later he stopped and turned back around. She was following him, but she was lagging far behind and rapidly tapping on her scroll, muttering to herself, but he could only make out a few words of, 'come on, come on, work.'

He shrugged and turned to continue on. But right as he looked away again, he heard what sounded like a bomb going off behind him.

The Legend whipped back around, "NO!"

The ground right next to the red cloaked girl exploded and heard her scream in pain before he saw her go flying.

He didn't even realized that he had he moved, the next thing he realized was that he had her in his arms and they had landed in a large mound of snow.

Ruby was bleeding from a large wound on her side. Her aura was very low, the surprise attack had caught her off guard and even though she had not taken any hits during their fight together, she had been forced to constantly use her semblance for a large portion of the fight. Now that he was holding her, he realized then was that both her outfit and cold weather underclothes had several long slashes in it from where the Grimm had hit her. Even though she had aura, it did not protect her clothes.

She had almost completely used up her aura. Her last sprint to save him must have cost her most of it. Now that she was also lacking the elemental protection from her winter gear, what was left of her aura had to work overtime to regulate her body temperature and try to heal the injury.

He looked up at the grimm that had attacked. He was furious.

It was an older Centinel, it was by far larger than the ones that they had been killing. It was roughly three times the size with the bone armor extending to the undersize and started to armor the legs. There were still gaps, but much less than younger ones.

Not that Glace would have recognized the difference, but it and an actual Alpha of its species, but it was smarter and tougher. "Time for you to die."

The storm started to pick back up again, but before he or the grimm could make another move, a figure dashed from the side at blinding speed and struck the Centinel. Her war fan blades cut deep and with deadly precision. The body of the grimm fell in pieces, and then disintegrated.

"Thanks for coming back Lavan, but this girl is hurt bad."

Lavan approached, "This is beyond either one of our abilities to help. I would suggest that you would make a shelter, and then pray that her team find you both soon."

He listened to her, ever since they have travelled together, the only thing Lavan had been wrong about was that he should return to society. Glace closes his eyes and images a small shelter around them; the ice cracks and rises up, bending its shape to his desire.

/-=-=-==-=-=-=-===-=-=-=-=-=-=-/

Damn it, she is just a child and she is hurt. What the hell is she doing out here all alone?

'She is freezing need to make a shelter so that I can start warming her up, or she will die.' Glace thought out loud.

He picks up the small girl in his arms in a bridal carry "don't worry, I got you now. I need to get you inside so you can warm up."

Ruby was shivering so much that she couldn't respond.

As the Legend turns around, he walks into a small hut made of ice. It was much smaller than the castle that he made for Azula and Geo a week ago, but he wasn't trying to be show off this time, he just needed shelter from the wind this time. The hut was at most, a 10x10 space without windows and a short entrance to keep out the wind.

As Glace walks through the ice castle carrying Ruby. Despite how cold she is, Ruby can feel that the air inside is already significantly warmer.

"mmm my t-t-team is s-still out th-th-there" Ruby stuttered

"I can't help them and you. If I leave to help them, you will die and I can't even promise that I will find them." Glace. "that wound is very bad and your winter gear is shredded, I'll help as much as I can, but you're situation is not very good."

Glace takes off his backpack and pulls out various supplies. He sorts through them, before coming to a realization.

"It's not enough."

/=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-/

When Ruby opened her eyes, she could open them much because everything seemed very bright. head felt foggy She couldn't sit up because her body felt heavy, and she felt like her chest was on fire, but she also felt like she was freezing as well. "W-Wherre…"

"Not alone, you are not alone is where you are. I got you, you took a bad hit, so just rest." Glace's voice almost cracked as he comforted her.

"Were's muhy, team." She was slurring, that was a bad sign, she was already exhibiting symptoms.

"Don't worry, they're around, they'll come back in a bit, they just didn't want to disturb you." He lied.

Ruby tell that he was holding her, she could feel her head was leaning on his chest and that his hands were gently wrapped around her stomach, it was nice, but there was only one thing that wasn't nice, "Chest hurts," she mumbled.

"I hear you, just, just lie back, and ah, imagine you're back home… or, what's a funny moment you can remember? I need you to stay awake right now."

The silver eyed huntress thoughts drifted back to a morning on the Patch, a few days before she left for Beacon with Yang. She chuckled as she remembered her little grey corgi waking her up. "The day. Before I. went to Beacon. Zwei, woke me by licking, licking my toes."

He chuckles. "Good, that is pretty funny. Who is Zwei?"

"He's smol, and fluffy…" She stopped as the feeling of burning spiked up in her chest.

The Winter Knight saw her wince and he waves a hand over the bandaged wound, a thin sheen of ice formed over it. The reaper breathed a sigh of relief as the pain numbed. She relaxes she thought of how weird it was, the ice was directly touching her skin, but she didn't feel cold.

Interesting, maybe it's his semblance.

The fact that she wasn't complaining about him coating her wound in ice was a red flag to him because that meant that her core body temperature was dropping. This was dangerous life and death game he was forced to play: Giving her pain medication would dull the pain and keep her calm but it would thin her blood which could potentially make the wounds to start to bleed again. Doing nothing was out of the question, and her heartrate would spike due to the painful side effect of the venom, which in turn would cause her blood pressure to spike and then spread the venom. There was the wishful option, which was to treat her with the medicine that he does not have. And there was the final option, which is what he chose to do, numb the wounds with his ice and then wrap her up in his jacket to warm her up, and then re-numb and then rewarm her and pray that her teammates found them and had an antivenom.

He looked out the small entrance of the shelter whispered into the storm: "Please, please find us soon."

-=/-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-/==-==-==-=-=-== -=-=-===-=-==-==-= / / =-=

Author's note:

I have been trying to come up with names that work with the theme of the RWBY universe. Sémillion is the name of a white wine. If anyone has any creative names, let me know and I may use them on future characters. I also realize that I cannot make promises on posting consistency… sorry everyone.

For Ruby's sniper, I wasn't a fan of giving Ruby a .50 Caliber sniper, but I did still give her a large rifle, the .375 cheytac round is a powerful high velocity round. If anyone wants a comparison on how big it is, Demolition Ranch recently did a comparison on how big it is, comparing it to a .308 sniper round: Demolition Ranch, The New Super Powerful Sniper Rifle!

The main reason that I chose to put in the BARC speeders from Star Wars instead of using the one from canon (V8), is that I really liked the design BARC so much more.

How did I do on the fight scenes? I am still pretty green on writing and I hope to improve later down the road so feed back is appreciated.

Next Chapter: Ruby where are you?