Before anything else, I own nothing but the original characters, and content therein related to them. RWBY is owned by RT, and any mentioned creator's work belongs to them, and them alone. Rest in peace Monty, your vision lives on in us all.
CHAPTER 8
The grimm walked up the center street of Kuroyuri, and before anyone could give orders, Jaune went to drag Clayton off to safety. Ren used his semblance to conceal his friends, allowing them to escape while the rest of them laid fire down on the nuckelavee. Jaune set Clayton down behind a building, and started to take off until Clayton grabbed his arm. "I can still fight." Clayton said, trying to get up.
"No you can't, you can hardly stand." Jaune retorted.
"You don't understand. I'm not dying here. I don't have permission." Clayton said. Jaune was concerned his fellow leader was hallucinating to some degree.
"We're not letting you die out here. But I need to help our friends." Jaune said, only for Clayton to hold up Kingslayer for him.
"No… I don't have permission… Give it to Ruby… She'll know what to do." Clayton said, before the shotgun slipped from his grip. Jaune took the weapon, as Clayton passed out again, and ran back into the fray, unsure of what Clayton and Ruby had up their sleeve.
Jaune made it a point to get the axe to Ruby as soon as possible, and once delivered he went in close to put his sharpened shield edge to the test. Getting one square shot in on the horse demon's hind leg, he was rewarded with a kick to the chest. Shaking off the pain, Jaune got back up, as his teammates distracted it. Noticing the amount of metal shards stuck in it's back, Jaune called out to Pyrrha. "PYRRHA, RIP THE METAL OUT!" He shouted at the magnum pistol wielding spartan. With a nod, his newfound lover reached out with her shield hand, and used the magnetic fields she created to grasp the weapons embedded into the beast's back. There was some resistance, but after a second of struggle, the metal shards came ripping out at jagged angles, causing the nuckelavee to scream. Pyrrha smiled at the small victory, only to go wide eyed as the grimm then singled her out.
Looking around, Jaune found Rot was nowhere to be found. "I'm staying with Ruby… Bullshit." Jaune said, before the man's voice came from behind him.
"Excuse me for taking a second to find the proper weapon while blind." Rot said. Jaune turned around, and saw Rot put a very large launcher onto his shoulder.
"Is that a bazooka?!" Jaune asked, as Rot passed him the weapon. Nearly dropping it, Rot patted Jaune on the back.
"You got one shot, make it count." Rot said, as Jaune sheathed his sword, and put the rocket launcher on his shoulder. Lining up the ladder foresight with the rear peep sight, Jaune held his breath, and instead of the whoosh of a traditional rocket, there was instead a loud bang like that of a shotgun, and a sharp yank downwards and forwards instead of up and back.
Looking at his handy work, Jaune realized the rocket propelled hollow shaped charge had missed, and sailed far off down the street, putting a hole in a building, but not doing much else. Rot slapped Jaune in the back of the head, and pulled out his revolvers, shooting at the grimm guided only by it's sound. Sighing, Jaune dropped the launcher, and went back to the basics.
Ruby had received Clayton's shotgun, and that was not good. She knew what it meant. Clayton had already done his part by having Jaune deliver it to her. The nuckelavee's body was too tough, it would take someone of Siniy's caliber to kill it with raw strength. They needed to be surgical. Clayton's weapon was a perfect representation of his plan. Brutal and effective. As it's name implied, it was a weapon meant for slaying kings… But one didn't simply kill nobility. They made a show of it. An executioner's axe… Clayton wanted them to go for the head. There was just one problem. They'd have to reach it. "Guys I have a plan." Ruby said, sprinting to Pyrrha and Jaune.
Clayton woke up from his small moment of unconsciousness to see Rot standing over him. "You really screwed the pooch fighting Tyrian didn't you?" He asked.
"I did what I had to." Clayton said, dry heaving.
Rot hummed. "Now what's all this about not having permission to die?" Rot asked. Clayton sighed, he was going against his promise, he might as well tell somebody about it.
"Back when Ruby and I were still in Signal academy, we got picked on a lot. The shit people did to us, human and faunus, just because we loved each other… One day when we were 15, some asshats got the bright idea to take it a little further. Ruby and I, we were ah, hehe, abstinent, saving home plate for marriage so to speak, no home runs, load the bases… I mean we broke that promise in the woods like a week later, but at the time it mattered to us.
These disgusting pukes who couldn't get a girl themselves, decided that Ruby didn't deserve to choose who she gave her first time to… there were 7 of them, and I stepped in before they could do anything past feeling her up. I fought with everything I had. It's actually how I unlocked my semblance, a throw down in a locker room…" Clayton chuckled.
"So I- I'm losing, badly too, and I wasn't as big back then. I wore out my semblance having no clue how to use it, and then one of the mother fuckers pulled out a switchblade. Stabbed me right in the chest after he kicked the rest of my aura out of me." Clayton smacked his hand about an inch over his nipple. "He lets go of the knife, and I just… Looked at it. Two seconds later I stood up, pulled the thing out of me like I didn't even feel it. And dropped the blade on the floor… 7 guys, look up at me, and run. They thought I was invincible… But Ruby, she was worried, freaking out. Her dress was ripped up, I was bleeding all over, and that was probably the first time she'd seen someone get seriously injured like that. I almost passed out, and there she was, holding pressure on my chest the entire time. And she was talking to me. "You don't have my permission to die." Her exact words. And I promised her, if I ever thought I was going to go under, I'd ask her first. I wouldn't blindly sacrifice myself for her. I'd do everything in my power to get back up." Clayton said, slowly pulling himself to his feet.
"Is that what giving her your gun is, askin'?" Rot questioned. Clayton scoffed, as he got to his feet.
"Na, that just means I trust her to do what she needs to." Clayton said, as Rot helped him to stand.
"And what would that be?" Rot asked.
Clayton smirked. "Decapitate a bitch."
The plan was being executed perfectly. Jaune and Pyrrha had taken the nuckelavee's hands and pinned them with their swords. Nora had crushed the horse section's back legs from a freefall of the nearby bell tower, and Ruby had slit the horse's throat, but none of that would matter if the imp was not swiftly taken care of. Ruby gave the honor to Ren, who dismembered the imp's arms with a knife stored in his boot. Ren stabbed the imp in the gut, only to fall off of the beast in surprise when the creature started to stand back up, and slowly but surely sprout new arms.
Ren looked around at his friends, and saw Clayton limping towards them. Ruby looked between Clayton and Ren, then shouted to her friend. "REN! GO FOR THE HEAD!" She yelled, throwing Kingslayer into the stone next to the stoic ninja. Standing up, and grabbing the handle of the shotgun axe, Ren pulled the trigger, dislodging it from the walkway, and with a jump into the air, he swung the bladed weapon sideways, and with a shout separated the imp's head from it's body. Clayton, still walking up to his circle of friends, let out a victory screech, as the body of the imp began to fade.
"DECAPITATIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!" His shouting quickly turned into a coughing fit. "Shouldn't have done that." He said, before taking his weapon back from Ren.
Looking to the sky, a foghorn sounded out from above the forest, and with a smile, the gang found that they had been saved from another two days of travel. Qrow stood proudly on the top deck of a Minstrel airship, and with arms wide spread, he shouted down to them over the whirling of the ship's propellers. "These fine gentlemen ran into me while they were on patrol." Qrow said, as the first of the two ships ramps dropped ready to accept Team RNNJRS abroad.
Clayton was instantly seen by the onboard medical officer, though there wasn't much to be done until they reached Mistral but give him fluids. Ruby sat by him the entire time, holding his hand, and smiling with him, as the two finally saw their safe haven.
It took two weeks and intensive anti venom therapy, but Clayton survived, making a full recovery, and while he was in the hospital, the rest of the team had been moving into a rental home on one of Mistral's cliff sides... But their journey had only just begun.
Author's note.
Little bit of backstory on Ruby and Clayton's relationship. Yeah, 15 year old's can be racist murdering assholes. You ever play MW3? Clayton getting beaten down and simply getting back up is his entire thing, so I found it appropriate to make that be how he got his semblance.
And another thing. RT has this weird track record of placing virtue on self sacrifice, and it doesn't seem to be in a satirical way, or like it will be a bait and switch latter on. Pyrrha getting herself killed, Ruby becoming a self destructive ball of fury and jumping at every chance to put herself in front of someone's gun for everyone else. Ren rushing in to kill the Nuck on his own because he doesn't want to see it kill anyone else he cares about. Jaune trying to fight a maiden regardless of if she was holding back because he's just that depressed about Pyrrha's death. Emerald deciding to face down Penny, being hopelessly outmatched to protect Cinder. Penny literally asking to die just because she thinks it will save everyone else time.
Like, one or two characters being willing to risk their lives for everyone is ok, but it can't be everyone because then that becomes thematic, and dying for everyone else is not a virtue, it's stupidity masked as courage. Hence why every time one of the characters in my version go and nearly get themselves killed, I have EVERYONE I can afford pull them out of it. Pyrrha was not alone fighting Cinder, and backup was more than just Ruby. In Menagerie, Pale doesn't try to get himself hurt for Blake or anyone else, he tries to kill the threat before it becomes a real problem. Every fight in Anima thus far has been team oriented, and focused on making sure everyone is kept alive. So on down the line.
Clayton "not having permission to die" is the ultimate reversal of RT's stupid philosophy of a waisted death being noble. He will not get himself killed, even if the fight goes south, he will cling to life and get back up (kind of like the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War did) because dying for Ruby is not what she wants, he knows that she would be broken by the death of another loved one, much like how when fighting Cinder at the top of Beacon Tower Ruby very nearly came close to killing Cinder until she pulled on her new maiden magic.
Pale is similar, though different. He actively places himself in harm's way, not because self sacrifice is what he's going for, but because he has nothing to lose but his hatred and want for revenge, which makes him very dangerous.
Siniy is arguably the only one thus far who's shown or said they'd die for their friends. But to be fair, Siniy was willing to risk death in a gulag escape for the freedom of hundreds, and is so huge and strong that killing him takes a lot.
Halcyone's self destructive tendencies aren't precisely death seeking, so much as how she gets her kicks. She's an adrenaline junkie, brushes with death get her high.
Everyone's essentially pulled their heads out of their ass in this fic, and are following General Patton's advice. "The objective of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his."